The Darkness

Serafina woke up once more when the sound of the heart monitor went flat. At first, she didn’t understand what was happening, as if her mind failed to recognise what the frequency really meant. When the doctors came in, she finally understood that she had lost her brother and shock kicked in.

The doctor pushed her away and she absently moved back, watching as they tried to restart his heart. When they couldn’t, they turned the machine off and left her alone to say goodbye. Tears started to stream down her face and she let out a heart-wrenching sob as she fell to the floor, covering her mouth. She cried and cried until there were no more tears in her body and then she sat on the floor letting out dry sobs that broke everyone one who heard them until she eventually passed out.

Then over the next two weeks she stayed in her room without eating and listened as the maids tried to comfort her and coax her out of her room. The castle and those within it would never be the same after losing their prince and neither would their queen. Serafina grew up without love and when she found someone who loved her and not what she could do for them she kept them close, constantly afraid they would leave them.

Serafina still felt as if everything was just a bad dream or a terrible prank that Kai was playing on her. But no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t wake up and Kai wouldn’t appear at her door to tell her it was all a sick joke. He was gone and she had to face the facts and accept that he would never come back.

When the three-week mark hit, she came out of her bedroom for the first time. The maid that passed by her almost shrieked at the sight of the grief-stricken girl. Serafina looked dead with pale, almost white, skin and bloodshot eyes. Her body had caved into itself due to the lack of her eating and her hair hadn’t been combed in a while.

She found one of her town criers and told him, “Announce that Prince Malakai passed away and that the kingdom will officially begin the mourning ceremony. I will send anyone who does not uphold the peace to the cells for three days without trial. The burning will take place at dawn tomorrow and we will give him a warrior’s cloak- gods knows that boy survived more than any of us did.” She muttered the last part to himself.

People like Kai, who were born in Hel, have to be burned after twenty-one days the soul leaves the body into a vast emptiness for all eternity and once the remnants of the soul are fully gone then it’s a ghost’s playground. Souls who wish to live once more will t take over the body of a Hel who has died but that resulted in said soul turning into a Underfae.

Serafina being his only next of kin had to be the one to light his cloak and watch as the flames ingulf his body. To make it worse they were royal meaning she couldn’t do it privately and everyone was going to watch, she wouldn’t be allowed to break down and cry because she had to show these people that they would still remain strong after the attack.

Not only did the Light and Dark attack the castle but they set fire to some of the local houses and raised the death count. People lost their children, spouses, siblings, parents all because she thought making Hali sit on the throne with the thought of Serafina challenging her for the throne plaguing her would be better than killing her.

After ordering the nurses to use the blood of the fallen to find out who they were so she could send her condolences to their families, she walked back into the room and took a shower to wake her up,

During this shower she was plagued with memories of her trying to coax the eight-year-old boy to trust her and how to get used to not living in a cell which, at the time, was all he knew. She practically raised him, taught him how to speak properly, to eat regular food.

She got out of the shower and turned on her phone after plugging it back up. There were multiple calls from unknown numbers that she just cleared from her notice. Her phone started to ring with the same unknown number and she picked it up.

“Hello?” Her voice was hoarse and weak and if you weren’t listening closely you probably wouldn’t have been able to hear it.

“Serafina. Why haven’t you been answering my calls, mom and dad have been trying to contact you.”

“I’m really sorry I’ve just had a lot on my mind.” She stuttered out, both astonished that someone other than Aviry and Kai were worried about her and ashamed that she made them worry in the first place.

“Is everything okay?”

She shook her head knowing that he wouldn’t be able to see and lied, “Yeah. Everything is perfect.”

Her voice cracked and within a second, she could tell Lorenzo knew she was lying. Normally no one could tell if Serafina was lying but pretending that she was fine after she lost Kai was too much.

“I’m coming over,” He told her and hung up. She closed her eyes and sighed, clicking the power button on her phone. She didn’t want him to come over-she wanted to be alone and cry without the fear that he would judge. They were royalty and they had to remain strong even when they lose someone.

Serafina has never feared death, she just thought it an inevitable fate for everyone whether they died by somebody elses hands or by natural causes. It was death and you couldn’t escape it. Yet, having to watch someone she loved be captured in death’s cold grasp made her fear it. Fear that someone else would be taken. It also made her feel terrible because she knew that she would force the people around her to go through the same things she was going through.

She crawled into her bed and created a nest with her blankets, falling asleep once more.