Venator: Devil's Croon

3. Finding Heaven in Hell

"Only because of you."

Amanda's voice echoed in my thoughts, tearing through all levels of my consciousness, piercing right through my core, and leaving a mess of broken thoughts behind, of disbelief, grief and guilt.

It takes time to sink in. Sometimes an instant is enough to comprehend, while some other times it takes months to completely realise the bitterness of a truth as awful as this. Amanda's revelations were like daggers to my already broken heart, each dagger sharp enough to break my already splintered soul into a million shards.

But for me it seemed even an eternity wouldn't be sufficient for this terrible news to sink in.

"That...that can't be true," I said with eyes as round as the moon. "That can't be true."

After looking here and there my eyes settled on Amanda, seeking desperately for any kind of approval.

As slowly as the breeze on someone's funeral, as gently as the waves of a serene ocean, Amanda walked towards me. With every step she took, I felt my heart getting heavier.

When she was only an inch from me, she stopped, and our eyes met only for a split second, but then she refused to look at me.

"Is it true?" I asked her, struggling to break through my binding only to hold my friend close to me. The thick iron chains however didn't budge, and answered to my protest with only more clanking. "Amanda?"

She slowly raised her head, and our eyes met. I could see a layer of tears coating her eyes, and beneath it I saw an ocean of grief, ready to burst out. Her mascara had started to smudge, and her breaths had become shorter and quicker.

She didn't whisper a single word. But her silence had confirmed the truth I so desperately wanted to prove false. And if it hadn't, her eyes did. Her tears did. In all seventeen years I had spent with her she had never looked so devastated.

Suddenly Amanda's eyes went wild with fear, as if a sudden frightening realisation had stricken her. But the emotion lasted for only a moment, and her face twitched with such anger I'd never believed Amanda was capable of showing, that too at me. All the previous grief that had soaked into her eyes was gone, now replaced by pure malice.

I understood the intensity of her rage, the turmoil of her soul, only when her hand met my cheek so hard my ears stunned.

Completely perplexed, I looked at her.

"Only because of you," she said.

And then the gravity of her statement finally began to sink in.

Little by little, the feelings of despair began to clog my mind. Little by little grief began to freeze my heart, and scorch my soul. Little by little the darkness took me over, killing my consciousness, and drowning me in my familiar pit of oblivion.

^^^

"Laura!" It was only when the fourth hushed call hit my ears, my eyes opened.

Shaking me vigorously was none other than Amanda, the person I no longer knew what to call. Seeing her green eyes locked on me, my recently comforted heart went on another rollercoaster ride of guilt. I quickly broke the eye contact, and kept staring at her feet.

"Laura!" Amanda screamed. With the fury of a tiger she jumped on me, crushing me in her unbelievably strong grasp.

Wide eyed, I kept staring at the distant door transfixed while my brain indulged in another tug of war of thoughts - whether this was dream or reality.