When she awoke in her bed, her vision was blurred, as if it were glazed over by a white sheet. Her body drifted through her house whilst her mind remained locked away, still caught somewhere between a dream and reality. It was as if she were watching herself from within her own mind, as if someone else sat behind her as they watched her, too.
She couldn’t feel anything. She couldn’t feel the grass beneath her feet as she stepped out of her house, she couldn’t feel the wind that whipped her hair around her face, and she couldn’t feel the cold water of the lake as she sank into its depths.
She wandered far into the centre, swimming the rest of the way when she could not touch the bottom. As she laid back in the water, facing the stars, she felt completely at peace. She did not notice the sky had disappeared from her view as the dark water engulfed her, her body gradually sinking to the bottom. She hardly even registered the burning in her lungs as she began to run out of air. All she felt was weightless, as that voice inside her head whispered the same thing over and over.
No more.
She would feel no more pain, no more loss, no more heartbreak. She would feel nothing.
No more.
She was so close to oblivion, so close to the darkness finally taking her, when a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the surface. She involuntarily coughed the water out of her lungs and thrashed against their grip as they swam her to the side of the lake with unnatural speed.
“Stop! Let me go! I need to go, I need to go back!”
No more.
Adriana screamed and tried to fight the attacker behind her as they hauled her out of the water and onto a wooden decking. Sheturned to try to see who it was, but before she could get a good look, her vision went black. They had blindfolded her.
She howled and wailed in pain as her mind urged her to go back to the lake, to go back to the nothingness. Her attacker threw her over their shoulder and carried her away as if she weighed nothing.
She kicked and clawed at them, but they were strong, and they held her in an unrelenting grip until she was thrown down on her back, the wind knocked out of her. She gasped for air, her body going limp momentarily at the impact, allowing her assailant to bind her hands above her head. She sobbed, begging them to let her go back, begging them to let her feel nothing.
She could hear them shouting at her, but she couldn’t make out a single word they were saying. All of her senses were completely dulled. Until she felt a warm mouth capture hers.
She tried to twist away at first, but two hands held her face firmly, forcing her to accept their bruising kiss. And then she realised she knew those lips, she knew those hands.
Adriana began to kiss back, her mouth opening when their tongue ran across her bottom lip, granting them access. She knew this person, she knew how they kissed.
“Xander?” she whispered against his mouth.
“I am here, sweetheart. I am right here.”
Adriana cried in relief at his soft, deep voice. Her vision slowly returned and her eyes began to adjust to the dimly lit room, settling on the man that hovered above her. A coldness stroked her cheek as the blindfold slid away from her. A shadow, she realised, just like the ones holding her wrists to the headboard of his bed.
Xander’s face was filled with worry as he pushed a damp strand of hair away from her face, his fingers softly running over the grazes on her face. She was confused, for a moment, as to why she was covered in scrapes and why they were both soakedthrough, when the memory of her dream and her hazed state caught up with her.
Lilith had got to her, and she had tried to make Adriana take her own life.
Adriana stilled as she came to the realisation; she felt embarrassed that her mind had been so fragile, so quickly broken. Lilith would have succeeded with ease had Xander not pulled her out of the lake. She would have died by her own hand because she was so weak against her own mind.
“Do not think that,” Xander answered her thoughts. “You are not weak, do not ever think that. I should have known she was watching through my eyes when I lost control last year, I should have known she was going to come for you. I am so sorry, my love.”
He pressed his forehead to hers and held a hand to her chest, feeling her beating heart as if to make sure she was still there. Adriana was glad for it, the weight of his hand feeling like the only thing anchoring her to the Land of the Living.
“I am sorry I could not reach you in time before you went under. When I saw you in the lake, I panicked. I got to you as soon as I could and dragged you out. I could see in your eyes that it wasn’t just you looking through them, so I had to cover them before she saw too much. And then you kept trying to hurt yourself, so…” He nodded to her hands tied to the headboard.
Adriana was speechless, she didn’t know what to say or how to feel. Her body and her mind had been taken from her and used like a puppet. She had enjoyed the feeling of death being so close, and she had hated Xander’s touch when he’d saved her. She didn’t know what was real or not. She felt disgusted, and she just wanted to feel alive again.
Xander diverted his attention to her hands, still bound by his shadows.
“Wait,” she whispered. “I need you to touch me, I need you to make me feel. I need to make sure I can, that I am still me.”
He held her face as he leant down to kiss her deeply, and she felt the familiar cold tingle in her mind as his thoughts reached out to her own. Xander understood. He understood the echoes of the emptiness she felt. He knew what it was like, that feeling of dread as you questioned if you’d ever be the same again after Lilith took control.
She kissed him back eagerly, as if drinking in the warmth of life from him to chase away the cold touch of death. He knelt between her legs, letting her feel his body flush against her as his hands explored. With every touch and every kiss, she slowly came back completely.
She felt her emotions come flooding in, and she allowed herself to feel every single one. She felt the pain and the panic from the dream, the bottomless pit of despair as she had walked into the lake, the anger that rose within her at the thought of Lilith entering her mind, the joy and love that overcame her as Xander brought her back.
