FicWad

I opened my eyes to darkness. I thought I was dead. No, I knew I was dead. It was this feeling, radiating from somewhere in my chest, filling me with a sensation that I was sinking. Into what, I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything around me, couldn’t feel any of my limbs. I tried wiggling my fingers and couldn’t tell if I’d done it or not. I tried to sit up, but it was so dark I couldn’t see or feel if I’d moved. It was like the air itself weighed something. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t tell what was happening or why it seemed the shadows kept shifting as if they lived.
Then I heard the voice that haunted my nightmares when I was younger—the voice that had tempted me from the diner down the street from Gerard’s house. A stabbing pain shot through me at the thought of his name as the voice spoke. “Hello, Sammy.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
“It’s nice to see you again. I had hoped Gerard would pull through and kill you completely while he had his chance. But no.”
I wanted to ask if I was dead. I wanted to know why I couldn’t feel anything. What he wanted.
“You’re not dead, if you’re wondering. You’re somewhere in between.” His voice was that of an angel. “Because Gerard had a last minute hesitation before cutting the rope.” His voice was that of a monster.
“You could have been fine,” he murmured, suddenly coming close, the shadows seeming to part like curtains around him. “You could have been more than fine. I would have given you everything I have. You could have had it all, Sammy. Together, we could have been a force more powerful than anything the world has even seen. You could have lived forever. Anything you would have asked for would have been yours without a question. You could have been mine…I could have been yours.” The smoothness of this angelic monster’s voice startled me, and even if I could have moved I’d have been rooted to this spot.
“But you had to go and pull a stupid stunt like falling in love with Gerard.” The smoothness vanished at that sentence.
I would have spit on him if I could have moved.
He crouched next to me. “Your neck should have been broken by that fall,” he said quietly. “But it’s not. Why do you think that is? Because I strengthened the bone to resist damage. What, you think I can’t help you out just because I’m evil?
“Samantha, if you weren’t so ridiculously naïve, you wouldn’t be in this position. You think there’s good in everyone when sometimes there’s not. There’s no more good in Gerard than in me. But that’s the beauty of it.” His voice became rich and deep, chilling me to the bone.
“There’s good in evil, just as there’s light in darkness. There’s right in wrong, power in being too weak to refuse the temptation. Evil is like a secret fantasy of every good person out there unwilling to admit it. You could live that fantasy with me, Samantha.” He was calling me by my real name, and it sounded so sweet rolling off his tongue.
“We could do it, you and I. We could succeed beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. We could rule the world.”
Light suddenly burst through a hole in the rock (or at least I think it was rock) right over my eyes. It stung. I couldn’t see again.
“Samantha?”
I wished with all my heart I could have stood when I heard Gerard say my name perfectly. I wanted to get up and run and cry with relief.
“Stop, Gerard. Before you do something that’s irreversible.”
He didn’t seem to hear Lucifer. “Samantha, I need you to get up.”
Where are you? I would have asked if I could speak. All I saw was the hole and all the light of the sun. Gerard’s voice filled my ears. “Get up!”
“You know she can’t,” Lucifer said.
“She can if she’s not listening to you!”
I tried to raise my arm. It was like trying to run through marmalade. Thicker, heavier marmalade than any edible substance should ever be. I couldn’t do it. I started panting, the oddly heavy air moving in and out of my lungs faster and faster, making me feel more and more choked and desperate for oxygen. “I…” was all I could get out of my mouth.
“Shut up!” Lucifer cried, the angelic part of his voice gone, all of it replaced with the monster part. He smacked me, the side of my limp face growing warm with the pain.
“Samantha. You have to focus. Focus on all the power inside of you. Get up now, or you’ll die.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Lucifer said softly, hints of an angel in that voice.
A cool air swept over me. I felt my fingers finally start to move. I didn’t think about anything but getting away from this monster and to Gerard as I climbed to my feet. Lucifer grabbed my arm as I tried to walk past him. “You don’t want to do that,” he said softly.
“Why not?” I said, reveling in the return of my speech.
“Because once you go through there you can’t come back. Next time, you’ll die instantly. Do you really want to go back to life? Life sucks. Stay with me. I’ll show you everything you’re missing.”
I looked at him then. His voice had gotten angelic again, and almost had a musical sound to it. His eyes looked like the sky on a perfect spring day, bright, clear and beautiful. His hand on my arm felt like velvet against my skin. And then I knew I had to say no. He was too perfect. It was unnatural.
So I pulled out of his grasp. “No.”
His beautiful eyes turned black. “Fine.”
“Gerard!?” I yelled when the ground started to shake. Then I saw his arm, his pale, cold arm, reaching through the hole towards me.
I grabbed his hand without a second’s hesitation and let him pull me up, breaking away bits of rock as he dragged me to the surface, and everything stopped shaking completely. I was on the ground, next to Gerard, panting.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I sucked in a deep breath and smiled at him. “I’m perfectly fine.”
He sat up. “I’m so sorry, Samantha.”
I felt my smile widen as I too sat up and turned to him. “I get it. But it’s over. We’re together now.”
He pulled me close. “That we are.”