Goddess Nemesis

CHAPTER ONE

Arlette

A scream of pain tears through me as my body collapses, dragging me down as if it no longer belongs to me, as if my will has been ripped away along with the air from my lungs. Blood stains me completely — warm, thick, чужa and yet unbearably real. I sob as I fall to my knees, and before I can stop myself, my trembling hand touches his face, soaked in his blood. His skin is losing its warmth. That is the first thing I notice. That is what breaks me.

I see May a few steps away from us, unconscious, motionless, detached from the chaos consuming everything. Her body lies twisted, as if the world abandoned her at the same moment it abandoned me. My vision blurs. My hands shake uncontrollably. I breathe fast, but wrong — painfully wrong. The oxygen no longer seems to reach my lungs; the faster I try to inhale, the more I feel like I’m suffocating.

Am I not breathing?

Is this part of some hallucination caused by lack of oxygen?

With blurred vision, I raise my hand in front of my eyes. It’s covered in blood. Red. Too much. I blink again and again, waiting for it to vanish, for my mind to betray me. Then I touch him once more. Nothing disappears. Nothing changes. My body keeps shaking, useless, out of control.

My soul burns. Not metaphorically — it is real fire consuming me from the inside out. I refuse to believe what I’m seeing. I refuse to accept that this moment exists, that it’s real, that it’s final.

“You can’t leave,” I scream, pressing my hand over the deep cut in his neck, applying pressure with desperate urgency, as if my skin could close what fate has already torn open.

But it’s too late.

Far too late.

His eyes don’t react. His chest doesn’t rise. His body no longer answers. The alpha’s guard surrounds us, forming a silent, rigid circle. They secure the scene as if it were a procedure, as if the most faithful, loyal man who ever existed hasn’t just died.

And I… I sob over his body.

It was because of me.

Why?

Why him? Why like this? Why now?

I don’t care about living. I don’t care about continuing. I had no plans, no clear dreams, no defined future. But he was there. Always. And if I don’t have you… what reason is there to live?

Who will guide me now?

Who will hold me together when everything falls apart?

Who will tell me the truth even when it hurts?

Hands touch me. Ginebra tries to pull me away, to say something, maybe to comfort me, maybe to do what’s expected. I see May being carried off, her body leaving my field of vision. I won’t allow it. I cling tighter to Mort’s body, as if letting go would confirm his death.

No.

I can’t let him go.

I sob uncontrollably, my crying turning into something broken, almost animal. Memories flood my mind without permission, crashing into one another. Mort pushing my swing when I was a child, laughing as I begged him to go higher. Mort clumsily brushing my hair, pulling too hard, apologizing afterward. Mort dancing with me in the living room, no music, just to make me laugh.

Mort laughing when my love life went wrong, saying those idiots didn’t know what they were losing. Mort comforting me even when he knew my tears had no clear reason, when even I didn’t understand why it hurt. And somehow, that only made my frustration grow.

I swallow hard, resting my head against my chest, as if I could contain the pain that way. But you can’t contain something that shatters you from the inside.

I told him so many times that I felt inhuman. That I didn’t feel like others did. That my emotions were distant, muted, incomplete. I begged again and again to feel something real, something genuine — even if it was pain. Even if it was sorrow. Even if it was truly crying.

And now…

Now it hurts.

It hurts more than I ever imagined.

“This is the first time I feel pain, Mort,” I sob, my voice broken, barely audible. “The first time my soul hurts. The first time I feel like a being with real emotions. The first time my tears fall and I can’t stop them.”

I clench my teeth, my nails digging into my skin. I want to scream until my voice is gone, until my throat breaks. I want someone to tell me this is a cruel joke, to wake me up, to tell me none of this happened.

But no one does.

The world keeps turning, indifferent to my tragedy.

The blood begins to dry on my hands, and that absurd detail hits me harder than any wound. Blood dries because there’s no life left to keep it warm. Because time moves forward even when I’m trapped here.

“It wasn’t your time,” I whisper. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not because of me.”

But it was.

It was always because of me.

And the guilt settles in my chest like a stone I can’t move. Because I’m still here. Breathing. Living. Feeling. And he isn’t.

My first real pain arrives in the cruelest way possible. Not as a gentle lesson, not as a soft awakening, but as an irreparable loss. As punishment for ever wanting to feel.

Now I feel.

And I don’t want to.

Author's Note: I hope you are liking the story and please don't forget to comment to let me know how you feel about this new story and every day upload longer chapters if you like it, your opinion is important to Author's note: I hope you are liking the story and please don't forget to comment to let me know how you feel about this new story and every day upload longer chapters if you like it, your opinion is important to My, In the following chapters we will see the relationship that Arlette had with the herd because of her caretaker.