The Claiming of Isabelle

One: Dreams

Chapter 1

Manila, 2019

That blasted dream again!

I opened my eyes and slowly exhaled to calm my erratic heart. I rubbed the goose bumps off my arms as I tried to dissipate the lingering fragments of my dream. That was excruciatingly more vivid than the previous ones. It felt more real – the chilling coldness of the pool, the scorching heat of their embrace, the eerie sound of their moans amidst the unnatural stillness of the cave, and the musky smell of s*x and sin.

Heaving a very irritated sigh, I got off my bed and silently padded across my studio apartment straight towards my unfinished canvass. This won’t do at all. I promised not to work on my art at such an ungodly hour but I need to pour out the unnerving images - those I failed to drive away - out of my already chaotic mind. It wouldn’t let me get back to sleep, anyway.

It had been like this every night for two weeks now – waking up at three in the bloody morning, panting, disoriented, and confused. I would close my eyes but the shadows casted by the cavorting lovers’ undulating figure would haunt me. Each image would dance through my closed lid like some old-school microfilm. Trying to not think about it would leave me drained beyond reason and nothing could save my poor overworked brain but painting. Painting them, trying to capture every sliver of light and shades of darkness from that blasted cave, was the only way to attain my much needed reprieve.

Defeated to another night of restlessness, I picked up my brush and palette from the small circular table just beside the canvass. I stared at my stuff for a while, scrutinizing the parts I’ve already finished and comparing it to the new details I’ve acquired from my latest dream.

The gloominess of the cave with its hovering shadows was the same as my dream. So as the unnaturally big and round moon shining just above a hole bathing the pool with eerie glow. Transferring my gaze at the half-finished dark angel, specifically at his magnificent wings, I realized that his wings shouldn’t be entirely black. There should be specks of immaculately glowing white dotted with gray – some gray lighter, some darker. And in each touch, each lingering kiss, and each forceful thrust, those grays turned to black darker than midnight. I mixed the white and black to get my preferred shade of gray to start painting. Meticulously drawing each feather, I let the task transport me into my own little world, not minding the sleeping city below. My hand moved across the canvass in a trance-like state. I was so absorbed in each brush stroke that only the shrilling sound of my mobile phone penetrated my own bubble.

Scrambling to my feet, I rummaged through my unmade bed for the offending phone, until I found it furiously vibrating in between the pillows and crumpled sheet. I cursed silently when I saw who was calling and what the time was.

“Hello,” I answered.

“Hey,” a deep manly voice greeted. I could hear keyboard tapping on the background. He’s probably trapped again on his desk - working on some boring merger, acquisition, or whatnot. “Did I wake you up?”

“Not really,” I grumbled, “been awake for a couple of hours now. Four, maybe? ”

“Can’t sleep again? Is something bothering you, Lizzie?”

I shrugged, burying myself more in the sheets. “It’s just… my mind has been too active recently.”

The tapping from the other line stopped. I could imagine him removing his rectangular glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Is this because of your dreams again?”

“How did you know about that?” I sat up, surprised. I never told Alex anything about my dreams. It somehow felt awkward telling my boyfriend of two years the sordid details of it – not the dark angel nor their tryst.

“I nagged Sari about it,” he confessed. “It was so hard to deal with your best friend, Liz. I couldn’t bribe her with anything. She kept on evading the topic. The only thing that I could do was guilt trip her into talking. I told her that it was affecting you more than you let on.”

“Alex!”

“I know I promised. But you also promised to be honest with me. I respect that you have secrets with Sari and I shouldn’t meddle with it. But for things that’s bothering you like this,” he said in a very tired tone. “You promised that I would know.”

I fiddled on the hem of my tattered sleep shirt. Curse that stupid dream for ruining my sleep and now even my relationship.

I heard Alex sigh again when I didn’t respond. "Would you like me to go there now?" he said.

"No!" I answered, alarmed. He is miles away in Los Angeles. He can’t just fly across because of my silly dreams. I closed my eyes and suppressed another groan. Besides, what could he do? It's not as if he can make all my bad dreams go away - I'm no longer a child to believe that. “I’m fine, Alex. I know you’re busy. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I knew you would say that,” he said. “So I asked Sari to check on you instead.”

“There’s really no need for that. You know how busy she is.”

“But she’s worried as I am!”

“And who’s fault was that?” I grumbled. “Really, Alex, I’m fine. This is just one of my artistic eccentricities” - as he would always call it – “don’t be so over dramatic like Sa-“ I stopped at the buzz of my door.

“Well, I guess she’s already there?” Alex shrugged. The door buzzed again. “I better hang up now. Say sorry to her for me.”

“Fine! And stop guilt-tripping my best friend against me!” I exclaimed before I haphazardly threw my phone on my pillows again.

The bell buzzed for the third time.

I got up, padded across the room for my door, while picking up some of the magazines lying on the floor. “Jeez! You are one impatient girl, Sari!” I mumbled while opening the door.

But it was not Sari. Standing on my doorway was not my petite best friend but a tall, lanky man. He was wearing a black hoodie, with his hands hidden on the pockets of his black artistically-tattered jeans. His face, framed by hard angular jaw, was hidden with the shadow casted by his baseball cap that only his seemingly soft red lips were seen.

“Yes?” I nervously asked. There was something about him that sent me panicking.

The tall man took off his baseball cap and looked at me, giving me the full view of his aquiline nose and eyes, so unique in its color of molten gold.

I gasped.

The man with the molten gold eyes slowly smirked. His smirk transported me back to my dreams – the very first one – when I was mesmerized on how tragically beautiful yet pain-stricken the simple lift of his lips was.

It was him!

The man stepped forward and raised his arm as if to reach out to me. His curved into another smirk before opening to utter something – maybe to call my name, maybe to say his, or maybe something else, I don’t know…

Panic engulfed me; I hysterically shut the door.

--

“You what!” Taking the tea I was offering, Sari shouted with a very incredulous tone. How ill-mannered of me to shut the door at an evil-looking stranger.

“I panicked okay!” I defended myself. I flopped down my very comfortable bean bag, I dragged opposite the bed where my best friend was sitting. “I was terrified.”

Sari arrived just over an hour ago. I didn’t let her in at first because of how scared I was that it might be the same man again. In the end, she called Alex to call me. She didn’t buy my alibi to Alex that I fell asleep – there were muted sounds from my unit. So I had to tell her about my encounter with him.

“Terrified?” Sari laughed. She tried to put her tea cup on my bedside table but it was full of small stuff I collected that she decided just to hold it. I watched he walk toward my unfinished canvass which I haphazardly covered with my blanket. She carefully uncovered it. “Why would you be terrified of such an angelic creature?” she said while pointing at the image of the dark angel.

“Who wouldn’t be?”

Sari just laughed. She placed her tea cup on the small table beside my canvass and went back to my bed. “Only you, Lizzie.” She primly sat down my now neatly arranged bed – first thing she did upon arriving. “If my fantasy came to life, I’d let him do me.”

“Sariel!” Scandalized at my best friend’s answer, I walked back to my canvass and cover it up. The image of the dark angel in my dreams – sweat dripping, muscles ripping – played in my now tainted mind. I immediately threw the innocent blanket at it that it almost toppled the easel stand. “Stop it. Okay?”

“What?” Sari shrugged. “Maybe this is the answer to you problem. One night with him then maybe your dreams would go away.”

“Sari! I have a boyfriend,” I reminded her. “Your cousin, remember?”

“A third cousin and I don’t know how many times removed. Far enough that I could sleep with him and not call it incest. But I won’t. Because, one: you’re my best friend; and, two: I don’t do virgins. I can’t believe he’s such a prude and you haven’t done it yet. You’ve been together for two years and he haven’t even kissed you yet! Those achingly gross forehead kisses are not counted, Elizabeth. You are not our grand mother!

But I digressed. All I’m saying is… Maybe you are dreaming of it over and over again because of your pent up desire for Alex which he would never fulfill until you two get married or you effectively get him drunk and jump on him. Both of which are not happening in the near future so the next best thing destiny could give you is a stranger who eerily looked like your painting. Or…” Sari paused as if to emphasize her next theory. “You are the reincarnation of that runaway maiden and that stranger is the dark angel. He is here to collect your soul as you have promised.”

Like a deer caught on headlight, I looked at Sari. Dread sipped through me as my world tipped, spiraling out of control along with long forgotten memories I never wished to unravel.

"I will claim your soul in exchange of his. I'll grant you a lifetime with him just give me your eternity."

“But I think the first one is more plausible,” Sari shrugged, oblivious to the internal battle that was happening within me. “Did you get his name before you rudely slammed the door at his face?”

“Samael…” I uttered his name in awe and in fear. The weight of our two hundred years old promise came crushing down on me.

He is back.

Samael, the dark angel of Isabelle, her past lover and my death...

The ancient goddess must have been furious with Isabelle when they defiled her sacred sanctuary. The Angel of Death must have been her punishment. That twilight, Isabelle submitted to Samael. In an act of wavering belief to the ancient goddess, she had submitted herself to Samael for a promise of life. Two hundred years later, I, Elizabeth Langford will pray the price.

--

Or do I drag you down to my dark haven?

Be cursed in darkness, locked in endless slumber

Make you remember you are mine forever

I have claimed your soul, have you forgotten?