34 Chapter 34 - I Am Me

My vision cleared, the pain was gone and I felt like I just woke up. I stood up. When Lucifer saw me do so, he stopped moving forward.

"Impressive." He sounded impassive.

I couldn't think. I felt like I was wearing a blanket, like a cloak of shadows. It felt like a sort of an extension of my body, like some sort of muscle, I could feel it flex and stretch. And without even thinking, I tested it and swung at Lucifer who was a few feet away.

He must've felt its presence for he tried to dodge it but the invisible muscle stretched itself and it's change in width surprised Lucifer and hit him. The contact sent him sprawling to the ground though when he recovered I could see that he'd somehow block it, he was unscathed.

"Now that's something." I heard him say.

Meanwhile I was starting to lose to the presence that was trying to overwhelm my senses.

"I feel weird." I said. "My mind is a jumble." I held my head with my hands.

"Don't let it take over." Then a strange light flooded the pale skies, dark and false it seemed. When it faded, Lucifer was holding his sword, Lightbringer. "Now, show me what you can do."

Was that a joke? I can't even think straight, how much more fight. I could feel the pale king struggling to be let out.

Lucifer made his move. He was instantly transported in front of me and he swung with the sword which was burning with hellfire.

I tried to dodge it to no avail. The sword left a gash from my right shoulder all the way down to my waist. I screamed and the pale king screamed with me. We both felt it, the wound burned. I lay on the ground trashing and screaming with agony. Lucifer just stood there looking unconcerned.

"You're not trying to fight me. Neither of you are trying to fight me. ." His voice was that of an executioner pacifying the damned. "You will both perish if you don't find a way."

**

Amidst the overwhelming pain, I could sense the pale king. Now that I've pulled him out of hiding, the alien presence in my head pulsated with agony. I never thought that anything could hurt Death.

I struggled to regain a sense of awareness. I took hold of what was left of my will to live and used it as fuel to strain my mind away from my wounds and tried to talk to the presence in my head.

'We can't live like this.'

The thing in my head seemed to heard this. 'No, we cannot.'

'You and I are going to disappear if this continues. He'll kill us.'

No answer but I could sense a shift, an acceptance from both of us. The pain subsided bit by bit, I could sense the invisible mantle of energy that I used earlier cover and repair the wounds. The pain was gone but I knew it was only a temporary respite like applying anesthesia.

I tried to stand and when I felt like I couldn't, I could feel the presence struggle along with me until finally we both stood facing the king of hell.

"It seems you've both found something you could agree on." Lucifer said brandishing his sword at us.

And together, the king and I spoke. "We're not ready to disappear yet. And neither of us will be consumed."

"Then we are done for today."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Both of you cannot exist without the other." He said as he changed forms and returned to his normal appearance. "The dreams you've been having is your soul's way of telling you that something has changed greatly inside of you.

You disappeared when you fought Michael and as a result Death could not understand nor could it control itself. You see Dante, Death is a force. It has no will of its own. This persona you think of as the pale king is merely a side of you to which it has latched on to. To control it, you have to reconcile and understand that there are now two sides of you. "

The pale king is me. Death has no voice. I've been fighting with myself all along.

"Now what happens?" I asked Lucifer.

"Now we'll try to find out what you can really do."

****

The ordeal with Lucifer left my body weak. It didn't help that the voice in my head kept telling me to keep going. Exploring the things we could do was intoxicating and the knowledge of it almost drove us mad. Lucifer played the part of the guinea pig, and he was as surprised as we were.

I felt dizzy. We were back in his office, drinking coffee discussing the results of earlier's experiment.

"We still have more work to do in understanding the things that you can do." He said when we were done.

I merely nodded. I could still feel the presence in my head but it no longer had a voice. It had become a background, a landscape enveloping my soul.

"When I disappeared during that fight with Michael, I realized I merely hid myself and put something inhuman in charge. You didn't really stab the pale king, you just sealed that part of me, didn't you?"

"You could say that."

"I was just scared. Scared of losing Mephisto like that and all I could think of is 'Somebody, save him.' I never really thought that I could do anything to help him."

"Most people would've done the same thing. When confronted with what they don't understand, humans tend to ignore it and pretend that it's not happening."

"Am I still human?" I asked him. I could hear the confusion in my voice.

"You are what you think you are."