Chapter 1

Seely

When you die, it’s not always a grand compilation of the greatest moments of your life.  

For me, it was just darkness that felt like being swaddled in the softest down comforter you’ve ever felt. Albeit, I was strapped down in that comforter, unable to move at all. That kind of sucked.  

The last thing I remember before surrendering into that darkness was Alyssa snuggling up to me. Her face was against my neck, and she was so warm.  

Good, I thought. If she’s warm, that means she’s alive. 

I felt myself smile a little.  

I’d almost lost her, and I would be damned before I let that happen. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid. Of course, she needed blood. Of course, she did. She was an Undead, and no one knew that better than me.  

But I guess, if I was really being honest with myself, I didn’t want to think about Alyssa being anything other than human. That was too hard for me to face.  

For most of my life, Alyssa was my constant. When she would come to visit the base with her father and we would explore the ancient halls together, I knew I never wanted to live my life without her. The day we found the tower was the day I asked her to marry me… we were twelve. Of course, she said yes, but that we needed to wait until we were at least eighteen before we could get married. 

Always the practical one.  

When I’d taken her to the tower a few days ago and she didn’t even remember it… I didn’t think my heart could ache more than it already did, but that damn near broke me completely. I was so afraid that my Alyssa was gone, but it was easy to hope that something would jog her memory and she would come back to me. But when I took her to our place and she still didn’t remember me or all those nights we spent watching the stars and… not watching the stars… I gave up hope of her coming to her senses on her own. Maybe even at all.  

But I watched her and spoke with her, and I realized she was still her. Alyssa was still Alyssa, no matter if she remembered me or not. I didn’t know if she would feel the same about me as she had before.  

But then she did. 

She’d kissed me when I told her about the accident. More than that, she’d basically tackled me. I promised myself I wasn’t going to initiate anything until she asked me to or unless she did, but I never really imagined that she would.  

And then there we were in that room at the AAUD, and she kissed me. And again, at the cabin earlier tonight… 

I’d almost let myself get carried away with her. I almost followed the lead that she was laying out in front of me. I let myself get lost in her and forget, for just a moment, that she didn’t know me anymore. Even though I knew her and everything about her, she didn’t know me. She didn’t remember the hours of conversations and the awkward phases we went through together.  

That thought was enough to drag me over the edge right there, and I didn’t have the energy to do that right now.  

Alyssa had taken a lot of blood, way more than she should have, and I was currently fighting the urge to let myself slip into that darkness that was clouding my vision. I felt so cold as I stared up at the stars of the night. 

I guess you could say my last thoughts were of Alyssa, which is some really mushy crap that I would have a hard time voicing to Dex or even Simon.  

At least you’re dead, I thought as I floated in that dark space, which means you won’t get the chance to tell them.  

Always looking on the bright side, that’s me.  

The darkness seemed to stretch on into endless nothingness. I could have been floating there for weeks or days or years or seconds; time didn’t mean anything in that space. I was surprised that I could still think about things like Alyssa and whether she would be okay. 

I hated the thought of dying and leaving her to fend for herself, but I also knew she would be okay on her own, whether or not she knew that herself. I meant what I said about happily dying for her, though I had to admit this was not a part of the plan.  

After a millennium of floating in nothing, I began to feel a strange heat. It was focused in my chest, and it felt like a pleasant warmth, like pride or contentment. I focused on that heat, and it felt strange to remember I used to be a person with a body and everything. I’d been nothingness for so long. 

That fire grew hotter, though, enough to where I started to panic just a little bit.  

There was something wrong, and I knew that, but I couldn’t grasp anything concrete enough to understand what was going on. It felt like I couldn’t open my eyes like the lids were glued together. 

But the burning intensified continually until it was becoming uncomfortable. I felt my disconnected body thrash and twitch, trying to get away from the pain. But I couldn’t. 

I thought I was already dead? Maybe this was hell. I said I would be damned before I let Alyssa die, so maybe this was just the cruel justice of it all.  

Maybe every horrible thing I’d done had finally caught up with me and I was getting my final punishment.  

But I had to say, hell sucked, and the heat in my chest only grew into a pain that I couldn’t even fathom, couldn’t even voice if I’d been able to open my mouth.  

I tried to breathe, but I was choking on the air.  

No, it wasn’t air, it was something thick that filled my nose and lungs and dulled what little senses I may have had left. I tried to scream, but the substance that was filling my nose and keeping my eyes closed was also stuck in my throat.  

I started clawing at the darkness around me with phantom limbs, and it was so thick that my arms could barely move through it. What felt like a comfortable blanket, in the beginning, had turned into a strait jacket, holding me down against my will.  

I had to get out of there, I had to get out of there, I had to get out of there.  

I was spiraling and panicking, and I couldn’t see an end to the darkness and the weight that continually pushed against me. That fire was still there, too, burning in the center of my chest. My senses were overwhelmed, and I knew that this was either going to be something that went on for eternity or something that caused my consciousness to finally fade completely.  

I still had a pretty good bet placed on this being hell.  

Pushing my hand up as hard as I could, I suddenly felt my fingers touch what seemed like open air. I wiggled them around a little bit, testing it out, and they weren’t pulled down by anything that felt like the darkness that surrounded me. I pressed towards that reprieve I felt on my fingers with everything I had, including all the strength I thought I’d already lost. 

I felt the darkness giving way with every push I made with my body. I was clawing at the darkness now, my limbs able to move more freely, and I fought for that feeling of freedom.  

I didn’t know what was going to be on the other side: maybe heaven? Hell? Just more nothing? 

More nothing would be preferable to whatever was churning in my chest at the moment. It didn’t feel so much like pain anymore, but it was still an uncomfortable heaviness that I didn’t remember having before I was in the darkness. Though, the darkness felt like it was everything to me then. It was all I had.  

I didn’t even have Alyssa in the black, empty nothing. 

I continued to push until I felt my head break through the invisible barrier. I thrust my body upwards and felt open air on my skin. Gasping, I rolled to the side and proceeded to hack up God knows what. Whatever had been choking and blinding me was now expelling itself from my body, and, let me tell you, it wasn’t a pretty sight.  

I hoped I was alone, wherever I was, but some people are just lucky enough to have all their nightmares come true at once.  

“Seely! Seely, oh my god.” 

Please, God, no, I thought to myself as I was retching, my eyes still blinded. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew that voice.  

Alyssa was here, and God knows this was probably the most disgusting and vulnerable situation I’d ever been in.    

I felt a hand on my back, and then on my forehead, moving my hair from where it was plastered to my face. Alyssa, at least that’s who I was assuming it was, was wiping at my eyes, and I realized the reason everything was so dark was because something was coating my eyelids. 

I’d risen to my knees in an attempt to dispel the junk in my throat, and I finally collapsed onto the ground in a heap, my heaves turned into nothing more than shallow coughs.  

“Seely?” 

I placed a hand over my eyes, preparing myself to open them. I didn’t know if I could speak. My throat felt so raw like I’d been gargling with razor blades and salt, and I didn’t know how to answer her.  

Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten into this situation.  

The last thing I remembered was feeding Alyssa my blood, her taking way too much, and then… nothing. The blackness. The darkness I was floating in when I’d thought I’d died. Obviously, that hadn’t happened because I was here, alive and breathing.  

So where did the junk I was hacking up and covered in come into play? 

“Seely, I’m…” Her voice was soft, and I thought maybe even a little scared. She was probably scared because I’d passed out in a mud puddle or something after she’d taken my blood. I braced myself to speak, to comfort her. 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.” 

I rubbed my eyes and cracked one of them open. I saw Alyssa sitting on the ground beside me, hugging her legs tightly to her chest.  

I’m not going to lie, she looked pretty awful.  

I mean, she’s always beautiful, of course, but I saw that she was covered in mud and dirt. Her dress was completely torn and tied together again at the side in a makeshift knot. Her hands were mangled and covered in what looked like a mixture of dirt and blood. She was clutching her fingers to her legs so tightly that I thought her knuckles were going to pop right out of the skin.  

I finally brought my eyes up to look at her face, and I immediately knew something was terribly wrong.  

“What happened, Gold?” My voice came out scratchy, matching my worn throat. I coughed lightly, trying to clear it again. “I mean, how did I get here covered in all of this…” I let my voice trail off as I looked at my hands and arms. I’d been wearing a suit jacket and dress shirt tonight, but now the jacket was gone, and the sleeves of the shirt were completely tattered and torn, practically up to the elbows. My skin was covered in a layer of mud. It was under my nails, and it clung to the scraps of my shirt.  

I turned my head to the left, where I’d rolled over from in the first place. 

There was a hole in the ground. 

I’d crawled out of a hole in the ground. 

I snapped my attention back to Alyssa. She was still staring at me, but she looked almost as scared as I had ever seen her.  

“I didn’t have a choice, Seely.” 

Her voice was a whisper, and her eyes fell from my face as if she was ashamed to meet my gaze. I didn’t want to let my mind go where it was going now. There was no way this was possible. 

Alyssa wouldn’t have done this to me. She wouldn’t take that choice away from me. I could not be an Undead. 

“I need you to tell me exactly what you’re trying to say, Alyssa,” I said, slowly. The words came through clenched teeth. “Because my mind is taking me to some very dangerous places that can’t possibly be real.” 

“You were dead.” 

That was all she said in answer. That I was dead… which was not an answer at all. Because I was pretty certain I was breathing and alive at that moment.  

“I was what?” 

I was feeling so groggy, and my brain wasn’t focusing right. I couldn’t process this the way I needed to. 

I heard Alyssa breathe in deeply. 

“You were dead because I killed you because I took too much of your blood, and then this hole opened up because I screamed and I buried you in it, and then Orthan showed up and the ground started swirling and he said something like ‘this is going to be fun’ and then you crawled out of the ground and you’re an Undead now.” 

Alyssa said all of that in one breath, and I looked at her to see that she was covering her face with both of her hands.  

I couldn’t process what she was saying. She killed me? She buried me? She turned me into an Undead? Also, Orthan was here?  

What the hell was happening? 

“Alyssa. This isn’t making any sense.” 

She groaned and dragged her hands down her face. Her hair was completely wild, and I thought it looked like it was floating in the air on some kind of invisible breeze.  

Alyssa turned her gaze to me, and her eyes were glowing. I didn’t think I would ever get used to that, the pure creepiness of it. I’m sorry, but it just was. Creepy. But she also looked so beautiful, with that mud coating her face and her eyes looking like the moon that was shining above us. I knew the eye thing only happened when she was trying her best to control that rage inside of her, and I guessed that was something that became amplified when she turned into an Undead. She was always hot-headed and full of rage at any given moment, but it was something different now. 

What would be amplified in me? Idiocy? Irrationality? Annoyance? That would be just my luck. 

“Why…” I started, not sure where to go next. How did I feel about this? I wasn’t really sure. I didn’t think it was sinking in.  

We sat there in silence, and I focused on keeping my breathing steady. It was helping me to clear my brain and sift through my thoughts and feelings.  

I’m an Undead. 

My breathing intensified. 

Alyssa killed me. 

I think I was starting to hyperventilate. 

Alyssa had turned me into an Undead.  

I felt a heat building in my chest, much like the feeling I had when I was buried in the dirt. Except this heat didn’t feel painful.  

It felt powerful. 

“Seely?” It was Alyssa’s voice that broke through my thoughts, again. That heat was only growing hotter, and I knew that if I let it, it would consume me completely. “How are you feeling?” 

How was I feeling? I laughed at that question. The sound was cold and bitter, and I thought I heard Alyssa take in a sharp breath.  

I hadn’t known until just then exactly how I was feeling, but now I did. It was as clear to me as that feeling growing from deep within.  

I was angry. 

“You’re asking me how I feel about being brought back to life as the one thing I’ve been trained to kill? You really want to know the answer to that?” 

I was suddenly standing before I’d decided to. I was standing over her where she was tucked into a tight ball on the ground. Her eyes were wide and terrified, and I noticed that they were just brown, with none of that golden glow that was present moments before. I’d scared the light out of her eyes, and there was only a small piece of my mind that cared about that detail.  

“Why didn’t you just let me die, Alyssa? What do you think this would possibly solve?” I balled my hands into fists as I stared down at her. She looked pitiful and small, and my stomach twisted slightly. But I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth. “Don’t you dare give me any of that crap about saving me for me? We both know you did this for you. My mother is dead, my father wants me dead, and now that I am dead, how do you think that helps us at all? Do you think our friends would help us at all now that we’re both these… these… things?”  

I practically spit out the last word, and I saw Alyssa wince slightly. I wasn’t done, not by a long shot, but I was trying my best not to say anything worse, anything I would completely regret later.  

“I wasn’t going to say that I did this for you.” Alyssa’s voice was soft and small, but I could hear the current of anger brewing underneath. “I was going to say that I did it because I couldn’t lose you, not like that. And yes, I know it was selfish and stupid and irrational and all of those things you’re thinking,” she stood as she spoke, and now she was standing directly in front of me. Her hands were in fists that matched mine and her head was tilted upward slightly to perfectly meet my gaze. There was something… sweet in the air around her. I realized, with a start, that I could smell her. Vanilla icing, I thought.  

I tried to be discreet as I breathed her in. Despite my anger, I just wanted to be closer to her. But she’d broken my trust. How could I feel the same about someone who had taken away my life and my choice? 

Alyssa’s eyes narrowed as she continued speaking. 

“You weren’t in my position, Seely, but I think you would have a harder time choosing than you think. I didn’t know if it would work. I didn’t know if it was too late. Either way, I had to try.” She shook her head, running her hands through her wild hair. “I couldn’t sit back and do nothing.” Her eyes met mine again, and they were wet with tears.  

“Well, you did plenty, didn’t you, Gold?” I snapped at her, stepping forward until our noses were practically touching. “You got your wish. I’m here. But the Alyssa I knew before all of this would have never decided this for me.” I watched her face fall at my words, and felt her anger sinking into sadness as I continued, but I couldn’t stop the anger that seeped out into my words now. “I thought you were still you. I thought we could still be us. But I was stupid. I don’t know you, and you sure as hell don’t know me. Whatever you thought we had, whatever feelings you thought you felt, that’s over.” I felt my heart physically crumbling at my own words, and I knew she had to be feeling it too. “We’re over, in every way imaginable.” 

I wish I could describe to you the way it feels when you officially lose the person you thought you needed the most. Not wanted but needed. The person who, if they were breathing, you knew that everything would be okay. The person who knew everything about you and accepted you anyway. The person who you only needed to glance at to bring your world back to its center.  

But there are no words to describe that kind of earth-shattering pain.  

There are no words to describe the expression on Alyssa’s face as the tears that were caught in her lashes finally fell down her face in thick, steady streams. I knew she was broken too. 

“I hope we’re not interrupting anything, but we should probably get you somewhere safer?” 

I whipped my head to the right and saw the source of the mysterious voice.  

Dexter was standing at the edge of the forest, just staring at us.