Tempted Fate |18+ (Ménage)✔

⊰33⊱

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The air leaves my lungs, my blood running cold as I lift my gaze before me. A piercing sharp pain radiates through my skull, images flickering fast than I can see them clearly, nearly causing me to fall over. I don't fall though, everything slipping around me clearly as I no longer look up at Dante's estate...

...it's the entryway of Acadia High School.

I can hear a bell ringing...

My heart beats fast, fear racing through my veins as I see high school kids running up and down the steps, some leaving for what looks to be lunch by the mid-day position of the sun, others are hurrying back from the staggered lunch times.

"I don't understand..." I murmur beneath my breath. The only differences I feel and see is the weight of something pressing down on my chest and the purplish hue which appears to be the filter of my life through a lens now.

I catch something moving quickly out of the corner of my eye, turning my attention fully onto the sidewalk. My muscle tense as Edith runs through my mind, taking off and running down the sidewalk off the main road. When I reach Grace Way, it's only a few minutes later than the house gains in the distance. My eyes flicker upward at the trees billowing in the wind, though a second later; they all fall from the branches.

Dashing through the leaves that fall in an airborne pile, I break through...

...only to stare at the entryway of Acadia High School.

I can hear a bell ringing...

Furrowing my brows, I glance around me, seeing the same students milling about where they need to go. Nothing has changed from the first moment I set eyes on this scene, my heart rate escalating with each passing second. I feel trapped, uneasy as I don't understand what is happening. Taking deep breaths, I attempt to remember everything from the time I spent in this pocket universe that mother created for Edith and me...saving us from Aeon.

I close my eyelids, feeling the air moving around me. My hands are a little bit away from the sides of my body, feeling the way the energy of this aura wraps around each extremity.

Why am I here?

Exhaling slowly, I open my eyelids, staring up at the steps before climbing them.

This universe has rules.

This universe is alive.

This universe...

...it is not an extension of my mother, but that of the goddess that is using her vessel in order to save our world...

Ekáti.

It doesn't want me to have free will to run to Edith, a set path leading me as I walk through the school, glancing around the halls. A flash of bright light forces me to lift my arms, shielding my face and eyes as I hear ringing in my ears. Seconds pass, lowering my arms as I slowly blink my eyelids open to see the same aura filling the air. Tilting my head to the side, I observe some students standing against the walls of the hallway, their gaze transfixed ahead of them, staring at nothing. Taking a few steps toward the closest student, the girl does not sway, standing like a statue.

I wave my hand in front of her face, but this does not break her trance. When I touch her skin, it's as cold as ice. Walking from student to student, it's the exact same, their stares haunting, their skin reflecting a deathlike state, a coldness settling in around me. When I reach the door leading to the library, I outstretch my hand, feeling slight warmth transferring from the handle to my hand.

I don't smell smoke.

It's not an unbearable heat, enough to sooth and draw me in. Opening the door, I step inside, taking a quick sweep of my surroundings as I observe the same with the few students who are here as the ones in the hallway. The librarian sits at her desk, her eyes at a black monitor screen. Her features distort when I halt at her desk, her eyes glancing to me as it's almost like her skin begins to melt and peel, burns, searing through flesh and muscle. Her mouth is wide open, her eyes hollow as his voice bleeds from her lips...