11. The monster in my chest

Small bubbles of blood floating around Andrey as the black aura kept them mid-air. His flesh about to be split open as his eyes closed - lifeless.

Such is the sight nobody but the bird Dea could see. It took long, almost too long for the sorceresses to open a portal for Dea'n'ha to go through and appear right before this menace.

Strong wind immediately applied amazing force upon her body, a little more and she would have been blown away. Her years of experience in sorcery gave her a hand and she managed to form an arcane shield in front of her. 
"Andrey!" She screamed, but then noticed that his eyes were closed as if he was in deep sleep. She closed her eyes for a second and her lips moved casting a spell. She could see Andrey's body and from his back large black hands gripping his chest open. What is this? she thought as she concentrated on the hands to see what formed to be a mouth. Both hands had mouths! Did this mean they could speak?

This negative energy would kill anyone. What's causing it?!

Dea'n'ha casted a powerful spell and in the moment she took down her shield she launched a white beam from her hands straight into Andrey, engulfing his whole body. After channeling enough of it, a white circle shaped around the boy's body as it battled with the negative energy in a yin-yang shaped symbol.

In that very moment, after the energy was contained within her spell she could hear other desperate cries. She activated her enhanced hearing to try and track where the other source is coming from.

"It would appear something else might be the cause of this." She said as Dea the bird with a small arcane shield around it landed on Dea'n'ha's shoulder and went inside the house.

"I should have thought so!" Dea'n'ha said as she saw the Makiya blades floating in mid air above the chess table. She could hear screams and unrecognizable words coming from them.

The moment she got close to them a huge roar was heard from outside. The white beam that was holding Andrey back had now been destroyed. In this very moment she grabbed the blades and jumped through the window throwing them with all her might straight towards Andrey's chest.

The black hands synchronized with Andrey's hands and quickly grabbed the two swords. The boy then with his chest bleeding fell to the ground, arms holding the blades. His muscles slowly relaxed.

The girl's tattoos made her arms even more beautiful as she cast a healing spell, stopping Andrey's bleeding chest. The moment the bleeding stopped she cast a second spell with her other hand starting to close the room.

The spells applied strong pressure to the boy 's body as it was visibly getting pushed into the ground.

A few minutes after this the boy's chest wounds were closed as if the girl turned back time for them.

After having finished healing the boy she cast a strength enhancing spell and grabbed the sleeping boy and got him inside, placing him on the bed, careful not to hit him anywhere.

She watched him sleep carefully and just sat by him for a while, staring into the wound, into the swords, into his sleeping face, into the necklace. Repeating the cycle over and over.

The necklace was completely black. The skull's eyes were still glowing red. It's as if this magical item had overheated. The eyes reminded exactly of burning in extreme heat coal.

She then saw that cabbage the boy had taken a few bites of. She did the same. Truth is that food was the essential source of spiritual energy. The amount of spiritual energy didn't determine the quality of it. Basically if one had really small amount of spiritual energy he could still use it for big things or for prolonged time periods, if it were quality spiritual energy.

Spiritual energy quality can be achieved by the caster's state of mind. If the caster had great resolve or ambition, he would have stronger and more quality spiritual energy, if the caster doesn't have any ambition or desire his energy would be poor.

And this was something that Andrey had read in one of the books Dea'n'ha had gave him earlier that day. He didn't really understand it through experience. He had to learn to, though.

After stuffing herself with that cabbage, she noticed the fish waiting to be prepared. She quickly cast a few spells burning it, pouring some juice on it and burning it again, then she served it in a plate with a smile.

Now she had to manage to wake the boy up. She rose her hand to the sky with head still looking at the boy's closed eyes. Her tattoos expanded again as her right hand pointing the ceiling started glowing in blue. Then she suddenly hit the boy's chest having all of the blue energy spread out through his body. A small wind current formed inside the room but faded fast.

A few second after she pulled her hand back and waited for results.

The eyes were the easiest way to see if magic was flowing through the body. Her magic was related to the nerves around the eyes, which is why hers always glow and why right now she was standing right next to his face trying to see if there is something traveling beneath those eyelids.

The sky was black. The ground was white. It wasn't pure wasteland. It was something else.

Andrey could see only through his earsight. This was his default sight right now. He was roaming around with only random noises coming from all over, but nothing was really moving. There were streams and currents of spiritual energy in the air and that is what navigated him to move in certain directions. Trying to follow them, but to no avail.

"Why did you leave me?!" a demonic voice cried desperately from behind the boy.

Andrey got frightened and quickly turned around, but there was nobody to see.

The echo of those words still repeating as if in a cave.

Andrey looked at the sky, but there was no sun, no moon.

"Why did you abandon me?!" the demonic voice yelled right next to Andrey's ear.

Andrey could see the black hand who was yelling to him. It was the same hands that Dea'n'ha had seen coming out of his body. But he had never known these existed. He had never seen these hands.

"What are you?!" Andrey yelled back as he felt something tickling him on his back. He reached out his arm to see what was there and touched the black arm coming out his spine.

Looking at his hand with shock he realized that there's another arm on his right and that they are coming out of his body. He couldn't control them, but they were part of him. Now he also felt them. Like his own hands, but he just couldn't really control them.

"Why did you leave me?!" both hands asked in same voice. The boy just looked at the left and then at the right, as if they were expecting a reply. They started asking the same questions repetitively without a break between them. Slowly both arms were getting closer and closer to his face until they were right next to his ears. They both stopped.

Silence filled this empty world.

He realized that they froze for some reason. Andrey looked forward and noticed what seemed to be a white beam. He started running towards it as he figured it would probably be his "light in the tunnel".

The distance was getting shorter, but the light started to shrink more and more. It was getting swallowed by the darkness.

The moment it disappeared both hands suddenly whispered in his ears "Why did you leave me?", "Why did you abandon me?" and after having repeated this for a minute Andrey screamed out "SHUT UP!".

Silence filled the empty world.

Only the echo of Andrey's voice roamed in the distance looking for an ear to fill.

"So it was you!" the demonic voice began repeating and both hands grabbed Andrey by the throat starting to choke him. He tried to use his arms to remove those demons from him, but it was impossible. They were too strong.

A few moments before losing consciousness he saw black lines traveling towards him in huge speed, contrasting with the white ground. They were coming straight at him. He thought of grabbing them and trying to fight his way out using them, but to his surprise at the same time as him his arms worked in complete synchronization with the black arms choking him - and caught the blades simultaneously.

He then breathed in, but would not let go of those black lines he was holding on to. After recovering he looked at what he was finally holding - the Makiya Blades.

Then the black sky started burning in white unifying the ground and the sky.

Andrey opened his eyes as Dea'n'ha's face was gazing into him less than a few centimeters distance. He could feel her cold breath had been chilling his lips for a while and his nose had turned red. He felt cold, but very warm-cold. It was hard to explain. He couldn't.

She smiled and pulled back from him satisfied that he was saved.

"Welcome back, Andrey." she said in her melodic and gentle voice. "Twice for a day, good job." she joked.

Blushing red from what had just happened he didn't say anything, but just looked at her beautiful face and let her voice be the thing which filled his mind.

"Are you te-te-asing me?" he asked uncomfortably.

"What?" she replied in lack of understanding.

"You were so close to me..." he said without even thinking about how it had come to this.

"I was looking at your eyes if my magic was traveling into you." she replied in a completely calm voice. She realized what he meant, but she decided it's best if she just explained the situation.

"It was that evil energy again?" He asked rising up from his bed.

"It was something more than that this time. I think it's time you ate some to recover some energy. After that we will talk about spiritual energy and control."

"Ah, okay. My chest really hurts. What's happened?"

"I will just let you experience this on your own." she said as she had her tattoos expand and touch him. She channeled the whole event from her eye's perspective.

Andrey was left in shock from what he saw. His jaw opened. He realized the threat he was. What could have happened if those hands had taken over him? Would they have lived on after ripping through his body? Was he just a prison to some being?

The he realized what he lived through, what he saw in that alternative universe where he grabbed the Makiya blades.

"The blades! The blades are those hand's weapons, they caught the blades with me!" he started yelling as he rose on his feet. He suddenly stopped talking and in fear he silently said

"I..."

"I'm a..."

"Monster."