Hellbound With You

"I can't show you my face because then, you would find out that I am a girl. And once that happens, I couldn't possibly be next to you anymore." Eris said as she talked to herself in the mirror. A lone tear fell from the corner of her eyes, but she quickly wiped it away as though she did not even want the mirror to be witness to her weakness. "Ah, why am I crying? Is it because I feel like that what you have been talking about – the day when the person I like will look at me too – will never happen?"

Eris looked at herself in the mirror and took a deep breath. "I know… I always feel like he will never be mine in this lifetime. But that's alright. Maybe I can have him in another lifetime, right?" a sad and wilted smile wavered over her small face.

Iryz could not believe what she was seeing and hearing. What was Eris? Was she actually her? Could she be Eris's reincarnation?

She had heard from her grandmother a lot about the topic of reincarnation. Diana always told her that even if one dies, they will have the chance to be reborn again. It seems that there was this wheel of reincarnation that all souls of the dead would be drawn into for that to happen. And aside from her grandmother's words, Iryz had also read about reincarnation in many books she had found in the library in her own home. Does this mean that she was seeing her past life?!

Her heartbeat kept drumming fast and hard within her ribcage. This was the only explanation she could think of. This was the only explanation that made sense! What else would explain why she was seeing this piece of memory? How would it have anything to do with her if she was not Eris's reincarnation?

For some reason, she could not bring herself to believe that this was nothing but a dream or a fake illusion. No matter how much she tried to tell herself, a part of her refuse to calm down and listen to her common sense that was trying to rationalise things out. Maybe because with all the things that she had been experiencing and seeing in the past few days since Zeres came, it does not feel that unbelievable anymore for all these things to actually be considered real. It was like for her, the lines between reality and fantasy had already been blurred.

But the more she began to accept that Eris was her past self, the more ache she began to feel for the girl. She knew that Zeres was an ancient being. This meant that she was in love with Zeres even in her past life as well? And just like how things were going on now, Zeres was… he was in love with someone else and all she could do was hope that he would turn around to look at her.

Iryz's throat stung so badly as she looked at Eris in the mirror. She looked so sad standing there alone. And to think that she had been disguising as a boy for years to… just so that she could be with him. That was just… so sad and unfair!

"You're crying again?" A voice echoed out suddenly. Iryz jumped in shock as there had been no one else there. As she scanned around, she saw a little to the left, there was a dark silhouette that was approaching Eris. That voice belonged to an elderly witch.

"I'm not crying, grandma." Eris replied.

"Yes, you are, sweetheart." The old lady sighed out tiredly. It seemed that the elderly witch was used to seeing Eris cry like this before. "I think it's time for you to stop disguising yourself like that. You're not making things any better for yourself."

"But if I stop, I won't be able to see him again, grandma! I will be stuck with the rest of my peers learning about spells and everything so basic when all I want is to get out there, learn how to fight and do more adventurous things."

"Are you sure you really want that? Or is this all because of that person you like?"

"Grandma I… he saved me. I would've long been dead in the hands of those vampires if he had not saved me. So I'm trying to stay by his side because he's a silver-haired witch and the Queen does not even care about him. Everyone is trying to protect the queen, but she doesn't even give her own son a guard despite knowing that vampires are after him too."

"So you are volunteering to act as his bodyguard instead, am I right?" Eris's grandma questioned.

Eris was silenced. "I am just returning a favour. And he's a good friend to me until now, grandmother. I've enjoyed all the nights I've spent together with him. Even if it was just only accompanying him as a friend."

The old lady sighed. "Alright, I won't nag you about this anymore. However, I am still hoping that you'd stop all these disguises before it's too late."

Once the old lady left the room, Iryz fixed her gaze on Eris. It was then that she realized that there were scars all over her slim body. There was also a huge scary scar on her abdomen, her shoulder and her left thigh. Iryz felt her heart squeeze tight just by looking at them. Those must have hurt so much when Eris was still wounded. She wondered how she got all those awful scars.

And time seemed to flash forward once again. Judging from the changes in Eris' appearance including the length of her hair that was really short during the first time she saw her, it seemed that a long time has already passed as her hair now was longer and gone way past her midback. She even seemed to have matured a little.

"What's wrong Eris? You didn't get to see him again tonight as well?" her grandma asked in a kind voice.

Eris nodded, her face looking down gloomily. "Grandma… I think I won't be able to see him again."