Luna's Awakening

28

Helen

I gasped and looked around at the dark space I suddenly found myself in. One second, Johnny and I were right beside Luna in her class, then I found myself here, wherever here was

"Johnny?" I called out.

"I'm here," he called back, his voice sounding far away and was echoing. He didn't sound scared; he sounded pissed off. "I have no idea where we are or why we're here."

"Where are you?"

"I have no idea. I can't see you, but I can hear you."

I held my hand in front of my face but I couldn't see it. All I could see was pitch black that surrounded me.

I suddenly felt something strike the back of my neck. I cried out and fell face forward, pain radiating through my spine. While I was a spirit and the living could not touch and harm me, I could still feel and experience pain whenever another spirit made physical contact with me.

I knew this had to do with another spirit, a malicious one. And I knew who.

Lilith.

"Helen are you okay?!" Johnny shouted, fear replacing the anger his voice held just moments before. "Answer me!"

I opened my mouth to respond, pain still coursing through the back of my neck and spine, but a hand suddenly wrapped its fingers in my hair and roughly yanked my head back, causing me to yelp again.

"If you be quiet and do everything I say," Lilith hissed in my ear, "then I'll spare your little boyfriend."

"Why are you doing this?" I demanded through clenched teeth as I felt strands of my hair being pulled from my scalp.

"You know why. Now, listen carefully, because this is going to dictate where or not your boyfriend is going to continue to exist or not. Did you know, there's something called the final death? Yeah, that's where beings don't exist anymore. You would be cast to nothingness. You would never be known to anyone again. You won't go to Heaven or Hell, you won't even be anywhere. Just in a black abyss with no one around."

A fear I'd never experienced before coursed through my body.

"Helen answer me," Johnny demanded again. My heart clenched at the fear and pleading tone in his voice.

"Don't say a word," Lilith hissed in my ear. "Because if you do, the love of your life won't exist anymore and you'll have no one else to blame but yourself."

I listened to her, my heart filling more and more with dread as she spoke. In the background, I could hear Johnny still screaming my name, begging me to answer. I remained silent.

The thought of not having Johnny exist anymore was unbearable. He was the love of my life, my soulmate, the only person who loved me unconditionally, the only person who stuck through with me when I came to the after life, the only person who willingly took an actual bullet for me.

I could not lose Johnny, could not subject him to an eternity of isolation.

"Do we have an understanding?" Lilith asked after she was done, her voice just inches from my ear.

I nodded as much as I could with her fist still wrapped in my hair.

"Good," she said and thankfully released me. "Remember what I said. If you do not do what I say, your soulmate will no longer exist."

The blackness around us disappeared. I stood up and found Johnny and myself back in Luna's classroom.

Johnny rushed over to me and grasped my arms. He peered into my face intently, his face pinched with worry and fear. I hadn't seen him this scared since the night we were attacked, the last night on earth. He asked me over and over if I was okay and demanded to know what happened.

I could only nod that I was okay but I couldn't say anything. I couldn't get Lilith's words out of my mind, of the unspeakable act she was going to force me to do.

Suddenly Johnny's eyes peered over my shoulder and his gaze widened. I followed the direction of his gaze and found Luna slumped over his desk, her eyes shut as her teacher tried to wake her up.