Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse
Chapter 203: The Crystal Shard

Chapter 203: The Crystal Shard

I watched from the widows in Dante’s office as everyone who had ever once lived in this building quickly left.

They didn’t leave quietly, nor did they leave happily, but when Tank cut off the first man’s hand who had tried to take supplies with him, the rest quickly fell in line. It was funny how that happened.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Dante as he wrapped his arms around me. It was kind of weird how I could tell the difference between the two souls. They even smelled different, if that was possible.

"I’m thinking about what to do next," I sighed, leaning back in his arms. Closing my mind, I let myself sink further into his embrace.

"That’s..." he started before shaking his head. "Is there really a point in wondering what to do next? In this new world, there are no guarantees, so why not just enjoy yourself?"

"Because that seems to be so boring, I might cry," I sighed. "I don’t want to be a princess locked in a tower, but neither do I want to go out and rescue humans."

"There are a lot more options than just those two," replied Dante, tightening his embrace. "Nothing is stopping you from leaving here; you just need to realize that you will have nine men trailing after you like you are the only beacon of light in this world."

"And when they get bored?" I sighed. "Cause we all know that is a possibility, too. Then what will happen?"

"They will never get bored of you," Dante chuckled as he rotated me in his arms so that he could see my face. Tucking an errant lock of hair behind my ear, he looked deep into my eyes. "You call to me and Pride in completely different ways, but neither one of us will ever be bored. Every day is a new adventure and one that I wake up grateful for."

"Pride is called to me differently than you are," I replied, resting my forehead against his chest. I wanted to wait to have this conversation, but it was like a splinter under my nail... painful.

"I doubt that," shrugged Dante as he kissed me on the top of my head. "Our obsessions are pretty similar in that regard."

"When the original Lucifer created the Seven Deadly Sins, she divided her soul, her breath of life, into eight equal pieces. The idea was that she gave the Sins 10,000 years to find her so that they could become one, and when Wrath rejected her, and none of the other Sins even bothered, her piece of soul died and was reborn into the human world."

I could feel Dante stiffening more and more with every word that I spoke and by the time I was done, he was looking at me with two different colored eyes as Pride stared at me from one of Dante’s eyes.

"What do you mean, Wrath rejected her?" demanded Pride, even as Dante’s half of the body gently stroked my cheek in order to give me silent courage.

"He hunted her down, took one look at her, and then said that she wasn’t his type," I answered with a shrug. It hurt my heart every time I spoke about Luci, but her story needed to be told. "He fucked off to Earth, and she stayed in her cottage, licking her wounds. I am telling you now, I will not be hiding in order to lick my wounds. If I have wounds, you all will have chunks of flesh ripped from you. Do you understand?"

"I would accept nothing less," replied Dante before Pride could say something to piss me off. However, when the Sin didn’t respond, I realized that Dante was speaking for the both of them.

"And now... I wonder if it will be worth falling in love with seven demons who never cared about the original in the first place or if I should just kill them all and rip my soul out of their chests so that I can be whole. Really, it’s a hard decision to make."

"No, it really isn’t," replied Pride. Before I could say anything, he shifted into his demon form and plunged his hand into his chest. Pulling out what looked to be a sliver of crystal, he held it out to me, blood and all. "Here is my breath of life," he announced. "And now I am returning it to the rightful owner."

----

"Well, that was a rash decision," snapped Dante as he felt the pain of literally having a part of his soul ripped out of him. "Don’t you think we should have discussed this before you went all psycho and ripped out our heart?!?"

"No," replied Pride, as stoic as ever. "There is nothing to think about. We let her down the first time around; this is the price we must pay. You might have lived two lives that you can remember, but you have no idea just how long 10,000 years is. To be alone that long simply because I couldn’t figure out why it felt like nothing was ever enough.... This is the least I can do."

"But without that crystal, aren’t you going to die?" sputtered Dante. He hadn’t gone through all this for the demon inside of him to simply check out. He needed Pride in order to navigate this new world. Without the demon, he had no idea how to keep Hattie safe.

Pride shrugged his shoulders. "Just think, if I die, then you don’t have to put up with me anymore."

"If it meant keeping Hattie safe, then I am more than happy to keep you as the fucked up voice inside my head," snarled Dante, feeling the stirrings of panic.

"You have the fucking Grim Reaper. I am really not needed," shrugged Pride. "Just make sure that you love her enough for the both of us."

"That’s rich, coming from a demon. Do you even know what it means to love someone?" snapped Dante, looking around for someone, anyone who could help him.

"No," answered Pride. "I have neither given love nor received it. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t know what I have been feeling for the past 14 years ever since I appeared in the head of the sweetest girl I had ever met."