Disclaimer: I don't own Miraculous.

Chapter 28

"Lila," a voice was calling from beyond the darkness of Lila's eyes. She fluttered her lids against the light that was shining in the room as her eyes took some time to adjust. The smell of chemicals rushed into her nose and she scrunched it up in displeasure. "Lila!" relief echoed in her mind as she started to look around and saw that she was in an unfamiliar room with a machine hooked up to her arm that was making electronic noises every few moments. She saw that her mother was holding her hand that had an IV taped to it. Tears were threatening to come out of her eyes as she watched her daughter slowly regain consciousness.

Lila's eyes were squinting against the light as she tried to make sense of what happened. "What happened?" her voice was hoarse and she found it was painful to speak. She knew this was a hospital, but she didn't remember what happened before except that she was in an argument with Chloe. The wicked witch of Paris itself. She remembered being furious and sad, then nothing but a voice. Before her mother could find the words, Lila already worked out what had happened. "I was akumatized again?"

Her mother looked at Lila and cupped her cheek with her hand. "No matter what happened, you are not at fault and I still love you, mimma." She was about to continue comforting her daughter when Ms. Rossi heard a knock at the door. They both look to see Saura standing in the door frame with a bouquet of flowers and smiling softly.

"Hello, I'm a friend of Lila's and I wanted to make sure she was okay." Saura cocked her head and rubbed the back of her neck. What Ms. Rossi didn't know was that this was all an act to Saura. While she did feel bad for what had happened and was worried for Lila, she was there for a different aim.

Ms. Rossi walked over to Saura and took the flowers that were for Lila, but when she did time stopped as Saura simultaneously snapped her fingers. The only ones who didn't stop were herself and Lila, or at least that is what it seemed for a moment. As Saura walked to stand beside Lila the room came into motion again, but hazier than before as if they were watching it from behind a dirty window. Voices were muffled and indistinguishable as recognizable figures walked about the room in a slow manner.

Lila looked around in abject horror as she tried to get up, but was pushed back down by Saura. "Let me go! Help!" she screamed, but the figures moving about didn't hear or even see her.

Annoyance spread across Saura's face, "They can't hear you or even see you. We're in an adjacent plane to your own. Now," she began as she let Lila go. "I need some answers from you and you are going to have to listen to what I say." On the outside of the adjacent realm, Ms. Rossi was asking Saura how she got out of school to come there and comfort Lila, not knowing that she was simply talking to a mirage of the actual person.

Lila took a shaky breath as she watched the world around her carry on with its own business. "What… what will happen to me if I don't do what you say?"

Saura's head cocked to the side as her lips tilted up on one side. The uncertainty in the air around them and on Lila's face meant she had won this time. "Then we stay here until you do. I'm immortal, so I can stay here for as long as I want." A chair materialized into the space and Saura sat down on it as she examined her nails. When there was still silence, she glanced back at Lila, "You do know what immortal means right?" she asked.

Immediately, Lila glared at Saura for her derisive comment and crossed her arms over her chest.

Saura simply shrugged her shoulders as she continued to analyze each nail under the ever so fervent glare of Lila. "For now, all I want to know is if you heard him." Without looking up, she could feel a change in the room's atmosphere. The tilt of her lips was now gone as she continued, "I don't mean Hawkmoth. I mean the voice that you heard and it gave you the magic." At the word magic, a spark of fire flitted between her fingers, dancing beneath her nails. "It should have been a dark, dangerous, yet alluring voice. Like the voice of a monster trying to lure you into the closet with your eyes closed." The fire beneath her fingers became a flaming coin that was tilted between her fingers as she spoke. "A devil offering you a deal before you could think straight about any answer besides 'yes' because the moment you truly saw them you would run away in absolute terror. Now, tell me. Did you hear that voice?" With each word, Saura's voice deepened and her lips pulled up into a snarl as the temperature in the room plummeted as if she was consuming all the heat. Her aqua eyes had darkened as she set her sights on Saura.

It was as if there was a lump in Lila's throat that she swallowed as her pulse quickened looking at Saura. If there was any doubt in her mind that Saura wasn't human, it was quickly extinguished and replaced with the realization that her classmate could be any number of monsters. She swallowed again and took a breath to try and stabilize her breathing and erratic heart. It was an almost silent 'yes', but Saura heard it and her entire expression changed.

She sighed and leaned forward onto her knees as she looked at Lila with pity and an emotion that she simply couldn't understand, shame. "Lila, you can never let yourself get akumatized again, do you understand?"

Confusion filled Lila's face before she spoke, "That's not something I can control."

The chair she was sitting in screeched against the floor as she stood up. "You don't have a choice," this time it was a plea instead of a command, which momentarily confused Lila. "If you don't you will die. What you humans don't realize is that magic is like a poison to you. If it is in a controlled vessel like a kwami or akuma, it is relatively harmless, but if it goes beyond that it can be dangerous. The magic you withstood to gain your powers will make you sick like you have a severe flu or pneumonia. If you take magic like that again, it will kill you Lila. It is the same as drinking a bottle of cyanide."

Lila paled and her mouth was agape. She looked down at her hands and her breaths were quickly increasing in pace as she thought back to that voice that promised her magical power as she felt a fever coming on and an itch in the back of her throat. Lila's eyes met with Saura's serious face, "You're not lying, are you?"

It was a moment before there was a response as tense silence filled the created space. "No." With that singular word, Saura brought them back to reality and those around them were none the wiser to what had happened.

Mrs. Rossi looked at her daughter after she had turned around and saw the pale face she had as Saura sat beside her classmate. Concern etched her face as she got closer and laid her hand on the wet and warm forehead of Lila. "Mimma, you are burning up! I'm going to go and get the doctor, be right back." Before she left she gently kissed Lila's forehead before leaving.

Saura had a small smile on her face before she got up to leave. Lila looked at her body language and spoke up before Saura left through the door. "Your parents aren't overseas, are they?" she didn't know what possessed her to ask that question, but she wanted to know more about Saura and why she acted the way she did.

Her hand loosely gripped the door frame before turning around and giving a half-smile, "Nope! They're dead, whoever said immortality is a blessing was full of shit." Before Lila could ask anything else, Saura gave a wave over her shoulder and left the hospital.

Meanwhile, at the school, Felix was staring at Saura because she was being uncharacteristically quiet and non-disruptive. There was something up and he couldn't figure out what was going on. The bell rang and he went over to talk to Saura, "Saura, hey," she ignored him as she walked to the door silently. He grabbed her arm and felt nothing as she stared up at him. His eye twitched as he released the mirage. The mirage walked out the door and into the streets of Paris. Yet, Felix was still standing in the classroom processing what had happened and what she could possibly be doing right now. Honestly, he should have stayed in Canada, at least then he wouldn't be nearly as stressed about revealing magic as he was right now. He sighed and ran his hand over his face as he headed back to their apartment intent on finding a just punishment for Saura when she finally returned.

A/N: Mimma is supposed to be a term of endearment in Italian for a girl child according to Google.

Also, First semester of grad school done, yay!

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!