[Flashback continued...]

-

"Are you feeling better now?" asked Shane as he joined Emily on the bed and placed a cup of hot chocolate in her freezing hands.

The girl immediately shook her head in denial before indulging herself in the hot chocolate that she was holding in her hands. She needed something to distract herself and it would be an understatement to say that she was tired beyond words.

The current state of her body was like that of a dead body. It was refusing to function at all just like her mind which was completely burnt out at the moment.

It was half-past five in the morning and her body still refused to give her a break. Five minutes before her birthday, she was listening to Shadow talk about her not being a human unlike the rest of her family members. And then two minutes past midnight, she was whimpering as an agonizing pain took over her body.

The pain did not leave as quickly as it came. Rather, it stayed with her for hours, nearly four hours or so. Even she had no idea how she survived those four hours.

Every single second of those four hours was filled with pain, discomfort, and dizziness that refused to let her close her eyes and just succumb to the darkness.

Her body was like on fire, or maybe she just took a detour through the fiery pits of hell itself. Sometimes it felt like her cells were falling apart and being jammed back together the very next second.

It was like something suddenly broke out in her body and started tearing apart everything inside her and then fixed it after satisfying its curiosity.

Never in her life, Emily felt so much pain. Even though Shadow tried his best to provide some comfort to her but he could not do much in her situation.

According to his words, "It was her newly awakened powers that were binding themselves with every single fiber of her body."

If receiving supernatural powers meant she would have to go through so much pain and suffering then she wanted to stay a mortal for the rest of her life.

Emily's train of thoughts was disturbed when her ear registered the opening of her bedroom door and she watched as Rylan and Shadow s stepped inside.

Rylan walked towards the other side of her bed and took a seat next to where she was bundled up in blankets in the center of the bed.

He placed his palm against her forehead to check her temperature and immediately regretted it as a yelp escaped his lips.

"Why she's freezing like ice? She's too cold to be possible!" The panic in his tone was clear. He rubbed his hands together to warm them up before he took my hands in his and started rubbing them.

He and Shane had bombarded into my dorm room just a few minutes after my body was hit with the sudden and dreadful pain. It was because he probably sensed my discomfort through our bond.

Along with Shadow, Rylan and Shane had too spent hours watching the girl writhing in pain as she suffered through the unknown.

When those four hours finally passed and her cries ceased, they were finally able to relax a little, seeing that her body that was too hot to even touch her for a second, was finally cooling down.

But then they were once again facing another weird situation when her temperature kept decreasing. Just like a few hours ago, she was burning, now her body was freezing. And once the three of them could do nothing but just watch her suffer.

"We have applied for the leave for you today. Now stop thinking about how you are supposed to attend your classes in the next few hours and focus on getting better as soon as possible. You need to fight through it, Em. Or it will make you suffer just as much as it wants," Rylan told her as he kept rubbing her hands. He wasn't sure if her hands were getting any warmer or not but his hands had definitely started to freeze a little.

"Am I.....g-going....to....to die.....?" Emily asked through her chattering teeth. Her voice was barely audible but the good thing was that all three men had supernatural hearing senses. They still managed to clearly hear her words even when they were spoken almost in a whisper.

"No dummy, you are not going to die. Rather, you should consider this as your new birth. Because in many senses, it's indeed a new birth for you. You need to take it positively to make it positive. If you filled your little brain with stupid negative thoughts, then trust me, you will never found the new you as accepting as it should be."

For the very first time in over a year, Emily had found Rylan talking about something so serious and deep. She was so used to his constant nonsense talks that she could hardly believe that these words were coming out of his mouth.

"Alright, boys. It's about to approach six o'clock in the morning. You two should leave and continue with your day. I'll be here to take care of her and I'll keep updating you about her condition. By the time you will return in the evening, she will be back to normal. Now, hurry up!"

Shadow suddenly sounded like a big brother as he ordered Rylan and Shane to not skip their classes.

"Inform us if anything goes wrong," reminded Shane as he stood up from the bed but not before giving his shivering friend a tight hug.

"I promise. And you really don't have to worry. In a few hours, she will start getting normal. There's a little chance for a fever but otherwise, I think she will be alright by noon." Shadow told them as he moved towards the door of the bedroom.

"We will visit you during the lunch break. Fighting! Don't let the pain win." Rylan whispered to her before he gave a nod to Shadow and then after a final look in her direction, he and Shane left.

Though the thought of becoming normal by noon sounded great to Emily but to her utter dismay, there were still hours of suffering and pain were left for her to battle through.