CHAPTER 7

 

The Awakening

 

When Lila awoke, her head throbbed painfully, and she found herself lying on a cold, hard bed in a dimly lit room. Her wrists were chained to the bedposts, and as she tugged on them, a searing pain shot through her skin. She gasped, pulling back as the metal burned her flesh.

 

“What the hell…” she whispered, her voice hoarse. She struggled again, but the chains only burned deeper, the pain unbearable.

 

The door creaked open, and two men walked in, their faces hidden in the shadows. They spoke in hushed voices, a language she couldn’t understand. Fear clawed at her throat as she tried to make sense of what they were saying. The words were foreign, harsh, like they were spitting venom.

 

“What do you want?” Lila demanded, but they didn’t respond. Instead, one of them gestured toward the door, and a woman stepped in.

 

“Sabrina,” one of the men said, his voice commanding.

 

The woman—Sabrina—looked at Lila with a mix of hatred and fear. Her eyes were cold, calculating, and for a moment, Lila wondered if she was about to die.

 

“Who are you?” Lila asked, her voice trembling slightly.

 

Sabrina didn’t answer right away. She crossed her arms, leaning against the wall as she glared at Lila. “You don’t remember, do you?” she finally said, her voice laced with disdain.

 

Lila’s mind raced. “Remember what?”

 

Sabrina let out a bitter laugh. “Of course you don’t” Sabrina rolled her eyes “ It doesn’t even matter”

 

The cold chains dug into Lila’s wrists as the spell began, Sabrina muttering incantations under her breath. Each word was sharp, like a knife slicing through the air. Lila’s head pounded in rhythm with the spell’s cadence, the pressure building behind her eyes. She gasped, struggling to pull herself free, but the chains held tight, the burning sensation growing.

 

Sabrina stood over her, eyes glowing with a sinister energy, her voice dark and unwavering. “This will be over soon, Lila. The key belongs to me—and once I erase what’s left of your memories, it will return to its rightful form.”

 

Lila’s vision blurred, a fog creeping into her mind, slowly dissolving the fragments of memories she barely held onto. Her breath hitched in her throat, her body trembling. No. This wasn’t right.

 

She squirmed as the spell’s grip tightened around her mind, a strange heaviness settling into her skull. Sabrina’s chanting grew louder, more forceful, and Lila felt herself slipping away. She couldn’t let go. Not now. Not when there was so much she didn’t know.

 

Sabrina’s focus intensified, her hands weaving intricate patterns in the air, pulling Lila deeper into the spell’s web. She was so close. If she could erase Lila’s memories, the key—currently disguised as a ring on Lila’s thumb—would revert to its original form, and then Sabrina could unlock the sacred power it held.

 

But Lila wasn’t fading quietly. She started to thrash violently, her body jerking against the chains as if something inside her was fighting back. Sabrina’s brow furrowed, her voice growing more strained. “Stop resisting. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

 

But Lila didn’t stop. Her eyes squeezed shut, sweat dripping down her temples as the fragments of her memory fought to resurface. Something deep inside her—a power far darker than anything Sabrina had ever imagined—was waking up.

 

The bodyguards exchanged nervous glances, unsure if this was part of the plan. They stepped forward cautiously, watching as Lila’s form convulsed under the weight of the spell. One of them, a burly man with a scar down his cheek, took a step closer, his hand twitching toward his weapon.

 

“She’s going to kill her!” he shouted, stepping forward to stop Sabrina.

 

Sabrina’s concentration broke for a split second, and that was all it took.

 

In that tiny moment, the spell faltered, and Lila’s mind surged with flashes of her past. Her eyes shot open, glowing with a fierce, dark light as the memories came flooding back, crashing over her like waves of ice.

 

The carnage. The bloodshed.

 

She remembered everything.

 

She remembered how she had once been a merciless, power-hungry woman, traveling through cities and realms, leaving devastation in her wake—all for the key. The sacred key that held the power of an ancient god. It was said to unlock a force so immense, it could rewrite reality itself. She had killed thousands—men, women, even children—in her relentless pursuit of the key.

 

She was unstoppable, feared across realms for her ruthlessness. The key was almost hers, until…

 

The rejection.

 

The god’s power within the key had turned on her, deeming her unworthy because of all the blood she had shed. Her violence had disqualified her from wielding its power. In rage and despair, she had fled to the earthly realm, How she met Saidy for drinks and how she followed a couple from club Noir to the motel

 

 

Lila gasped as the scene flashed before her: the couple in the room, her hands deep inside the man’s chest, ripping his heart out with brutal force, blood everywhere. The woman had crouched in tears crying on the man’s bloody chest.

 

Lila had possessed her body, using it as a vessel to hide from those who pursued her and to try again to use the key.

 

And then they came—Sabrina’s clan. They had found her just as she was about to leave the earthly realm, and in their desperate attempt to stop her, they had wiped her memory.

 

 

But before they could finish her, in her last moments of clarity, Lila had killed almost all of them, Sabrina and a few had contrived to escape, and Lila managed to leave herself a message—a warning. She had scrawled the words on the mirror: REMEMBER, MAKE SURE YOU REMEMBER It was her only way of reminding herself of the truth. She’d hidden the key, turning it into a ring lacing her powers into it, disguising it right on her thumb where no one would think to look.

 

As the spell unraveled, Lila’s body tensed, the chains groaning against her wrists. She could feel the immense power surging through her again, the same power that had once made her unstoppable.

 

Her eyes snapped to Sabrina, who now stood frozen in shock, realizing what was happening.

 

“You… should have killed me,” Lila whispered, her voice low and deadly. The dark power crackled around her, and the room grew colder as the atmosphere shifted.

 

The burly guard who had interrupted the spell stepped back in fear, muttering under his breath, “What have we done?”

 

Lila’s memory was back, and with it, all the rage, all the violence, all the power that had once made her a legend. Her eyes glowed a deep black as she yanked the chains free from the wall with ease, the metal shattering under her strength.

 

Sabrina stumbled backward, terror flashing in her eyes. “You—”

 

Lila stepped forward, her voice ice-cold. “I remember everything now.”

 

With a flick of her wrist, the room erupted in a blast of dark energy, sending Sabrina and the bodyguards crashing into the walls. Sabrina groaned, her vision blurring as she struggled to stand, but Lila was already looming over her, her expression unreadable.

 

“You wanted the key,” Lila said, her voice eerily calm. She raised her hand, revealing the ring on her thumb. “You’ll never have it.”

 

Before Sabrina could respond, Lila clenched her fist, and the room filled with a deafening silence.

 

“You’ve only delayed the inevitable.” The key glowed faintly, a portal appeared and Lila walked toward it