The place was empty, but I could feel the presence of something.
An entity far greater than anything I knew of.
I didn't feel the fear or warmth or indifference from death.
This one made me feel like submitting to him. Before he owned me, my mind had already given up on resisting. He felt oddly familiar to me, as if we had met before.
The entity came to me. I saw Him, or felt him, maybe tasted, smelled, heard?
Whatever it was, he was there.
The one who would twist my fate into something dark and terrible. He held a bottle, or was it a cup, or a flask?
I didn't need to know, I just knew that it contained me-My life.
I didn't have the urge to go back to living, but seeing it filled me with a strange selfishness. It was wrong, yet, being offered such a privilege, it would be difficult to reject it.
He spoke to me, or I felt the words or thoughts.
He would give me life, rewind time, make me live, feel, and see again, but even as I listened and accepted, I could feel invisible chains tying me and sealing my fate.
This feeling made me rethink this decision and want to say no, but he knew, and dropped a reminder in my mind.
I wondered about Lily, and he told me she was gone, but he could help her, too.
He reminded me of the reason why I was here in the first place.
You wanted to save Lily. Do you want to fail her again?
Fail her again. Those words struck a nerve. I failed to reassure her and prevent her from feeling lonely. If I didn't take this chance, I didn't know how much the guilt would affect me later, wherever it is I would go.
He dropped my life, but before it could touch the ground, crackling sounds expanded in the emptiness, and a frozen arm grew from the ground, catching it.
Lethe appeared before me and picked it up, holding my life carefully, but all its indifference had disappeared. It now looked like a servant, standing before him.
Seeing Lethe startled me, and no matter how much I looked around, I couldn't see or sense the other deaths.
"Choose carefully, because you will regret each decision. The effects of the sacrifice you make will be..."
Make a choice.
The entity's voice overwhelmed Lethe's voice, and it was silent again, looking more submissive than before.
Lethe's words made me understand what I was choosing.
If I chose to remain dead, Lily would be gone permanently, and whatever happens, I had no say.
And if I chose to go back and live again, I would be giving up something important as well.
Each choice came with a sacrifice, and each choice would come with regret. I didn't know what I would regret, and I wasn't certain what I was truly sacrificing either.
I wondered if there would be anything he would take in return from Lily, too, and he told me I wouldn't be able to understand even if he told me.
All I had to do was agree to his terms...which he would explain to me after I lived. I had to accept before knowing what it was. I had to live first, had to let Lily live.
I hesitated once again, and he told me something that made me give in.
Lily can have a place to belong afterwards. She will finally belong somewhere. And you will have the power and strength to protect her from anyone.
I agreed almost immediately, though, until the last moment, I felt I had no choice whatsoever. I belonged to him before I chose to. And now, Lily would belong to him as well.
Click.
Time rewound itself, and I found myself coming back to life, my body reforming itself. I felt life coursing through my body, and I saw myself lying on the ground, Lily beside me. The blood disappeared, and our bodies stitched themselves back.
Twisted limbs reformed, settling back into appropriate joints, faces twisted in the last moments of death returned to normal.
I looked at my body, then at Lily's.
I still existed outside my body, and understanding made me know what to do. I just had to touch myself, and I would be back.
Alive.
So I did, and as I opened my eyes from the nightmare, the first thing I saw was Lily crying while holding me.
She didn't know what had happened, but she felt I had done something terrible.
"What did you do?" She cried out, her words making me shiver all over.
I hugged her shaking body, and her tears soaked me.
She struck my chest, and though it wasn't painful, it hurt with emotion.
I had never seen Lily look so broken before, and I wish I knew what she knew before I met him.
She knew what I had done. The entity told her as well, but she knew it was wrong.
I knew it was wrong, but I still chose to be selfish.
"Your soul!" She choked, trembling.
I was alive, and she was, but at what cost?
I was alive. No, I felt alive, but at the same time, something felt dead within me. And something was coming to life within me.
This decision I made would forever bind me to secrets. I still think if I knew the effects of it, I would still make the same choice. Even if Lethe had truly explained what I was sacrificing and what I would gain, I would still make the same choice.
I was recreated by this entity, removed from the first creation.
I wasn't part of the second creation. I had become a part of the third creation.
My existence and the existence of those I would join distorted all rules of existence.
I wasn't human, vampire, or beast. I had become damned.
Forever damned to serve an entity that cannot be overcome.
That was my first sacrifice.