"Exploring the unknown requires tolerance of uncertainty."
- Brian Greene
Ophelia spent the following day after her encounter with the supernatural trying to normalize everything she had experienced. She decided she wanted to forget everything, forget Damien, she decided she was selfish for wanting more excitement in her life. She would be more careful about what she wished for in the future seeing how powerful wishing truly was.
No matter how normal she thought she was being, she was jumpy and on edge, Serena noticed she was acting off, weird, unusual, and of course, how could Ophelia not be acting peculiar? She knew things no other mortal did, she had seen things no other mortal had and was now changed whether she wanted to be or not.
"Are you sure nothing strange happened last night? I'm starting to get worried about you," Serena stopped her from her anxious cleaning of the desktop.
Ophelia recalled the events of last night in her brain, after running away horrified she was lucky enough to call a taxi at the hour of one in the morning all the buses had stopped running, she remembered how she desperately wanted to tell the cab driver to "step on it" but she couldn't explain what she was running from.
"I'm fine, just some strange dreams, that's all, I promise, I'm fine," Ophelia was cross with Serena, although she didn't mean to be, she wasn't angry with her, she was scared.
"Sheesh, O," Serena was taken aback by Ophelia's attitude.
"I'm going to go for a walk, clear my head, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you like that," Ophelia went for a walk across campus where she bumped into Madison, the girl who was with Damien at his Halloween Party.
Ophelia didn't know Madison very well except for a few things Serena had told her as they had nursing classes together. Madison was a bit of a tramp according to Serena who was displeased with her chasing after Christian Holmes, the man Serena had been pining over since her first day at the university. Ophelia decided this information checked out since not shortly after that she was with Damien.
Madison was sat down at the benches with another girl, once she saw Ophelia she quickly approached her with malicious intent.
"Ophelia Vaughn, isn't it?" Madison smiled with a toothy grin. Ophelia wasn't in the mood to talk, she had a lot on her plate at the moment and she just wanted some alone time.
"Yeah, Madison Clark, right?" Ophelia snapped out of her daze, Madison nodded slowly, her friendly disposition faded quickly, she turned up her nose at Ophelia.
"I didn't think you had it in you," Madison flipped her shoulder length brown hair behind her back with a smug expression on her face as if she knew something Ophelia didn't.
"I'm sorry?" Ophelia questioned getting defensive herself seeing Madison's unfriendly demeanor.
"I like Damien, and I liked him first, what happened with Michael and I was unfortunate, but that's in the past, I thought you'd be mature enough to understand that but clearly you are not," Madison insinuated that she was the mystery woman Michael cheated on Ophelia with whilst claiming Ophelia had been trying to steal Damien out from underneath her, quite literally.
Ophelia's face burnt red with rage, sadness and embarrassment. Her eyes filled up with tears that she quickly swallowed along with a hard lump that was now forming in the back of her throat.
"You're truly everything I've heard about you," Ophelia squinted and pushed past her letting her shoulder smash into Madison's.
Ophelia couldn't hold back the tears as she sped walk through campus hiding her own face with her hair. She felt like screaming although she was surrounded by her peers, more than now ever Ophelia wanted the sanctity of loneliness.
She cut through the baseball field, pushing open the gate that led to the forest that surrounded her university. Carefully stepping through the twigs and branches that closed off the lightly traveled path. Ophelia did not know where she would end up as she wandered through the forest, she assumed at the opposite end of the campus, she assumed the woods were safe but she wasn't thinking about the creatures she now knew existed, she was focused on the burning feeling in her throat. Ophelia was closed in on the familiar feeling of worthlessness, she never wanted to confront her "Michael situation" again, and now her questions had been answered. Instead of sighing in relief, she felt worse knowing the truth. She screamed at the top of her lungs, birds swarming out of the trees. The silence carried Ophelia's heartbreaking scream in an echo.
She had trudged her way through the entire forest grunting, huffing and puffing as she did, the end of the forest led her to the back of the quad that was shockingly empty at five in the evening. Ophelia assumed everyone was at dinner in the hall. There just one person sitting on the bench, a man with flawless porcelain skin, he was wearing a dark blue coat with black dress pants and a pair of sunglasses, Ophelia thought he might've been a professor, she hadn't seen him before yet she didn't give him much thought as she walked by. What she found to be weird was that he was wearing sunglasses and it was November, it was cold and it was foggy, there was no sunshine.
"Miss Vaughn?" The man stood up following after her. Ophelia stopped, again not in the mood to converse with anyone, she was on her way back to her dorm room to apologize to Serena whom she was slightly abrasive with earlier.
"I don't think I take your class," Ophelia replied shortly, her mind had been elsewhere, her eyes too.
"I'm not a professor, my name is Abraham," The man introduced himself, Ophelia found him to have an enchanting aura about him, he looked to be in his thirties, average height, slender build, with a perfect smile. Still she was confused, who was he? Why was he sitting there? Was he waiting for her?
"Were you waiting for me?" Ophelia asked with suspicion in her voice. She knew now, this world was not what it had seemed to be. All the things she thought she had to be scared of were nothing in comparison.
"I was, yes, I find I feel better afterwards if I introduce myself to the victims before hand," Abraham's tone was sullen now, he removed his sunglasses and tucked them into pocket of his coat. His eyes were deep, velvet, red. Ophelia covered her mouth with her hand, she looked around for another person, someone like her, but the quad was a ghost town.
"I'm not here to kill you, I'm here to deliver a message," Abraham smiled, his canine teeth pointed and long. Ophelia quickly put the facts about the stranger together, he was a vampire. Ophelia didn't trust him, not for a one second, she had read about the vampires from the Underworld before. They were cunning, manipulative and greedy beings. She thought of ways to escape, to talk herself out of this situation but none came to mind, she knew the capabilities of this undead creature.
"What do you want?" Ophelia tried to seem as brave as she could, she didn't want to show weakness or fear. Abraham chuckled clearly seeing through her poorly played façade. His movements were so fast that if she blinked she would've missed it. Abraham looked at Ophelia apologetically before taking her arm gently into his stone cold pale hand, as Ophelia resisted Abraham showed off his brute strength fastening his grip leaving no room for her wrist to squeeze out.
"Tell Damien, it's time to come home, and don't worry Ophelia, he'll come and save you, he's aware you're in trouble, if he doesn't you'll be dead within the hour," Abraham dug his index finger into Ophelia's forearm, dragging his nail across her skin leaving a sensation that felt like multiple bee stings.
Ophelia bit her lip, tears pouring down her face, she held the scratch trying to subdue the pain to no avail. It was unlike any other feeling she had experienced before in her life, she sunk down into the grass shutting her eyes hard.
Once she opened them, Abraham had disappeared in the same way he had shown up, without a trace.
She writhed in pain, her breathing shallow and quick, she made numerous failed attempts to get herself back on her feet growing more exhausted with every struggle. The vampire's scratch sent an infection through her body, she didn't know if Damien would come although she was certain Abraham thought so, she didn't know how much time she had, this wasn't apart of the curriculum she had been studying.
Before Ophelia knew it, she couldn't fight the tiredness any longer, her pale blue eyes fluttered shut as she laid in the middle of the grass in the empty quad.
As Abraham predicted, Damien knew about the trouble Ophelia was in.
Back at Damien's home, Hades had appeared to let Damien know there was a change of plans. It was time for Damien to come home, Hades was not known for his patience while Damien wasn't known for taking commands, this enraged his father causing him to toy with the very thing he knew his son loved, his gift, Ophelia.
"I think your obsession with this human is out of control, let her die, let's go back to the Underworld," Ajax rolled his eyes at Damien's persistence to constantly surround himself with Ophelia and go out of his way for something Ajax perceived to be beneath them.
"It's not an obsession, I feel...very protective of her," Damien snapped at Ajax. Part of Damien himself was ashamed that Ajax was right, that his father was right, that everything was true. Damien himself never wanted a gift of a mortal, he felt he deserved more than that, but once he saw Ophelia, he saw her soul, and it was the most pure soul he had ever felt before and he realized something. There wasn't anything more. She was created for him, so why didn't she love him back?
Ajax sprouted his black demon wings from his shoulder blades following Damien aerially through the clouds, they traveled to Ophelia's university scouting for her from the sky.
Damien landed on his feet gently while Ajax crash landed in the dirt returning back to his humanoid form, Damien couldn't be bothered as he rushed over to the sleeping Ophelia.
"I'm okay, thanks!" Ajax barked sarcastically with a scoff.
"Stupid Ophelia," Ajax mumbled to himself.
Damien inspected Ophelia's arm, he instantly knew what had happened. He looked around for the vampire that was responsible but he was certain whomever they were, they were long gone back their coffin now. Damien furrowed his brow, he could take away the symptoms but not the infection.
"Do we have the ingredients to the cure for a vampire's scratch?" Damien picked up Ophelia as if she was weightless.
"Oh, Abraham must've been here," Ajax rolled his eyes.
"Yes, we do," Ajax cleared his throat.
"That bloodsucking leech on a leash," Damien muttered to himself, he knew his father was going to make an issue for him.
Damien knew if he wanted to, he could take Ophelia to the Underworld without her consent, he was a God, it wasn't her choice, her purpose for existence was to be with him, to be whatever he wanted her to be. But he wasn't his father, he wanted Ophelia to see him the way he saw her but the more he thought about how pure her soul was, the more he deemed himself unworthy of her.