Alpha Dom and His Human Surrogate

Chapter 239 – Vision

Trigger warning: suicidal ideation – please take care!

Ella

I’m about to hoist myself up onto the frozen railing when two robed figures appear on either side of me, their faces both familiar and strange. There’s something about them that sets off alarms in my mind, but not the usual kind. It feels as though I’m trying to remember something from another life … from someone else’s life.

I don’t have the faintest idea where they came from, and I don’t really care. Cora’s safe at the orphanage and it’s not as if they can do worse to me than what I’ve already survived. Maybe this is even fate answering my question, giving me a way out in her typical morbid fashion. Perhaps an icy plunge is too easy an end for me, perhaps I must know one final agony before I go. “Are you here to kill me?” I ask in a voice I don’t recognize.

“Do you want to die?” One asks, leaning his arms against the icy metal.

“It’s not that I want to die.” I hiccup, tears falling from my lashes and freezing against my cheeks. “It’s just that I don’t want to live if this is all life has to offer… and I’m afraid that this is truly all there is for me. I have no reason to believe otherwise.” I shake my head forlornly, “they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. So I would be crazy to think I can keep meeting the sun each morning without inviting more heartache… wouldn’t I?”

‘That depends. What you call crazy, others might call hope.” The second man replies, making no move to look at or touch me. The three of us simply stare out at the frozen expanse with the same melancholy spirit, watching the river rushing below the ice so far below.

“Hope is a privilege for those born in the light.” I reply, not entirely understanding where these words are coming from. “They know that the darkness is only temporary because they don’t belong there… but how am I to believe in light when I’ve never seen it?”

the future?” The first man offers.” If we were to show

do that?” I ask, turning to look at him for the first

if you are brave enough to take the risk.” The

hundred – of the person you might become if you refuse to give up. It is not guaranteed, and it is not entirely in

Perhaps I’ve lost my mind. Perhaps I’ve already jumped and this

have to shut my eyes against the glare, but it does not hurt – it does not burn me as it probably should. Energy surges

belly is not bloated with hunger, her skin is not lifeless and pale. She’s clean and healthy, wearing a dress which must cost more than everything I’ve

moves with the lethal grace of a predator, and there’s a vicious edge to his bronzed, raven-haired beauty. He approaches her like a wolf stalking his prey, but she isn’t afraid. He

is the spitting image of the

his arms, balancing the three older children while his wife cradles the youngest. I can hear their laughter, but I can feel it too. Their happiness is foreign to me and yet so contagious, merely watching them makes me feel as if I’ve swallowed the sun. Is that what they feel every day? Is it possible to ever be so full of emotion when the

it came, and when I open my eyes again they’re full of

willing to fight for it.” The second man repeats. “Nothing is handed to us in life, especially not this. It will be a difficult road ahead, but there are rewards at the end if you’re brave enough to make the

through enough?” I ask, wondering why some people do seem to be handed everything, while others must constantly

have to enter it yourself. You have to

men turn and walk away, and ten minutes later I don’t remember meeting them at all. In fact, I don’t remember why I’m out here in the middle of the night or what I’m doing standing on this bridge. Certain I’m going to catch my death from cold, I hurry back to the orphanage and my

fades away as Leon calls me back to the present, “Come back to us,

his lips grazing