I woke up in the hospital; my mother and my uncle were supervising my recovery. Next to my recovery capsule were Ilay and Leo, to both my left and right, respectively.
What happened? Where am I? The fire! Fuck, I've got to get out of here!
The memories were still fresh in my mind; I could still vividly see the flames engulfing our house, the heat they emanated, and the extremely painful feeling of inhaling scorching hot air. My lungs were still burning.
I got a little agitated and accidentally inhaled some of the fluids, so some doctors had to rush in, get me out of the capsule, and stop me from drowning in that liquid.
I was on all fours, gasping for air, with my mother crouched next to me, patting my back.
Can we stop using those? This happens every time. I don't know how to stay in apnea; it's not for me, and with my body the way it is now, it'll only get harder for me.
I kept glancing back at the two other healing pods, only to see that my two cousins were still unconscious.
"What happened?" I asked my mother.
"An accident, but they're going to be fine; don't worry about it." She assured me while drying me with a towel she took from one of the nearby nurses.
"Did I cause that?" I then asked her.
I was obviously referring to the strange illusion that quickly turned real and almost burned me alive. It looked like a strange version of the power of Colorful Madness, but scaled up to an insane degree.
As far as I remember, the whole city was set ablaze.
Nobody answered my question; my uncle stayed surprisingly calm and collected. He wasn't poking jabs at my mother, nor did he seem angry that his sons were injured to the point of needing to be put inside a healing capsule.
My mother for a moment stopped wiping my body, and when I looked her in the eyes, I saw a strange blank expression, one she never made.
"What is "that"? Can you be more specific?" My mother asked me once if she was able to fake ignorance; these questions seem to irritate the uncle, who clicked his tongue upon hearing them.
"That strange illusion, the one you shattered." I answered.
The uncle seemed confused; he probably didn't know what happened. He raised one eyebrow as he simply stared at us while leaning against a wall, standing as far as possible from my mother.
"Don't worry about that, Lucy; everything is okay now." My mother then began gently caressing my head, stroking my hair with affection, something incredibly rare of her; it wasn't the same person I used to know.
She was rude and loud, and she was vulgar at times, but whenever she was home, it was fun to be rude alongside her to anyone we came across, but this thing that tries to mimic the behavior of a lady—it was simply creepy to watch. It felt fake.
So I pushed her hand away, took the towel from her hand, wrapped it around my waist to cover myself up, and tried to head towards the exit, but this time I was stopped by my uncle.
"Not so fast; there are still lots of things that need to be discussed here." He raised his voice after he stopped me by placing his hand firmly over my right shoulder.
Oh oh, the uncle seems pissed.
"First of all, how could you experiment so recklessly? You could've died that day! Have you gone insane? Then how could you so recklessly absorb a demon and put it in such a small part of your body? Are you crazy? You know little to nothing regarding demons; you could've died!" And just like that, he began to dress me down, yelling at me in anger.
"Oh, and let's not talk about your confrontation with that true noble. Do you think you can afford to cause a war? Do you have any idea of the lives you would end if a war broke out? This is not a place where you can engage in a pissing contest because of your ego, or did you already forget the fact that the last noble you pissed off almost succeeded in assassinating you?" He kept yelling.
I felt myself slowly shrinking in front of him; I couldn't escape, and if I tried looking away, he would violently shake my body. He would then continue, returning to the first point, listing all the ways things could've gone wrong.
If the demon created by my experiment was stronger or was more stable, he could've killed one of us; if there was some sort of explosion, the same thing could've happened; if my body wasn't already born special, sealing the demon in just the tip of my pinky would've gotten me killed.
I wanted to clarify that it was the whole finger and not just the tip, but I doubt this clarification would've made much difference to him. On the contrary, it might even anger him even more.
The yelling was seemingly never-ending; it ended only after Ilay got out of his healing capsule, and that was only because the main target changed. From scolding me, the uncle began scolding Ilay endlessly.
In the meantime we were escorted towards the shower room to get cleaned and freshly dressed with spare new clothes. When we were escorted out, I saw a surprisingly high number of people stuck in the healing capsules.
Something fairly big must've happened while I was out, because I never saw so many healing capsules; all of them were occupied, and there wasn't a single one empty…
After I was greeted by Elvis, Michael, and a new girl, she had fair skin, golden hair floating around her as if she was submerged in water, brown eyes, and strange golden tattoos on the base of her neck and shoulder.
She was wearing strange clothes; it covered the chest but didn't cover her arms. It was white and seemed to be fairly loose, the same for her pants; the cloth it was made of seemed to be extremely light. The shirt was white, and the pants were black. She reminded me of those models wearing strange clothes.
"Welcome back to the land of the living." Elvis jokingly commented, opening his arms to hug us; Ilay was the only one who didn't return his hug.
"So, how was your trip?" Ilay asked him.
"Well… It was interesting, I can say that, and don't worry about her; she's a little quiet, but I'm sure you'll get along just fine, especially if it's you." Michel answered him as he tried to approach him.
As soon as Ilay froze, Michael stopped approaching him; it was clear he still hadn't fully forgiven him for what he had done. One of them slept with his beloved maid; the other killed her. It was obvious that a couple of weeks weren't going to be enough for him to get over it.
"Fine, suit yourself." He said begrudgingly as he turned his back on us.
Who the hell is that? Is she Elvis's new fling? No, he's not the type. Michael doesn't care much about romance as well; he just really loves flaunting money… But then again, she does have golden hair. Is that it? Is it really that simple?
While I was contemplating the multiple possibilities, Uncle Kiriam silently entered the room.
"Ah, it looks like you've met her already. Ilay, Leo, this is Olivia, your new sister." He announced.
We all remained silent; for a moment I thought my brain heard it wrong. I was trying to rearrange those words in my mind or try to find some that sounded similar to see if maybe I had just heard it wrong.
"What?" Ilay shouted all of a sudden, startling me.
"Oh, don't worry, you're not blood related; she's the daughter of a friend I used to know, so I decided to take her in. Olivia, the tall one is Ilay, my oldest son; he's three years older than you. The small one is Leonhart, my youngest; he's six years younger, and the one next to him is his cousin, Lucifer." He then nudged her closer so we could all shake hands.
"Is he also adopted?" She asked, pointing at Leonhart.
"We have different mothers." Ilay responded immediately after, shaking her hands; he was visibly irritated.
Ah, was that still a sore spot?
I could still remember one guy who made fun of the difference between the skin color of Leo and his brother, back in my mother's dome. That guy was beaten half to death, and Leo was inconsolable for weeks.
Leo didn't seem to have taken it to heart; he was as calm and collected as always. He gave her a gentle smile while waiting for his turn to shake hands.
"And he's…" She asked while reaching out to me with her hands.
"My name's Lucifer, but I like to be called Luca, son of the scarlet devil." Since she forgot my name, I decided to mention my mother's title; that way she would never ever forget it.
The mention of the title was enough to make her take a step back. I could already tell she was shocked by that revelation. Suddenly the way she looked at everyone else changed as well, knowing we were all part of the strongest family there ever was.
Before I even had the time to gloat about this sudden sense of superiority, I was punished by my uncle, who gave me a light slap on the back of my head.
"Only a coward would brag about someone else's achievements; don't do that. It's unsightly." He warned me.
Oh, come on, I didn't lie. If she changes the way she interacts because of this info, that's on her. Why would—
To stop this train of thought, the uncle punished me a second time.