The title is enough information I think.
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We froze, finally noticing what we were standing on. The floor was covered with lines and symbols. A giant star made ou the biggest part of it and it was all enclosed in a circle. "What is this?" I said to Michael.
The look on his face told me what I needed to know. Whatever it was, it was not good.
"Some people would call it witchcraft or exorcism."
Markel came out of the shadows, his green eyes piercing me, feeding my anger.
"But I am more fond of calling it alchemy."
Next moment, he threw himself down on the floor with his hands flat on the ground in front of him. The symbols began to glow and a force moved my hair and clothing around me.
After that everything happened so quickly. Michael started to scream, and then Donte roared as something that looked like blue lightning erupted around him, encircling and trapping him. He collapsed on the ground.
"Michael!" I called.
I then ran forward trying to get to him, but more lightning came out of the symbols, shocking me. I hollered in pain, and was then pulled to the floor almost completely numb.
I willed myself to ignore it, I had felt worse. Michael was still on the ground, but now a vague image was forming in front of him. Through the blue electricity I could see Donte roaring in agony. He was hardly there looking like a hologram or a ghost. That’s probably all he was at that moment, a ghost with no body.
Markel was suddenly near me with his arms spread out as if he were about to embrace someone cherished. Another sound then overrode Donte’s howls, Markel was laughing, his voice echoing off the walls. It had to have been the most horrible sound I had ever heard, as if straight from a nightmare.
I turned my eyes back to Donte still not understanding what was happening. Donte then faded, and he seemed to turn into a stream of light that flew through the air and straight into Markel.
The moment they had collided and a force flowed from Markel like a strong wind. This force was so powerful the ground began to crack underneath us. From the no longer smooth ground, the seal had broken and I was free again. Everything was beginning to crumble, but I still ran to Michael kneeling back on the floor.
I turned him over onto my lap stroking his face with my hand.
"Michael." I said to him over the deafening noise.
It took him a moment, but he opened his eyes slightly.
"What's happened?" he asked weakly.
"Markel's gotten Donte, Michael. He's not a part of you anymore." I replied trying to smile softly.
Michael's jaw tightened and he reached up, grabbing the side of my face having me look him straight in the eyes.
"That's not true. As long as I'm alive he is a part of me, trapped in this godforsaken world."
I shook my head, not understanding what he was saying.
"Nicole, you have to kill me."
"No..." I said shaking my head with a strengthened intensity in defiance. "No!" my voice was rising to hysterics. I closed my eyes as the tears started to pour down my cheeks relentlessly.
"Nicole," Michael said trying to still my face again. Finally he had to use both hands forcefully to stop my falling apart. "Look at me." he said sweetly, but with authority.
I opened my watery eyes.
"You have to. Even if we got away, he would come after us and we would be running away for the rest of our lives." The intensity in his eyes softened. "i don't have enough strength to protect you from him anymore, and if anything happened to you..." he stopped, looking as if he were about to cry himself.
Hot tears carrened down my face.
"I can't lose you." I choked out.
Michael chuckled as though he were in on a secret.
"You won't lose me." He said smiling. Light filling his eyes, his voice strong and confident as he spoke the only thing he needed to believe at this moment. "I will always be with you." he wiped a tear from my cheek. I grabbed his hand, putting it softly but fiercely to my lips.
"This has to end now." Michael said weakly.
He was losing conciousness, but was still trying to fight it. I bent over him nearly laying on top of his budy. He held my head as I came closer to his face.
"I love you." He breathed.
"Love you too." My voice cracked over the words.
We then kissed. It was the only kind of goodbye we could bring ourselves to. The one thing that said everything so simply.
Even though I was acting as if it were the end, I still refused to let him go regardless of him slipping through my fingers and I had no hand in it.
"Enough!"
It was as if hell had opened and the devil himself were screaming from its flaming depths.
Markel's previous laughter was nothing compared to his horrifying voice as it was now.
I pulled myself away from Michael, now unconscious on the floor, and beheld the result of Markel's transformation.
His hair was white and reaching down to his chest, hands curled with claws resting menacingly on his fingertips. His teeth were now fanged and as white as his snow hair. The most bewildering transformed part of him had to have been his eyes. Where white had once belonged were black voids and where the frightening green once lingered were now a set of red eyes.
Before I could even think, I was being thrown across the floor away from Michael. Markel had hold of Michael by the cuff of his shirt. In a moment he had him hanging over his head like a rag doll. Then, to my horror, he threw him at the wall like a baseball.
Michael crashed into the wall, falling to the ground a moment later.
“You bastard!” I screamed in a burst of rage and adrenaline.
I was then on my feet, pulling my sword from its sheath at my side and running at Markel, letting out a battle cry that I never knew I had in me.
A second before I was on him, he turned around to face me and I swung. My sword made contact, but not in the way I had intended.
Markel had caught the sword in between his index and middle fingers. He was glaring at me with such ferocity that I nearly gasped.
“You dare try and fight me? After all I have offered you, you try and kill me?!” His last words were nearly screamed as he pushed me away from him, causing me to skid on the floor.
I planted my feet, keeping my balance and my sword facing him, and then slowing down to a stop.
I stayed where I was, not taking my eyes off of Markel. I realized that he was extremely strong and that I truly was no match for him, but only one person was coming out of this alive.
I charged again and he only dodged. He was then behind me and I swung, he moved to my other side. This continued for a while until my arms were pulled painfully behind me. Still I wouldn’t let go of my only weapon.
Markel’s hot breath was on my ear.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
He turned me around pinning my arms to my side.
“My offer still stands.”
He then kissed me, opening my mouth with his lips and pouring his tongue into it. I froze, knowing the best reaction was none at all. Markel squeezed my arms, making me inhale in pain, but I was then stone once more. This angered him and his claws bore into my arms. I still refused to comply. Then my arms were cut open as he dragged his claws down them. This tie I couldn’t resist a scream.
“You foolish girl!” he hollered as I fell to the floor, my arms going limp. I spat on the floor in defiance.
“Do not make me force you!” he roared.
He picked me off of the ground again from behind breathing on my neck.
I didn’t waste a moment.
Markel sounded like he was choking as he should have been since my swored was thrust through his body at such an angle that had to be more painful than getting stabbed correctly. I felt warm blood on my hands.
“I’m sorry Donte.” I said quietly.
Then pulling my sword back and turning around not hesitating to begin slashing away at Markel. I kept coming left and right and he didn’t resist or fight back. I only stopped when he finally fell to the floor, defeated.
I stood breathing rapidly looking at what I’d just done. It was over.
“Not quite.”
Markel then stood in front of me.
“I’d have thought that, you, of all people would know that you couldn’t kill me, or my host, whoever they were.”
Markel’s eyes had changed and Donte’s now looked at me lovingly.
“Donte…I…” I began with tears in my eyes.
“Shh.” He said softly, covering my mouthwith one hand and running his fingers through my hair with the other.
“I’ve found what I was looking for.”
All this time I had never understood what he had been looking for, but now it was clearer than anything in his eyes.
Donte pulled me closer to him, kissing my head softly. The only thing I could do was hug him back as I began to cry, understanding everything.
“I love you too…” I whispered.
He sighed for a moment as if relieved; he then turned and stepped a good distance away from me.
“Michael, now!” he called.
I turned and looked at Michael who was laying on the ground with a knife hovering in the direction of his chest.
Before I could react Michael drove the blade through his heart.
“No!” I yelled with an earsplitting scream.
In an instant my world was gone. He lay, a bloody heap on the ground, almost as if he were in the deep sleep I had seen him in so many times before, but he wouldn’t be waking up this time.
Markel’s body was on its knees, shaking and changing form. The waves of power were flowing again and the building’s roof was finally beginning to come down.
I felt so weak from the shock that I couldn’t get myself to move even if I had wanted to.
This couldn’t be happening, could it?
You would think that I wouldn’t have any tears left in me, and yet I was crying again.
“Go! Get out of here!”
I didn’t know whose voice and it was at the point I didn’t have the mind to care, but I did what it said. I had to practically drag myself out, having no more energy.
The sky was a soft gray as dawn began to approach. Even with this castle crashing down behind me. I was still able to notice the one star remaining in the sky.
I kept walking straight toward the forest and into the black mist. The grass on the ground crunched under my feet and the trees loomed over me like obelisks. The fog turned a cool gray color as the sun came up and I still wasn’t able to see anything five feet in front of me.
I was alone and I knew that there would ever be a time where I didn’t feel alone again. All that I loved, that really mattered in this world was now gone. I was the only survivor of this event that could remember. I was all that was left of a vicious war.
The mist was beginning to thin and I could see clearer, but I was starting to feel too exhausted to continue.
I came along a tree that I decided to sit against. I got myself down to the ground, shivering as the now wet grass met my skin.
I closed my eyes and I saw only one thing. Michael’s face. I threw my eyes open again, tears streaming out of them again. I couldn’t handle that right now.
I sat there staring at the ground for a long time, not thinking, now too numb to feel and hardly breathing. I was completely unaware of anything else around me until I heard it.
My whistle was echoing through the trees. I didn’t react. I knew it had to be a hallucination. I tried to ignore it, but it kept growing louder, wherever the sound was coming from it was getting closer.
There were footsteps now, coming from the direction of the ruined castle. I stood up against the tree trying to prepare myself for whomever or whatever it was. A figure was becoming clearer through the mist. It was tall, definitely bigger than me. I paid closer attention to how the figure walked and I froze in disbelief. They were walking like Michael.
Michael was dead. It couldn’t be him, could it?
Sure enough, Michael Dotson walked out of the mist looking as perfect as an angel.
If he was here unharmed and majestic then I had to have died. It was the only logical explination. So he was coming for me. Maybe being dead wouldn’t be so bad if he was with me.
My heart pounded in my chest as Michael came closer. My upper arms hurt and warm blood ran down them.
Wait. Dead people’s hearts don’t beat, their blood isn’t warm either.
Michael stood in front of me now smiling as if everything was all right. I didn’t understand what was happening, nothing made sense. Even when he spoke to me it didn’t click.
“You did it. It’s over.” His voice was so clear, so real.
“Markel is dead, you’re free.”
I continued to stare at him in disbelief.
His expression dropped slightly.
“Nicole, are you okay? It’s me, Michael.” He scanned my body. “Are you hurt?” His eyes rested on one of my injured arms. They looked back at my face, confused.
Michael was about to speak again, but I reached out with my hand toward his face. I was able to touch it. It was real. He was here. He was alive. He was wiping the tears off of my face before I even noticed them there.
“Michael?” I choked out.
“Yeah…” he smiled.
“You’re…we’re…”
“Yes, we’re alive.” He said stressfully. “Now let’s get your arms bandaged. You’re bleeding pretty badly.”
I didn’t hear his last sentence because I was laughing in relief, feeling his hair, his eyes, his nose, his lips. He kissed my fingertips as the moved over his mouth.
“How are you alive? I saw you-” Michael cut me off.
“Donte gave what remaining power he had to save me.” He replied respectfully.
“I’m going to miss him.” I said softly.
“Me too.” Michael’s voice was even softer.
Even though Donte was gone, everything was back to normal. We were together, and that’s how it was supposed to be.
Michael and I were side by side on the bed in our room. Michael had his arm wrapped around me and I had my head on his chest. His finger gently traced my bandaged arm and I was breathing softly.
Suddenly, Michael moved, jumping out of the bed. My head hit the pillow and then I sat up watching him curiously. He returned a moment later with something in his hands. He crawled back on the bed kneeling in front of me. Whatever was in his hand was now hidden between his legs. He then took my hands in his.
“You know I love you more than life itself and always will, right?” he asked, his topaz eyes boring into mine.
I smiled, “Yes, I know.”
“Then, would you make this life worth living and marry me?”
Michael didn’t look his usual confident self when he asked me this and really, I hadn’t expected it. Regardless, I knew my answer.
“Yes.” I said, then began to laugh slightly. “Of course.”
He pulled out the ring, slipping it on my finger. I didn’t bother to look at it, I was too busy watching his face. He looked like he was trying to keep a straight expression, and having a hard time doing so.
“Good.” He answered matter-o-factly.
I raised my eyebrow curiously, “Yes?”
A menacing grin crossed his lips.
“It’s good because there was something I wanted to try.”
He reached out gently putting one hand behind my head, the other slowly pulling my legs out from under me. Then he was on top of me pushing me down softly. And as my head hit the pillow our lips met once again.
The End
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