And I don’t know how long just watching you through a window will be enough for me. You need to get better, you need to wake up entirely. Do you hear me?
Because not being able to touch you makes me go insane.
* * *
This will be my last entry.
At least I hope so, because I’m going to ask White to give this to you.
He might be reading it. He might even add something to it, but I don’t mind, I don’t care, unless he decides against my request. And even then, I know I can’t do anything against it.
But I’ve been what he wanted me to be.
More or less, at least. Just as he used to say: “there is always room for improvement.”
He just needs to know that there might be no further improvement without you being with me.
You woke up.
You woke up for real. As in moving, perceiving, and answering to your surroundings.
When it happened, I wasn’t sure if I was imagining things. It seems so unreal. And the way you did move was surreal, far too slow, at least as I remember it. And maybe for the first time I was actually glad that Peter was with me, because as I looked at him briefly, he stared at me in disbelief and awe – probably the same glance I gave him.
At first, you just sat there again. Alone. Like the last few days they had left you alone when we came to watch you. And I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear it. Nothing like Peter who seemed to have taken over the very apathy you had showed. Until today.
My hands were in their usual spot. I don’t know what happened. I don’t want to claim that it was me because I don’t know if I did anything to make it happen.
At first, it was only your blinking. A bit faster than usual and then your eyes moved, scanning the room. Your head was soon to follow. Although you didn’t turn around, you obviously looked at your room. And then... you leaned your head to the right and then left side, stretching your neck, face expressionless.
Something icily crawled down my spine, watching you. And you stared back at the mirror in front of you.
First I thought you were looking straight at me, being able to see me through the glass, but that was impossible. Unless you had the same enhanced sight now, as I have. But then your glance would have meant that you either didn’t recognize me, or that my sight didn’t evoke any emotions in you.
I’m not sure if it was worse to know that you gave me this unfeeling, cold look.
Then you blinked slowly. For a moment it seemed as if you were closing your eyes, but you weren’t. Instead, before you opened your eyelids again, your right arm moved, lifting your hand up, palm facing yourself, so that you could have a look at it.
Still, there was a lack of emotion or reaction in your expression that made me freeze. Whatever heat had been in my veins until that moment, whatever had made the Beast in me stir: it was gone, washed away by the frost that had spread from you.
You tilted your head, still looking at your palm, while you wiggled your fingers slowly, eventually closing your hand into a fist, held it like this for a second and opened it again. Your lips still formed a line, not a firm one, just a straight line, as if you had no idea how to move the corners of your mouth, or were incapable of it.
When I woke up from my coma, I was instantly wide awake, burning with raw and primal emotions. My Beast is made from fire, burning me alive when it tries to break free.
That’s how I know you’re not one of us. Even if they have changed you, they turned you into something else.
If they did, this something else terrifies the Hell out of me. But I will not believe it until we have met, face to face.
I need to know that you are okay.
This, how you are now, is not okay.
I need to see you feel, be. I need to know that you are human and not this.
What have they done to you?
When I said that watching you being in a coma or being apathetic was the worst thing, that it made me feel helpless, I was wrong. This is worse.
What have they done to you?
What has happened to you?
Maybe now they will need me to reach you.
I definitely need to reach you. I need to touch you, warm you, have you come back to life and be with me. Thinking of the possibility that you, the Meghan I love, is gone and there is nothing left but an empty hull... it makes me want to throw up.
They have to let me try to reach you, or else they will have a Beast at their hands that they cannot control, because I won’t be willing to restrain it.
I will give myself up completely to avenging you.
You cannot be gone.
I am still so upset that I can taste the bile at the back of my throat. Still, even though you noticed your old diary and the new one lying next to you on your bed. I only saw it when you took them one after another and turned them around to look at them, as if you had no idea what they were, as if you didn’t recognize your own diary.
I was constantly holding my breath, afraid that you might shatter into pieces if I didn’t.
Only as you opened your diary and flipped through the pages, and actually your brows twitched a little, I dared to breathe shallowly.
When you froze, I froze.
And I knew you were at the page White had written.
I expected you to clench your jaw, your hands to tense, your body to tremble. I was begging that you would tear the page out, throw the book across the room. Just one tiny emotional outbreak.
I remember those words so clearly. Him talking about that full month being held up good so far, and how he was fascinated with watching, that there finally was a success. This one sentence: “You have not realized yet that both of you are mine, have you?”
He addressed me on that page as if I was his partner here and not a victim.
Fear was a painful jolt in my bones.
Would you believe that? That I was siding with him?
No, you know better.
I know you do.
The true you. Meghan.
My Meghan.
I wanted to scream, to roar, to tear down the whole wall between us, but I was too afraid of the consequences. I didn’t want panic to be the first emotion clearly taking you over, but I couldn’t stand seeing what I saw either.
You just put it aside.
The diary.
Your diary.
As if it was nothing, as if it wasn’t even yours.
And you simply picked up the new one, flipping through the empty pages as well, putting it aside too.
The thought that followed made me shudder. Maybe you didn’t even comprehend what had been written there, didn’t even see it, but just remembered the movement of flipping pages?
I stumbled away from the window, but my eyes didn’t leave you. I needed the dimness of the back of my room, away from the sterile white of yours.
Peter was only a shadow in a bright frame. He didn’t move at all, just stared at you, paralyzed, and I barely noticed him.
How much I begged for the fire inside of me to lit up again, how desperately I pleaded for my Beast to wake up. But it didn’t react, didn’t even stir.
It felt as if I was dying inside, as if it was dead.
* * *
Before you saved me, my world was red.
All I felt was all that Hell was made of: rage, fury, wrath, fear, horror, murder, death, killing. All I was black and red. You brought back color, softness, warmth.
I refuse to believe that this is gone.
I am still hoping that you need time to return to yourself. Maybe you need me now, just like I needed you.
I still need you.
It’s not a cheesy phrase. It’s a fact.
I need you.
Just writing that I love you is not strong enough.
It doesn’t describe what I feel for you.
You are my cause, you are the reason I am, the reason I still am, that I am again.
How can I express this in a way you can feel it yourself?
I don’t know.
When you are reading this now, if you are reading this now, you have maybe read it all. You know where I was, how I felt, when I was in that coma.
That darkness was and is still with me.
You have read about the fire, the acid, the brute force that is inside of me. The Beast. You know it, you have seen it.
You planted a tiny light inside of me, to fight off the darkness. You gave me the gentleness to tame that Beast. You showed me that I was torn and softly put me back together.
Saying that you saved me doesn’t describe it strong enough. It’s too weak to write it like this.
You took a burned, torn, black and red canvas and painted a masterpiece, ignoring that it wouldn’t be perfect because of its deranged state.
You believed in me, trusted me, loved me despite everything.
How can I not tear myself into pieces for you? How can I not lay myself at your feet? How can I not do everything in my power and more for you?
I would undo myself just to see you smile at me again.
I would become that monster again, but without regrets, without doubt, without self-loathing for you. I would do everything and more for you.
Do you read this, Clay Severin?
EVERYTHING.
Jay and Meg return to you in
The Beast IN US
Enjoy an exclusive preview on the following pages!
Day 136
Jay woke me up.
I could feel it in my veins, in my bones.
He was there, with me.
I know this as clearly as the fact that the sun is yellow and that around his iris there is a thin circle of a color that reminds me of corroded copper, which expands whenever his instincts claim control over his body.
The secret mark of the Beast inside of Jay.
Just as clearly as I know that I have changed.
Not just in character, not just through experience.
I am not only not the person who I was anymore: I am not the same human anymore.
I cannot say that they have changed me. Physically, I seem to be just as human as before: not stronger, not more arduous, not more efficient, and definitely not beastlier.
At least, that is how I feel.
Still, I am different.
I seem different to my own perception, and I know that I am not the same as before I was put into this coma.
All I know is that something is different, I am different.
Something is missing. And that is the only thought I am willing to think.
Because it feels cold, and empty.
These few words are already too much.
And they feel wrong.
All I know, what I really know, is that Jay woke me up.
Jay is the reason why I am awake again.
Even though I am not sure if I even want to be awake again, or that I want to be still alive.
Because I feel... I feel dead inside.
* * *
It took me four days to even move. And I am not sure if it was the coma wearing off, or if it was me.
Four days.
Four days of painless pain.
I could sense my body slowly aching, but I didn’t feel anything. As if it was something remembered on the verge between being awake and asleep, not really knowing whether it is part of a dream or reality.
Lying awake and staring at the ceiling was something I really felt used to, and feel used to right now. Especially when no one is around and the monitor noises are switched off. Well, at least those which have a switch.
Everything else is just... noisy and loud.
It hurts in my ears.
Sometimes, not all the time, because I remember them. They are familiar to me. I haven’t only heard them in the last four days, but in the days before.
I can’t tell since when, but I know them, recognize them, just as if you are visiting a place you have been to several times.
Even though you are not aware of all the sounds, smells and sensations, you would instantly know if something has changed, but you wouldn’t be able to put a finger on it.
I do know. Precisely.
Just as I do know that Jay was here.
Every single day.
And I don’t know if I miss him.
What I know is that the thought of precariousness pains me. Why shouldn’t I miss him? Or why should I?
I think that might be the reason why I woke up at all. As in: really woke up. As in: moving my limps on my own and not by some doctor.
My muscles feel sore, but not un-used.
Should I not need some sort of therapy for this?
Or did they do these massages and exercises while I was asleep as well? It would make sense, wouldn’t it.
About the Author
D.S. Wrights was born and raised mostly in Germany.
She speaks three languages fluently: English, German and Dutch.
Her name is a pen name and she describes writing as her passion and calling.
Two short stories were published during high school, one as a school project and one in a regional newsletter.
Later she worked at a publishing house where she earned insight into the work, process and production of publishing books.
In the last few years she has published several fan fictions to which the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Visit me: www.dswrights.com
Follow on twitter: @DSWrights
And on tumblr: dswrights.tumblr.com &
thebeastandme.tumblr.com
Water
by D.S. Wrights
When Ava’s unwilling participation in a hike through the nearby mountains ends up with her and her secret crush Doug being rolled over a landslide, she never would have expected that finding an underground source of water would have a more drastic outcome than saving her life.
Soon she realizes that there is something different about the water, as well as Doug and she. Ever since he is behaving differently from what she is used to, growing more and more protective and possessive of her.
Eventually, as the rest of the town starts being suspicious, but also mysterious men in suits show up and start asking questions, Ava knows that her life will turn more than difficult.
Coming 2015!
Get an exclusive sneak on the next pages!
Prologue
Ava was stunned, still denying believing her own eyes. The light of the street lamp buzzed right above her, painting strange shadows on the street, flashing, as if it was trying to revive the half dozen corpses scattered around her. But it wasn’t what she was staring at, what her mind still refused to comprehend: Doug had killed them all.
All six of them.
Despite being shot.
She had lost the count of how many bullets had hit him. After moving between those soldiers at a speed that was inhuman, snapping their necks, breaking their bones, he had slumped to the ground at her feet.
And Ava kept staring, being paralyzed, even though she could hear the sirens in the distance, the trucks, the choppers, heading in their direction.
She couldn’t move.
What she saw couldn’t be true. Blood didn’t flow like water, and not up the street, and not back into the body from which it had been spilled.
Yet it did.
Doug’s blood had almost reached her bare feet, leaving his body from those wounds, but it stopped. It had stopped and crawled back across the concrete, without even leaving a mark of moisture on it. As she had followed its trail back to its origin, Doug wasn’t lying anymore.
He looked straight at her, reaching out for her hand.
„Are you coming?” he asked; just like that day in the mountains, that day it had all begun, that day they had found the well.
It had to be the water... […]
Circuit Heart
by D.S. Wrights
Billionaire’s daughter Karissa Larke, traumatized by losing her brother in a failed kidnapping and her mother by suicide, c
an buy everything her heart’s desires, but not what she needs. Fighting her social anxiety, groomed by being home schooled for too long and entering ‘normal’ life too late, she has been protected by her father’s prototype in personal security the humanoid robot ‘Adrian’, since the age of fifteen. Relying on him heavily, she only feels save with him around, the one who can’t die.
When she turns 21 and after some awkward discoveries, which she doesn’t know how to process, ‘Kara’ realizes that not only her desires and his protectiveness and possessiveness lead her even closer to Adrian, but also his circuit heart, which belongs only to her.
Coming 2015!
Get an exclusive sneak on the next page!
PROLOGUE
The last thing I remember of my brother was him screaming for our mother. It still wakes me up now and then. I will never forget that day.
It changed everything.
It changed my whole life.
It was the fourth of December 2041.
Mom had taken my Kahl and me along Christmas shopping, as she had done the last two days and every year since we had moved into the city.
Kahl and I were eleven years old. He was two minutes older than me.
In retrospect, doing so was the worst thing a billionaire’s wife could have done, and I can imagine that our chief of security had advised against such an obvious routine. But my mother was far too naïve to believe that her children and her could be in any danger.
After all, Larke Robotics, my father’s company, was doing nothing but good for humankind. She never thought someone would harm us.
Mom would never forgive herself.
I only recall that she wasn’t with us, when it happened. At least not close. I believe that she was talking to a shop assistant or paying a bill. She had left my brother and me sitting on the ground and playing some game on our iScreens, and he was winning again.
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