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The crimson spire continues whispering to me.
Angel.
The prophetess.
Drain one of their blood to break the seal guarded by the heads.
It's the first time I could hear it so clearly... Because the other times I heard it and failed to grasp onto the words, it slipped away like a dream.
The voice is delicate and cold like shadows and silk.
Like being out in the sun for hours where just putting your hand in the shade cools down your skin.
'Sacrifice them.'
"Sunny? Are you okay?" Cassie asks.
She would normally sound innocent and childish but through this veil... like I was plunged deep underwater or inside a dream where I was not me but because I could look out through 'those eyes' and hear through 'those ears', her voice sounded demonic. Horrifying.
I shove at her.
Cassie starts to fall and Nephis turns around when she feels the pull on the golden rope.
Nephis grabs Cassie's hand.
I grab her hand too.
'Sacrifice them!'
"Don't do it, Sunny! We could be friends at the end!"
Whose voice is that that sounds like nails on a blackboard?
Whose voice grates on my nerves that makes me feel like an incarnate of pure violence?
"Sunny?" It's a new voice. Nephis's.
He hears it, Cassie's words repeat in his mind about a dream.
His shadow morphs below them with mouths opening up. Wriggling like worms. Tentacles. Hands that pull at Nephis's and Cassie's shadows.
Nephis throws away Cassie and I jump onto Nephis.
"Struggle all you want, Nephis. I will devour you," I say, feverish.
"Who are you? What... have you done... to Sunny...?"
His shadow becomes a monster that covers Nephis in more shadows and Nephis struggles to get out.
I... Do I want this?
And yet, my shadow... or his shadow makes Nephis fade away, eating away at her shadow until nothing is left.
And if there is no shadow, did what cast that shadow exist?
Nephis looks beautiful, like an angel struggling to free herself from darkness.
I feel like a monster... whose hunger cannot be tamed.
Strangely, Cassie looks at me with fear, horror, desperation, and belief.
Like she sees a future where Nephis can be saved.
Or one where she can run away from me.