Why Me? *DISCONTINUED*

Chapter Eighteen: Reopened Wounds

All alone in the empty street, crumbled down on the gravel covered ground, onto my tired knees, crying my eyes out, I felt like I had just smashed head on into a brick wall. Tears streaked down my face. But if you didn't know better, you would think I was just some girl, sitting in the rain for no reason.

What just happened back there? We were talking fine one second, and then I said that our soul resonation was professional... And then Soul started acting - mad. What's going on here? What did I just get myself into....?

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"Hook, line, and sinker." The little demon whispered to himself. I repeated my question, a bit annoyed that he hadn't answered me the first time. "What do you mean, 'the love of a girl'?" At my voice he casually turned around, almost like he had heard me speak for the first time, with a stoic, aristocratic facial expression on his tomato red features.

"Now, now, Soul. That's for you to know, not I. You see, I am only here for the sake of making a deal with you, not to answer your own personal questions." He looked at me with a menacing grin stretching from ear to pointy ear.

"What girl, Demon?! Who do you keep talking about?! Where am I?! Why can't I remember anything?! What girl keeps haunting my thoughts?!"

I yelled at him, but all he did was watch me with a lopsided grin and shrug his bony shoulders. "My dear Soul, don't you see?" He asked me. "Don't I see what, you pest?" I spat at him, putting as much venom in my voice as possible, making sure it oozed with it.

"Well there is no need to get fiesty. I merely find it amusing that you don't even know where you are!" He began to cackle loudly and almost hysterically, like he was mad.

"Stop laughing you stupid waste of space! Answer my questions!" His cackling ceased abruptly and he cleared his throat. "Ehem. Well, Soul. If you really can't figure it out on your own, I suppose I must tell you." He turned his back to me once again and put his arms out to his sides bent at the elbows.

"You see, you are in your mind." I could tell he was smiling that crooked grin of his when he told me. "W-what? I'm in my mind? How is that even possible?" I stared at the cold, black tiled floor, lost in thought. Then I heard that mad cackle again, louder this time.

"Why, Soul. I must say, I'm quite surprised at you. Don't you remember anything? Why, it only happened two years ago. You were protecting young Diana from a deadly blow from a lost soul with madness in their blood. Diana froze from fear and you knew that you had to protect her no matter what the cost.

"It was your duty as her weapon. And, because – You loved her." He grinned menacingly and his words shot threw me like a thousand, invisible, microscopic swords, all aimed at my aching heart.

"Stop talking." I said in a hoarse whisper, my eyes wide and thinking off somewhere else, my mouth open in a shocked frown.

"You loved her so you couldn't let her die there. You wouldn't let her die there. So you jumped in front of her at the last second, blocking the blade from touching her soft skin. But Diana had another plan." Demon swiveled quickly to face me and took two steps in my direction.

He chuckled like he was taking extreme pleasure in torturing me with deeply buried, suppressed memories.

"She let you take the fall for her. She let you give your life! She ran the second you decided to lay your life down for hers. At that moment you realized that she never loved you. She never cared! The fact that you were willing to give your life wasn't enough for her to love you back. You were heart broken, and in that moment you felt like dying wasn't such a bad idea anymore.

"But all that effort – all that wasted love – none of it mattered. The corrupt soul killed her soon after you fell and you had the privilege to watch, as you lay practically lifeless on the cold, hard stone ground as that astounding thing ripped her to shreds and ate her soul!"

"I said shut up!" I yelled louder, but he just moved closer to me as he continued.

"You loved Diana more than anyone in your entire life. More than life itself. She understood you. She knew you for who you really were, and she acted like she cared about you. But she did not, Soul! And somewhere, deep down, you knew it too. You just simply did not want to believe it. Because of her, you lost everything. You stopped talking to your friends. You already weren't speaking to your family because they never truly cared for you either. And now you didn't have anyone to turn to for comfort, anywhere.

"You moved to Death City. You pledged to never again let a woman get close to you. You vowed to never again have a partner because you could only trust yourself and you had to learn that lesson the hard way."

He was now only an inch away from where I sat, squatted on the floor, holding my head in my hands, crouching on the back of my legs, balancing on the souls of my feet, clenching my eyes closed, and showing my sharp teeth in the form of a snarling frown.

"SHUT UP!" I screamed louder than I ever had before and didn't stop until there was complete silence in the room.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT – UP!"

I began to inhale and exhale heavily, falling to my knees, rocking back and forth on my knees, still clutching my head in my hands - which had turned into tight fists. The room was all but silent apart from my frantic breathing. When I had finally calmed down a bit, Demon continued. "Did I press your buttons, Soul? Well I'm sorry, but you did ask and I did answer."

He said the last part while he chuckled quietly to himself. "Though there is more that you asked me to answer, if you would like me to go on. But I respect it if you would like me to stop here. Yet, you would have to figure it all out on your own then, now would you not? So," he paused. "Which will it be?" He looked down at me with a wide, toothy grin, waiting for my response.

My eyes were shadowed by my mop of white hair and my body had ceased its rocking. I was silent for a long time, but after a while I was finally able to open my parched lips and drying mouth to answer.

"Continue," was all I was able to stutter out before I clammed up once again, shaking lightly. "Of course." With a curt bow of the head and wave of his skeleton-like hand, he began pacing the floor as he continued his painful retelling of my buried past. I sat up but stayed perched on the floor, looking down with my hair still covering my eyes.

"You see, Soul, that night when you tried to save Diana's life, that gash on your chest spewed a good amount of blood out of your body. You were quite fortunate to live past it, actually. But while it let out blood, it also seeped in blood from the corrupt souls' sword. You see, you have black blood flowing freely through your veins that mixed and fused with your pure red blood in that moment. Not enough to completely consume you of course, but enough to bring you here, to your mind, and place me here with you as well."

He stopped talking to let me soak it all in. He turned around again and whispered something to himself, incoherent to my human ears.

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"For now, Soul. Only for now. You will be consumed by the black blood, and you will be filled with madness, sooner or later. And then I will control this body, and you will be nothing but a distant memory of your former self."

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