Cobalt's feet weren't obeying him, not in the way he wanted. He wanted to stop and collect himself, but he just kept running. The school halls... they were wrong. Dark. Twisted. Red.

Beneath his feet, the thorned roses twisted and writhed, their black stems tripping him up with every step he took, their crimson heads staring at him like accusatory eyes. All around him, the students of B.I.D. stared at him, staggering out of the way as he passed. He couldn't hear their voices, but he could see. The blood coursing through their veins, the fleshy hearts beating in their chests... He could see it all, and it only worsened his hunger.

Blood oozed from between his fingers as he kept his hand clamped over the ragged wound on his arm. He could feel how hot and thick it was, but when he looked down, he could only see rose petals tumbling from his wounds.

"You're on a precipice," spoke a familiar voice, drawing his gaze to a figure running down the corridor alongside him.

Eyes wide and manic, he turned to see the black cat keeping pace with him, leaping elegantly over the tangled thorns.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up..." he breathed, barging past another group of students.

"Can you feel it, Cobalt? How close you are?"

"Shut up...!"

"From here, you can either fly or you can fall. You just need to be strong."

He forced himself to stop, bracing his hand against the wall. His fingernails bit deep into the stonework as his flesh writhed.

"This can't be happening. Not now. Not now...!" he gasped, tensing every muscle in his arm.

A burst of red rose petals, spraying the wall with crimson hues. Plates of bone formed rapidly from the ruptures in his flesh, biting deep into the skin and encasing the Incubus' entire arm in ivory armour. He could hear screaming at the very edges of his perception, but he was too caught up in the pain to focus.

"Please, please, please...!" he cried, wincing as he fell to one knee.

More petals sprayed out of his arm as the bone thickened. Canines sprouted from his knuckles. Incisors from his forearm. Molars along the elbows and shoulders. Each reinforcing and weaponising him. Until he was no longer a man.

"Incupsychosis, no matter what you have been told, can be overcome," the cat told him, sitting in front of the Incubus amongst the roses.

Cobalt looked down at his his wounded arm, before shakily turning his gaze onto the arm encased in bone. He ripped his claws free from the wall, shuddering with every breath as he flexed his joints. The plates clicked with every movement he made.

"It can either weaken or strengthen you. It is a tool like anything else. A tool to truly open your eyes."

"I- I don't understand...!"

The cat's eyes flashed.

"How did you feel when you killed those Devils?" it asked, slowly turning its head.

He clenched his teeth, feeling the blood surge out of his nostrils.

"... Anger."

"Is that what it was?"

"What else could it have been?!"

"It isn't anger that you turned onto them. Just like how it isn't anger that you inflict upon yourself. Think, Cobalt. Really think. What is the one emotion that you reserve for those you truly believe deserves death and death alone?" the cat asked, taking a few steps closer.

"I- I don't know! I don't know, okay?!"

"Let me rephrase, shall we? What is the antithesis to the emotion you have been struggling with lately?" it pressed, licking its paws.

"What do you want from me?!"

"That question you can't ask, Cobalt. About how you feel about them. Why can't you ask yourself the reverse?"

"Fuck you!"

He swiped at the cat, fixing to rip his claws clean through its skinny frame and slice it into ribbons. But it just leaped out of the way of his attack.

"This condition of yours has helped you just as much as it has hampered you. Will you truly be yourself without it?"

Cobalt's breath caught in his throat as he thought of the cure that Alison was synthesising.

Its eyes flashed dangerously once more.

"Then again, have you ever truly been yourself? Or were you born with your mind in shackles?" the cat asked, swishing its tail back and forth.

"I- I gotta get out of here...!" Cobalt guttered, hauling himself to his feet.

"You think you're taking a step forward, but you're only denying the inevitable, Cobalt. You're not going to be able to make any progress until-"

"SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Cobalt roared, pointed an armoured finger at the cat.

He didn't need this. He didn't need to have a feline figment of his imagination to torture him like this. Cobalt needed to find a dark, empty room to ride this out.

His eyes widened.

"The infirmary..." he breathed, turning on his heel.

Elya hadn't been seen in days. Her room would be perfect to hide out in. If anyone asked, he was feeling ill. Yes, that was it. That was the move.

Hissing through his teeth, the Incubus staggered his way down the hall, leaving a thousand petals scattered in his wake. He could slowly feel his flesh reforming, sprouting and intertwining beneath his fingers. It was slow. Too slow. He already ate so much, he didn't know if it would regenerate in time.

"What the Hell is happening...?" he breathed, scraping chips of stone off the wall as he leaned against it.

Reaching the warped door to the infirmary, he placed his hand against it and gave it a gentle push. The wood buckled and the lock snapped off, slamming the door right against the wall. His entire world shook and swam as he staggered inside. A high-pitched tone began to ring in his ears. High-pitched screeching, like the straining and buckling of metal. He clamped his eyes shut and covered his ears, but it did nothing to drown it out.

"Please...! Enough of this...!"

He opened his eyes.

The infirmary... It was different. Sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating the white curtains that separated the different beds. Strange, he was certain that the beds were lined up on the other side of the wall. The desk was in a different place too, and the seat appeared to have been adjusted for a much shorter person. Cobalt looked down at his hands.

The blood and bone was gone. His uniform was scuffed and stained in a few places, and he felt abrasions on his knees, but aside from that...

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Guess I'll let myself in..." he murmured, kicking the door shut behind him.

It clicked shut, like it wasn't even damaged in the first place. He staggered forward a little, wincing as his knees stung. His head was aching too.

"Nurse, you here? I, uh... I took a knock to the head, I think... Bleeding a little, too..." Cobalt called, holding a hand to his head.

He walked over to once of the medical cabinets and began to rummage through it, but he couldn't fathom why. The words that he spoke... They didn't feel like his own. It was like there was the barest memory of a script in his head.

"Bandages, bandages... ugh..." he guttered aloud, confused as to his own choice of words.

Cobalt tried to step away, to tear himself from this odd half-dream. That had to be what it was. He passed out, and given what he was, he was lucidly dreaming. But as the Incubus tried to pull himself away, his legs jammed up, causing him to topple to the floor. His face was pressed into the linoleum, and when he tried to move, his limbs refused to respond.

Behind him, he heard the sound of one of the curtains being torn aside. Then footsteps.

"Oh no..." breathed a quiet, almost-silent voice.

He heard rummaging and clattering, but his eyes wouldn't open. Instead, Cobalt felt someone lifting him up onto a bed. The sharp smell of antiseptic stung his nostrils as a wet cotton ball was pressed against his cheek.

Cobalt's eyes opened, almost involuntarily.

There, barely an inch from his face, was a Fallen. Her face was mostly covered by impressively-long bangs, leaving only her mouth exposed. A mouth that slightly hung open in a gentle gasp.

All the Incubus wanted to ask was what was going on, but what actually came out of his mouth was:

"Oh hello."

The Fallen screamed and staggered back, slipping on a small patch of blood that he left on the floor. He tried to reach for her, but she was far out of his reach.

"Y- Y- Y- You're awake!" she screamed, holding a first-aid kit between them like a shield.

She was dressed in a B.I.D. school uniform, the same one that Cobalt was wearing. Her skirt had ridden up slightly, exposing a box of adhesive bandages strapped to her thigh. Wincing, he touched his head.

"Must've passed out... sorry about that. Is the nurse in?" he asked, looking around the room.

He was certain that something was different about the infirmary. Everything was different. The posters on the wall, the pens on the desk, even the colour of the door...

The Fallen girl swallowed hard and shook her head.

"Ah..." she breathed, struggling to find something to say.

She was scared. He wanted to say something to comfort her. To let her know that he wasn't a threat.

"I'm guessing you're her little helper, huh?" he asked.

What the Hell was that?! And moreover, why the Hell was he saying it?

The Fallen just held her medical kit close and nodded.

"Not big on talking?"

She shook her head. Sweet hellfire, she was absolutely petrified.

"Yeah, I get that. Hope you don't mind me talking, then. Only thing distracting me from the pain right now, to be honest," Cobalt mumbled, holding a hand to his head.

When he said that, she leaned forward.

"Is it bad?" she asked.

Her voice was so soft and gentle, and yet almost inaudible.

"Pretty bad," Cobalt nodded, doing his best to give her a smile.

The words he was saying... They were completely unfamiliar, and yet... not.

Scrambling to her feet, the Fallen snatched a clipboard and a pen off the nurse's desk. Fumbling through the attached sheets, she nervously cleared her throat and looked him up and down. He couldn't tell what her eyes were doing, but for some reason that didn't disturb him at all.

"What's your name?" she asked, doing her best to sound professional despite her wavering tone.

The Fallen almost choked on her own spit.

"F- For the report sheet," she added, tapping the clipboard.

Cobalt just nodded.

"Cobalt Trayer. I think we're in the same core class, actually," he answered.

As he scratched the back of his head, the Incubus frowned. His core class? As in, his class from his schooldays? What...?

"I think we are. M- My name is Elya. Elya Yalfre."

Cobalt froze up. That... was Elya?

No, no, he could see it. She was younger - Cobalt didn't remember much of how she looked as a second stage demon - but she had the same standing stance, the same cheekbones, the same hair colour.

He wanted to say something. But all he could do was laugh.

"Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?" he quipped uncharacteristically.

Rather than reply, Elya just grabbed her medical supplies and got to work, carefully sanitising and and binding each of his wounds, grabbing bandages from her thigh pack as she needed them. She was good at what she did.

"You're good at this," Cobalt told her, feeling as though that one came almost naturally.

"Mmhm," the Fallen replied, stooping down low.

With careful, delicate fingers, she began to tend to the scrapes on his knees, dabbing the blood and tenderly binding the wounds.

"Yeah, they beat me pretty bad. But I like to think I gave as good as I got," Cobalt told her, stretching his wings.

"Who did this to you?" Elya asked, expertly tossing bloodied cotton balls into the biohazard bin across the room.

The Incubus swallowed hard. Something about this conversation was familiar.

"Durnall and his cronies."

Durnall Klarke. That name. Again.

"Why?" she asked, inspecting her work.

"No reason, I think. He just likes throwing his weight around."

He remembered the dinner he had with Elya in her apartment, and the things she told him about Durnall. What Cobalt supposedly did in retaliation...

As she continued her ministrations, the Fallen eventually came to a stop at Cobalt's chest. He had only just noticed how much blood had soaked into the fabric from the wounds he felt just beneath.

"Are you hurt... u- underneath...?" she asked, pointing a quivering finger at the garment.

"Ah, might be. Hold on a minute," he said, pulling off his tie.

Cobalt urged himself to stop stripping in front of her, but he kept unbuttoning his shirt. Elya had looked away for a moment. He bore his bare chest, exposing a series of chest abrasions.

"Oof. Dunno how I missed these," the Incubus muttered before he could stop himself.

He looked up at Elya. She was staring at him, mouth agape, eyes wide behind her bangs. She raised a shaking finger, but for the first time since this bizarre dream happened, Cobalt finally managed to take control. Before she could say a single word, he reached forward and grabbed her face with both hands. The Fallen froze up. He could see her emerald-green eyes glimmering behind her bangs.

"Elya, this..." he breathed, his voice finally returning to its usual waver.

She raised her hands and placed them against his.

"Cobalt..." she breathed.

"I- I don't know what's going on. This... This is a dream, right? I mean everything right now is so messed up, my mind's caving in on itself and..."

His voice trailed off as he slowly looked back at Elya. Reaching up, he tenderly shifted her hair aside, exposing those breathtaking eyes of hers.

In the very back of his mind, he remembered something that his mother told him, scarcely more than a month ago.

"I... I used to look at you... with eyes so full of..." he breathed, his voice barely more than a whisper.

She placed her hands upon his chest, shivering at his touch.

"Do you remember...? The night of your birthday...?" she asked.

He nodded slowly.

"Of course. You and the girls passed out in my dorm room, and Karazelle got stuck in the wall, and-"

"N- No, not that one. Your eighteenth."

He couldn't... He couldn't remember anything.

"You told me you'd be mine forever. A- And then you held my face like this, and..."

Placing both hands upon his cheeks, Elya pulled him close. He didn't resist, not even as as she parted her lips and kissed him deeply. Her lips were cold and her tongue was warm, but as the seconds ticked by, the need to pull away just didn't strike him. Cobalt fell into the kiss, wrapping his arms tight around the Fallen, as if he were trying to drink her up. This... This felt so familiar. Why was it familiar? Elya was just a friend to him; it had always been that way...

... right?

Slowly, Cobalt opened his eyes.

Elya was staring at him. With her short-cropped hair and manic smile and deep, violent, purple eyes.

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no, no, no...!

Letting go, Cobalt cried out and staggered back, blinking rapidly as he peered all around him. The infirmary was back to normal, the door was practically hanging off its hinges, and Elya... There she was, standing in her nurses' uniform, completely paralysed. The roses were gone. Everything had calmed down. Most of his flesh had grown back, save for his skin. His entire right arm was still encased in bone armour, and his clothes were absolutely drenched in blood.

Gasping for breath, he looked up at Elya. She returned his gaze. Her uniform was still dirty, but something about what happened had caused her eyes to freak out again, rapidly flickering with every blink.

"K- Kid... was that... a memory...?" Lilith asked, sounding completely bewildered.

"You... You saw all that?" he asked, taking a shaky step backwards.

"Saw, heard, felt, tasted... More vivid than anything I ever... Kid, this girl, she..."

He nearly stumbled out through the doors.

"It makes so much sense now. Purple colouration of the eyes, erratic behaviour, attachment to a specific weapon... She's fucking Cursed. I- I had my theories, but... No, she's Cursed."

"What does that mean...?"

"I- I don't know enough right now, but that's hardly the point. You... You loved her."

"No, I-"

"You did, I felt it! And you... You did more than just kiss her!"

"I didn't!"

"Kid, you and the Fallen fu-!"

"HOW THE HELL WOULD YOU KNOW THAT?!" Cobalt screamed, rushing out of the infirmary.

Clutching his head in his hands, the Incubus tore through the school, trying to drown it all out. People were staring, but he didn't care. He just needed to get somewhere alone. Somewhere quiet.

"I feel sick, kid. I- I'm remembering things that you did, and... Oh fuck... I think our minds... We've been doing this too long...!"

"Shut up...!"

"I- It's all so-"

"That's why I wanted you out! Right away!" Cobalt cried, feeling tears streak down his face.

"I- I know you did, and I'm beginning to see why, and-"

"So get out, Lilith! Just get out!"

"Kid, that's not-!"

"GET OUT!"

"I DON'T KNOW HOW!"

Cobalt came to a stop, right in front of the entrance to the school. As Lilith's words rang through his head, he took a deep, shaking breath and made to push the door open.

This...

This was a nightmare.