Silennia was dead.
Her body lay limp, bleeding out from vicious slices along her flesh. Three demons circled her in a predatory manner, one of them curling his lip back to snarl at the body in the center of the floor. Two other demons lay dead, only inches from her.
Her heart no longer beat, her lungs no longer pushed air. Her brain wasn't even functioning. The body was a shell, yet... she lingered. As if she were hovering just above them, able to see herself and the demons that were slowly, gingerly advancing toward her flesh. Why were they acting so... cautious? She was dead.
Her sight was blurry, and the tint of the room was ever-changing. Pea-greens with milky purple, then black, cascading into red and burrowing into a deep blue. The forms of the demons were fuzzy, as if looking at them through thin wax paper. Their auras jerked and shifted this way and that while their bodies hardly moved. Two two dead demons were solid masses of black, unmoving and unable to radiate any kind of color.
In the two weeks since being confined in the realm, Silennia had managed to fend for herself a great deal. After that strange encounter with d'Leh, she had woken up more alert than ever. Several times demons had come into the room, cooing words that sounded as if they came from Keiran's mouth, trailing his scent, even matching the way his fingertips had brushed against her skin.
She felt terrified about the first two that she killed; terrified that it was truly Keiran. But then, once they were dead, that illusion would fade away until she felt how different they were. The entire time, she was unable to see, for a reason completely unknown to her. Abigor hadn't visited since that very first night.
Silennia was lucky to get an hour or two of sleep before something would come creeping or crawling in, and now, two weeks later, she found it ultimately impossible to detect if the demons invading her space really were the incubus or not. Of course, not all of them would play dress-up. Within those weeks she did learn. That was Abigor's plan, wasn't it? Force her through trials. Make her learn.
He had even said that she would die. But what else was it he said..? She tried to focus, squinting hard at the hazy figures below her, trying to remember. As the minutes ticked by, it was harder and harder for her to stay on track. She was slipping toward something, something warm and soft and whispery, like a lullaby, and damn how she just wanted to bathe in the feeling.
She silently screamed, causing the room to violently shift color again in her strange vision. A soul, really, hovering above, undetectable by these demons. The longer she was away from her body, the harder it was to remember how to get back.
... How do I get back..?
STOP.
Again, the colors wheeled around, like a psychedelic experience gone wrong. What was it..?
Keiran.
Abigor was using him against her. The scent of him, the feel of him, made her stomach twist in a feeling she'd never quite experienced before. Using her own feelings against her, until, finally, she ultimately gave up. She knew there had been five demons in the room. They entered as she slept, but their presence had woken her. Immediately, she'd been on edge. But there he was, in his glory, although she could not see him. And she was so exhausted that she wanted to believe nothing more than the fact that it was Keiran. The voice was the same, the scent, the touch. The demon had placed a kiss against her forehead, and it pained her to remember what he said.
"I've been looking for you for days, I'm so sorry. I should have never let Abigor take you. It was an accident, I didn't know what was happening. But you're safe now." At that point, his arms had held her so protectively, that she melted against his chest. The facade went on for a minute or two longer before two demons were suddenly there, on top of her, clawing at her clothes with screaming shrieks.
The last bit of trust she'd held, and it was gone. Ultimately, it was the cause of her death. At first, when they'd began to claw at her, she felt nothing but pure confusion. Before that point she'd been able to tell if it were truly Keiran or not under a minute. How long had she let this demon hold her and comfort her? Nearly twenty long, warm minutes.
It amazed her to think about how quickly she was able to identify the threat after they'd began to attack. The first demon was the easiest to kill, most likely because she was stronger from a few hours' sleep. The second one took a great deal more effort. All the while, sensing the demon that was masquerading as the man who had claimed her pretty little heart.
Once the second demon was dead, she was able to cross the room toward Keiran's doppelganger. Her upper double set of fangs were fully exposed, and her nails formed and hardened into lethal weapons. One good swipe toward the figure and those nails dug into soft flesh, feeling blood seep around her fingers. The doppelganger snarled in a way that froze the blood within her veins. Not even Abigor had made her feel such fear.
It was all the other two remaining demons needed, and suddenly there was pain, so much pain. Her limbs were lashing out, and although she was wounding them, they didn't seem to show it.
Time seemed to move more quickly than it should, and she had begun to feel dizzy and disoriented. Her limbs felt heavier. She was breathing harder. Her heart was a little slower with each beat. The warmth of her own blood mixed with the demons pooled around her, as if it were a warm bath. One final slice into her flesh, along the side of her throat and down between her breasts, was the last thing she remembered as she started to choke on her own blood.
That lullaby feeling returned as she quickly went over the events of what had happened in her head. Tired. So tired. All of this pain and torment, for absolutely nothing. She thought she would be stronger than this, that she would last longer, that she would return to her normal life with her father in their too-cold apartment, that she would return to work as if nothing had ever happened. That wasn't her fate, though.
Neither was being dead.
With a surge of effort that made the room spin in her clouded sight, she let out a sound that could only be described as a battle cry. In that instant she realized that the doppelganger was an incubus -- just not the one she'd been hoping for. Pain lurched through her, experiencing a ripping feeling as she claimed her body once again. Immediately she coughed, realizing that someone's mouth was violently pressed against her own. The incubus, no doubt, attempting to claim the energy that was left within her. Since it was just his mouth pushed to hers, the energy transaction was slow. As soon as she'd coughed, he snarled again and backed away.
The other two demons followed suit, but none of them advanced toward her as she rolled onto her side to make breathing a bit easier. She squinted, realizing that her vision was now slowly, slowly returning to her. At least now she could make out the three forms several feet away. It didn't ease her mind much, however, to let her head loll enough to see just how much blood was pooled around her.
Was the puddle... shrinking..?
Her wounds were stitching themselves together, but the progress was like pulling molasses from snow. The three demons snapped at each other, though she couldn't quite make out what they were saying. It was obvious now that the incubus held as the alpha within this small group.
For several long, agonizing minutes, her wounds began to heal. They weren't disappearing completely, and it wasn't the minor injuries; the most fatal ones, the ones that were still gushing, were being the prime target of her body's resolve. More words were said among the three, and finally the lesser two advanced.
With a strength that Silennia was completely unaware of even being able to exist within her, she pushed herself off of the floor in a swift movement, easily dodging one of the two, just as the other circled around her and bit deep into the top of her shoulder. As Silennia used her elbow to shove him off of her, she turned, and noticed the inside of his mouth resembled a shark's, with several rows of all-sharp teeth overlapping each other. She was close enough so that she could see the strange expression in his eyes, although she didn't linger on it as her fingers wrapped into his hair and twisted his head sideways, just as she was pushing his body with her knee in the opposite direction. A sickening crack echoed through her ears, but unfortunately the move had only paralyzed him.
Silennia released him and turned just in time for the other demon to grab her throat and squeeze, pushing her against the wall. Her vision began to blur once more, coughing against the pressure, trying to claw at his hand. It only took her a few more seconds to give up on his hand and reach out at his throat, sinking claws deep enough so that her fingers curled around something there to let her rip whatever it was out of his neck. The demon let her go, clutching the flowing wound and taking a few steps back away from her. All the while, the incubus remained silent on the far side of the room.
She was able to reach into the wound of the second demon and felt her palm push against something, hard but slightly jagged, and she tugged on it with another strange newfound strength. He collapsed, gurgling for nearly twenty seconds before dying.
The first demon was still on the floor, paralyzed but very much conscious, and again Silennia used her hand as a weapon; sinking claws into the flesh on the side of his neck and ripping outward, ultimately tearing his jugular. She then repeated what she did to the second demon, and reached back far enough to pull out the muscles in his throat, including his larynx. He twitched and gargled a bit longer than the other, but she knew he was no longer a threat, and decided to finally turn toward the incubus in the room.
Since he was a good ten feet away, she couldn't quite make out his expression, but she could clearly see his body language. He seemed... relaxed. Amused, even. They stared at each other for a solid minute, and she could feel his eyes trailing along her body and linger on where her clothes were torn. She was absolutely caked in blood. It matted her hair, stained her hands, and she was still soaked with the substance from lying in a pool of it. It was smeared across her face, even steadily trickling down in one spot to the side of her eye.
Her wings had remained hidden during her entire time within the realm. Although they were black, their inheritance had ultimately come from the Valkyrie side of her rather than the demon, and so they could not come out. Not even if she tried to force them.
Sapphire hues narrowed, turning a deep purple, almost black, with flecks of crimson that looked like drops of blood on a raven's back. He did not look like Keiran, and although he had the stature of a man, his face was slightly contorted. Hadn't someone mentioned that to her? That incubi were typically small, disgusting-looking creatures with skewed proportions in their limbs and daunt, greedy faces. This incubus seemed to have both traits, although they leaned more toward the human-looking ones. She still saw the vile, deformed creature there, though.
The staring contest went on for another thirty seconds. Finally, with a soft chuckle, the demon took one step forward.
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