Persphyni : I am Death

66

"Persphyni?" I looked passed where Alie had stood to find the trio looking at me curiously.

"I can't stay." I hissed out, feeling the pressure on the other side of the wall. "You have to knock me out and put me in a room. I can beat her from the inside, but I can't if I'm around you. You'll distract me too much." I groaned, my head bowing again as I concentrated on fighting her off.

"I don't understand." Clarke spoke.

"You don't have to!" I shouted over the whispers that began to fill my head. "Please." My plea was finished by a roar of pain. My spine relit as I rapidly worked to dampen the burning flames.

"Bellamy," I panted, looking up at him. "Please."

I watched him hesitate. I watched them all hesitate. Before any of them were able to move, I gathered my strength and stood, my legs wobbled as I rose. But once I was on my feet, I ran. My leg where Bellamy had shot me lit up in pain, but I pushed through.

"Persphyni!" But they couldn't catch me as I darted out of the throne room and into the Commander's chambers. Sliding under the bed and pulling open the trap door underneath, I went inside and took several deep breaths to calm myself. The hiding place large enough I could sit with my legs out straight and my back to the wall.

Lexa had told me about this spot accidentally when I asked about her carpet being bunched up. She told me it was a storage place but clearly nothing was actually stored in here. It was made in case the Commander needed to hide an item, themselves, or someone else. And now it was being used to hide me.

I sat in silence, meditating as I blocked everything out and sat in the dark room. Darkening my mind as I welcomed the comforting obsidian walls. The souls of my boots touching as I took even breaths in and out. Pushing my mind to keep her out.

"It won't work." I clenched my fists, drawing blood with my nails but couldn't feel the sting as I concentrated on my own thoughts.

"You should surrender now." Alie's voice sounded stronger and I felt myself losing my grip of the wall. "Within approximately twenty-two seconds, I'll have breeched your walls. Your inner thoughts, your memories will be available for me to examine. I took away your pain, but I can give it back if you so desperately wish." I breathed in and out, preparing myself as I tried to hold strong.

"All you have to do is surrender." Her voice was now right beside me, like she was inside this hole too. But I know she wasn't. She couldn't be. She didn't know where I was so she couldn't appear where I am.

"Unfortunately Alie, pain was never the problem." I spoke trying to buy myself time. "My memories were never the problem. Nothing was ever the problem. I've spent years of suffering and handling what was given. I changed my circumstances by my own hand, not waiting for someone to hand it to me on a silver platter. I survived because of me. And they'll survive because of me." I had two seconds of silence as I took in my small victory. Victory I knew would be short lived and it was.

After the pause, I felt my back tightened up and the feel of something slicing through the skin enraged my nervous system. The action was then repeated again and again. Fire seemed to burn the skin as my old scars were redrawn across my back in invisible ink. But I held my tongue as I curled inwards somehow finding myself on my knees, hands digging into the floor. I had survived this once. I can do it again.

"You're strong, but even a man will break." I held back my howl of pain as my back was retraced along with the scar on my cheekbone. I could feel the silver digging into the tissue and bone, warm blood gushing out as I lifted my eyes and stared with at the Shadow.

"You're strong Nameless. Stubborn even. But even a man will break eventually." The Shadow's words drifted through my ears as Alie opened a memory. The dark grey room back in view. "You can stay quiet all you want. But you will sing. You will beg. You will plead for me to stop and you will succumb to me."

I stayed on my knees as I looked into the eyes of a man who had tried to break me over and over again. Into the eyes of the man who had broken me over and over again. But each time I fell, I stood back up and I took back what was mine.

"You can beat me, you can chain me, you can cut me, you can bleed me, but I will never ever be your puppet ever again. I killed you once, I will happily do it again." I seethed as I held back my snarl. "You're a memory and that's all you'll ever be, a bad dream." I small scream left my lips as the wounds that littered my body burned as I defied Alie. The pain near to unbearable as I forced myself to breath and remember that the pain wasn't real now, but a memory.

"You took so much from me." I said in between gasping breaths. "You broke me over and over again to make me your perfect little weapon. And you couldn't accept that I was becoming exactly what you wanted because you were scared." I voiced from the floor as the image wavered slight to where he was circling my bent form. "You were scared that one day I'd see just what a monster you were and I'd take your life for it in return gaining my own back."

The burning sensation returned, this time much more painful as Alie triggered all of my nerve endings to send pain signals to my brain. My body curled inwards as a cry erupted from my chest. My eyes clenched as I held back tears. The sensation suddenly stopping but the pain lingered still.

"I used to be afraid off you." I informed him as I gasped for breath, the footsteps faltering to a stop as I slowly titled my head up to face him. "But I'm not anymore." With all the strength left inside me, I slammed hard into the consciousness of Alie. Her hold on me slipping as I pushed her out of my head with all of my might.

The grey walls faded until I was back in the dark hiding space beneath the bed. My back aching as I moved to lay down and off my knees. I collapsed on the cool ground and hissed as my sensitive back touched the hard material.

I had done it. I got Alie out of my head and found the key to enter the City. One evil defeated now it was the AI's turn.