Chapter • 44

♱ •⋅ 1750 B.C. ⋅• ♱ •⋅ Calisto ⋅• ♱

My eyes opened slowly, it was dark, it seemed cold and I could still hear whispers, someone seemed to whine.

"How can you sleep at a time like this?" A familiar voice questioned me, a voice that made my heart warm.

"Quinn?" I called her and could hear her low laugh.

"Hello, mon Chéri..." she returned "will you really stay asleep? She's scared, she thinks you're gonna die" Quinn said as she sighed, sitting next to me.

My body was heavy.

"What happened?" I asked as she tried to sit down and she sighed.

"Hummm, who knows? I can't remember all the soldiers my father created, but I think you were wounded with one of Samael's weapons."

The weapons of Samael.

He might have fallen, but his weapons had been trapped in Eden with his father and brothers.

They condemned him for creating them, and now they used the weapons they so abhorred. That place was really full of hypocrisy, it was depressing.

Literally depressing.

"How?" I asked "how are you here?"

Quinn smiled, a gentle smile, the smile he always gave me.

"What do you think? You don't know?" she asked and I grunted.

I didn't want it to be true.

I didn't want to admit it.

"Miracles happen" I muttered and Quinn laughed, a loose, sonorous laugh.

"Miracles do not happen, Callisto, they are designed to look like miracles" she mocked "and I remain dead, just as you remain poisoned, but not for long."

Grunhi.

"So you're a hallucination?"

I didn't want to hear the answer, but Quinn sighed.

"That's offensive, who would call a dead wife a hallucination. I like to think that I'm a version of myself that still coexists within you "she looked at me and Quinn's blue eyes were full of that feeling of hope.

How the hell had I forgotten how much I missed you?

It was suffocating, it was scary.

I wanted her back.

I felt my chest burn and closed my eyes tightly.

"Is there any way... you won't leave?" I murmured and she laughed.

"What? Will you hurt yourself with dragon cell until you can see me? Frankly... not even think of something so stupid" she snitched, because she knew I would if that was the price to see her again "but... I've always been and always will be here. Even if... don't see me, I'll always be here. With you, with our son."

Loren.

Yes.

Loren.

The child that Quinn can never take in his arms, the child who has never seen his mother's face.

"He... has your chin and also your nose" I muttered "and sometimes he sings like you."

She smiled and I could feel her head lying on my shoulder.

"Does he have your hair and your eyes?" she asked and all I could do was laugh.

"Um..." I muttered feeling it hurt more and more "one eye."

Quinn stared at me, one hand over my arm.

"He looks so beautiful..."

"Yes" I said with my breath panting "he's as beautiful as you... and sweet..."

She nodded and my eyes began to blur.

"Quinn" called her "don't go..."

She sighed.

"Things don't work that way, Calisto..."

I hated those words, hated them because I heard them in my dreams every night.

I hated it because it was the last words that Quinn had said to me, and now it was repeated.

She'd leave me again, I'd be alone again.

It hurt.

It hurt.

"Please..." a faint voice murmured "please... work, please..."

It wasn't Quinn's voice, it wasn't a soft voice.

It was a voice embargoed by tears, by a despair that I remembered feeling when Loren first collapsed.

"Please... wake up..." the voice begged and then I recognized her.

It was Asra.

It was his voice that called me.

I forced my eyes open and mumbled softly, my throat was so dry that it seemed to beg for help.

"Hummmmm" grunts "pain..."

She looked at me, her eyes fixed on me, full of tears running down her cheeks.

Was that really Asra?

She seemed desperate, she seemed scared.

"What... happened?" I murmured and she just kept crying, her body sobbing as she thanked something or someone.

"Asra" called her "I'm fine" I whispered feeling my voice too hoarse, too hoarse to be my voice.

She then stared at me and her fingers touched my face.

"You still have a fever" muttered "how can you be all right?"

I smiled, I couldn't help but smile.

Was she really Asra or was she delusional?

It was common for the body to warm up, it was a way to get rid of the poison.

"I'm fine" insisted "help me... get up and give me... water..."

She looked at me and for a few moments seemed unsure whether or not she should do it, but soon she was listening to me. His hands were shaking and his fingers were bruised.

How hard had she gone to find that flower?

I held her hands between mine when she handed me the canteen with water.

"It's okay" I repeated "I'm fine, come here... calms down" I called her and as a frightened child she only allowed herself to accept that consolation, she wrapped herself in my body like a kitten puppy in search of shelter and soon I could feel her perfume impregnate my nose.

I had missed that perfume, even if I didn't want to admit it.

"Are you really going to stay asleep? She's scared, she thinks you're going to die" I remembered Quinn saying.

She knew.

Even though it was just a delusion, she knew and probably would know if she was alive.

I clenched my arms around Asra.

It was cruel.

It was cruel of me not wanting to lose her, not wanting to break my promise, but also not wanting to let Asra into my life in a definitive way.

"Calisto..." she called me, her voice was choked by crying.

"Hi..." I replied.

"You... really, are you okay?"

I smiled as I closed my eyes and leaned my face on top of his head.

"Yes, dear... I'm fine," I said and could feel as she sunk her face into me.

"Please... don't die."

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