The Last Theiro

20

Tessa
•••

Finally. At last that hunger that stirred within me had been satisfied. And my body felt different. It felt complete.

I stumbled up from the ground and heard muffled footsteps approach me before my head was slammed into the tree. My body fell to the ground and I gripped my head. Blood was flowing from where my head had hit the tree and my vision blurred. Everything was fuzzy and spinning before it slowly turned into the darkness with every light flutter of my eyes.

•••

I was back in The Further.

There were no fireflies around me, instead, there were people. The Dead.

They were cold. So cold. The life that had dwelt within them was gone and they were safe from the perils of this world. No harm could come to them now. Hearts that used to beat with love were still. Minds that felt so many emotions were blank. They were grey tinged regardless of race, blue-lipped with blank stares.

Their deathly white skin was pulled tight against their bones, their eyes open wide, staring bloody murder at me forever.

A cold breeze blew right through my sweater and I wrapped my arms tighter around myself and tucked my chin downward.

A figure stepped in front of me and my eyes widened in shock.

She was an exact mirror of myself. Just a different version. She was dead. A corpse of myself.

I screwed my eyes shut and tried to rid the image from my mind, but it always seemed to fight back to the surface of my thoughts.

An icy hand stroked my cheek and I cringed.

"Finally." She whispered. "Finally you listened to me."

I opened my eyes to a pale face staring into my own. It was my face but it was that of a corpse. The face was not decayed in any way. Its skin was cold and white like marble, but just like marble, it wasn't living. The face sneered at me.

"Who are you?"

Her lips pulled up into a sneer and, in one swift movement, her icy hand slapped me across the cheek.

My head jerked to the side with the impact and my fingers grazed the burning skin on my cheek.

The face scolded at me. "I am you."

"No." I shook my head. "You are not me."

She threw her head back with laughter and her eyes flickered to the dead bodies. "Did you hear that?" She asked them, a cynical smile playing on her lips and the dead laughed, their voices as one echo around the dark, empty room. "Oh, Tessa." Her head jerked towards me and I involuntarily took a step back. "I am you. We are one. Don't you see it? You made us one."

"No," I said adamantly. The cold figure was not me. It couldn't be.

"Yes." She circled me. "Ever since you used your abilities to kill, we have been one."