Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Shattered Illusions ❯ No Return ( Chapter 27 )

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Shattered Illusions

Chapter 27: No Return

By: Melissa Norvell

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Millie walked in with Prince Yale at her side. Both of them wore worried looks on their faces. “Hey, I heard a loud crash and-“ The girl paused and held out her arm to the stunned prince at her side. She let out a loud gasp as she saw the blood splattered across the room. “Oh my god…Coscatta is dead…”

Yale pushed past her, nearly knocking her down as he rushed to Copernicus' side. The brunette was still perched on the floor, looking up in a dazed state with tears streaming down his pale complexion. Coscatta's mangled body lay unmoving and armless at his feet.

“Copernicus…” Tsubomi sat at the edge of the bed with a sympathetic look on her face.

Yale pulled out a handkerchief and blotted the tears from his face. He placed a frail hand on the side of his friend's visage. “Copernicus…”

“Please, Yale…” Copernicus' voice was haggard and low as he was hugged close.

“I'm so sorry.” If Yale could transfer emotion through his body he was pretty sure it would have worked with that passionate embrace. He felt large hands placed on his forearms.

Tsubomi slowly got out of bed and stumbled over to hug him. She collapsed into him, wrapping her arms around the weeping vampire as a stray tear hit her on the forehead. “Don't worry. I'm still here…I'll always be here…You won't lose me.”

Millie remembered that Tsubomi had passed out earlier and dashed to her side after her daze wore off. “Tsubomi, are you okay?”

“Other than being poisoned and death threats-“ She was cut off.

“What? You were poisoned?” Copernicus looked down at her. He had been so blinded by rage that bits of what happened escaped him. It was like a blur of pain when Coscatta had stuck the final knife in his back by trying to kill Tsubomi and her plans were revealed in that blood-splattered diary.

“Coscatta did it. She said that it slows down my coherence…I won't die…” Her voice trailed into a whisper as her arms slide down his form and she leaned into her master, losing consciousness.

Copernicus scooped the girl into his arms and held her close. “You'll never be alone. I won't let you fall, my little Tsubomi.” That was a solemn promise.

“We should get that doctor in here,” Yale's features hardened as he turned to Millie, who nodded and ran out of the room to dial up his number.

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Tsubomi lay in bed with an IV needle in her wrist. Her hair was down, and deep brown cascaded over her shoulders. Yale sat by her bedside in a backwards chair and Millie sat on the edge of the bed, staring into the girl's pale face. On the other side of the white sheets, Copernicus held his donor's hand.

“He still looks bad,” Yale noted her stats.

“The doctor said he should be fine. I just hope that he's right. That doctor was sort of crazy. I mean, he called Tsubomi `she'. Tsubomi is a boy, right?” Why would he lie to her? That doctor was just off his rocker to think he was a girl.

Copernicus was confused at that as well. “Yes, wonder why he would say that.”

Millie waved the subject off. “Anyway, he just needs some rest. We should let him sleep.”

“After he wakes up, I want to read this diary. I have a feeling that it will hold all of the answers to what really happened to Virgil,” the vampire held the book up like a prized possession. As much as he knew it would pain him to read it, he knew that he must.

Copernicus couldn't be any less hurt than he was right now.

A few hours later, Tsubomi stirred awake. She felt a little better, now that the poison had been drained from her being and her body was slowly on the way to recovery. For the first time in a while, she was able to get more than a few bites of food down. Things were going to be strange without Coscatta around, and everything went by so fast that she hadn't had time to really think about what all had happened in great detail until now.

After another couple of hours of being alone, everyone came in with grave looks on their faces. She wondered what could have possibly happened in the time that she had passed out, and then she noticed the bloody diary in Copernicus' hand as he sat on the edge of the bed and leveled her with a concerned expression.

“How do you feel?” He asked.

“A little lethargic, but I should be fine. Why are all of you in here, anyway?” Tsubomi figured that she would get right to the point.

“We're having a meeting,” Yale informed her of the purpose of their gathering.

“I want to read this to everyone. I want closure to what's happened in my life. I have read it up to the day that Coscatta began to show signs that she was going to kill him,” Copernicus placed the book before her.

She held it in her hands for a moment before looking to his depressed form. “You must have really loved him.”

Copernicus was silent; his miserable expression said it all.

Tsubomi cuddled up to him and gave him a secure hug as she rested her head on his chest in an effort to give him some comfort. “Don't worry, master. You have me. You're not alone in this.” She hoped that her words would provide some sort of cushion to the feelings festering in his wounded heart.

“What will you do about the blood?” Millie glanced to the donor. “It will take a while for the poison to leave her system.”

“I have a supply that I took from Coscatta's body. She owes me at least that much. I'm going to sever my ties with the Boucellinis,” Copernicus' voice was frigid before he looked down at the girl, clinging to him with all of the strength she had left in her body. “Tsubomi, what's your last name?”

Blinking for a moment, she informed him that her last name was Sakurazawa. From that point on, the vampire made a declaration, pledging himself as her sole protector in the name of her family. The girl smiled and admitted to liking such a noble offer.

Millie broke their happy moment, reminding them of the grim ahead. “Well…let's get started then, shall we?”

Yale frowned, “this will be painful.”

“But…” Copernicus held the book tightly to his chest and clenched his eyes shut, readying himself for a hard look at his past. “It will be worth it,” he told himself as he opened it and read an excerpt from the pages.

Butterflies are like dreams…pointless fragments of life that are too easily crushed. I spend all of my days watching him as he watches my brother. They are always together, more so now than ever.

Yesterday, when I came home, I saw them kiss. He usually kissed both of us, but this time, it was different. When we first decided to serve under Copernicus, we made a promise between ourselves that if one of us ever fell in love with him, whoever fell in love with him first would get to belong to him and I have for a while but I can't say anything. After all, his eyes hold nothing when they look at me, and I'm afraid that I, myself may just be nothing to him.

Virgil really pissed me off today. When I was finally able to admit that I loved Copernicus, he just coldly told me that I'd get hurt. He told me that Copernicus was dangerous and inhuman, but I can't believe that! I can see the good.

I can see what a kind person he is and it isn't from vampire romance novels! I know how to distinguish reality from fantasy. Something is seriously going on. I mean, Copernicus and my brother always go to his back room to talk now a days. I just know that they are doing something.

Something is going on between them and I'm going to get to the bottom of it.

I'm sick of this. I want it all to end and I can't stand watching someone I love be with someone else. Its tea time and I don't want to go.

They are always so happy. I pretend to laugh along with them, but on the inside I'm disgusted.

Every day, they get closer and closer. They hold hands and cuddle right in front of me! It's just depressing and I hate it. I hate looking at them. I just want to die.

“Man, she was really unhappy. She didn't seem like it from being around her, did she?” Millie looked to the others for confirmation. If it wasn't for that one moment when Coscatta cried on her, Millie would have thought that she was just a stuck up little girl.

“Perhaps she didn't want anyone to know about the real her,” Yale told her. In ways, he could understand why Coscatta made the decision that she did, but in retrospect it was like self torture.

“I would hide it too, to be honest,” Millie admitted. She usually kept her thoughts inward; even now she had a tendency to hide her true feelings. If she was in a situation like that, then she wouldn't want to make it worse on herself by bringing it to light.

Copernicus flipped through more pages, his expression becoming more and more depressed with each turn of the page. “It gets worse from there.”

“Why didn't you tell her that you didn't love her?” The school girl questioned. It would have solved everything. It was like he led her on but she caught onto the truth.

“I didn't know…I didn't even know that Virgil knew.” Some things just escaped Copernicus, and things about his donors were things that tended to pass him by.

As Copernicus continued to flip pages, Millie intercepted his hand with her own when it landed on a page with a photo attached. “Hey, this one is weird and it has a picture on it,” she commented as she took the book from him and read the text out loud.

He's smiling at me. It's such a blank smile, really so lifeless compared to the one that Virgil gets. Why is it that when he's around Virgil, he's reduced to a singing bird in a cage?

I would take him from that cage and set him free…but I would break his wings so that all he could do would be to stay by my side and long to fly…That's what he does to my heart. He rips it out and holds it in his hand, strangling and blinding me so I can't leave his love.

Sometimes, I really hate belonging to him.

Below the scrawled out text, there is a picture painted on a piece of paper of Copernicus with a heart in his hand, squeezing it with an evil look on his face and a grim smile. Blood is pouring from the heart off of the page.

Everyone looked down at the image, and Yale was the first one to comment on it. “Her picture is quite a realistic render of you.” There was no doubt that her skills in art were amazing.

“What kind of demented people do you take in?” Millie was beginning to question Copernicus' logic on these things herself. Coscatta was a weird, obsessed girl who hated herself and her life. She probably acted better than everyone to fool herself into thinking she had some kind of edge of humanity.

Tsubomi glanced over to the school girl that her master took in. “What about you?”

Millie put her hands on her hips. “Like you're normal.”

“Point proven.”

“You're all screwed up people.”

“You included,” Yale raised a finger.

“Coscatta was a great art student. She's been in art school all of her life and excelled in realism. At one point in time, she wanted to be a famous artist but she grew to hate her works. She had once told me that realism wasn't something the world needed more of and she was sick of looking at it. So, she sold all of her paintings except one,” Copernicus gestured to the wall, where a painting of Coscatta, Virgil and Copernicus hung on the wall in an elaborate, golden frame. “She painted that portrait of the three of us; it was her last painting…and my favorite.”

“It looks just like you,” Yale could have sworn that the portrait was taken with a camera the quality and attention to detail was so beautiful and well-executed.

“Yeah, you'd swear there are two of you,” Millie complimented.

“The world doesn't need two of him,” Tsubomi shot sardonically. The world was in enough trouble with just one. Two would be hell.

“Seriously, this girl is demented. Hey…this is the day before the page I saw when she talked about killing Virgil,” Millie made a connection as she ran across a familiar page in the diary.

“What does it say?” Copernicus asked.

The school girl began to read another excerpt.

Sick.

That's what I am.

Sick of all of the delusions and lies between us. Sick of all of the passionate nights between them that I have been denied of. Even if I was involved, it would feel as if he loved me equally, but he doesn't even let me make out with him anymore. I want him to be miserable. To suffer as I have…To feel the loss and rejection…He wouldn't be so high and royal then.

This has all gone too far. If I don't end it, no one will. He has stripped me of everything and for that I cannot forgive them. How can they do this to us- to me? I heard them last night, the passion that I should be experiencing…it hurt me more than the worst wound…but that's okay.

I'll let them have fun tonight. Master is happy right now…he should be. I'll let him live in bliss for now.

While they are in there making love, I'll be here plotting with you, dear diary. Below is a list of plans I have devised. Hopefully, I have covered all of the scenarios.

Maroon eyes scanned through the lists, carefully reading over them. Millie was marveled by the girl's sense of precision and attention to detail. “Man, she's covered every little crack and flaw in the system. One thing is for sure, she was definitely going to shoot him and play the whole thing out like she was too traumatized to remember it.”

“The sad thing is, everyone fell for it,” Yale noted.

“Yeah, right up to the end. I feel like a dumbass. I kept drinking the tea, even when I knew it tasted funny.” For that, Tsubomi damned herself. It wasn't just her prior act playing tricks on her taste buds. Next time, she was going to pay attention to her intuition.

Millie was quick to comfort her. Tsubomi didn't need any added stress to her already horrible situation. “It's not your fault. You trusted her, and to think you were protecting her!” That was the thing that pissed her off the most about the whole situation. Tsubomi saved her from Estella on multiple occasions.

“Was I? I mean, in a way, I did what Virgil did.” To Coscatta, she was probably predicable. No wonder she was about to get shot, just like he had so long ago.

“No, Virgil loved me when we first met. It only took us three days to hit things off. It was a fast-paced relationship but we didn't mind. He told Coscatta that because she would have been hurt. I should have told her when it happened, so she wouldn't have been so hopeful, but at the time, Virgil hadn't quite realized his sexuality.” The situation was one that uneased him, it wasn't just Coscatta who suffered from uncertain feelings. It was all of them.

“So, you were his first guy?” Millie inquired in a serious tone. Usually, she would fangirl over things like that, but this time she refrained.

“Yes, h never had good luck with women and he always held a dark secret.”

“Really? What?”

“When he was little, his mother and father always fought. They were abusive to each other and his mother would cry. He was always at her side to comfort her and she had told him that she would like him to comfort her how his father used to. So, they ended up breaking the boundaries of mother and son.” Copernicus trailed darkly.

Millie's eyes widened at the realization of him implication. “What!? That's wild! How can you say that like its normal?” He was so cool and collective about it. Then again, she supposed that it probably blended into the routine of their lives after a while.

“After that happened, however, his mother hated him and didn't want anything to do with him. Her gaze was always cold upon him and it broke his heart. Deep down, it was confusing for him, too because he didn't understand why he had done it. He saw himself as a vile, parasite- detested by all of humanity,” the vampire put a garish twist on Virgil's strange tale.

“I think that's rather sad. I feel bad for Virgil.” Yale added his opinion on the story. Virgil broke a sacred boundary in order to make his mother happy, and then was shot down and detested for it. He could only imagine the mental damage dealt from such a blow.

“I took good care of him…I tried to make him understand that it wasn't his fault, but he didn't listen. He always came to me, frightened out of his mind and I would comfort him, but it was never enough, not as a master and donor.”

“So, things got intimate, right? Because you thought it would connect with him like that,” Millie could understand how that was like therapy in a way. Virgil must have thought sex was a horrible act until he met Copernicus.

“Yes,” the vampire confirmed her theory.

“I understand how that feels. I think, sometimes you can't really connect with someone just by talking to them.” At least, that wasn't the case with her and Prince Yale.

“Well, it is a more personal level, isn't it?” Tsubomi looked to her in question.

“Yes,” she nodded.

“Even still…” Yale trailed in deep thought as everyone's eyes lay upon him.

“Sometimes, there's too much pain, huh?” Millie knew what he was getting at.

“It's a heavy burden to bear when you're up against pain and judgment, especially if you're a high ranking figure in society. You can't even blink the wrong way without being harshly criticized, and just as many famous people, you're strictly hated by the masses if you screw up too many times and more often than not you'll end up dead.” Being a Prince, Yale knew all too well the scrutiny of the public eye. They were always watching, and even if someone got used to it, they still felt as if they were being examined under a microscope. With a secret like that, Virgil was undoubtedly feeling the pressure.

“True, if they think you're a defective leader they'll assassinate you,” Millie added. She didn't know if things like that worked for people like the Boucellinis but it wasn't uncommon for the rich to hire someone to kill off a relative they found unfavorable.

“Yes, that's why things are as they are now,” especially between Hide and the Wittenburgs.

Tsubomi sighed. “All of you are corrupt…and I'm just as bad as any of you.”

“You can't have a strong rule without being at least a little corrupt or underhanded. It's pretty much an unspoken law. You have to get blood on your hands to be effective,“ Copernicus explained as Millie continued to flip through the pages of the diary, stopping on another entry.

“Hey, you guys…Look at this,” the school girl's voice held such intrigue that everyone leaned in as their eyes scanned the next entry.

It's interesting, really, how revenge manipulates the mind, and how it can compel you to do the most fantastic things…the things you'd never dream of on a normal level.

Yes, it takes a different kind of subconscious for what I do.

So tonight, I shall push forth with my plan. Master has stepped out and Virgil is in his studies, so I'll have more than enough of an opportunity. Tonight…blood will be spilled.

Coscatta sat down her pen and loaded her pistol. A click reverberated through her ears as she pointed it up with a cruel smile painted on her face. “Copernicus, you shall be mine,” her voice was full of dark promise for a black future with her master.

Virgil was in his room, studying with several books open. He was trying to get multiple sources for a subject that has always piqued his curiosity- vampires. There were several images of various vampires and drawings of what people throughout the ages have pictured them to be. Holding his book mark, Virgil glanced at an image of a vampire that bore striking resemblance to his master. Turning to look at a nearby picture, Copernicus smiled at him through a layer of glass.

Virgil smiled kindly and put his hands on the outer edge of the picture, holding it up to himself. “Master…Truly…I think that our bond has gone a long way since we first met. I was so afraid that you would judge me. I mean, you are royalty, after all and I'm nothing but a peasant boy. Even if my family is well off, financially, we are nothing like you. We are the luxurious and rich. We are the aristocratic and elite. Even a diamond's shine is dull compared to the illumination that comes from your prestige and beauty.”

Blue eyes glanced around to all of his vampire books, still speaking to the picture as if it was a person in the same room with him. “All of my research on the true nature of a vampire is still limited…Horror, myths and lies shroud you, dear master. Are these truly the masks that you hide behind?”

His question was only answered with the lone click of the pistol.

Whirling around, he dropped the picture on the floor as he stared down the barrel of his sister's gun. “Coscatta!”

The girl stood there with a livid expression. “I'm going to kill you, dear brother,” her words were cold as ice, and he felt them burning on his skin, piercing his skin and burning it.

Virgil stepped back, his form visibly shaking despite his efforts to conceal his fear. “What? Why? I haven't done anyth8ng to you. What's wrong with you, sister?”

“Everything will be right when I get you out of my way,” Coscatta said as she took a step towards her prey. Virgil wasn't going to escape her sight…not before he was shot dead.

Virgil desperately tried to make amends with his sister. Surely the girl was insane. “Please, I don't know what I've done! Please, don't kill me!”

“You stole him from me,” Coscatta's words were like blades as she stared him down with disgust. “I told you that I loved him and you shot me down for what I felt, so now I'll shoot you down.”

“I…we were doing things right after we met. I wanted to protect you! I don't want you to get hurt! Please, you have to believe me!” Virgil didn't know if he could yell any louder. He begged his sister to spare him and at the same time, he wished someone would hear him, that his master would come walking through the door and the nightmare would be over.

“Liar! Try telling me the truth and I'll be less cold to you.” It was a lie, but at this point her brother was going to die either way. Nothing he could say would save him now.

“You can't kill me! I'm your brother! We share the same blood! We're family!” Did none of that matter to her? Did nothing he said make a difference? Was her heart that iced over?

Coscatta clicked her tongue at the very insinuation. “You are nothing to me…Die.”

She fired the gun; the first bullet hit her brother square in the chest and sent him back onto his desk. Books flew everywhere and scattered across the floor. Coscatta's face hardened as she continued to fire, taking out her aggression on his thin body as blood splattered across the room and across her small form. It stained the walls and her designer lolita dress.

“Die! Die! I fucking hate you! You're not my brother! NOT MY BROTHER!” She shouted uncontrollably as she continued to fire. Blood splattered across the picture of Copernicus that he had once held so dear to him.

As soon as the girl emptied the entire clip, she sank to her knees, still pointing the gun at his corpse with a dark smile. The blue-haired girl began to laugh uncontrollably. “This…this is surely my shining moment!” The girl touched the side of her blood splattered face. “My plans have been realized, and now…” She held up the blood-stained picture of Copernicus and gave it a small kiss, her brother's blood staining her lips. “You shall be all mine, my love.”

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Millie's face twisted in repulsion as she read the last words on that page. “She's twisted.”

“She murdered him in cold blood,” Yale told her with a frown.

Copernicus just sat there in shock. “She lied to me…all of this time…she lied to me…” This only made the pain he felt before he killed her all the more deep.

“Seems she didn't have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at all. She just had a guilty conscience,” Tsubomi felt like a fool. She was pretty sure they all had. Coscatta was a good actress and she had played her part well.

“Virgil…The very thing I tried to protect him from, he fell victim to right beneath my nose,” Copernicus felt the guilt mount on him heavier than ever before. He had always felt like his negligence caused his lover's death, but now he felt like it more than ever. If only he had been there that fateful day. If only he had stopped Coscatta.

If only…

“It's not your fault,” Millie's words cut through his session of self punishment.

“It's hard not to feel guilty for that. Many people and vampires alike have already died at our expense. The royal family and court have a lot of blood on their hands. Coscatta is dead now. I know it's painful but we must move forward. It's more important that we fight for the ones who are still alive, then avenge the ones whom are dead. We should let them rest peacefully.” Yale knew that his advice was hard to take, but that was what they had to do. Copernicus killed the girl, so he got his revenge. Their most important problems now were Hide and his group of minions. They didn't have time to sit around and feel sorry for themselves, they had to work on what they could salvage, not what's already gone.

“Yes…Prince Yale…I understand…” Copernicus knew it was true. He would have to pick himself up off of the ground once more.

“Yeah, we can't bring him back. What's dead is dead. As long as you're alive, you have something to live for, right Prince Yale?” Tsubomi smiled at the mute vampire, trying to reassure everyone. She knew that more than anyone, Yale had come to learn that lesson well.

The Prince looked shocked for a moment, before nodding.

Millie held his hand and smiled up at him. “I have something to live for. Having something to live for makes you feel free. It's nice, and I just know you have something to love for too, right?”

“Yes…I do.”

…To Be Continued