Daimon by DANIELLE BOLGER (e reader .txt) 📖

the core of the black body.

The black ball, now the size of a multi-story apartment building, stopped growing. Then, it started to shrink.

I kept pouring, losing reserves fast and holding nothing back. If I could not get far enough away, then it would just suck me back in. This moment was my last hope of escape, my final struggle for survival.

It was shrinking, back to a soccer ball, but it still held a terrifying gravity. I had to give it more, every photon. I searched within myself for every last spark of energy and sacrificed it to the void of space. Nothing was to be spared.

After what seemed like an eternity, I released the last sparkle, and floated limply through space, completely drained of energy. I thought I could feel my skin turn gray and clutch at my bones tightly to form reverse wrinkles. I was sure that in order to expel this kind of energy I had to convert my very body to photons leaving me.

Wanly, my eyes gazed ahead of me, looking for that giant black sphere that would have undoubtedly reclaimed me in its attraction. When I peered around me, I saw only regular darkness; one that permitted the distant stars to be seen in full clarity. I dared to hope that this meant I was free from the menacing pull.

I was still travelling backward, away and at a tremendous speed so that the stars to either side of me were just blurred streaks. Were they shooting stars? No, I was the shooting star, on a collision course for Earth.

I concentrated on that speck I saw earlier. My energy was so devoid that I could not locate it so easily again, but then I remembered it like the comfort of a well-loved bed and managed just enough strength to recalibrate my bearings towards it. I smiled as I sailed toward it.

Reaching it unbelievably fast, I barely managed enough brakes to swing near the blue planet and cascade toward it.

With a groundbreaking thump, I breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Jane! Oh, thank fucking Christ, you're still alive.”

Bright light flooded into my eyes. I reached out and lowered a device so that it was not blatantly blinding me. As I angled it downward, its luminance reflected from the war torn timber.

“Alex, you've woken up.”

“Hmph. Yes, thanks for that nap.” Her tone was seething, but from the light of her phone, her features were etched with deep concern. “Speaking of sleeping, I thought for sure you weren't going to wake up. You're covered in so much blood.”

I looked at myself and saw a dark liquid coat just about every inch of me. I looked like I literally arose from a swimming pool of blood.

“You should have stayed back in the car,” I reprimanded.

“Protecting me, that's priceless,” she muttered. “Jane, I saw a girl with them. That's your friend, isn't it?”

“Sandra.” The one I was about to sacrifice my life for. No, not just for her, but for my revenge as well. “If you saw them, then they would have seen you, too.”

She lowered her head as she trembled. “He told me...” She let out a trembling breath. “He told me that if you lost, he would try replacing you, with me.”

“I see. Would it work, would you become a daimon then?” I pondered, considering the prerequisites a person needed for such a process to be successful.

“It...might. In order to become one of your kind, a person must have their heart swallowed by a master daimon, one with purple eyes. I don't know how it is, but it seems like that color symbolizes the balance between life and death: between red, vibrant blood, to the black tar of death. When a creature like that consumes a human's heart, they seem to be capable of forming a bond with them. Maybe it is because the master daimon has the power to defy death that somehow it can be transferred to his victims. Not all victims are as helpless as the next. Some are innocent, and because of that their hearts seem to be too pure to be lulled by evil. Others can be, others that know the taste of blood and like it.

“Not everyone can become a daimon. I know that, as a human, they must have first taken a life, taken it with full intention. I also think that they must die without regret of that action.” Alex turned to me with fear heavy on her features. “I'm not innocent, Jane. I’ve taken a life. I did it because I wanted to; I hated him. I...” Her voice wavered, before softening. “I did what I thought was right, but I don't really know how I feel about it. It happened a long time ago so I should know, but still...I don't know what I would become if Rose tore my heart away. I might die...but I also might become one of you, and if that's the case,” her voice suddenly firmed, “then I would rather die.”

I looked back at the blood coating my hands. It was so thick that no skin could be seen beneath. “Where have they gone, Alex?”

“To the waterfall, in the flower garden. He told me to tell you to follow him there, and remind you that time is ticking.”

“How much time has it been since I left you?”

“Ah...” She looked at the display of her phone. “Probably...at least an hour.”

That was the limit; all the time I had left to save Sandra had completely run dry. It could be at this very moment that he was performing the ritual on her, the heart depriving process. For Sandra—it would fail. She had never killed anyone, so instead of becoming a daimon she would simply die. All because of me.

“The waterfall, where is it?” I demanded, grasping Alex's shoulders with haste. The ferocity of it caused her to drop the phone to the floor.

She did not even whimper at my tight hold. “I think you will have no trouble finding it; even a human could. The smell of them is so strong.”

I shook her. “The smell of what, Alex?”

She responded as if the answer was obvious, “The roses.”

****

I could smell them. They were intoxicating, permeating; they were everywhere, and yet I detected the source some way off in the distance. I ran with my inhuman speed, deeper through the beautifully arranged flowers: lilies, tulips, daisies, orchids; passed the nocturnal butterflies, that simply could not resist the euphoric sight, but their scents were largely overpowered by the strong aroma of roses. Powerful, and consuming—it was the smell of my greatest enemy, the perfume of Rose himself.

Sounds of cascading water reverberated through this dense flower blanket. So low was its amplitude that, at first, it could only be felt. Within moments, the subsequent roar was detectable. Its humid scent carried along the vibrations, yet was barely a match for the thickening floral aroma. It become so intense that I could taste it on my tongue, it was sickening.

As I passed my first garden light, I slowed to a jog and stared in wonder at the black celestial arcadia. All around me were magnificent ebony roses. From emerald foliage, they rose proudly; black rose upon black rose; unmarred, eternal, and immortal. Great in number, and quiet in their immaculacy, they were a sight that could bring tears from their beauty alone. They were so bewitching, so peaceful, that I forgot they bore thorns.

A breeze tugged at the roses, and they softly danced to their own rhythm. The wind, likewise, pulled at my own hair, lifting it above my shoulders. I felt the deep brown strands snake through the air behind me as if they were trying out the foliage's tune.

The waterfall could be seen just up the hill, a large cliff that was higher than it was wide. It was composed of pure white stone that shone brilliantly, from the continual smoothing of water.

There was no river or stream that fed in or out of this magnificent structure, therefore proving it to be man-made. It became apparent that the greatest beauties found of earth were not of its own creation.

My feet had stopped moving, caught as if entangled by the wondrous flora, but it was not this majestic sight that had me paused. It was the stone that was raised so low in this pool that it was barely exposed an inch over its surface. A white alter, in which a white-skinned girl laid, eyes closed and peaceful. Her blonde hair traveled above her head so that the ends just touched the water. She alone made this scene complete in its perfection, it was all for her—Sleeping Beauty—as she rested motionless in her last moments. She lived, but only barely. She was on the brink of death as she fought her villain's powerful tranquilizer. Even if she were strong enough to battle the heavy poison, it would all prove for naught in an utterance; the dragon was drawing its sweet floral breath, and would engulf Beauty in flames.

Rose was there, above Sandra, knife held high and ready to strike. His brilliant purple eyes flicked towards me. They were expectant, like he always anticipated this moment, like he was waiting for it. Through his flawless golden hair and blemish-free skin, there snuck just the slightest of smiles—it was hideous.

A familiar knife was grasped firmly in his hands. Its blade caught one of the garden lights as it made its descent down to my friend's chest.

“No!” I screamed, running faster than I ever had before. The silver knife fell in slow motion, yet so swiftly, too swiftly for me to arrive in time.

Sandra was still, her skin deathly pale; contrasting her plump red limps starkly. There was a slight depression to her chest, an expulsion of air like she knew what was to come and had already accepted it.

“No!” I screamed again, more earnestly. I watched that metal cut through her pretty blue top. Not her, too! They murdered Zach, but I wouldn't let them have Sandra too. No more. No one else I cared for was going to die because of me.

I lunged, filling all those sparkly photons into my body, and collided with the blond youth. With a tumble and many great splashes, I crouched up from the shallow water and panned with crazed trepidation.

I found her, a cut through her top but no blood in sight. I began to breathe again.

“That was fast,” Rose observed blithely.

I stood up straight, drenched clothes clutching me intimately, and looked on him with vehemence.

“You saw me coming.” I spoke slowly through clenched teeth, hands trembling. “Why did you attack her? I made it. I'm here to fight you. Damn it, leave her out of this!”

Rose himself was saturated; the opened collared short sleeved shirt, and faded jeans, clung to his toned physique. The moisture had sunk deep into his hair. Dark blond locks framed his flawless skin, and his eyelashes darkened to illuminate his tantalizing purple eyes all the more. Once an angelic alter-boy, the water gave him enough of a bad-boy edge that it had transmuted him into the ultimate teenage pop sensation. I could almost hear all the teens and preadolescents gushing over a mere poster image of him.

Rose lifted that smile fractionally, the teenyboppers in my head sighed with longing. “You were late—a whole half an hour late—but I thought I would wait just long enough that you could witness the death of your human connection.”

Racing through the knee-high water, I interjected myself between Rose and Sandra and assumed a defensive stance. “You won't lay finger on her!”

He casually looked up to the night-sky where trillions of stars twinkled. “I was doing you a favor, Jane. By removing your friends, I would be removing the fragments of your past life, the last traces of a conscious. Killing her would free you of your guilt. You could live a perfect daimon life.”

“I'll kill who I have to.”

“Those who you feel deserve death, is that right? There will be others that get in the way; other innocent bystanders that you will need to eliminate in order to protect your identity. Like that girl you put in a coma, and the man in the woods who was your first meal. I have heard that you had a hard time dealing with these two.”

“I'll kill who I have to.” My tone lost its conviction.

He nodded. “What if I was to awaken dear Sandra now? She would see you, your black