Chapter 287 - Myriad of Recollections

She was in limbo – wafting for God knew how long.

It was like she was entombed in an infinite abyss, without a hint of ever getting out.

Was this the Elysium field? Or was this Tartarus, she wondered, and then she frowned. Why was this place so familiar? Why did she feel like she'd been here before?

Then again, regardless of where she was, did not matter. She knew she had succumbed… again. Death had come for her the second time around. Alinea, Ara, whoever she was, now understood that maybe, she was not meant to live long.

Lucius, Midas, Horgall, Rubic, and Sven, it seems I'll be joining you soon…

The image of her friends came to her mind, with their smiling faces that she missed so dearly. She remembered her promise to Sven to live, and she believed that she had tried her best. But like what they said, some "bests" weren't just good enough.

"I'm so sorry..."

Her soft whisper echoed as she tried to see where she was, but whether her eyes closed or opened, only darkness abound. Giving up, she remained suspended, as the waves of time and space engulfed her, and she drifted off to sleep.

When she woke up, she had already lost her sense of time. Thoughts and memories flooded her – her life in Tokyo, her brother, her friends, and Ryuu.

Her lips trembled in the darkness as tears welled in her eyes. At least, the first time she died, she had her hatred to contain her, and all the people she cared about were gone. But her life as Ara was different. She had so many people she regretted not to see again…

"I'm so sorry," she apologized to everyone as she wrapped her arms around herself and bent in a fetal position as she floated in the abyss.

Remembering how she died this time made her flinch. The pain of the flames that engulfed her body, even if it was just for a moment was excruciating. It was as if even her soul burned and it continued to fester in her body even after the fire was gone. She couldn't understand why she's still suffering when she's already dead.

She was in so much pain it was driving her crazy.

Huh?

Nostalgia, it suddenly hit her. She didn't understand why that agonizing blaze was suddenly so familiar. Why did it feel as if she'd been enveloped by those merciless blue flames before?   

But… it should be impossible…right?

Then, the pain vanished.

Huh?

Even if she couldn't see, she could feel that her wounds and burns had been healed. A wave of warmth washed over her and she'd let herself be seduced into unconsciousness once more.

The next moment she opened her eyes, another familiar sight welcomed her. Small dots of colors appeared on the horizon. In the deep abyss, their light was glaring. She already had an idea of what they were. She had seen these before the first time she died.

Moments passed, the tiny dots of colors became bigger and bigger until she could see them clearly – the shards of memories spiraling towards her. Each shard contained moments she had kept in her heart, and she braced herself as she watched the movie of her life pass by.

However, they weren't the memories she was expecting to see. They were neither Alinea's nor Ara's recollections.

Huh? Who…

But she didn't have to ask herself for long. She totally recognized the woman in this myriad of recollections. It was her! It was the woman in her dreams before, the mischievous and adventurous beauty who had wandered in the Flame God's territory and got pranked by the mermaids.

Shards of remembrance came like bullets embedding themselves in her brain and in her heart. As she received one memory after another, she hadn't realized how her body had started to tremble, her heartbeat going wild, as love, sorrow, regrets, betrayal, hatred, and death of the women that were all herself, had gone through.

"No…"

Tears welled in her eyes as her heart and head burst with the overflowing emotions, her fingernails digging into her scalp, down to her cheeks, leaving a trail of bloody scratches.

"No…"

She had been well-loved, and yet, severely hated by the same people at the same time. That part of her that was ripped away from the rest of her soul had begged and yet had been ignored and killed countless of times.

Alencica, it was her name. The name meant "a great shining light,"– an irony of the dark, sad fate she had endured in the millennia.

No wonder those blue flames seemed so familiar. Kresnik's flames. She had died in his hands over and over again in different lifetimes. It was unfair, it was unjust. She had every right to hate everyone who made her suffer so much.

But her current dilemma was not because of her hatred. It was also because of her love. As Alinea, she knew Kresnik's and Alencica's story. She also knew about Vladimir – how he'd followed her to the grave over and over again as well.

He loved her as truly, deeply, madly as she loved him. Knowing about her dark side, she had even made Kresnik vow to her that he'd kill her personally once she turned evil.

Her father, Perun, also loved her so much and she knew that he had promised her mother that he'd save her. She was aware; she knew that the thought of saving her made him break her soul, thinking that it was the only way.

Alencica knew that Perun and Kresnik were not aware that the dark piece that was ripped off her was still her. They were not to blame entirely.

But what would she do about this hatred inside of her? What could she do to appease her grudge?

The mixture of emotions was like a poisonous cocktail, suffocating her, driving her to the brink of insanity. The overwhelming myriad of recollections stormed her soul, making her wish she didn't have to remember anything at all, and she screamed.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!