12 Deja Vu
Amaris walked closer to the door but she was startled when someone suddenly tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned to see who it was, there was no one there.
She frowned. She was sure that someone touched her shoulder. She suddenly felt goosebumps on her nape and her whole body shivers, getting an abrupt feeling of coldness.
"Amaris."
She gasped for air when she heard a muffled whisper in her ear. She looked around again but she was alone in a seemingly endless long hallway.
She didn't notice it earlier but looking at it, the hall was full of old paintings on the wall and a full window on the other side. You could see the full moon outside looking like a huge silver disc illuminating in the night sky.
When she took a step on the red carpeted floor, a sudden chill swept through her bones. In every exhale, she could see her breath forming a small cloud. It was cold but she didn't know it was that cold.
Shrugging off the coldness of the hallway, she continued to walk forward to look for the one who called her. She glanced from side to side looking in some form of person or figure.
"Amaris."
Her heart started pounding when she heard the voice again. She wandered down the hallway and began to feel a sort of deja vu, she felt like she had been there before or at least a particular part of it.
She continued to stroll, feeling a bit of anticipation, like something would happen or already had happened. She stopped and turned her eyes to an old painting of a woman.
She has long straight golden hair with a pair of silver eyes and lips red as blood. On her head was a crown with a symbol of the crescent moon. She was sitting on a golden throne and the moon was shining brightly in her background.
"She's Selene, the Moon Goddess."
She was startled once more when someone spoke in her ear.
"Zion!" She was relieved to see who it was.
She looked around to check if there were other people aside from them. But still, she didn't see anyone and the feeling of coldness she had earlier was gone.
"Is there something wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." Zion asked, looking at her worried.
She shook her head and just ignored the feeling she had.
"I'm fine." She answered then turned to the woman on the painting again.
For some reason, there was something on the painting that she couldn't explain. She stared at the woman for a few minutes, wondering why she was drawn to her.
"She's beautiful. I've never seen her photo in books, all I could find was a description of her." She mumbled.
"That's because no one has seen her for decades. She was known to be a loving and selfless goddess until she herself fell in love with a demon." Zion sounded dejected.
She glanced at Zion who was looking at the Moon Goddess with longing yet disappointed eyes.
"What happened to her?" She asked, curiously.
Zion took a deep breath, reached out his hand to touch the painting.
"Selene is the daughter of Hyperion and Theia. They are one of the twelve Titans and the first original Gods. She resided on the moon and became the Moon Goddess. She was believed to be our creator so we worship her as a God. She was also the one responsible for our mating and shifting. But she fell in love with Phelan, a Demon Prince. The Gods were against them so they forced Phelan to join in a competition between all the Demon Princes." He paused, sighing deeply while looking at the painting.
"Orcus, the Demon God, ordered Asmodeus, the current Demon King that time and the father of Phelan, to send his sons and daughters to the human world. Their duty was to spread fear and darkness. And there's one rule given to them, to not fall in love with your kind. If they do, they will lose their powers and become mortals. They can never go back to their home as well. But the Gods had other plans, they made Phelan fall in love with a mortal."
Amaris was just listening to Zion. The story he told her was not written in books given to them in school. It was just said that Phelan cheated on Selene. It was never mentioned that the Gods actually did something to make him fall for another woman.
"Selene was furious with Phelan, not knowing the truth and blinded by hatred, she decided to curse him and his descendants. She cursed them that if they ever find their mate, one of them will die." Zion continued.
Amaris bit her lips and mustered the courage to ask Zion.
"A-Are you a descendant of Phelan?" She asked.
He knew she would ask her about it. He openly told her that he was cursed by the Goddess, giving her a hint of his situation.
"No. I am not. Or the answer is I am not sure. No one really knows who Phelan's descendants are. Only the high priestess of the witches knew who they were."
She was confused. He said he was cursed. If he wasn't Phelan's descendant, then why did the Moon Goddess curse him?
"Like I said, I was cursed for a thousand years. What happened to Selene and Phelan was just a few decades back and I was cursed two hundred years ago."
He answered her confusion but he didn't actually tell her in detail. He still wasn't sure if he would tell her about it now. He was afraid that if she found out everything about him, she would be disgusted.
Amaris felt that Zion was still hesitating to tell her everything. She respected his decision and decided to wait further. She held his hand and smiled at him.
"Let's go to sleep. I suddenly felt exhausted." She said to change the topic.
He nodded and they started walking away from the painting. Amaris took a last glance at Selene's painting. There it was again, the feeling of deja vu. From where or from who? She wasn't sure.
