The Sight Beyond The Haze

Chapter 26: Out of Control

My eyes widened slightly, even both of my brows raised as my lips opened a bit.

It was unlike of Deo to act or decide rashly on anything. I have always noted of how their move was refined and well-thought. There has always been a certain grace and finality on how they move. Now that Deo said that, I was really too shocked and surprised.

"Yes," I responded almost immediately and turned to the man behind me, there was a looming presence with Sir Apollyon as though he wanted to tackle me and drag me to the faculty office, "Sir?"

It took him a moment to say something, to respond to me like it also stunned him.

"What is it, Miss Griyego?" There was a contained fury within those three words, but it was restrained and anyone who will listen to that can hear the strain.

"I'm sorry, but can I help you some other time?" I asked him, and Deo was looking at him expectantly. "I think we should..." my voice faded and I gestured at Deo or Caspian.

"Yes," Deo responded, nodding their head at me, "we should talk about clothes and things..." There was a great question mark on Deo's face and I think he does not know anything else about prom. Deo cleared their throat and motioned to me. "Shall we go?"

I looked behind me, at Sir Apollyon with his restrained fury towards us, but he just nodded and smiled. He waved at us as Deo gripped my hand, and though Deo was wearing someone else's faces, I still as though they were the same.

"What is it?" I asked them as soon as we got out. I looked behind us, but Zachriel and the others have gone ahead.

"Nothing," Deo said.

But I felt that it was not nothing.

"But where is Caspian?" I looked around us, feeling odd and queer that we could be strolling along the Amitiel just like this. "I thought at first, it was Caspian, when I saw you, then it turned out it is... you."

My brows knitted, a frown touching my face slightly. Deo, for the first time, was not paying attention to me. Instead, he was looking at each doors that we were passing. I held on to their hand.

"Deo?" I asked, uncertainty laced with my voice deeply. "Deo? Is... is everything fine?"

They did not answer me right away, though their forehead also furrowed, a deep frown touching their face. Their eyes that a brilliant hazel brown shade, Caspian's original eye color, had turned into a sharp steel gray color. They were darting from every sides of the hallway as we went deeper as though there might be something that wiuld dart towards us unexpectedly.

"Are... are you alright, Deo?" I asked again, but, out of nowhere and so abrupt it was that it took me a while to recover and react, Deo had pulled me into one of the doors.

I was anticipating just one of the lecture rooms of the classroom wing of the building. Unexpectedly, Deo's door had returned us to the garden that we both practiced on. The golden light butterflies were all waiting for us, and behind me was Deo. They were already closing the dilapidated door without any marks of being inside the classroom.

"Pardon me for my ignorance of your inquiries," they immediately said. When they turned to me, it was not Caspian's face that welcomed me but rather Deo's usual white mask, both of the ends were pointing downwards indicating of something bad was amidst. "But I was looking for a perfect gateway. All of the doors and paths that lead to the academy have been blocked."

"Blocked?" I asked them incredulously. "What do you mean by blocked?"

"This place is not safe any longer," Deo said hastily, "you must go."

My frown deepened at Deo's statement. For the first time, Deo looked as though they were panicking and for what, I honestly do not have any idea.

"Go?" my voice echoed unconsciously. "Go where? Why must I go? Deo, you're not... you're not really making sense. What is it? Tell me."

"Anywhere, Seraphim," they responded, "not here. This place is not safe any longer. Their patience is at its limit."

I looked at them— incredulously, speechless of their panic and not understanding a thing. It was probably the very first time I have seen them like this.

"I thought it is my choice," I remined them, I gripped their hand, "I thought it is my choice?" A statement that had turned into a question. It was just that Deo made me confused, all of it became tumble and stutter, not the eloquent and straight path that they made me walked on. "That I deserve to know myself?"

"That was back when you still has a choice," Deo snapped back at me, their billowing robes were being swayed by the wind, "that was back when your life is still not in any danger yet."

"I have... I have..." I stopped myself and took a deep breath. I was stuttering, and I was starting to panic because of Deo's own panic. "I have things here that I cannot just leave behind. What about Amara?"

"She's not your real mother," Deo said rapidly, "I thought you already gathered as much?"

I took a deep breath again.

Their tone was too sharp, I was not accustomed to it. I was not used to Deo like this. I want to go back.

But I do not know where to go.

Was there somewhere, anywhere, I could still return from? Somewhere I could still go?

"Mr. Tharraleos," I countered at Deo.

"He has already done enough meddling," they answered to me, the hand that I was gripping suddenly gripped mine. It was not harsh, but I could feel the strange firmness on it. "We both have," they added with reluctance, almost as though it was only for themselves and not me.

"I want to go on my own accord," I told them, "not like I was running away from who knows what. I..." I looked around helplessly. "I want to know. Explain it to me, unburden yourself. I can take it. You said so yourself that I have become stronger. Why won't you tell me anything? Why?"

Even in my own ears, I was begging them to explain and it was very pathetic of me, I was very much aware of that.

Deo pulled their hand away from my grip and I felt as though they became farther from my reach though it was only just a bit distance. I could feel their guards up, the walls that weren't used to be there were suddenly raised high that I could not see them.

I could not see them any longer.

"Because your whole life is in danger!" Deo told me, it was not an exactly shout but I felt my hair stood and a shiver passed on my body. "Is that not enough!"

"We should probably talk about this when you are not feeling panicked," I advised and slowly walked to the door.

I was panicked too.

I did not know how to respond to Deo's harshness and the coldness that has never been really directed to me.

"Do not go," Deo called out to me.

When I thought that they did not want me to actually go, they added something else to their statement. There was a pang of disappointment and I felt myself frown, showing the slightest of emotion on my usual neutral expression.

Deo did not looked at me.

In a snap, we both could not bear to look at each other.

"Do not go with just anyone," they said, "earlier, you almost went with the teacher. Do not ever do that stunt again."

"Is that all?" I demanded at them, I was already facing the door; my back was in front of them and I want them to stop me from going. I want Deo to finally tell me, not to keep me in the dark. "Is that all you want to say?"

I have never acted like this.

I was angered that Deo would not tell me anything. I was angered that Deo would not even look at me. It was as though they do not trust me.

Light butterflies flew towards my side, comforting me and seemingly feeling that we have a quarrel. I reached my fingers to touch them, longing for their familiarity but the wind flew and when I finally looked back, Deo was no longer there.

"Coward!" I screamed though they probably could not hear the disappointment and wrath laced within my voice.

I have never been this frustrated in my whole life.

At night, without Deo to calm me down, the dreams just ruthlessly attacked my mind. They came in battalion or maybe a cold shower even within a dream. Their brutality wake me up every hour or so.

I screamed and tore at my hair.

I screamed and tears flowed down.

I screamed and screamed, but they did not come to my side like they always did from before.

My arms, my legs, and even my very core were too cold facing those nightmares alone.

The faces of the personas I have seen from before— all bloodied and dying were still there. They were asking me the same question.

"How real are you?" they asked me and I just wanted to get away, but I get buried everytime I tried to get out. It was a pattern and when I woke up from the choking feeling, the suffocating sensation of being buried, I could not help but whimper and blank out.

And I would fell asleep again, the night was ruthlessly long and lonely. So dark it was that even I could not hope for the sun to come any sooner. It was as though I was in a very deep void and I was drowning with memories of the past that only now I could recollect.

In those dreams, nightmares or past memories I could not really tell and differentiate any longer which was which, when I met any of the people over there, they woud always call me with another name.

"Seraph!"

"Serafin!"

"Phinny!"

"Fleur!"

It was a blur of everything mixed into one and it was making me crazy.

"Seraphin?" a low voice called to me, and I was suddenly pulled out of the piled up bodies of people that looked exactly like me, different personas from different stages of my life.

Now, I finally knew what they were to me.

They looked similar, but their voices were not and even their vices were not. They acted differently but they were still me, hidden beneath all of those fake memories. They were created, but I still do not understand why and for what reason.

Not even Deo would tell me what those different versions of me were for.

I felt something clicked on my neck as I felt a vertigo coming on to my head. It was not painful, maybe it was just a little disorienting. When I looked back, the same gentleman from my other dreams appeared. He was quite handsome and I felt myself blushing despite the evident age of the man who must be at least twenty years older than I was.

His hair was white, but it was not from old age, but actually just its natural shade of pigment of his hair. The face that was quite familiar to my sight was also wearing a gentle expression, it was calming and my nerves that were tense and stiff loosened for a fraction.

"What are you doing here?" he asked mildly to me, his hand was still gently laid on my little shoulder.

He was the same person whom I saw with the woman who resembled me just a bit.

"Caspian chased me over," I said in a little voice, the exact one that could have take after a kid, maybe I was a child again. "I think... I think, I got lost? I don't know how to to get back, Uncle Zachariel."

My breathing hitched abruptly, it was so abrupt that it was actually painful on the chest as though I just experienced a mild stroke. There was one thought inside my head and I do not know if that a coincidence.

The warmth glow that was too familiar. The shape of this man's face. His wordings and how his tone was too similar to that someone who had also terrorized me within my own dreams. Though their countenance was quite different, one has a light shadow all over his face while the other one was a whole world different, there was still that same expression on their faces.

Zachariel.

Zachriel.

Was it just a coincidence? Could it really be? Should I shrug this man's familiarity? And what was his connection to me or to that woman who looked similar to me except for her complexion? Dad, I remember from the dream with the same characters. That Zachriel called someone as dad and my head instinctively turned to where a man and a woman were inside the room, intimate and holding each other's hands.

"Come on, Fleur," the man said gently, a hand was already laid out in front of me, "come, Fleur."

"Come on, Fleur."

"Fleur."

And it kept on being repeated. Over and over again.

"Shut up!" I roared at them and I felt something tear inside my mind as though it was finally unfolding, every string that was holding my sanity had been snapped ruthlessly.

It was my will to do it and my mind was suddenly flooded with memories, sometimes irrelevant and maybe even insignificant, and sometimes, they do not make any sense at all.

They came in fragments. Quite finished, but with the most important parts still missing.

It was very similar to how each part of the puzzle was relevant to see the whole picture. With only fragments, even how many they were, if they do not exceed the number to make the puzzle more sense, then it was only useless and for naught.

"We will make her the way we want her to be," I heard someone say and my hand were tied. I could not move, though I was trying to break free. "Her Fate is final, and everything that is left to do is to make certain that her steps will lead her right to the correct path."

I saw them.

That Lady Alaric, her obsidian black eyes were ruthless as they were directed at me who was lying on a bed. I shivered from under her gaze. It was ruthless and ruthless, but I could not avoid it and the blurred sight of my eyes.

I saw them.

That Zachariel who has the same familiarity of Zachriel's without having the same face. His blond hair was long and he was also looking at me, the gentleness that I thought was there had now faded into coldness.

I saw them.

Zachriel, on top of my head, holding the two golden sticks pocking at the suspending silver thing atop my head, it was glowing and it was bright. He was not looking at me, but at both of the adults inside.

"But what if something goes wrong?" Zachriel asked at them, even his voice held the youthfulness of a child. "What if I am not skilled enough to change her memories?"

"That is why you must be careful," Zachariel, the older man, told the younger boy, "her Fate had been sealed. Even with an invalid mind, her way is only one, but we must protect her. A puppet is easier to move rather than a free thinking soldier."

"You want me to weave on her mind false memories and create a different persona," Zachriel murmured, but I could hear them and there were tears in my mind. "Yes, I understand."

How could you?

That was what I asked him in my mind.

How could you?

And I kept repeating it over and over in my head as though they would actually hear what was going inside the head whose memories they want to alter.

"Hhmmpphh—!" I growled at them all, but my lips were sealed with a cloth and I could hardly breathe. There was that suffocating sense again, the feeling of being in a chokehold and that something was being forced down the throat. I was winded and I wanted to breathe, but I could not.

I was not able to.

"Hmmpphh!" I repeated, but their eyes looked at me as though I was not just a little girl.

The words that have been said imbedded their meaning to me. That I was only a puppet needing of being manipulated and controlled. The lady pulled the cloth from my mouth and when I thought that I would cry out of anger, I could only beg to them not to proceed. Even within the child's mind on this particular memory, I knew what was going to happen.

Do they not care about me at all?

How could they be so cruel?

"Mother," I panted, "mother, please, don't."

There were resentment and hope, both were conflicting forces, within the child's voice which came from myself. Resentment for being so cruel and doing me wrong. Hope for holding out to the hope they would show mercy to the little girl that had been me.

"Fleur," my mother said, her black eyes were the same mine. They were so black that I could not tell what expression she held. If there was really cruelty within them, or if whether she does not want to do this me too. "Your father have failed. Now, it's your turn."

"This is for you too, Fleur," Zachariel said, and, for a moment, I thought I heard the remnant of his gentle voice until it turned back to its almost mechanical voice. Not caring the slightest, and he still held those needles on his hand, determined to continue with his task and mission. "For Eirini."

For Eirini.