New chapter for you :)
This hasn't been checked by my friend ^^' I already apology for mistakes.
Enjoy !
SHE'S ALIVE...SHE'S FINE...
Faster, faster, faster !
Lucifer pushed unceremoniouscly the people who barred him from the road, these latter exclaiming outrageously on his way. Never mind. He didn't care. He had to move forward. To hurry. Why didn't he move faster ? Each of his steps...Each of his strides...was abnormally slow. As if he were struggling in shifting sands. However, Lucifer had to move forward. Before it's too late. Maybe it was already...
No...
He couldn't afford to doubt now. Not after all this. There was still time. He could still save her. He had got the formula. Finally. All that remained to be done was to move forward and quickly reach the room. Only to join her and give the formula. He could do it.
He had to do it.
Lucifer continued to advance, each step more slowly than the previous ones, his shoes deeply embedded on the white ground of the hospital. He drew at his aching muscles, struggling against the fatigue of his body and mind. He couldn't afford any weakness. He would arrive at this bloody room, at all costs. He shoved another person in front of him, the latter shouting after him as he continued on his unsteady road. Nothing mattered. Only this room. Only this formula. Lucifer sighed in relief as he saw the so-called chamber at the end of the corridor.
He made it. He had succeeded. He let out a hoarse exclamation: a mixture of exhaustion and relief filling his entire body. He ran – always with an unbearable slowness – until the wide open door of the coveted room. That open door...that seemed to await his coming. His return.
Lucifer leaned on the door-frame, exhausted and covered with sweat. He cought his breath for a moment and risked a glance inside the room. Why were there so many people around her bed? What was happening ? He opened his mouth, wishing to draw attention to him...to warn them that he finally had the solution. Noting came. No sound deigned to come out of his mouth except for his hoarse and irregular breathing, just like the beatings of his heart. He entered the room, moving away from the door with an uncertain gait, unceremoniously dismissing the doctors barring him once more the passage.
Why were they all around that bed ?
He nugded a nurse with a stroke of the shoulder and put his gaze on the bed, his heart missing a beat.
No...It's not possible...It can't be...
He raised a trembling hand toward Chloe's cheek, clasping the cold metallic rim of the bed where she was streched with the other hand. Motionless. Too static. He gently caressed her cheek, hoping by this simple gesture to awaken the young woman. Get any sign of life. A hope. Something.
Nothing.
Only the acute and incessant signal of her flat electro-encephalogram. Only death. Lucifer put his hand on the detective's shoulder, gently shaking it first and then accentuating his grip around that cold, motionless shoulder. Like the rest of her body. Lucifer felt his breathing accelerate until became erratic as he quickly turned to the unusually stoic doctors behind him.
" HELP HER! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR ?! I HAVE THE FORMULA! ", he yelled, a prey to a dull panic that chilled every inch of his body.
He gave desperate looks to the doctors and nurses present, who just glared at him. They didn't move an inch. Lucifer didn't understand what was going on. Why did they not try to save her?
Why...?
" I knew I couldn't trust you..."
Lucifer turned to the door, seeing Dan close to it. The latter looked at him coldly, an unbounded hatred in his eyes.
"How could I think for a moment that Chloe's life was important to you ?! ", spat the detective Espinoza to Lucifer's face.
The latter opened his mouth without being able to say anithing. Of course that Chloe's life was important to him! Otherwise he would never have...
" You were supposed to find the formula, Lucifer! Why have you so late ?! ", a more feminine voice accused him.
He turned to the window opposite to the door, looking with confusing Linda. He had never seen her so angry...An anger turned towards him. Why? He had done as quickly as possible. He'd done everything possible to...
" You changed, Lucifer...", Maze accused him in a cold voice - the latter suddenly appearing next to Dan. " And Chloe pays the price, now...Look what you've done!"
Lucifer stared at Mazekeen without understanding. No. It was wrong. He...He wasn't responsable...He...
What could he have done more ?
He heard sniffles behind him and turned around. He caught sight of Trixie curled up against her mother's lifeless body, her tears running along Chloe's pale, cold face. An image that caused an unbearable pain in Lucifer's chest. He stepped back a few steps, helpless. Trixie looked up, her face streaked with tears, a grimace of suffering distording her features. She looked Lucifer straight in the eyes, her small brown eyes expressing immense pain.
"Why...Why Lucifer ? I thought you were my friend...I thought you loved her...", lamented the little girl, squeezing her mother's pajamas more between her little hands.
Lucifer shook his head, opening and closing his mouth in front of this image. Face these accusations. No. They were wrong. All of them. Why could not they see that he'd done everything to save her? His body was covered with uncontrollable tremors as he moved further from Trixie and Chloe, dumbfounded.
"N...No! It's not true...", he stammered weakly, stepping back slowly and glancing imploringly at his friends. " I...I did what I could...I didn't want this ! I wanted t...to save her..."
"But you can't, brother...that's the problem...", said a flat voice.
Lucifer jumped and turned once more toward the door. Dan and Maze had disappeared, replaced by Uriel, the latter looking at him with his usual tranquility. Lucifer widened his eyes in surprise and let out a hoarse exclamation, retraeting this time towards Chloe's bed. How had Uriel come so far? It was simply impossible. He was dead. Dead and buried.
Uriel gave him a calm and confident smile, his hands behind his back as usual. He shook his head in spite and repeated in his horribly quiet voice in every circumstance :
" You can't save her...You never could...And you know why ? Because you're a monster, Lucifer. And monsters don't help others...They destroy them! That's all you've ever done, brother...Destroy everything around you..."
Lucifer shook his head in denial, disturbed.
"No...That's a lie...You're lying ! ", accused him in a trembling voice of rage and fear.
Uriel tilted his head slightly, a reprouving pout sketching on his lips to the rebuff of his elder brother. He slapped his tongue of disapproval and rebuked him in a much softer tone :
" Come on, Luci...it isn't good to lie! Look for yourself if you don't believe me..."
Lucifer felt his right arm stand up instinctivly and gazed frightfully at Azrael's ensangled blade which his hand held firmly. He widened his eyes with terror, his heart drumming painfully against his chest as he adressed a desperate look at Uriel.
"N...No...please...not this...", he begged him, trembling.
His brother contented himself with smiling and spreading his arms, inviting him to move forward. Inviting him to demonstrate his theory. In spite of himself, Lucifer moved forward his younger brother. Each step being a little faster. Too fast.
No. He didin't want to. Not again. It wasn't his fault. He wasn't responsable.
Lucifer continued to approach his brother inexorably, and violently pressed the blade into Uriel's abdomen. Killing him one more time.
Once too often.
Lucifer opened his eyes and sat upright on his bed, a strangled cry crossing the fence of his trembling lips. Like the rest of his body. He could well inspire and exhale deeply, his lungs were still painfull and looking for air. He couldn't breathe calmly. To simply calm down. Panting and covered with sweat. Lucifer looked around, disoriented. He stared at the worn-out furniture in the room where he was standing: the awful green carpert over the whole surface of the room, the damaged and greyish blinds barely inhibiting the screaming red light from the sordid motel's bilboard where he had been living for six long months. He fixed each element of the room, his frightened mind gradually renewing with the reality. Gradually emerging from the anguish that had dominated him since his brutal awakening.
Uriel wasn't here. There was only him here. Him and the cockroaches. Lucifer managed to regulate his breathing after several minutes, his body still running through uncontrollable tremors. He closed his eyes and swallowed.
It was only a nightmare.
Always the same. Each night. Since his departure. And Lucifer always had as much difficulty to calm down afterwards. He had more and more trouble. Each night being more horrible. More exhausting. He pulled his knees against his bare chest and gently rubbed his moist forehead with the back of his hand.
" She's alive...She's fine...", whispered weakly Lucifer, eyes still closed.
A sentence that he kept repeating after each nightmare. After every panicked awakening. Everytime. A kind of mantra. A magic formula to calm his nerves. To be reassured. And regain control over his body...and mind. A control that excaped him a little more every infernal night spent here. He felt it. He was losing more and more ground over time. A fact that frustrated him. He cursed his own weakness, without having any control over it. Lucifer passed a hand over his face, hoping to chase away the stubborn remains of this nightmare. Without great result. If only it was that simple...
Every time he closed his eyes, he could see every hateful face...clearly heard every scornful accusation in his mind, like a painful and horribly precise whiplash. He revisited the serene Uriel's face...the blade...her lifeless body...
Lucifer clenched his fists and repeated again :
"She's alive...She's fine..."
He was tired of suffering all these emotions. Continually. Without any respite. Even in his sleep. He had no escape. Neither alcohol nor durgs...not even the carnal pleasures...He could no longer do it. Not since...He couldn't touch anyone any more without feeling a deep disgust for himself. He was alone. Disarmed. Poor.
He had wanted all this, isn't it ? No one had forced him to leave. It was his decision. A decision that only made things worse. Lucifer thought to forget...Turn the page...Instead, he spent each day and night rehearsing the memories of his former life. Rehearsing his fears. His pain.
Six months.
Six interminable months. Away from everything. To live by proxy.
He was nothing but a ghost. A traveling corpse.
Lucifer freed himself from the blankets and walked slowly towards the bathroom, just as shabby as the rest of the place. He had deliberately avoided any luxurious place. Avoided to draw attention to him, to give any indication about the place where he was. Avoided to act accroding to his habits. Do the opposite. She was smart. But not as much as he. He didn't only avoid her...he didn't want to see anyone. Neither Linda...Amenadiel...Charlotte or Maze...No one should find him.
All he wanted was to leave him alone at last. Let him be at peace. For once...on every millenium of existence. Leaving him alone.
Lucifer walked over to the sink, turning the tap and spraying cold water several times his face. He closed sharply the tap after few seconds, leaning against the cracked porcelain of the sink. He raised his head and looked his reflection in the mirror covered with dirt. He stared blankly at his streaming face and a disturbing pallor, his nascent bear coming out more on his wet skin. His eyes were empty, two bottomless wells with deep, purplish dark circles. He passed a hand through his dark hair, raised in the ears of his skull, still standing after this unnecessary gesture. The skin of his bare chest gently glowed, his body still sweating after this...agitated dream.
Lucifer fixed his reflection, his eyes offered him a lost look.
"She's alive...She"s fine...", he said in a breath to his ghostly reflection.
Why did he always have so much pain in his heart ? Why this pain didn't fade?
He tightened his fingers around the porcelain sink, his joints whitening briefly under the strenght of his grip, the porcelain emetting a slight crack of protest. He released his grip and straightened, gently retreating. His back encountered the cold, tiled surface of the shower behind him. He let himself slip to the ground, bringing again his knees against his chest. What a pathetic spectacle...The prostrate Devil on the filthy floor of a shower cubicle...What a wonderful vengeance...A terrifying vision of the relentless wrath of the Lord of Hell...
What a joke...
Him...The Lord of Hell...
Before...Not anymore...
His last visit had amply demonstrated it. He was no longer the Devil.
Revenge...What's the point? How taking revenge on Him? On his mother ? Was it so important now? Nothing mattered. He didn't even know who he was...Lucifer? Samael? An angel? A man? A demon? All and none of all this at once?
He was nobody. Just a prostrate guy in a rotten motel.
A tired man.
All he wanted...was that she was coming out of his head...from his dreams...from his heart...
That Chloe leaves him at peace.
Was she fine ? Really? He kept repeating these words without knowing the truth. Was she safe, far from him? Lucifer closed his eyes again and gently struck – at regular intervals – the back of his skull against the tiled wall.
"She's alive...She's fine...", he repeated an umpteenth time in a voice inaudible by anyone other than him.
He'd had enough of this internal suffering. This unbereable pain. A pain less raw than a physical blow, but much more consequent on him. He would have prefered to be beaten, beaten to death...it seemed preferable to this incessant torment. Hell and its torments seemed preferable...
Lucifer opened his eyes and looked at his phone on the laundry basket near him, uncertain. He took it and stared at it intensely for an eternity.
And if...? What harm was there to...? He had to make sure. Once. Only once.
Lucifer stopped fixing his phone and quickly dialed a number on the screen, then carrying the device to his ear. Each tone was accompanied by a painful heartbeat in his chest. He let a minute pass – bathed in electronic tones – before pretending to hang up. It was a mistake. A stupid mistake. He jumped at the sound of a sleepy feminine voice, his body paralyzed on the cold floor of the shower.
Her voice.
" Decker...", she mumbled at the end of the line.
He no longer breathed. Frozen at the simple hearing of this intonation so peculiar to Chloe. Nothing else mattered except this voice on the phone. He no longer felt the frozen contact of the ground beneath him and against his back, his entire mind turned towards her. His hand tightened around the phone, a dull pain palpitating around his heart.
" Hello?...Who is this? ", asked Chloe in a more alert voice.
Lucifer didn't say anything. Deprived of his voice, his movements. Only his mind worked at full speed. He contented himself with listening to her voice, strongly inspiring the air on his lungs embraced by anguish and other indefinable emotions. Lucifer was completely paralyzed by the powerful emotions that swept through him, opening and closing his mouth pathetically. Frozen by this painful vise around his chest. Why did he call her? To torture himself a little more...like that, without reason ? What did he hope?
Chloe's voice was heard again, trembling :
"...Lucifer?...Is that you? "
The latter closed his eyes on hearing his first name. His name pornounced with such hope and fear at the same time. The vice around his chest tightened more, almost stifling him. He remained stubbornly silent, unable to pronounce a single syllable...a single word. What could he have said? He opened his eyes, these abnormally wet and burning.
" Lucifer...Where are you ? Are you okay ? ", hastened to ask the detective with anxiety.
She was worried about him. Of course. She...who was so selfless. Even now. Despite his actions. He closed his eyes for a moment, the tingling around them becoming more insistent. He inhaled deeply before hanging up, throwing the cell phone away.
It was a mistake.
He shouldn't have called her. Lucifer felt even worse...As if he were on the verge of implosion...Of madness.
He raised his arm above him and slowly turned the hot water tap. A sharp squeal sound on the shower head before a warm water caresses his body, soaking his pants, his hair...every part of his body. He laid the back of his skull against the tiled wall, offering his face to the burning rain pouring from the rusty shower head. Leaving his tears to mingle with this comforting water. The single witness of his suffering. Being one with it.
Lucifer let out a low sigh before whispering a last time :
"She's alive...She's fine..."
Review accepted XD