Bound; His Tempest, My Redemption

I was caught breathless, deafened by the honking sound of the car speeding in my direction.

I always thought I knew how I would end, but this isn't it.

Not now, not when everything is finally coming together.

Another wrong step, a step I shouldn’t have taken that dull sunless morning.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but mine didn’t, it was almost dark.

My heart beat tripled. No adrenaline rush, just the sweet whisper of death as my feet froze in place.

I bit hard on my lower lip and clenched desperately to my skirt in an attempt to get my legs to make a move, but it seems like motion lost its course.

Nothing moved, the clasping wind had stopped and there was barely any air left in my lungs.

“Come on!” I yelled in my head as tears flooded my eyes.

“Not now,” I finally mumbled, but choked on my words, burning the last part of my sentence down my throat.

I tried wetting my throat with some saliva, but I was barely human, the only water I felt was running down my face.

This wasn’t just death, it was something crueler and more intimidating than the man in a long black robe with hooks searching for souls.

The more I clung to life the more I felt it slipping away through my clenched fingers.

I bit harder on my lower lip and the salty taste of blood filled my mouth, reassuring me that I still had the chance to pull myself.

But hope was only a delusion. The most brutal part of my situation.

I felt my right foot moving, finally, something was working.

A hopeful smile crawled up my lips and air escaped my nostrils. I lifted my gaze but that was the last time I saw the real world.

The universe arrived with help and outstretched hands, just as everything slipped through my fingers.

I moved, but it was just too late to defeat time or stop the death racing towards me.

I didn’t hear the last part of Death’s song, but I felt it. The gruesome crash of the car that threw me into space and the pain that followed.

Now, I see them. The memories that have kept me going for the past twelve years, the reason I thought I could fight, the memories of those who didn’t see my uniqueness as taboo, the memories of my fight, my struggles, and finally the morning that would have made me a victor, but didn’t.

I thought I could finally smile or at least have a breath of freedom, but death had new plans marked out for me.

The noisy world went silent as darkness clouds the rest of my vision.

My whole body was numb and immobile, a space I didn't need air to breathe, my whole body seemed to be floating in nothing less.

Uncomfortable but soothing, dark but strangely welcoming. It feIt just like the little locker I often run into to shun the world.

“The afterlife….?” Not a voice, but something irks inside me.

I wasn’t expecting the afterlife to be this cold, but maybe……. my soul is lost in a world in between to float for eternity.

I tried forcing my eyes open, but nothing was responsive, I couldn’t control my body, the only part of me that could grasp the moment was my brain, a part of my thoughts.

“Am I…. dead? Am I…? My memories failed me, I couldn’t think of a possible explanation for the situation.

“Maybe not afterlife? Maybe my body is still in transition? Maybe I'm a weird kid after all? I have weird birthmarks like runes to begin with, and now, apparently I have a weird soul?” My head ached.

That crazy thought didn’t last for a second before a wet splash of something extremely cold hit my face and I was knocked out.

No pain, no sound, no smell, no time, I couldn’t even use my brain anymore.

A force greater than that of my presumed afterlife pulled me into a new heaven.

Then suddenly something deep, something more ancient than time, but eerily familiar curling up from the depth of my chest, feeding off my rune-like birthmarks and racing up my head, an energy so great and warm.

It came with so much more than it took, a feeling, a touch, a pull, and finally a calling.

I swallowed hard, but felt something watery rushing down my gullet. Then the voice came, calmly at first;

“Elysian,” A heart-bending silence came afterwards, but I still couldn’t open my eyes.

I had almost forgotten how my name sounded.

“Elysian…” The voice came in again blocking every other thought from finding ground in my head, but something pinched me off from answering.

“Elysian….!!” It almost knocked me in the face this time as my eyes blinked open, gasping for nothing but the sight of an almost nothing personality hanging over my lying body.

I tried screaming but I couldn’t, but my head banged, “The heck..!!”

“You held on longer than expected,” A spreadsheet-like smile appeared in front of me.

I tried to speak again, but I couldn’t, just thoughts, “Who are you…?” Though I was terrified, I couldn’t communicate with tongues, just thoughts.

“Just think of me as the one who caught you. You were supposed to fade away, but your fate clung tight to this world,” The voice whispered motherly this time.

“I don’t understand?” I stuttered in my head, my lips unable to move, my mind unraveling as the fading figure loomed above me.

“Not yet, your story isn’t over yet, you’re the answer to a great call,” She whispered again.

“What do you mean by my story..? ” I wailed in my head a thick lumps of tears formed in my eyes.

I haven't been the type to chase big dreams or have eyes for making a name, I just want to be comfortable and find a little happiness.

“Your life begins now, welcome to a world where your uniqueness is your personality,” She announced as she turned around showing me a view that took the whole air out of my lung leaving me to hang on the thread of path of life and death.

I saw some creatures that looked mysterious, I was too transfixed to take my eyes off them.

“Human..? No,” They weren’t human, they were something else.

I saw them transform. The change didn't come all at once, sharp cracks echoed in the air as their spine arched and bones snapped. Their whole body was trembling as their flesh tore off revealing another hairy body underneath.

My eyes darted to their fingers as I noticed a change, nails..?No.. Claws pulling out ripping their human-like fingers apart.

Finally, the scariest part unfolded before my eyes, the facial transformation that ripped the soft tender face apart, birthing a new look as thunder like roar arose from the pack in front of me.

The movies, the ones only I enjoyed watching, the transformation I always see in my dreams. The part that made night my favorite time.

“Werewolves….?” The word crawled into my head slowly as my eyes widened.

“Yes, the path you are meant to walk..” The voice came in a whisper.

My heart froze in a spot as I caught the eyes of one staring at me.