Powerless

XVII - Demon

That night I couldn't sleep. I kept turning and thinking about Myrsky's words, and about the choice. Fight or hide. Is that what I'm reduced to, now that I have powers? 

Suddenly the door opened. I rolled over to see who was there. All I saw was a red light, a fire. A burning torch, casting sharp flickering light on a face, so that I couldn't make out whose it was. 

"Who is that?" I asked. 

No answer. Just footsteps coming closer. 

My hand reached for the light switch next to my bed. My middle finger found it, but before I could press it I felt the stranger's hand on mine. 

"No." he said.

I knew that voice. "Oh, Theo, is it you..." 

He didn't answer me. He gestured to the wall, where a hole appeared, and put the burning torch in there. 

"Theo? Why are you acting so strangely?"

His hand let mine go and moved to my head. In a reflex I raised my hands, and a strong pulse of air blew out the torch and made Theo fly. The sounds told me that he hit the wall. I switched on the light, and then I saw his face, scarred and marked with black burns. He stood up. No light in his eyes. He walked towards me, like a cat sneaks towards its prey. I put up a wall of ice, at least a meter thick, to defend myself. Through the transparant layers of ice I saw him, still coming closer. He pointed at my wall, and slowly but surely, it started to melt. 

I screamed as loud as I could. I summoned a tower of rocks under my feet so that Theo couldn't reach me once he found his way through my wall. Possessed by panic, I broke open the wall that separated Myrsky's room from mine. 

"MYRSKY! HELP ME!"

But Myrsky kept sleeping, and I realized Theo would probably know how to plan these kind of attacks. 

Theo had broken through my ice wall and awaited me below. "You can't stay up there forever."

"You can't stay down there forever either." I said. "Eventually Myrsky will wake up and then you're dead."

"She will never wake up again." Theo said. "Traitors deserve death."

I almost fell off my tower. I couldn't believe it. "You... Killed her?!" I gasped. 

And that was the moment I realized it.

"You're not Theo! You're... "

"Idio." he said, and he grinned. Ten thousand sharp, snowy white teeth. "Correct." 

"But... But you're supposed to be dead!"

Idio now laughed. A slow, low, demonic laugh. "Lava isn't enough to kill me, little girl." He started to climb my tower. "I am enough to kill you, though... If you have any last words, say them now, because you don't have much time left."

I had no last words. I had no intention to die, either. But I did have an idea. I pointed at the ceiling, and before Idio could react, a rift was formed. 

"THEO!" I called out. 

Idio froze, and dropped back down to the floor.

Theo's sleepy voice hummed the question melody from above: "Hmmm?"

No time to explain. I tore open the ceiling completely. Theo's bed, with Theo still in it, crashed down upon the remains of the ice wall. That woke him.

"Luci! Are you out of your mi-" At that moment, he saw Idio. They were both frozen. Just staring into each other's eyes in silence. It seemed like an eternity. I barely dared to breathe. 

All of the sudden, Idio turned around and wanted to walk out.

"Oh, no, you're not going anywhere!" Theo shouted, and jumped out of his bed. Sparks of hate seemed to fly from his white pyjamas. 

I put up another wall, rock this time, in the doorway. 

"No, Luci." Theo said, and he turned to me. "Burn him."