"What?" she whispered.

"It is as I have said, wench." Needles stuck to his words.

Reyna shook her head only she couldn't actually feel the action, couldn't feel the weight of her head moving. "What's going on?"

Annoyance and anger heated around her. She flinched—again feeling dislocated from the act—at the building emotions. She could sense their presence, but they weren't hers. It was like she was watching something come to life, feeling its core and existence by the heat she felt from it, and this fire told her it was irritated.

She gasped. "Am I...feeling your emotions?"

The flames around her cooled. Amusement. "You are. How adorable."

"But I still don't understand what's going on."

Mundus gave a throaty sigh. "Simply see. You are not as imprisoned as you think." With a clawed hand, he picked up a vase that was on the coffee table next to the sofa.

Reyna was about to ask what the hell him doing that was supposed to mean when she noticed. She could feel and sense everything as if she were in her own body, but she felt it through Mundus. It sounded strange and confusing, but it made sense.

The coldness of the vase was bright and crisp in her hand—even though her hand didn't actually exist. Mundus rubbed his thumb on the surface, and Reyna felt the smoothness. Her eyes, her own eyes that also didn't exist but knew were there, widened as she "held" the vase, delighted that she could experience what was around her even if she couldn't physically interact with it.

"I sense your understanding," Mundus spoke.

"Sense my understanding?" she said, releasing the vase, sensing it float away even though Mundus still held it.

"Surely you have come across the realization as of now? A mental bond is shared between us. Our actions are acknowledged by one another as are our emotions. I, of course, read yours with greater accuracy while I keep my own well controlled."

She blushed, the action unseen but she knew he knew and that made her all the more embarrassed. "So every time I touched my hair or kissed Dante or when he held me..."

He grimaced. "I also have greater control of my interactions when trapped in your body. I am able to pull away when you decide to participate in such revolting tasks."

"Well forgive me for thinking I could do whatever I want in my own body."

Mundus bared his fangs in his laughter. "It does not matter now. I currently reside in my own body, and how I have missed my appearance."

"What!" He growled at her yell, and Reyna felt the heat around her hot and fast, but she didn't care. "You mean there's some ancient demon standing in my living room?"

"I am not 'some' demon, wench. Nor am I as ancient as you believe."

"What is it with you and the name calling? I can do it too. Jerk. Can't you just once give me a straight answer."

"Simply do as I say. Close your eyes."

Not having much of an option, Reyna did. To her surprise, she could still see, but it was like she was in a mirrored world. Mundus stood in front of her as if she and him were both whole and tangible. Reyna's lips parted in awe as she saw all of him for the first time.

His pants were baggy and white. A black cloth was wrapped around his waist as a makeshift belt. White bindings starting under his knees continued down to his ankles and feet. What Reyna had thought was a vest was more of a coat that fell down to his shins. It was black on the outside and red inside with a high collar. The muscles on his chest, stomach, and arms were firmly corded like a swimmer's body.

Reyna blushed at the sight of his bared torso, disappointed in herself for enjoying the view. She saw Mundus cross his arms and grin like he had seen her gaping. She opened her eyes, and the world fell back into Mundus's first person point of view.

"Is your curiosity sated?" he asked.

"Is that how you see me too when you close your eyes? As if I was standing in front of you?" Reyna asked. Despite her humiliating moment, the experience had been thrilling on an uncanny level. She had never felt so disconnected from herself yet so in control.

"No. Nor am I able to read your thoughts in this form. Though you are in a position to read mine."

She perked up. "Really?"

He ran a hand through his hair. It was coarse and the strands he disturbed stayed sticking out. "Do not excite yourself. I possess the mental self–control to not indulge myself with thoughts of nonsense."

"Well sorry I didn't know you were there this whole time. You'd think my thoughts were my own." She paused. "Why am I even saying this? I still don't know how this is even happening. For all I know, I'm probably in a coma right now and this is all a very bad dream."

He chuckled and the bright light that sparked around Reyna eased her nerves. She bit her lip. "Do you know how long this is going to last?"

"I am uncertain," Mundus answered, "but I believe it will last the entire night and possibly each preceding night as well."

"Each night!"

He released a small growl that Reyna felt roll in her own throat. "Must you screech so much?"

She ignored his words. Her problem was larger than him being annoyed by her understandable yelling. "If it's true this is going to happen every night, why didn't it happen last night?"

Mundus flexed his hands, turning from one to the other. "My presumption is because my awakening drained whatever strength I had left and postponed the transformation until now."

"But that's still so weird. Why at night? Is that a special time for demons or something?"

A flash of a bright arrow.

The full moon melting off the sky.

The images appeared and disappeared within the blink of an eye, and Reyna wasn't sure if she had seen anything at all or even where it came from. Mundus hadn't commented on it, so she shook her head and said what was really weighing on her mind. "If this is going to happen every night, then you have to stay in my room every night until it goes back to normal."

Mundus answered by walking to the double French doors in the living room that gave way to the backyard.

"What are you doing?" Reyna's heart burst out of her chest.

"I will go out to explore this world." A roguish gleam lit up his eyes.

"What!"

He cringed. "How do you not comprehend the meaning of silence? It is as if I carry my own disgruntled cat."

"Well maybe you should stop doing stupid things. Besides you can't go outside in what you're wearing. Please will think you're crazy."

Mundus took in his outfit with a flourished extension of his arms. "I do not see a problem with my apparel."

"I do. Not only are you going to attract attention, you're going to freeze to death doing it too."

He paid her no mind as he exited the house, and the night's chill grazed her skin, but that was all it was: a slight but pleasant chill. Though the cold winter night was harsh with the afternoon's snow still on the ground, it didn't faze Mundus. In fact, he marveled at its touch, a luxury denied to him for centuries. The crisp air infused his lungs, awakening how it felt to breathe. The ground below felt solid, a stability that proved he was whole again. The smell and taste of frost invigorated him, tugging a smile on his lips unlike the smirks Reyna had only seen on him.

She held her breath, encased by Mundus's sensations, relishing it like it was her own. It froze her, and it wasn't because of the cold. She couldn't stop the smile that pulled on her lips.

Mundus walked to the middle of the yard, snow crunching underfoot. The surrounding stillness suggested it was late into the night. He passed by the broken, fountain and padded lawn furniture to stop a few feet in front of the wooden fence that encircled the backyard. He looked up. Darkness inked the sky with only a bright white orb piercing through the blackness. He inhaled its gloomy light a clash of wistfulness and something else he held back crept into him. The moon is almost full.

"Why is that important?" Reyna asked, excited at hearing his thoughts for the first time.

Such eagerness at reading another's thoughts?

"Oh! You just talked to me with your own thoughts. Your voice sounds a little different like that.

"How easily amused you are," Mundus answered out loud.

She crossed her arms. "And how easily you become a jerk."

"I am simply noting a moon I have not seen in centuries." His words fogged the night air.

"What?"

"You asked why the moon was important."

"Oh."

His straightforwardness caught her off-guard, and when he jumped over the fence and landed on the sidewalk, Reyna's nerves jumped along with him. She wanted to tell him to return to the house, but remembering how much he had enjoyed something as simple as the night air, she bit her tongue. Instead, she rode his emotions, not willing to admit her excitement of wanting to experience the mundane through his perspective.

Mundus's steps were tentative. The paved sidewalk that echoed his walk fascinated him along with the grey river that rode alongside it. There were lights above his head that shone almost as bright as the sun, and the sturdy structures around him with their tall walls and wide roofs seemed indestructible that even he, with his demonic strength, couldn't destroy them.

This time Reyna giggled at the demon's childlike fascination.

"It is not as if I was unaware of such futuristic surroundings," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"Though I slept, I was aware of the changing times around me. To experience it firsthand, however, is quite different than simply knowing of its existence."

"The hell?" A rusty voice disturbed Mundus's tour of the future. "You talkin' to yourself, son?"

Mundus had walked out of Reyna's ritzy living community and into a neighborhood of patched up houses and nonexistent lawns. Though lit by streetlamps, the area seemed to wallow in its own darkness, shadows lurking even under the shinning moon.

A padded silhouette emerged from a shadowed porch and approached the demon. The man's face was red, but Reyna figured it was more from drinking whatever was in his hand than from the cold. Mundus had noticed the intoxicated human streets away, yet decided not to bother him. But the drunk had him.

Mundus grinned and Reyna felt something primal within him pulse to life.

"Just whada ya think yous supposed to be?" the man slurred and squinted at Mundus. "Are ya not wearing a jacket, son?"

Mundus answered him with a snort. "Son?"

Reyna didn't like what she was feeling around her. Something was pushing at her, demanding. It was cold and hot. Begging and demanding. And red, red.

Bloodlust.

"What's so funny?" the man asked Mundus.

The lust flared, and Reyna grabbed her hair, wishing for the man to leave. "Mundus, let it go."

The man shoved him.

No, you stupid!

The demon placed a clawed hand around the drunk's throat. The scarf around his neck did nothing to filter Mundus's grip as he lifted him from the ground. Reyna could feel the man's pulse, his blood running under his skin. He gawked at Mundus with watery eyes and Reyna couldn't take the fear she saw in them. She closed her own, pulling herself away from the image in the only way she could.

Mundus was taller than the man, even though he was holding him inches from the ground. She noticed his claws were black, and for some reason that churned her stomach even more.

"Mundus, stop! He's just some dumb guy." Reyna knew all she could do was stand there, unseen by him, but at least she wouldn't do it quietly.

Thin, reddened fingers branched into the demon's irises, raking away the black, and filling them with a sick crimson color. Mundus grinned.

A crunching pop echoed into the night.

Reyna gasped.

The name Mundus. She had heard it before. At school. That was the name of the demon from the story we read. The one that killed everyone in that village. The one that also killed that girl. Reyna shook her head. No. That can't be right. It's just a story. It's not real. They're just...legends.

A padded thump startled her out of her thoughts. She saw the man's corpse on the cracked sidewalk, his neck angled in a way it shouldn't be. She recoiled from the body, the sensation of the man's warm throat stinging her palm. She watched Mundus walk away, silent and stoic. His lust had been satisfied for now.

Reyna wished she could stay where she was now, even if it was next to a corpse. It was better than being with the demon that killed him. Yes. Because that's what he was. A demon. And she had almost forgotten that. She stood there staring at the road for several minutes until she felt the pull. It tugged at her chest, telling her she had to return.

It began to hurt until Reyna couldn't bear it any longer. She opened her eyes, the world around her taking an immediate difference. Mundus walked on an isolated road framed by overgrown weeds and grass, half dead from winter frost. The sleepy glow of distant houses was seen in the horizon.

"Why did you kill him?" Reyna asked, her voice as meek as she felt.

Such a fate falls to those that attack me, he replied to her with his thoughts.

"All he did was push you. You could've just walked away or knocked him out." Even as she spoke, she knew none of that was true.

He gave no answer.

"Mundus!"

He mentally pushed her away, the sensation cold and white, but something vibrated through her. Or rather she felt something vibrate through Mundus.

"Mundus?" she asked again.

He ignored her and sped down the street.

Though Reyna knew he probably looked like an undetectable blur to anyone looking out their window that night, the familiar scenery remained clear to her. The pale moonlight shimmered as Mundus stepped onto the literally dead soil. The rays that pierced through the barren trees rained murky shadows on the uniform grave markers. Reyna thought the shadows that danced on the grass looked like lost souls that couldn't find rest.

"The cemetery." Unease surged through Reyna. "What are we doing here?"

Mundus laughed, enjoying something he blocked from her. He walked through the rows of tombstones, the surrounding shadows cringing away from him as if sensing his power. Reyna figured if someone saw him at this moment, they'd probably die from fright.

He headed toward the gazebo, stopping in front of its broken entrance. The wood was splintered and the paint chipped, but the building still held a radiance of some sort. The benches were all smashed save for one and on top of it was a long, thin object, hidden by the shadows.

"Cerus." Mundus grabbed the item, his enthusiasm immersing Reyna.

She scowled. She wasn't sure if he had said a name or spoke something in a different language.

"How pleasant for her to have preserved and delivered it."

He exited the gazebo, consumed with his find, and when the light shone on what he held, Reyna saw what it was. A sword. The steel was rusted and chipped, resembling a rotten branch. The red hilt was worn and the guard was broken.

A high pitched sound broke through the deep night's silence. Reyna gasped, realizing it was the blade crying. It released pulses of light. Each throb cleansed the rust and the age, revealing a pristine weapon that shone like new.

Mundus studied the glimmering steel. "A slight improvement."

Reyna didn't know how to feel anymore. Her anxiety clashed with Mundus's excitement, draining her in an inhumane way. All she wanted was to go home and curl under her bedsheets—without the company of a demon. The sob that escaped her surprised her.

He sighed. I harbor no desire to afflict any pain unto you.

Reyna stayed quiet, too exhausted to find meaning in his sudden words. Everything around her stilled. There were no pulls of emotions or flares of colors. It was calm, but it was also welcoming. She nodded, knowing he sensed her movements.

The rest of the night was a haze. Reyna didn't remember what else Mundus did during the night. By the time he leaped over the fence and approached the back door, the rising sun stained the horizon a foggy red. She inhaled, feeling a quick but painless surge flow over her skin.

She flexed her hand. The muscles and bones felt heavy. She was holding something. Mundus's sword was in her palm in its previous state of corrosion. A whine emerged from it, but it sounded more like a whimper than the banshee shriek from before.

Sighing, Reyna clutched the hilt tighter as she opened the French doors that had remained unlocked the entire night. She collapsed on one of the sofas, a vast emptiness swallowing her. It took her a few seconds to recognize where it was coming from. Mundus was asleep. No voices in her head. No smugness putting her on edge. No connection to what she now realized had been a part of her all her life.

Despite the night's horrible events that had shredded her like a rag caught on a branch during a storm, Reyna's lips displayed a small smile. I guess he really always was with me. I've never felt so empty before in all my life. 

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Drawing: Mundus by me on heromachine.com (He's not THAT muscular. I tried. *cries*)