If I were being honest, she didn't deserve the pain that my memories offered, no. Serafina deserved none of the events that had unfolded that evening though it would seem she alone had the ability to swim us to safety and the affinity to ward off my proverbial ghosts. Though she hadn't exactly waved a white flag and neither was she the white knight that was going to fight the dragon in order to save me from my tower nor was she the catalyst who had sent us to our tumultuous climax in her basement. Serena had set the torch, but it was Serafina's actions that lit the fuse. I had been made of a matrix of dynamite, the bricks arranged into a complex maze where the center was no pheonix. If the flame met the middle, I would not rise from those ashes. Were there blocks in the path towards the extremity that rested like a sleeping bear, hibernating from the memories that had suddenly become all too real? I stood in no empty room, the walls made of faces and bodies that inhabited what I wished had only remained nightmares that flooded my mind when peaceful sleep evaded me. And yet... There was nothing in the room that felt familiar or comforting; nothing that could evolve into an flame resistant obstacle able to withstand the strike of emotions that the fuse carried down it's length. There was no anchor with which to ground myself, and every shred of certainty and strength I possessed seemed to evaporate as the bodies of the ghosts materialized, and even though the hands had left my metaphorical throat - I was still choking, and the carbon monoxide that this air offered would poison me far quicker than the ghost's hands could have stolen the life out of me. Far faster than I could have offered my life up as a sacrifice and return the favor to those who were present in the room who I had robbed of their humanity and their time on earth. Fair was only fair, yes?


If I was being honest, none of you were too deserving. But then, I am a dignified, practiced liar, and I would grant none of you the peace of knowing I agreed.


Oh, if I could wash the sins with which I had been dirtied from my marred existence, I would have done so long ago. My past had dirtied the water, muddying it to make it seem deeper than it truly was. The mud was no more than a masquerade for my lack of conviction, my lack of strength, my lack of good will or good heartedness. I had no excuses for the man I was, regardless of the perverted morality I exuded in moments filled with my selfish need to prove my capability as a protector. No, that too was the opposite of the man I should have been. And standing before my horde of misfortune, there was no armor to guard my innermost emotions or feelings - no, they were allowed to roam freely, passing over my features in waves of sorrow, regret, horror, disdain, and a serenity I didn't know I was capable of, not in the face of all I had done. I was lost in the eye of my own cyclone, the fire scorching ever closer to the center of it's maze, greedily eating the that would lead to burning me in the wake of my own chaos.


As the headless boys spoke, my eyes shut as if they were shielding me from the memories of finding my sister bloodied and broken in too many places, too many times. It was not enough, though, to allow defenses to solidify, and unbidden did a tide of horror crash over me like white cap waves during a storm. It was a storm, after all. The memories - no, reminders, of my failure arose like a serpent from the waves, rearing it's ugly, hideous head in the form of images varying from my sister's broken arm flailing aimlessly as I tried to pick her tiny, frail body from it's heap in a dark corner. The illusion morphed slowly into a classroom that resembled nothing anyone in the United States would recognize; there were only a handful of chairs, there was no whiteboard. Instead, my littlest sister lay unconscious in a pool of her own blood on one of the benches, and my younger self's shoulders were slumped as a hand rose to brush tears from my cheeks. Oh, how it had happened again. The laughter of the beheaded boys who had remained in front of us echoed in the basement as it had in my head the night I had brought Elenore home from the tragic classroom. And it had been that night that I found them; how that image and illusion would bring bile to even the most steadfast individual's throat. In a whirlwind motion, the illusions varied from each boys' death - culminating in a knife hitched in the waistband of my blood stained pants and my younger self standing emotionlessly at the steps of a house where the heads lay arranged in a row before the basement steadily came back into focus, and I felt the weight return to my chest. The violence of the last illusion was incredible, a feat I would have been approving of had I been looking at the event as an outsider. But here? Now? I wouldn't truly have been able to blame the brunette witch beside me if she couldn't look at me, again. Hell. The hellfire had changed what I looked like, even in my own eyes. There were hardly any parallels to the man I should have been. No, I wouldn't have blamed her at all.

Maybe it was the recognition that I wasn't a man but a walking devil that allowed me to accept a designated exile from the life of the witch I had begun to truly care for.


The boys offered renditions of history, attempting to taunt me with terminology that would have once afforded them a lack of an artery or an injury irreparable. And now? I had no words, no actions that I could give them that might avenge what they'd said. Serena was neither a whore, nor was the woman beside me. In any case, the fear that had stricken her as the ghost's hands had clasped around my throat helped me understand that I'd collided into her for a reason that night in her store... Perhaps it was her that would teach me that I was ready to let go. I was at peace with what had happened to me, whether I believed it or not, or whether I was ready to feel the relief that came alongside it and forgive myself. No, the latter I didn't deem possible and it was with surprise did I realize that Serafina had drawn strength from an unrecognizable source within her; had it been for me? Why would she expend such energy to offer protection to a man who didn't deserve it? As the taunts of the boys began to dissipate with the help from both the Shadow and the woman's efforts, it was with a start did I realize that perhaps her strength came from a place of fear, and I was able to remove my gaze from the ghosts and fix heavily on the man whose fingers had tangled into her hair in a distinctly authoritative, possessive way that made my blood begin to boil once more and a distinctly authoritative, aggressive hand gripped me. I might have been in danger, but the way he spoke to her... I had heard words of that nature before, and they came from no place innocent.


"Sera," My voice was soft, not expecting the woman to trust words from my mouth, dignified liar that I was. "You can make them go away... I want to help you, but I don't know how," I admitted, a sheen of self-loathing glistening in my eyes, matching the helplessness in my voice as I implored her to seek deeper, fully believing in her power to deliver us both. I heard nothing, in that moment, but the fear hitched breaths sporadically befalling her lips, and it was only that fear that encouraged me to crystalize the sweat that had coated my skin. The salt from the sweat was plenty enough that I could replicate the mineral and disperse it haphazardly around us. The mineral provided immediate relief from any ghost nearest to us - the man near Serafina included. With satisfaction, I watched as it shoved him backwards and gave the two of us space, feeling a mildly renewed sense of possibility though it was merely existing in a stage of infancy before returning my gaze to the woman beside me.


"You are more capable than you know, Serafina... The moment you do this, and you can, I will leave and this isn't a nightmare you will have to face ever again. Not as a consequence of me. God I - ..." I trailed off, having no other words to offer her solace through, able to only allow my eyes to meet her's and remain there steadily as if offering her a sanctuary in the light azure that greeted her. And in that moment, everything else fell away as I felt the hands of the horde of my sins wrapping their wrathlike hands around my Shadow's limbs and with a viselike grip, beginning to tear it apart. The wounds of stretching appeared slowly on my skin, tearing first through the shirt I had worn, allowing the blood to trickle as if taunting both Serafina and myself. I deserved the pain, and like I believed often, I should relish it as if reliving the pain I'd granted others. I wanted the comfort of unconsciousness, though it wouldn't come and instead, my vision came with black dots. They wouldn't let me loose my grip on reality, their actions only to cause superficial pain as if to alert me to what might come someday when I met the real hellfire.


Oh, what had I done?

Softly, oh so softly, the words formed on my lips. "I have faith in you, Sera...Please..."