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Hart was drowning in red water. Every time he reached the surface to breathe, a large wave would dip him back in. His lungs were starting to get painfully desperate. His stomach felt tight, his lungs felt like they were being squeezed by strong hands.
He swam up once more and popped his head out of the water, breathing in quickly as another tormenting wave crashed over him. Under the water, everything looked so peaceful. He almost wanted to stay under and not come up for air, where a strange storm was brewing.
A dark figure in the water suddenly appeared under him and made his lungs kick, forcing him to swallow the red water. The water tasted metallic; it was blood.
Something grabbed him and pulled him down. He felt many pairs of hands touching him, then hundreds of dead people began to float up from the abyss. He screamed as an arm went around his neck and saw that it was Riley, all rotten and dead.
Hart struggled to free himself, but it was almost impossible. More blood was entering his lungs and he was starting to give in. As his body went numb and the blood ocean became still, Riley came up in front of him. His eyes were white and empty. He couldn't see what color his skin was in the red water, but he could see that it had decayed with bones showing through his cheeks.
“Help . . . me!” said Riley's corpse.
Hart screamed and woke up from the nightmare, breathing heavily as he tried to focus on reality. He kept telling himself he wasn't drowning and that Riley wasn't with him. It was all just a dream. His heart was pounding hard and he was sweating, but he was calming down very quickly.
He heard footsteps downstairs, followed by a crashing noise.
“WHAT THE HELL!” Seraphina screamed.
Hart closed his eyes and entered his sister's head, connecting their minds. He saw Nicholas bent over, picking up what looked like glass. Seraphina was standing over him with anger in her eyes, but Nicholas was trying to hold his laughter. In the other side of the room, Annetta was also trying not to laugh. She had her arms crossed, looking at Nicholas like she knew that would happen.
He opened his eyes again and laid back down on his damp bed, staring at the empty space beside him. He kept seeing flashes of the red water and all of the dead bodies of the people he had killed. His mind still felt like it was in the dream and he couldn't help feeling weak. He forced himself to get up again and toss the blankets in the hamper. He removed his sweaty clothes as he walked towards the bathroom, walking straight into the shower. He stood under the warm water for what seemed forever before someone knocked on his bathroom door. He turned off the water, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself.
When he opened the door, Nicholas rushed inside and closed the door, locking it.
“Help me!” he whispered.
The two words sent him back to the dream and he was watching Riley again. The fact that he just came out of the shower didn't help make the dream feel less real, it made it seem like it was actually happening.
But then his sister unlocked the bathroom door with her power and she slowly opened it, staring straight at Nicholas.
“Really? Do you think Hart is going to protect you from me or something? Do you not realize who you're hiding from?” she said, tapping her foot on the ground. “Clean the fucking kitchen, Nicholas.”
“But it's not my turn!” he argued.
“If you don't clean it right now then I won't let you see the spell,” she said.
“Fine, but you're doing it next time.”
Nicholas left the bathroom and Seraphina stayed. She stared at her brother and entered his mind.
“Stop,” Hart said quickly. “Don't.”
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing, just let me have some privacy, please.”
But she knew they couldn't help it sometimes. Privacy between them was a difficult thing to accomplish. Even if sometimes they could control it, they were still connected and hiding secrets from the other was uncommon.
Seraphina knew about Hart and his nightmares. She knew what he felt ever since his human side became alive. He was struggling, and she knew that. And he knew that.
“Come downstairs, we have to prepare Annetta soon,” she said, avoiding taking the conversation any further.
“You're going to have to push it back another day,” Hart told her. “I'm going out.”
“What? But Hart, we've planned this for three months now. It's time.”
“We'll do it tomorrow morning, I promise.”
Seraphina looked at him sadly and slowly nodded. She left and went back to yelling at Nicholas when she went downstairs. Dripping wet, Hart went into his bedroom and searched in his wardrobe for a long black coat; it was snowing outside.
Winter arrived only a week ago, and though the cold never effected him, he still liked to wear coats. He dressed quickly, wearing all black like usual. He didn't bother fixing his hair, just brushed it back a couple of times and left it the way it was.
Nobody stopped him from leaving the house. They watched him go through the parted windows and never asked where he was going, they didn't need to.
Hart got inside his car and started it, watching his sister, Nicholas and Annetta on the rear-view mirror. They were worried about him, he saw the way they treated him, the way they changed after Riley died. He had never felt so useless and weak in his life. He wanted so badly to stop feeling human, to stop the pain from spreading, and he was going to do what ever it took to make sure he would never feel again.
There was only one place that he could find his remedy. And that was within humans.
Because Bellumstone was a ghost town and nobody knew what happened, he had to drive two hours outside of town into another state, and by the time he arrived the sky was beginning to darken. He strode the streets, searching for that remedy.
When Riley died and Hart became complete, he gained new abilities. He was more powerful somehow, even though inside all he felt was weakness. At the beginning of his journey, when he had kidnapped Riley, he was almost nothing. But they had both grown; they became powerful beings. Seraphina could do so much he wished he could, but now as he lived fully with both of his sides balanced he was starting to catch up to her. He now only wished that Riley was still with him to see him burst out of his cocoon.
Just thinking about Riley made him feel sick. He tightened his grip on the wheel and kept telling himself to stop feeling human, to find his inner demon. No matter how hard he tried, he would always fail. He knew that this feeling was going to stay with him forever, that this is what he was meant to be. He wasn't used to it, maybe in time it would get better for him. But for now he just wanted to scream and rip flesh apart, to escape his own body and disappear into the shadows.
Before his thoughts could continue to torment him, he spotted the perfect house. Everything he was thinking before he parked was gone. It was now him and his remedy.
The house was located in a richer part of the town he was in. Usually these homes were protected by impressive tech, but Hart had new abilities and he could do anything he wanted now. He got out of his car and looked up at the two story house. The whole area was surrounded by tall black fences and cameras installed on every light post. Hart ignored them and walked across the street towards the house.
He could hear loud electronic music coming from the inside. He smiled.
The house had huge gates that couldn't be opened unless you had the code or you buzzed the security guard inside. That was how heavily protected this house was. It even had a large field of grass you had to walk through before reaching the actual house. There were plenty of chances for Hart to be caught, but he wouldn't be.
He looked around and then made all of the power in the whole neighborhood go off. It was that easy, to just think about it. His dark magic interfered with everything in sight from power, to electronics, cars, phones, signals, they were in literal darkness now.
A woman screamed inside the house, but it was playful. Hart could clearly hear their footsteps now that the music was off. A group of people were walking towards the doors so he forced them all shut, including the windows. If they tried to break through, they would soon find that it was physically impossible.
Now that it was dark, Hart could use one of his next abilities. He walked into the shadows and vanished. Now he was inside the house, but nobody could see him because it was so dark.
“Seriously? All of our phone's stopped working at the same time?” a girl said as she smacked the back of her phone.
Hart could feel the fire inside of him rising. It knew what he was about to do, the balance between human and demon was about to be shifted.
Hart's eyes turned bright yellow and he released a low growl that a couple of people caught. They looked in his direction but still couldn't see him, until he opened his eyes and let the color of his eyes illuminate their curious minds.
“What the fuck!”
Hart vanished before more than a handful of people could see him. He began to play with their minds, creating illusions that each person saw differently. For a while, they ignored what was happening around them. They didn't want to admit that they were seeing things, didn't want to be that one person.
“I can't get the doors open, I tried all of the keys I could find,” a girl with short curly hair said. Hart could sense that she was important to everyone in the house, she was the owner.
He decided it was a little too quiet, so he made a storm appear. It poured heavily over the house and the sky growled every few seconds, alarming everyone that thunder and lightning were about to dance together.
“What do you mean you can't get the doors open? Did you lose the keys? Why was it even locked in the first place,” said another girl.
“No, I have the right keys. The doors just won't open, like they're jammed or something.”
Hart watched as everyone separated around the house, some still partying, others beginning to worry. He wanted to kill them all so badly, but he couldn't until they were filled with absolute fear. Only then would he tear them apart.
“Sleep,” Hart whispered, his voice echoing throughout the house.
Every human collapsed and fell into a deep sleep. Now that everyone was unconscious, he walked out of the darkness and inspected the bodies. They were all young just like he was. How unfortunate that they wouldn't live another day.
Hart touched the closest person in front of him and the man woke up, gasping. Hart grabbed him by the shirt and lifted him up in the air. The man couldn't see Hart; he was invisible to the human eye.
“HELP!” the man screamed.
Hart closed his eyes and smiled as he felt the power run through his veins. He was awakening his demon side and nothing felt greater.
More fear surrounded the man who thought he was hovering in the air. His eyes were wide and frenzied. His hands were shaking uncontrollably and his mind was completely distraught now.
“Are you scared?” Hart asked the man.
“Who said that?” the man responded. “Who are you? What are you doing to me?”
The man fell back on the ground when Hart let go of his shirt. But once the stranger rose up to his feet, Hart used his power to lift him back in the air and flip him around, knocking him against the walls and furniture.
“I said, are you scared?” Hart repeated.
“Y-Yes! I'm s-scared!” the man stuttered.
Hart snapped the man's spine in half and moved on to the next victim; a young blonde.
“Wake up, it's time to die,” Hart whispered to her.
She rose up screaming from the nightmare he had planted in her mind. Her eyes went to all of the sleeping bodies all around her and she covered her mouth, gasping.
“WAKE UP!” she screamed, and her voice echoed magically like Hart's. Slowly, all of the bodies began to move as they woke up. Hart's eyes went to the blonde in shocking concern. She was a white witch and he hadn't sensed it. “THERE'S A DEMON ATTACKING US AND WE WILL DIE IF WE DON'T GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE!”
Hart revealed himself in the middle of the living room as everyone jumped up and started to run. They all froze at his sight and cowered back.
“Nobody is leaving,” Hart told them.
His eyes turned yellow and his teeth began to grow sharp. The white witch quickly snapped everyone back to focus and forced everyone to run. Hart tackled her in full demon speed and bit her neck, ripping through the flesh and biting through it. He drank her blood and ate her flesh as everyone in the house screamed in terror while looking for a way out.
Hart turned around, growling menacingly. There was a lot of blood dripping from his mouth and chin, adding more fear to the humans and possible witches.
Something he hadn't expected was happening right before his eyes. All of the people in the giant house were coming together and had weapons to fight back with. They were slowly walking towards him with vengeance in their eyes. He also sniffed out a few witches in the crowd, but the rest were human who just had a lot of fear and adrenaline in them that they'd do anything to protect each other.
Hart roared so strongly that it shattered every single glass in the house. Gravity turned upside down and all of the humans rose in the air and were thrown back away from him.
“I NEED THIS!” Hart screamed as two white witches came out and fought him. He pushed them out of the way and aimed for the humans, switching to running on all fours as he clawed through the wooden floor.
He was turning and he could stop it, but he wasn't going to. He let the change take over him, changing his appearance. Two long black horns broke free through his skull and his body lit up in flames, burning his clothes to ashes.
Every person he touched joined him in flames. He continued to run through the house, chasing them and killing them. Heads were torn from their bodies, body parts broken and blood beginning to take over the floor. They tried to fight him, to find a way out or even hide, but in the end he killed them all. He had expected it would be less bloody and more . . . magical. He wanted to experiment with his new powers, but there would always be another day, another town, another country.
“Please, please! Don't kill me, I don't want to die!” said the curly haired girl, the owner of the house, who Hart had left alive.
“Don't worry, you won't die tonight,” he told her in his demonic voice. “But you will die in the morning, before the sun rises.”
“W-why? Why are you doing this?”
He kneeled in front of her and smiled, flashing her a set of sharp bloody teeth.
“Because I can.”
-
Hart left the house, dragging the girl behind him. He looked back and set the entire house on fire. Even to this day he needed to stay invisible from the humans. He wasn't meant to reveal himself to everyone, at least not yet.
The girl didn't scream, but she sobbed quietly. He didn't even need to knock her out when he put her in his car. She just sat quietly in the back, watching the world through the windows. She was saying goodbye.
When they arrived back at the Silvern home, it was still dark. The lights inside the house were off, but even then he couldn't just quietly sneak inside without waking up everyone. He couldn't do that with his sister, she knew. She had been watching the horrors he committed through his eyes.
“Why,” Seraphina said immediately as he walked in with the girl.
“I don't need to explain anything to you.”
“You killed so many people, why?” she continued, following him through the house. “We don't need to kill anymore. We don't need to kill period.”
“We are demons, Seraphina. This is who we are,” he told her.
They walked down to the basement and Hart opened up the dark room, shoving the girl inside and closing the heavy door.
“Did you forget why Riley sacrificed himself,” she whispered. Hart closed his eyes and breathed slowly, trying his best not to go off at his sister. Every time he did something wrong in her eyes, she would always bring the death of Riley. Frankly, he had enough of it. “He killed himself so that no one else would die.”
“I KNOW WHY HE KILLED HIMSELF!” he screamed at her. “STOP REMINDING ME EVERY SECOND! IT'S NOT GOING TO MAKE ME LIKE THEM, I REFUSE TO BE LIKE THEM. I AM A MONSTER AND I LOVE IT!”
“There's nothing wrong with being human,” she replied calmly.
“Everything is wrong with being human,” he said.
“Hart?” A sleepy Annetta appeared at the top of the stairs, watching them with blankets wrapped around her. “Why are you covered in blood?”
“The spell is off,” he told her.
“WHAT?!” both Seraphina and Annetta screamed simultaneously.
“We have been preparing for months! We are not quitting!” Seraphina yelled at him. “We trained Annetta to be the best witch of our generation, she can do it!”
“I know she can do it,” Hart said. “We can't close the portal because we need it.”
Seraphina looked at him strangely. “Need it? We don't need the portal, we need to close it! We close it and we can rest in peace, knowing that Jocelyn and every other supernatural being won't be able to go through it anymore. Why would we need the portal? We can close it, we have a white witch.”
“Because I'm going through it,” Hart announced. He had kept it a secret from them for a long time. His original plan was to go through it and allow Seraphina and Annetta to close it, but if he was going to rescue Riley, he was going to need the portal open. They couldn't stay where he was going.
“You are not going there,” Seraphina said, getting emotional. “You know what will happen.”
“I'm aware, Seraphina, but you understand that I can't let Riley be in that place for another day. This isn't about me and wanting him back, it's about rescuing him from that nightmare. He doesn't deserve to be there. We can't let him be there if we have the power to bring him back.”
“Look what happened last time you tried to bring back someone from hell!” she said.
“I won't help you, Hart. I'm sorry, but it's dangerous to go there,” Annetta said.
“I don't need your magic to go there, only my own. Seraphina and I are the only ones capable of entering. Exiting however . . . that's a another story.”
“Why do you need the girl?” Seraphina asked.
“In order for us to enter hell, we need to sacrifice a virgin and spill her blood over the portal. But the portal only opens if me or Seraphina perform the sacrifice. For anyone else it just wouldn't work,” Hart replied.
“You are not killing an innocent person, I won't allow you to,” Annetta said, fully awake now.
Hart moved up the stairs and faced Annetta. He was much taller than her, and scarier, but she wasn't afraid of him. She was a part of their twisted family and she knew all of their secrets. She knew what they were all capable of, but they also knew what she was capable of.
Hart didn't say anything to her, just stared at her. After a few seconds of eye contact, he walked around her and headed up the stairs to his bedroom. Inside, he removed the clothes he had put on when he was in the car; he always took extra clothes and kept them in the trunk now. He had blood all over him, so he took a quick shower and dressed again. In just a few short hours, he would be inside the same world that Riley was in.
Seraphina entered his room a few hours later, when he was laying in his bed resting.
“I'm not going to ask you again, why did you kill all of those people?” she asked.
Hart turned on his side and looked at the clock on his nightstand. It was almost time; that was why Seraphina was here.
“I don't want to feel human anymore, that's why,” he answered. “The only way to not feel human is to feel the opposite. So I killed to feed my darkness, because it makes me numb inside. It also helps with the pain.”
“What pain?”
“Don't you feel it? The constant pain in your chest?”
“No, I don't.”
Hart shrugged and left his bed, walked over to his nightstand and took the red lamp. He wasn't sure what was going to happen after this day, but he knew that if he wasn't going to come back, he did not want this stupid red lamp in his room anymore. He took the lamp, gave it a hard stare, and disintegrated it with his magic.
“Poor lamp,” Seraphina said.
“It had it coming.”
“I'm going to miss you,” she said.
“Well, don't.”
Once Hart entered hell, he and Seraphina wouldn't be able to communicate through their thoughts anymore. They were going to be worlds apart – literally. Hell was in a different dimension, another universe. Hell was its own world, with cities and civilizations. The moment he'd step through, all communication with his sister and earth would be cut off.
“You come back with Riley, okay?”
“Of course.”
Seraphina walked out of the room and left him alone to prepare. Hart didn't need much of that, he had already prepared for three months. He was ready.
His alarm clock rang as it hit 6 o'clock.
“It's time,” he whispered, making his voice travel to the dark room to let the girl know that she was going to die.
Annetta stepped in front of his room and blocked his way. She had a serious look on her face, one that he took as a challenge. Hart waved the air in front of him and she was tossed back, almost falling down the stairs.
He opened the door of the dark room using his mind and he heard the girl shoot out, panting heavily as she looked for a way to escape. Hart rose in the air and hovered down the stairs like a statue. The girl ran up the stairs and out the door, not noticing that Hart was quietly flying towards her as she opened the front door.
As the girl ran outside, strong wind pushed her back inside. She turned around as the gusts of wind threatened to make her fall. Her mouth opened as Hart floated in front of her.
She screamed as he took her in his arms and carried her outside. Her screams were muted by the sounds of the powerful storm forming over their heads.
“ANNETTA! COME INSIDE! IT'S TOO DANGEROUS!” Seraphina screamed.
Hart turned around, floating higher into the sky as Annetta ran outside. Her eyes glowed white with the power of her witch magic. She gracefully ascended into the sky, meeting with him.
“I would listen to my sister if I were you, things are about to get fiery,” Hart said, smirking at the young witch.
“I won't let you kill her.”
“You can't stop me, Annetta. You can try but you'll only hurt yourself.”
“Dexen wouldn't let you kill her,” she replied.
“Remind me again why Dexen died? Oh, right. He died because he wanted to be the hero. What a shame.”
Annetta screamed and sent out a white sphere that hit Hart and made him lose his grip on the girl, dropping her from the sky. The girl screamed but Hart caught her with his mind and kept her hovering below them as he stared back at Annetta.
Hart smiled as life darkened. The moon disappeared over black clouds and any light that they could see below or in the far distance was gone. Annetta was blinded and not even her own light could save her from this kind of magic. He leaned down and grabbed the girl, pulled her up further into the sky until he was flying over his house.
“Just make it quick,” the girl whispered in his ear. “Even if I lived, I don't think I would want to after everything that happened. You killed my friends and family. And now I don't want to know that monsters are real anymore.”
Hart pushed back the girl and let her hover in front of him for a few moments as he gathered enough energy to begin the sacrifice.
Good bye, brother.
Good bye, sister.
Hart smelled the blood traveling through the girl's body and he pulled every last drop through her skin in just a second. Her eyes popped out of their sockets and her body turned instantly red. He took all of the blood around him and spread it over the sky and let it drop like rain.
“FIRE!” he screamed as loud as he could and all of the blood burst into flames. The earth began to tremble as the drops of blood landed on the ground, spreading the fire everywhere.
An enormous light erupted from the dark room and shot through the house into the sky, swallowing Hart whole. The colors red, white and black swirled around him as the portal opened. He looked up joyfully as the light continued to grow.
“HELP!” he heard Annetta scream.
Inside the cylinder of light, everything was peaceful. But Hart hadn't noticed that the light was creating the same effect of a tornado and was currently pulling Annetta towards him. She was fight against it, using her power to try to get to the ground but the light was strong and kept pulling her back until she couldn't hold it anymore and let go.
HART! Seraphina screamed in his mind.
Annetta whirled around the light and got sucked up inside with Hart. She looked at him with wide, fearful eyes as the light got stronger. Before he could even think about stopping the spell, both of them were swallowed and thrown into darkness. Hart and Annetta were no longer on Earth, but spinning furiously across what looked like space. He couldn't see her anymore, but he heard her panicked screams get further and further away from him.
Suddenly, he felt the impact of heat.
Then he was falling and not spinning anymore. He braced himself as he found himself falling through a mountain. The long drop snaked around, shoving him against the rocky black walls that were razor sharp. All he could think as he fell was how could Annetta survive this?
Hart saw the ground beneath him and a second later he landed on his feet flawlessly. He stood up straight and fixed his clothes, cracking his neck.
He was in.
When he took the first official step forward, he screamed. He fell on his knees and cried actual tears as the skin on his back began to rip and bleed. His temperature was rising rapidly, forcing him to roll on the ground uncomfortably. But that only made things worse for him. He arched his back and his lungs stopped working. He couldn't breathe.
His clothes were burning up, slowly turning into ashes until all at once everything he was wearing burned right out of his body, leaving him naked.
He could finally breathe, and when he did he got back on his knees and asked his father for help. Lucifer had to know that Hart was in hell now, he could help him.
Hart looked at his hands, they were shaking hard. He clawed the ground and dug his hands inside, using this as a way to ease the pain.
But it did not help.
The pain continued for what seemed hours, when in fact it was only a few minutes. Then his back felt a sting and something began to push itself out through his split skin. He looked over his shoulders and saw something black growing larger and larger every second.
Wings.
He sucked in a sharp breath and stretched out his new wings. They were incredibly large and scary, but so beautiful to him. He moved them around him so he could feel them and examine them up closely. His wings weren't like a birds, they were unlike anything he'd ever seen. No creature in the world had them. And as he looked further down, he noticed a second set of wings, these smaller.
Suddenly another feeling became alive, one that he was all too familiar with. His horns were coming out and he wasn't transforming into a demon. Usually they only appeared when he was going to turn, but there was nothing inside of him that suggested he was turning.
He decided to get up and walk through the cave. It was a very narrow path to the end, so it didn't take long. When he walked out of the caves, he gasped at the amazing view over the cliff he stood on. He couldn't explain in words what he was seeing.
Hell was beautiful.
So much darkness. So much fire and destruction. He could even see the biggest city in hell, the one where the most powerful rulers lived.
He clutched his chest as he felt something tight and heavy on his skin. He glanced at his body as it turned darker, but only because new clothes were magically appearing on it. He had never seen these clothes in his life. They made him feel like he was wearing some type of royalty armor. They were very dark and very detailed. It even had spiky shoulder pads. He had a strong feeling these clothes wouldn't burn away like his human clothes.
He looked up once more to see a horde of demons running down below towards him. They knew that he had arrived, that the prince of hell had arrived.
___________________________
[Author's Message]: LONG TIME NO SEE, EH? I hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter of the new A Little Insane book, I know I enjoyed writing it. Now I want you guys to know that this is only an early preview, meaning I'm not uploading again for a while. The book is still being planned, so I'm sure you can understand. But I'm sure it won't be long till I start uploading more chapters! But you know what will motivate me to upload sooner? Your comments! Your reactions to the new chapter and the new Hart! What the hell do you think? Are you excited? What are you excited for? Tell all of your friends and don't forget to VOTE! <3 MUAH, I LOVE YOU.
P.S. Don't forget to point out mistakes. I didn't re-read the chapter after I finished. My spider senses are tingling, I can feel mistakes. Lol