The Raven

Surprise Visit

In the following days, we kept expecting something terrible to happen, but nothing at all happened. My wound was slowly healing, but I was still missing an eye. I couldn't just magically create one. Instead of using my powers to make it look like I still had an eye, I decided to tell the truth. Well, part of the truth anyway. 

I started wearing an eye patch, and I told everyone my eye was hurt and that the doctor told me it would be better for me to wear an eye patch from that moment on. It was a new look for me, but I didn't worry about it too much since it didn't actually matter. I wasn't even sure if we would live much longer or if the demons would come up with some plan to get rid of us, once and for all. 

My friend seemed much calmer than I felt. It was as if she had decided to take every day as it came and not worry about the future. I wished I had the same luxury, but my birthday was approaching and in my past life it was the last birthday I had lived to see. Worrying if I would survive until my next birthday, was the only thing I thought about. Studying and training weren't so easy for me since I couldn't focus. My brain kept going back to all the horrible things I had been through, and it was driving me crazy. 

One day, about five days after the graveyard fight, I was talking with my friend about why the demons hadn't attacked yet. She had the crazy idea that we had won. Well, I guess it was normal for her to be confident because two days after the cemetery event was her birthday. 

She was one year older than she was in the last lifetime. She survived the year in which she had died in her previous life. I guess that should have made me feel a bit better, but I didn't see any connection between those two things. It didn't necessarily have to mean that we would die at the same time as the last time, but she felt confident she would live a long and prosperous life, confidence that I didn't share.

So I spent days leading up to my birthday, fretting and basically being afraid of my own shadow. Nothing happened. 

Ravens were just regular ravens. 

Other animals didn't attack. 

The demons didn't come. 

The only scary thing that was happening, were my nightmares. My recurring nightmare was so bad that it woke me up in the middle of the night screaming. It would start as a regular dream, just me chatting with some people. Then I would get a terrible feeling, a sensation that something was horribly wrong. Fear would overwhelm me, and I would feel as if my stomach was all tied up in knots. 

After that, the realization would hit me. Those weren't people. They weren't smiling. 

People were actually demons. 

Surrounding me. 

Preparing to attack. 

Showing their teeth. 

There was no place to run, nowhere to hide. The place I was in, was Hell. Even though at first I didn't realize it, soon it became clear that the normality I first saw in the dream was an illusion. I was back in Hell, surrounded by demons, having to fight my way to salvation. 

That was usually the moment when I would wake up, and start hyperventilating. It usually took me a lot of time to calm down. The dream was lingering even in my waking hours and it was very difficult to shake it off. I kept feeling the nauseating sensation of being in there, the smells, the sounds, they were all there with me while I tried to calm down and go back to sleep. 

Finally, I would go back to sleep but usually, I would sleep badly, often waking up to make sure I didn't end up in that terrible place again.

After days of agony and restlessness, my birthday finally came. Usually, people were happy about their birthdays, but that time I wasn't so eager for my birthday to come. I just wanted it to pass because, that way, I would have at least one day longer than I did in my past life.