‘Please don’t! Give me back my child! Kill me instead! I am begging you!’ I could hear a voice of a woman calling out all around me. She was crying and it just made me feel so uncomfortable, I didn’t like hearing that at all. Crying reminded me of my mommy…

  ‘I don’t want to die! Please don’t kill me! Why are you doing this?!’ I am hearing a different voice this time, it sounds like a man who seems very fearful. I wonder who he is calling out to? 

  ‘I hate you! I hate all of you! I will make everyone pay for this! Do you think I am a monster? I will show you a REAL MONSTER!’ I can’t tell if the person speaking is a man or a woman. It feels like a bunch of people's voices getting mixed. I can’t escape from them at all no matter how hard I cover my ears.

  Then I was awake, on the ground. Great. I slowly sat up from the ground and rubbed at the pounding head. I really can’t remember what happened but I am pretty sure I had a moment, again. I got off the ground and dust myself off. I was a bit confused that I wasn’t in that much pain anymore, I did fuck up my arm and punched the mirror.

  Then I noticed something that made me pause… I saw myself curled up into a ball on the ground. Countless thoughts went through my head until I finally walked toward my body. I got on my knees and went to touch myself but I felt confused that I couldn’t do that.

  It was like I was hitting a wall every time I tried to touch my body. I can’t… I can’t touch my body at all. What is happening?! I could feel my breathing getting faster and my heartbeat increasing to a dangerous level.

  “You should calm down, Princess. I really don’t want you to pass out on me.” I flinched when I heard an unfamiliar voice coming from behind me. It didn’t sound male or female, it was more like it was in between. I turned around and felt confused at the new person who was walking closer to me.

  “W-Who are you and what is happening? D-Did you do this to me! Put me back in my body! Tell me what is happening!” It was getting hard to breathe and I wanted to curl up into a ball. I didn’t feel okay at all and I felt so scared.

  “It's rather sad. You really don’t know me? It's me, Fox. Your buddy! I even made you a flower crown and that was so hard to make.” The person got even closer and I realized they were wearing the usual cloak that Fox would wear whenever they would visit me to talk.

  “F-Fox? You did this?” I couldn’t understand what was happening or why they were doing this to me. I thought we were friends… I mean are we friends or was that me thinking we were close… I keep doing that. Why do I keep doing that? I am such a fucking idiot!

  “Don’t give me that look, it's rather depressing. It wasn’t me who did this but I know who did. It is basically the person who made me. The monster.” Fox told me this like it wasn’t that important and it was information that everyone knew. I could only feel more questions forming in my head. It was hard to focus with the whispering voices that were slowly increasing in volume and the pain that was slowly appearing in my head.

  “I should probably explain more. So you see the monster in this kingdom made me because it wanted to experience parenthood. I don’t really know how I was made but I know they must have done something with magic or whatever. But anyway I am here and you are like this because of them.” Fox was waving around their hands as they lazily explain what was happening.

  “I want to know why I am like this! Not how you were born!” I was getting annoyed with how they weren’t focusing on the fact I wasn’t in my BODY! I looked over at my body after I heard it let out a really loud groan, and I noticed that the wound on my arm was surrounded by dark markings. It was starting to bubble and I had to force myself not to puke from how gross it looked.

  “They took you out of your body and now they are going to try to consume your soul. They want you to join everyone else. Your body is slowly going to die from the illness unless you figure out how to get back into your body.” When I heard that I felt like my world went quiet for a few minutes. I looked back at my body and I noticed that the dark markings slowly spreading from my wound. It looks like some were up to my neck already and my body let out another pained groan.

  “What..? Why!? How is this happening?!” I tried to touch my body once again but I was stopped by the wall keeping me from getting inside of my body. My unconscious body let out a pained groan and twisted uncomfortably on the ground. It seems like the markings on my body was getting worse the more distress I was getting. I started to really panic when I notice that my body spit out some black thing from my mouth.

  “You took off your magic stone and now you aren’t being protected anymore. This should have affected you way sooner but well you were being protected. This normally goes slower but seeing as you were here for a while and protected most of your stay here... It basically likes putting something white in the middle of a huge mess. It happening quickly.” Fox came up to my side and sat down next to me as they looked at my twitching body.

  “I don’t understand! Nothing you are saying is making sense! What is happening to me?! Tell me what is going on!” I was pulling at my hair as I could feel my breathing getting out of control and I could hear the ringing in my ears. I tried to calm down when I realize my body was curling up even more and letting out pained whimpers.

  “I thought you knew? Don’t you know what happens to people who use dark magic in this country? They all end up being consumed by the monster. They become one with them. It is common knowledge. It is also very common for people with dark magic to have rather… negative personalities as well.” Fox was speaking calmly to me as I was freaking out about the new information I was getting.

  “W-Why do they end up getting consumed by the monster? Why does it only happen to people with dark magic? I don’t understand at all…” I could hear the whispers getting louder and my vision was getting hazy. I could feel my legs getting weak and I just wanted to curl up into a ball.

  “The monster is the souls of all the dark magic users who were killed by the past ruler of the country. They had a dream one day about losing all their power because of someone with dark magic so they decided to kill anyone with dark magic who lived in their kingdom. But that wasn’t enough for them. They were nervous about losing their throne so they decided to send their knights out of the kingdom to kill anyone who had dark magic.” Fox's voice was slowly disappearing in the background as I started to see images in my head of people being killed in different ways.

  They were all screaming and begging for mercy. Families were being murdered and no one was safe, even if they were a young child. They were all just being killed over and over. I can feel their fear… Their sadness… Their hatred… I couldn't hold it in anymore and I puke. Nothing came out of me, mostly just dry heaving. But my physical body pukes out a bunch of dark matter that was bubbling and I could have sworn to see eyes in it.

  “It was rather horrible as it was happening. After they killed all the dark magic users they decided to seal up their kingdom so no one could come in or get out. But you see a single dark magic user was left and hated the ruler of this kingdom so much. So they created a curse and put it on them. They then went to the kingdom and told the ruler that they were a dark magic-user. They weren’t scared nor were they worried, it was what they wanted. As soon as they were killed that was when the monster was created. The souls of all the dark magic users who were killed became the monster. After that, for some reason, not a lot of dark magic users were being born into this world. And whenever a dark magic user came into this country, they would get sick and have their soul taken away to join the other dark magic users who were inside of the monster.” I could feel something tugging at me in a direction and I could hear someone calling out for me. I was trying so hard to focus on Fox's voice, it was the only thing keeping me here at the moment. I was still dry heaving and it was getting hard to breathe.

  “It's kind of sad. The first person I ever became friends with had the blood of the person who caused all this suffering. I should hate you, I was created from the souls of the people that were killed after all. But… I really don’t hate you. I can’t hate you. I wonder why?” I could feel something cold touch my face and I couldn’t help but flinch. I realized that Fox was touching my cheek and they felt so cold. They were looking at me with sad eyes. I didn't know what to say and everything was getting so hard to focus on.

  “W-What is going to happen to me? Am I going to die? I d-” I wanted to say I don’t want to die but I stopped myself. I don’t want to die? Is that true? I don’t want to die? I looked at my body that was still curled up into a ball and letting out pained noise. I looked at Fox who was still touching my cheek. Their eyes still were so warm…

  “I don’t want you to die… I really don’t want you to become like anyone else. But I really don’t have a choice in the matter anymore… Do I?” Fox let out a laugh and took their hand off my cheek. They got up from the ground and started to walk away from me. 

  “Wait! Where are you going? Don’t go…” I called after Fox and they stopped walking for a second but didn’t look back at me. I had a feeling if I didn’t stop them, I wouldn’t see them again. I kept on seeing the back of someone else appearing the further they got away from me. It felt like I was seeing something get replay back to me.

  “It was nice being your friend… I don’t blame you for what happened in the past. You weren’t even alive back then. You aren’t even from this world either. You really did nothing wrong… You did nothing wrong at all.” That was the last thing Fox said to me before they were consumed by darkness and vanished.

  The darkness didn’t disappear with Fox, it stayed behind. It didn't move any closer to me and I was just in the same spot trying to understand what was happening to me. As I was getting lost in my thought I could hear someone else approaching me. I noticed that it was Eli and he was walking toward my body with a concerned look on his face.

  "...Aurelia? What wrong? Are you okay?" Eli moved closer to my body, he didn't notice me sitting next to my physical body. He put a hand on my body and quickly took it off once I let out a pained cry. He notices the markings on my body and then tears started to appear in his eyes.

  "Aurelia? This isn't funny... What is happening? Wake up... You have to wake up!" Eli put his hands back on me and gently move my body so I would wake up. My eyes didn't open and the marking on my body just slowly increase on my body. Eli stops moving my body and quickly ran back towards the house. I tried to stand in front of him to see if he would notice me but he just went through my body.

  I was just standing there, not knowing what to do when I realize something concerning. The darkness that was left behind after Fox disappears was slowly getting closer to me. When I moved back I notice it also move a bit closer to me. I had a bad feeling and I started to move away from the darkness but it started to follow me. I was just walking but I couldn't help but start to run once I realize I was being followed by the darkness.

  I don’t know how long I was running but I couldn’t see my body anymore and I didn’t know where I was. There were trees everywhere and I didn’t know what to do at all. That was when I noticed that there was nothing but darkness in front of me and when I looked behind me I saw darkness slowly coming towards me. I had nowhere to run.

  I slowly dropped to the ground and looked blankly at my hands… I can’t escape at all. I am going to… What is going to happen to me? I don’t know and I don’t care anymore. I guess this is how my story ends... I am going to die without anyone caring about what happened to me.

  ‘Who am I kidding? The villainess will never get a good ending… No matter what. Someone like me can’t have one. It will always end the same for me. Always going to have a bad ending. Even if… Even if I wanted a different one this time… I wanted things to be different…’ 

  I wanted things to be different… I wanted to change this time… Wait… This isn’t the first time I've died? Oh… I remember now. I have always been Aurelia and she was always me. Alina was a new timeline for me. That makes sense… I can’t believe I realized that so late… I just wanted... I... 

  In the end, I guess I am just going to die alone again. Nothing has changed. Just an endless cycle of my death. I wish it was a different one. I really did try. It wasn't good enough. Nothing I do is good enough for anyone... I am so scared of the dark... I don't want to... I don't want to die... It is so lonely...

Danshi

Hello, it is nice to be writing again. Sorry for disappearing for a while. I was super nervous about graduating high school and I was going to deal with a party as well (I just do not do well in front of people...). I also was really anxious and scared about getting my T shot (got it Friday and it went rather well even though my hands were shaking as I put a needle in me...). But I didn't forget about this story at all. I was thinking of how this was going to end and decided to make a second book for this after I finish this story. The second book will take a while since I will be focusing on other stuff as well. But I have a good idea so far how the story is going to end in my eyes. Well, I feel good about getting this chapter out and ready for everyone to read. I am going to sleep now since I am really tired from so much writing I did today and yesterday...