Born in Sin [BOOK 1]

Chapter 26

Neo couldn't hide the gut wrenching worry that coiled in his stomach as he paced in that lonely room of the hospital. When he had awoken from his unexpected nap, he nearly had a heart attack when Jacquelyn wasn't with him.

Calm down Neo, she can handle herself, a little voice whispered in his ear.

He knew that somewhere deep down, he should have trusted the voice. His body however, thought otherwise. His brain was reenacting a civil war against itself which left him feeling useless.

"How long has it been since I actually slept?" Neo asked to no one in particular. He finally collapsed back into his chair and held his head between his hands. He was, in all sense of the word: a wreck. He eventually found himself dozing off despite the head splitting headache that had never left him since the attack.

The door opened with a soft click and with a voice so soft he felt he could truly melt as the worry fled from his body. Within seconds he was up from his chair and across the room and had the woman he needed in his arms.

At least... so he thought.

"Um... Sir?"

Startled he looked down to see a small Vaulkarian woman instead of Jacquelyn. His heart sank.

"I'm sorry... I was sent to tell you that visiting hours is almost over." The small woman, her name tag reading Annabelle, bowed an apology before quickly leaving the room.

Neo was left feeling empty and unsure of himself. His body was beginning to shake from the exhaustion and to top everything off, the worry that had left him so long ago had wrapped it's heavy arms around him again. He felt hot tears running down his cheeks and laughed at himself. He must have been going insane. This was the end of the cool collected Neo Adranni. All that was left was a raving lunatic who wandered around aimlessly until exhaustion overcame him.

"Are you scared of death yet Neo?" A voice down the hall echoed into his mind.

Neo felt his heart stop as he looked around trying to find the source.

Where did everyone go?

All around him, where the once were people, only shadows and empty rooms remained.

"Neo?"

He spun around to see her of all people walking towards him.

"I knew you would come back!" She cried, her face blooming with a smile that reached her cyan eyes. Before she could reach him however she suddenly stopped, her face once happy turning confused and into one of pain. "Why did you leave me..? I thought we were supposed to be together... Did I do something wrong?"

"Yuri I," he reached out for her but just then a scream sounded out from behind him. Distracted by the noise he turned to see an empty hospital bed tipped over. When he went to face his past again she was already gone.

"That's right Neo. She is gone. Didn't you know that? Or were you too fed up with yourself to notice her pain?"

Neo glared at a dark figure that seemed to be taunting him from down the hallway.

"Shut up!" He screamed. "You don't know anything!"

"Don't I?"

The shadowy figure retreated into a door, a light flickered on inside the room and proceeded to grow dimmer.

"Come back here!" Neo exclaimed running after it. He pushed the door open only to fall down into a puddle of mud. "What the fuck?"

He instantly heard the sounds of crying from a woman he had never seen before. He looked up to see people all around him wearing black.