Venator : Devil's Moon

XII : THE FEELING CALLED LOVE

[ Laura ]

I opened my eyes and realised I was no longer at Nicole's nor was I at the motel. Instead, I found myself put to bed nicely in an old looking simple room crammed with antiques, tonnes of antiques, warm sheets covering me and a hard pillow underneath my stiff head.

My head was stiff both, from the outside as well as from the inside. For the first time ever, the always busy mind of nerd Laura Hannigan was dead silent like a graveyard. I wasn't thinking about Sebastian or Brad or the white light. I wasn't thinking  whether Sebastian' s blue flame had saved us from the warlock. I wasn't thinking whether I was alive or dead. Hell, I wasn't even thinking whether I was thinking or not.

They say when you are in heaven, you re-live your happiest memories again and again. Maybe this room and this state of mind was the idea of heaven for me. The thought saddened me. No way my heaven would be so goddamn dull.

But I didn't recall this room. Wait, who said I was in heaven? The images of Nicole sinking and Sebastian being punched hard by Brad flashed through my mind. I also felt unnaturally exhausted. Maybe, due to my one single mistake, none of us could escape Brad. My heart fell. I was convinced I was in hell.

As I saw someone pushing the door open, the thought of a demon appearing right before me with his torture equipment, flashed through my head. Instead it was just Sebastian. He was wearing a plain white shirt and trousers.  He looked at me with a mingled expression of great surprise and relief.

"You are awake !" He exclaimed like it was really really unusual.  As if I'd woken from the dead.

I was about to say what was so surprising about it but when I tried to open my mouth, I realised it was a bit stuck. I tried to rise up from bed but my muscles ached. What was wrong with me?

"Easy Laura. Move slowly, your body isn't used to it yet." He replied looking at my pained expression.

I felt like my body had just refused to obey me, like it wanted to stay in the sleeping position forever. Maybe it was because of the swimming, I thought. I somehow managed to sit.

"What's wrong? Where are we? Is Nicole alright?" I blurted out all the questions I had in mind.

"You...you don't remember? " his eyes widened with shock like I was missing on something really important. Then something buzzed in my mind - a memory. I remembered staring at Sebastian in despair as strange blue light concentrated around his pams forming a sphere and died as his dark blue eyes, looking straight at me, wavered in confusion and shock. I remembered the strange boost of power and me glowing as white light danced around me, scorching me all over my body.

But what I didn't remember was burning Brad so badly that even his bones vanished in the white light. What  I didn't remember was the darkness, the void I'd sank into. What I didn't remember was that lady who'd asked me to let her take control of my body; who'd asked me to say yes. As it turned out, I didn't recall that voice until I saw the statue of The Devil's Moon.

I wondered what was wrong with my mind. True, I hadn't had got a chance to finish my medical training but it was common sense that no brain functioned like this, supplying information in bits and pieces and after some long waiting period, well unless there were some memory loss problems. But I was very certain my brain was physically fine. I actually had a strong graphical memory and what had happened back there couldn't have been simply erased from my mind.

"Laura you need to tell me everything. That was the most weirdest thing I'd ever seen in my life, like...like some ancient Deathstar spell, and believe me I've seen many many weird things." Concern rose in his dark blue eyes which seemed a bit less dark.