Chapter 71
The sound of light crackling and wood tossing over from a roaring fire filled the cave as Amay and Lucas sat nearly back to back. Their clothes laid on the ground closer to the flames in an attempt to take some of water out of them. A long sigh came from Lucas as he finally finished explaining to Amay what all happen when she was out of commission. His face was slightly red as he felt odd being completely naked in the same room as a girl. He couldn't help but turn around ever so slightly to see Amay bare back with long white hair with a single strip of black hair going down.
"Turn back around," Her voice spoke up with a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance. Her own face was slightly red as well due to them having to complete strip all the way down, do to all the rain, mud and river water. "This isn't the right time to try and get a peep."
Lucas quickly turned back to look at the cave wall. "Sorry," he said feeling weird about all of this. While he was glad Amay was alright, he still felt very responsible for what took place with that spider woman. That whole interaction with her still made his skin crawl. He then heard Amay let out a long sigh.
"I see now," Amay said finally allowing all the events during her life and death struggle to set in and finally understanding how they got to here. "It was very brave of you to try and bring me back with you, but you should have listened to my words. However, I don't think it would have matter much from our current state now. Especially with it raining and the drop if temperature," she said as she looked towards the entrance to see the flash of lightning and heavy rain continued to beat down.
"I couldn't just leave you there after you getting attacked and impaled was because of me. I froze up and you got hurt. Because I was weak," Lucas said letting his head hang a little as he exhaled. He could feel his guilt weighing on his shoulders.
"Don't blame yourself on that. Neither of her was expecting her to appear. Besides you kept yourself in danger, ignored my pleads to leave me behind, and fought her back enough to get away from her, and then didn't stop until you made sure I was out of the rain and fully safe. That took courage to do," Amay explained to him as a soft smile formed across her face. "Not many people would do what you did in your situation."
"But you died," Lucas turned his head back to look at her back. He could see Amay's head slightly turn to look at him out of the corner of her eyes. "I failed to keep you alive. I could force on the spell mom taught me. I can't forgive myself for letting you die, when I could have done more."
"Then I forgive you," Amay reassured him. "You can't blame yourself for what happened to me. I told you to pull out her limb. I thought I would be fine, since I would be taking in your blood. I didn't count in for how painful it was, and my body went into shock. I didn't because of my own miss calculation."
"But you still died because of me." Lucas whispered to himself. He took a moment to let her words set in, before getting to what bothered him the most. "So how are you back to life? I saw your lifeless body and how cold you were? How did you heal up that wound?"
"Right. That. You see, we Demi-Human are not like you in a normal sense. We all have a crystal inside of us. It works as our life essence. It's us at its purist form. It's how we do our magic." Amay began to explain to him. "Our body is real and we feel everything that happens to it. Good, bad, being sick, having sex, eating, and being badly hurt. Just like you."
"So you getting impaled..." Lucas began to question.
"I felt in go into my body, pierce my organs and spine, and exit my body all three times. Just like you would." Amay said feeling her stomach for a moment. "When our body takes enough damage, and we can't heal from it, or just die, our crystal gets to work healing the body. Once it's done, we come back weak for a moment, or in some cases, ready to continue the fight." She chuckled a little as remembered seeing that happened.
"Whoa." Lucas let out as he turned back to look at Amay. "So does that make you all immoral in a way?"
"Not exactly." Amay said turning to look at Lucas with her own face, while still not facing him entirely. "Our crystal has it's limits. It takes a lot of energy to fully bring ourselves back. So our crystal can do it three times before it either fully breaks or we come back chaotic. So we have to be careful and not get to that point."
"Wait. How come Bigfoot didn't come back? Or those guys a while back?"
"Simple. They had there crystals removed from there body. Again, it takes a lot of energy to fully heal the body. Image having to recreate it. To some, it would be easier if you were alone to do so, but if you were in enemy territory it would be bad. It could take longer as well. It truly comes down to the creature or their type." Amay said before moving her hair out of the way and touching her kimono to see if it warmed up some, but it didn't. She then went back to explaining. "To truly stop a Demi-Human, you need to destroy their crystal. Even shattering would fully stop them."
"That's how Ida stopped that creature." Amay said letting out a sigh. She still couldn't believe that one of her childhood bullies managed to find her after all these years.
"Speaking of her, do you two know each other? Because, she seemed to have something straight against you?" Lucas asked putting his hands towards the fire. He noticed that Amay went very silent when he asked his question.
Amay head and shoulders slumped a little as she brought her knees up to her chest. She started to remember the insults, rocks, punches, shoves, and nasty things she received from her childhood by the hands of Ida especially. She then took a long breath as she thought about her words.
"Back when I was a child, I was the black sheep of my entire clan. I couldn't go anywhere without people whispering about me, gave me looks of either shame or as if I disrespected them, told their kids to not be around me. It was as if I was a plague or burden to them." Amay said feeling each repressed memory start to come back up. The tone in her voice became low and bitter. She took another deep breath as she continued on.
"Being there was a living hell, and I don't care if that whole village burns to the ground. The only people I care about is my mom, my little sister and my uncle." She said clenching her fist. She could feel her hatred and rage began to rise, but quickly lowered as she exhaled through her nose.
"Ida was one of the many ring leader of kids, that would pick on me. She would take it a lot further and made her torments a lot worse. She would always find a way to make my day a living hell." Amay said as she turned to face the fire.
Amay remembered when her uncle bought her a new dress to replace her rugged and tattered hand-me-downs, so she could spend the day with him. She remembered how excited she was to spend time with him, since he was back from his travels for a day, so they were going to a festival. When he was waiting for her and she was only a few blocks away, she ran right into Ida and her possy.
She remembered begging and pleading with Ida to just not mess with her today and said the regretful words of doing whatever she wanted. Ida took advantage of that and told her to lick her dirty foot. Young Amay, hesitated for a moment. She didn't know either to do it or just try and run away from them.
Amay looked around nervously before she got down to her knees. She got to her hands and knees and slowly stuck out her tongue. She could taste the slimy and weird texture. From above her, she could hear them laughing at her.
A sick cackle came from Ida as she watched sorry girl licking her foot. Her smile quickly turned into a scowl as she realized how pretty the dress was. So she pulled her foot back and kicked Amay in her mouth. She watched as her pathetic lesser stumbled back in shock as she held her now bleeding mouth and nose.
Tears filled Amay eyes as she couldn't believe the pain that came to her face. It felt as if her teeth were about to fall out or even loosen from the sudden blow. With watery eyes, she looked up at Ida in disbelief at what she just did, slowly began to back away as she got closer to her.
Amay watched as Ida knelt down to be face to face with her and felt her hand tightly grab her new dress. She could do nothing since her mouth was hurting. A ripping sound began to feel her ears as Ida began to tear at her dress.
The area went silent as everyone looked towards Ida as they didn't expect Amay to actually do anything to her. They watched as Ida turned back with a big cut that was bleeding her greed blood.
Amay did her best to protect her face and head as she felt each kick, punch and insult that was being thrown at her. It last for a good moment until her uncle came around the corner to see the kids still beating on his niece. He quickly came over causing the kids to run away and looked at his bruised and shaking balled up Amay.
The last thing she remembered was teller her she tried to protect the dress, but it was damaged and dirty just like her.
A tear came to Amay's eye as she remembered that day clearly. She didn't realize that she had explained this whole event to Lucas as she just happened to glance over to see his mouth open in shock. She quickly took her hand and wiped away her tear and faced the wall again to hide her face.
She cleared her throat a little before letting out a sigh. "She was the last person I would have ever guessed seeing in my current state. Even though I should be more powerful then her, it felt like my childhood all over again." She said feeling her hand began to shake and a sickening feeling to her stomach.
"Amay...I'm so sorry that happened to you," Lucas said shocked by Amay's story and her explanation.
"Don't be. I moved past them," Amay told him, but it was mainly to herself. "I tried my best to prove them all wrong. That I'm not a monster and that I'm not weak. But..." She hesitated for a moment allowing her thoughts to take over. "Maybe I am."
"But you're not." Lucas told her. He fully turned around and tried to place a hand on her shoulder; however, she pulled away from you.
"Elizabeth said that exact same thing," Amay said as she held her own shoulders. Her eyes looked around for a moment as she thought about whether to tell him or not. "She doesn't think I noticed the look in her eyes, and the way she talks to me. But I know she's scared of me having another relapse. I....know she didn't meant to have me put under and I know she hesitated to release me again, but I know she's afraid of me doing it again." She said trying to hold back her fear keep her body under control as she talked.
"She's like all of them now," Amay confessed. She turned her body slightly to were she could fully see him, and lifted her head. "I'm either a monster or the worst thing to walk the either all because of that." she said pointing her finger at something.
Lucas shivered a little as he moved his eyes and looked towards where she was pointing at. He was a little lost when she was pointing at her own silhouette. "Your shadow?" He genuinely asked.
"No. You idoit," She angrily said. She then ran her hands through her hair. "It's not my shadow it's what's in it."
"Can you please explain?" Lucas calmly asked her.
She looked around a little more as if she didn't fully know if he could be trust, but with a deep regretting sigh. "There's this thing inside of me. It's like another person or personality that just there. It didn't do anything at first, and I thought it was just my imagination. However, it changed. It started with low whispers, then a few words and then full taking. It kept asking me to get closer to embrace it. But something about it felt wrong and it scared me." She tried to explain.
"What happened?" Lucas said wanting to know more and to understand her more.
"The one time, I allowed it. I became more powerful, but it wasn't right. It was like I was floating in a comfortable liquid and fully relaxed almost soothing. I could feel all my doubts and worries disappear as I wanted to dive deeper into it's comfortable embrace. It was like hugging someone you loved so very much." Amay said remembering that exact feeling. She couldn't help, but hold herself from that feeling.
"However, it does this to full take control. It uses me to get out and cause havoc. It's just a blood thirsty beast. It can't differentiate between the enemy or friends." Amay said holding her shoulder in fear. She remembered that day with Elizabeth as well. "After the first few slip ups, it started to bleed out past random sleeps and drastic situations. It was moving closer and showing it's whenever I was alone or in dark areas. It became so frequent in my dreams that it became difficult to sleep on my own. Even when I did, it was there."
"Whoa." Was the only words to leave his mouth. He couldn't imagine how nerve-wracking having something like that happened. He soon realized something. "Is...is that why you sleep in my room and why your afraid of the dark?"
"When Elizabeth had me down there it didn't bother me, and I was asleep for nearly all of the time. I'm glad she was kind for that part." Amay said letting out a sigh. "However, that night when I tried to sleep in my new bed, it was there. I tried to sleep in my own room every time and every time it appeared. That's why I slept in your room. It knew it couldn't get me there. When we walked back in the woods on dark nights, I saw it waiting for me."
"That night. When your phone died was the first time it tried to attack me with someone there. That was also the first time my scar bleed black blood in a while. That's why I was so scared." Amay confessed to Lucas.
"Is that the reason why you broke down during our time." Lucas found the words slipping out of his mouth. He quickly cupped his mouth as he broke their promise and ignore what Chris said.
"I told you to forget about that night." Amay snapped at him, but let out a sigh. "But yes. When we were doing it I saw it looking at us, and then fade away. I was trying to enjoy my first time, but I was just overwhelmed by the whole situation." She finally confessed before turning back around and sat on the ground. "I was just so embarrassed and felt ashamed of myself for ruining it, that I just wanted us both to forget about it."
"I see," Lucas said. There was a mix feeling within him. He was glad he didn't do anything wrong, but also bad about how much this effected her. "Damn." He thought to himself for a moment.
He watched as Amay just sat there quiet as if lost in her own thoughts and feelings. The storm raged on outside of the cave, while their fire still crackled on the inside with both of them sitting in silence.