You are mine!
You are mine!
You… are… mine!
Cassian kept seeing those clusters of phrases, splashed in vivid red, floating everywhere in the darkness.
The words haunted him, swirling like a tornado tearing through his heart. He stood, lost and bewildered, and shouted into the void,
"Where am I?!"
Before Cassian could make sense of the floating words, they began to drift away.
The phrases glimmered, freezing midair. Like lanterns flickering to life beneath each phrase, posters of a young, striking man appeared all around him.
A red-haired teenager, somewhere in his late teens, bit a rose between his lips. Crimson drops of blood trickled from the thorns, staining his mouth.
As the blood reached two bite marks on his pale neck, they shimmered beneath the glowing red letters: 'You are mine!' His mesmerizing green eyes stared straight ahead, carrying the intent of a predator stalking its prey.
Each poster showed a different pose of the young man, but the rose image kept repeating, again and again.
Cassian's gaze darted from one poster to another, fear and confusion twisting inside him. Every image was of him, standing now in flesh and blood.
"What the… Who…"
Cassian's voice faltered as his eyes landed on a few posters that weren't of him.
Those images were crossed out, faces scratched beyond recognition. He could just barely tell, by their long hair and royal dresses, that they were women.
Cassian swallowed hard, a chill crawling down his spine as he sensed the hatred behind the words he'd just read:
"He is mine, not yours anymore!"
He couldn't help but whisper, voice trembling,
"Did I just die, or is this a nightmare?!"
"You didn't die, I just saved you, my love!"
A trembling voice echoed behind him, soft yet unsettling.
Before Cassian could turn, the darkness beneath his feet vanished and he began to plummet.
He tried to scream, but a powerful force yanked him downward, draining his strength until only a muffled gasp escaped his lips.
Suddenly, the sensation of falling shifted. Cassian felt himself floating, weightless, as his eyes widened in disbelief. He was being drawn toward a blinding light below.
"Welc… Welcome, Cass!"
The same trembling voice returned, now laced with a melodic sweetness that made Cassian realize he was neither falling nor floating.
He found himself lying in a woman's arms, his face pressed gently against her chest as tears slipped down his cheeks.
Hands softer than feathers wrapped around his waist. The sweet, melodic voice welcomed him again, this time steady and warm:
"I knew you would come find me one day, my love! I waited for you for so long!"
"Wha…"
Cassian's lips barely formed a sound.
His face went numb, thoughts dissolving into mist. His slender arms moved on their own, feeling the softness of the bed, his hands inching closer to the beauty holding him captive.
His fingers slid across the sheets like a serpent, until a sudden, breathy moan from the woman jolted his mind back to reality, yanking him from the paradise his body had been resting in.
'I need to get up, now!'
Cassian pushed himself up, legs protesting, but with a desperate burst of strength he rolled to the side and tumbled off the bed.
He braced himself on the mattress, then forced himself upright with a shaky push.
But what he saw next nearly sent his mind reeling again.
A vast green plain stretched before him, covered with trees he'd never seen, their leaves dancing in the gentle breeze from a river winding down snow-capped mountains. Clouds played hide and seek with the sun, vanishing behind the peaks as the red sky gathered everything together, like a mother watching over her child.
Cassian drank in the majestic scenery for a fleeting moment, then his gaze was drawn back to the woman on the bed.
She lay with one leg bent, the other stretched out, hands at her sides, her bare back facing him. Her white silhouette dress and long, red, silky hair fluttered in the breeze, as did Cassian's thoughts, as he realized the heaven his face had just been lying in.
He didn't need an explanation. The woman before him was a goddess.
Her sharp, flaring nose pointed his way, her green eyes, so much like his, reddened with tears that seemed to vanish before they could fall. Her puckered lips looked as if they longed to hold him again.
She raised her hands, spreading them wide as she declared,
"I saved you by killing you… so you could be mine!"
"What?!"
Cassian's face twisted from confusion to horror, his heart pounding, thoughts racing:
'What is she talking about? She… killed me! Why? Why? Why?'
Without waiting for his response, the goddess crawled across the bed like a cat, then sprang at Cassian, wrapping him in a fierce embrace and whispering in his ear,
"You are mine now… Forever!!!"