**********************

The Empress Luna

**********************

She wasn't alone in this battle.

She let her mind wander into her fantasies and live there where she wouldn't be disappointed with her current reality.

Luna's tears fell as she felt them leak into the corner of her eyes into her cheeks.

Luna instinctively resisted and struggled even harder to escape—to prove a point that she was in control.

She held on to her to the memories of Apollyon, hoping that she was back in her own body, but there was only one way to find out.

Luna's closed lids fluttered, and she could finally twitch her fingers s little bit.

A white light showing in the background in the dark void of her mind, but it wasn't clear.

Luna could see dark scribbles as if a toddler had drawn it.

She couldn't make them out properly.

It appeared like interconnected dak messy wires, sharp thorns, and long vines and entangled threads no one could separate.

Chaos. Confusion.

Hopelessness.

The emotions it had evoked in her made her head spin, turning into a never-ending spiral.

She felt like a fly caught in the spider, trapped and chained to its webs of lies and deceit.

It was a force that stopped her from moving forward as planned.

It is a thick, dense, uncompromising, and she had to fight her way through it.

Her consciousness was trapped in a black box, and it felt like she was fighting for life itself.

It was a wall beyond all walls with every bramble, thorn and stoneArchdemons were controlling her fate like she was a puppet, throwing her off-course to the path she should take.

They were interfering with her destiny like she was in a dead-end, and there was no way to get past this.

Luna felt a hollowness in her chest, and she was close to giving up.

The more she struggled and squirmed from the ties that bind her, the more it wouldn't let go.

It choked her by the neck, holding her arms and legs, keeping her captive.

There was another tiny dot at the centre of her vision as it grew and grew into another black hole.

A slender hand shot out, stretching his fingers and reaching out, grabbing her face.

The next scene shifted and showed her a large main entrance of something she couldn't make out yet.

She had broken free from the captivity of the darkness, and right now, she was standing at the majestic archway shaped like an enormous keyhole.

She narrowed her eyes at it in suspicion.

What was behind it feels so grand, heavenly and out of this world.

Luna wondered where it would lead her.

It must be a different Realm.

The double doors were shut tightly, so she didn't know what's on the other side.

She stepped forward and stared at the door knocker, which had the head of a lion.

Lifting her hand to examine the round metal, she flinched when someone tapped her shoulder.

When she turned around to face the stranger, Luna immediately covered her eyes with her arm because this creature was too glaring to look at as if he was the sun itself.

It was a man with a face she could never recognize because the light behind him was too bright like he wore some halo.

Luna only knew that he wore a long-sleeved tunic and white robes.

When she raised her head a little, she noticed the stranger had dark hair up to his shoulders and a goatee.

He stretched his arm, and glorious blue flames lit up the sconces at each side of the entrance.

"This is your dead-end, Archdemon."

She stood in front of him in her purple dress and asked incredulously. "Dead end?"

Clutching the fabric of her wet skirts, Luna narrowed her eyes and asked, "What?"

Dead end?

If this was a story, was this Luna's final chapter?

The impasse?

Every one of Luna's instincts had screamed in warning, but something silenced it.

Feeling nauseous all of a sudden, Luna's stomach hardened, and she doubled over.

Hunching over as she choked down a sob, Luna's whole body shook with violence, and she was powerless to stop it.

Hands clenching into fists, she was forced to kneel into the ground and submit.

She needed to get her shit together in the presence of this light being.

Luna resisted his power as she rocked in her back and forth all the while, covering her ears with every nuance of his words.

Noisy breathing.

Bared teeth.

Rivulets of cold sweat dripped in her forehead and upper back.

The darkness of evil cannot stay in the presence of the light.

Luna only wanted to flee with shame and remove herself in his presence.

Will the angel kill her for what she had become?

The stranger snapped his finger as if her trembling limbs and her anxious, hyperactive mind had been poured with a soothing balm.

Luna sighed with relief.

He had saved her from her topsy-turvy thoughts of almost insanity.

He made her feel more present and see where she was headed.

The man might have no wings behind him, but perhaps he was an angel-in-disguise.

With both of her palms in the dirt, the stranger offered a hand.

Luna glanced up into a face that was unclear and unrecognizable, no matter how much she tried so hard to make out what he looked like.

She couldn't.

The man might as well wear a mask if he wouldn't show his image to her.

Luna second-guessed touching hands with an angel but never mind.

She will find it out.

She felt a slight tingle in his fingertips as the stranger helped her stand.

She considered it progress that she didn't die on the spot.

Luna's eyebrows knitted in confusion.

Why was she not disturbed by the angel's presence anymore despite being an Archdemon?

The angel let her go and placed his hands around his back.

She decided to hear what the stranger had to say.