Truly the Souls of Men are Full of Dread

"Your game is over. You've been beaten," Althea said with a splendid show of borrowed bravery. She was still shaking in her own skin, but she had come too far to succumb to her fear and trepidation. "Now," she said as she extended her hand stiffly in an outstretched arm, "let me help you."

Durai looked at her outstretched hand like a wounded dog looks at a passing Samaritan with food and good intent. He didn't trust it, and he was confused by it. What was her angle now?

"Help me?" he chuckled to himself amused. "You help me?" His eyes searched hers for a sign that she was teasing him or toying with him. However, her eyes were completely honest and innocent in their earnest. Her arm remained outstretched, and he felt overcome with resentment. "I don't need your help! I don't need any helping!" he shouted at her in a terrible tone and volume that shook her bones and blew a fearsome, abnormal wind towards her as if emanating from his rage.

Althea couldn't help but recoil her extended hand and brought her arms around her body to shield herself from his assault. She stifled the rising tremors in her muscles. Her blood was chilled so deeply that she felt she'd never feel warmth again. She looked down at her hands to see even her fingers began to turn blue. They began to tingle and then sting with the pain of the cold, and the frozen blood started to reach her whole body and seize her heart.

In that moment Durai's eyes lit as he saw her vulnerable again. She was cowering, shielding herself, body weak from this cold he had brought, he could see her begin to tremble slightly, and he felt his power over her begin to return. He began to speak to her again; his melodic tone returned with an undertone of sinister, ominous intent. "Little Dove, my precious little thing. I think it's you who need the help."

He began advancing towards her stronger and stronger with each calculated step. Althea's muscles seemed to act on their own as she cowered slightly more and took a step back. Her heart ran like a frightened rabbit to a hole, and she felt as if she were right back where she was so long ago.

"No, Dove. That's what it is. Let me help YOU. I will forgive you, I will forgive all the terrible things you've done, if you let me help you. I'll take care of you, just like before. We can go back to where we began, and this time will be better. We can be happy again."

Althea could hear the seductive sweetness in his words. For a moment, it truly did seem as though he wanted to start again to find a way to be together. She could hear love beneath the distorted filter he experienced it with. She could hear the little boy needing his mother's love. He could hear the beautiful man she left her whole world for. He seemed truly genuine.

But then again, he always had. She no longer trusted it.

In movements that seemed lightning fast, he was before her again with his arms wrapped around her body. He could feel her body stiffen and shudder within his entwining arms. He pressed her head to his chest even through her resistance. He began to stroke her hair despite her protests and said, "In time, I can even love you again despite what you've become."

Althea pushed against him and tried desperately to pry herself from his tight embrace. Durai grabbed a large fistful of her thick hair in his hand and pulled sharply down forcing her to look up at him. He pulled so hard that tears of pain sprung to her eyes, but she didn't cry out. He reached up with his other hand then and placed it upon her face.

The blacks of her pupils then grew larger and larger taking over the whites of her eyes until all of her eyes were completely black. It was like the darkness filled her entirely at his touch. The darkness found its way inter her from the inside, and the black could be seen all around her.

A sharp sensation hit her then very similar to what she had done to Durai. Images flew past her like a sudden wind. There was a haze about the scenes playing out in her mind; they were not of the same, sharp clarity as the images of past recollections she had forced Durai to see had been. These seemed like shades, suggestions, or fantasies. If her Magic brought forth forms and likeness in truth, what he was doing was shaping lies and dressing them with false shape and substance.

Althea could see herself in these visions. She was beside Durai as he had a hand around her waist. Her arms were folded carrying a swaddled bundle while two other small boys played at her feet. Durai was forcing fantasied images of a family, a family he forced her to bear, and Althea could feel her face whiten with fear. Through the images projected into her mind, she could hear his voice speaking to her as it came through with enticingly tempting tones. "This is what I can give you. This life, these children, our children. I can forgive you, and we can be happy again."

The pure eyes of the child seemed to warm her at first. They held her in love and an innocent dependence. They were innocent.

Then the light of the scene started to darken into shades of red and black. The children's eyes no longer seemed innocent. They turned into his eyes. She noticed her image in this scene had chains slither up her body like snakes. Her figure became completely incapacitated by the bindings as Durai came and took the swaddled baby from her arms. The scene became darker and terrifying. The three children looked at Althea, not her figure bound in the vision, but into her very soul that was looking on. They looked at her with Durai's glowing green eyes.

"And I will make my sons like me, strong, cunning, and powerful. And we will keep you safe with us. Forever."

It was like she was falling off a cliff. She could feel the sensation of falling, though she was standing still. Her fear of what he projected into her mind, the terrifying horror of what she witnessed, shocked her so violently that she was jerked back into her body as if she had been dropped. Her eyes returned to her normal color and saw herself still in Durai's grasp. His eyes were eager and lustful, and the corners of his mouth curled into a sinister grin.

How had she been so in love with someone she now felt such overwhelming hate for? How can this man be so beautiful despite how hideous he was in his heart? He was like the angel Lucifer, and she was the fool who had revered and idolized him.

In that moment, she would have happily died to pay for the sin of loving him.

Durai began to press his body against hers, and she could feel the heat of him against her frigid skin. She couldn't take his touch a second longer. The amount she was disgusted with him was suffocating - the mere thought of creating a family with him to have children corrupted into his perverted image and power scheme - made her insides build with so much pressure she felt she would explode. The more she tried to fight him off, the harder he pressed against her. He was almost feeding off her misery, and he found it delicious.

Suddenly her body began to glow with a faint light before exploding from her body violently in the same brilliant red flames that caught her in her fall before. The force of the burst of fire from her body sent Durai flying back a few feet. While the flames were warmer than his cold darkness, the flames did not burn. Althea relished the feelings of heat returning to her body and smiled slightly to herself as she realized she wasn't as helpless as she had thought. Certainly not as helpless as he was hoping.

She stepped towards Durai as he tried to get to his feet gracefully but failed. Instead he looked like a small boy only able to flail his limbs in a clumsy mess. She held out her hands to the side of her body palms up while flames appeared from them and grew tall. She was truly in command of this warmth and this light, this was not an accidental conjuring as before. Durai looked at her with actual dread in his eyes for the first time. The light she held, the light that covered her and radiated out from her, grew brighter and brighter with each passing moment until Durai raised a hand to shield his eyes.

"No, Durai," Althea said with that voice full of power. "Do not shy from the light. Let it help you. Let me help you tend to the good parts of yourself that you have let become warped and corrupted by the seduction of your power. Let me help the light in you that's worth saving."

Hearing her words made Durai angrier and more venomous. Shadows began to grow from his feet and creep towards Althea. "Bow to you, you mean! After all I've done, you would show me compassion? I think not. I will not be at your mercy. I've had you once, all of you, and I will never be satisfied until I possess you body and soul again. You are mine. The light you're looking for isn't there!"

As he finished his words Althea made the fire flair even higher and spread along the ground. The shadows that had reached for her hissed and screeched as they were devoured by the light of the flames. Althea's eyes began to glow all white again as she took another step forward. "If you refuse to see it, if you refuse to embrace the light calling to you to end this, then I will make you FEEL it!"