Star Blood |✔|

14| TAKEN

Taken.

Another girl was taken.

Her name was Trileece.

I stare up at the ceiling, my mind in a haze as everything I've ever believed in life- comes crashing down.

I should have known better.

After all.

The dark ones- the ones of midnight and shadows, of fangs and blood.

Those.

They had to come from somewhere.

And so it's only natural that they come from humans- creatures like us.

In the back of my mind, a part of me always knew it.

Yet now I was seeing first hand- as with Jonaus- that there could still be light within the dark.

There could still be dark within the light.

Trileece had been eager.

Excited.

When the guard came, I saw it within their eyes.

Something had changed.

Maybe it was the safety of the room.

Maybe it had offered some unknown comfort to them, that they had forgotten the true evil that laid behind it.

Maybe it was because they didn't want to think of the reality.

They instead wanted to think that darkness could not be that evil.

Looking at ReRe and how she turned out- how could it be?

That was the question they all kept asking themselves.

I couldn't save them.

I tried.

I said blessings.

Touched them to have my light soak within their skin.

Talked to them.

Tried to convince them that giving into the darkness would not be the good option.

It would be the easy one.

The painful one.

Don't lose your soul.

They didn't want to hear it.

The temptation was too great.

So instead I focused my work, and who I could save, upon one person.

Oceane.

"Arishia are you scared?"

I turn to her voice, taking in her bluish green eyes that looked so much like the origin of her name.

"Yes."

My whispered confession has her moving closer to me.

"I am also."

She leans against me, our bodies pressing together as we watch the chaos consume the girl's mind.

Watch them fight over what dress they will wear when the King summons them, or what makeup they should adorn themselves with.

What jewelry they had access to.

Some have even tried to steal my repressors- only to find out they would never be able to leave my body.

"I don't understand how they can act this way," Oceane shivers at her words.

I shake my head, "It's easy. It's easy to give your soul away. It's hard to fight to keep it. And they are tired Oceane. They don't want to fight anymore."

I see Oceane's lips tremble slightly at my words, "Will you save me?"

I turn to face her as she looks straight on at me, "If they come to take me. Will you save me?"

Without thinking I take my arms and wrap them around her, embracing her shivering frame.

Please feel my light.

It's my desperate plea I think, as I silently stroke her hair.

"I will save you."

It's a dangerous promise to make. We both know there is a possibility that I may not be able to fulfill it. We both know that the better chance of us coming out of this alive is nonexistent.

Yet I still make it.

"Oh no, not again."

I look up in time to see the door open and Trileece's body fall to the floor.

She is feral in her attempt to escape, but the guard won't have it.

The door is slammed and closed off to her, shutting her inside with us.

Her scream pierces into me. I slowly reach over and cover Oceane's ears.

Oceane buries her face in my shoulder, closing her eyes and shutting herself off from the sight.

At least I can protect her from this.

The girls are ready now.

Eager almost.

They have more confidence as they approach Trileece.

"What was it like?"

"Tell us."

"What did he do?"

Trileece doesn't answer though, and I watch as she repeats ReRe's actions when she was first brought back.

The girls are patient though.

I don't want to hear.

Please don't say it.

Tricleece doesn't.

Instead she ignores the questions and eyes and continues crying.

Sad that her taste of darkness had been stolen from her lips.