Karina gasped and stepped backwards, trying to ignore the emotions churning in her stomach. Nyx was Olga, with her proud stance and white shawl, and then he was Helga, with her blond braids swaying and a sadistic smirk splayed across her features. The figures changed quickly--Duras, Gertie, Rosin, her mother--until Karina felt her eyes sting with unshed tears. "Why are you doing this to me?"

Nyx shifted into a massive bird with beady black eyes and dull inky feathers. "You never know what hides in the night."

"What does that have to do with me?" she asked softly, her fingers curling into fists. Nyx morphed into Hans and her eyes flashed at the sight of her travelling companion. "Were you--are you--everyone I've ever known? Were eight years of pain just you?" She stumbled backwards into the hard wooden wall and leaned against it, trying to find something solid. Something real. "How do I know who to trust? What to trust?"

Nyx shifted into the bird again, which was oddly reminiscent of a giant crow. "That's the point," Nyx said, "you don't."

Hot tears ran down her cheeks but they seemed too normal to wipe away. Karina squeezed her eyes shut, but it was all just more blackness, more of Nyx's fingerprints over her world. "Was it you who enslaved me? Who was Olga? Who was Duras? Just other voices in people's heads? Other 'Night's?" She laughed, the sound as bitter as her early teenage years. "What even are you?"

"Olga and Duras were the people they showed to the world. The masks of themselves, nothing more." There was a pause. "And I'm not even human."

"Why would you be, you bastard!" She sighed, strangling the sob that was trapped halfway through her throat, and pressed herself against the wall even more. "You. What. Are. You."

"Nyx. Messenger of the night. Your best dream...your worst nightmare."

"My nightmares?" She sighed heavily, trying to erase the disturbing images from her head. "My nightmares are my best dreams."

"Not always." She opened her eyes to see a pale-skinned tall boy about her age standing above her. Nyx must have changed his form again. He offered her his hand, and she angrily shoved it away. "You haven't always been this sad. This angry. This lonely."

"I'm not lonely! I'm just--"

"Alone."

The word made her take pause. "Alone." It was a trembling truth, a shaking leaf that she couldn't seem to let go of. "Alone."

"Once upon a time, Karina Hedge wasn't alone. Once upon a time, Karina Hedge was happy."

She wrapped her arms around her torso. She felt like a hollow gourd. "That was a long time ago."

"Are you sure?" Nyx waved his arm, and suddenly there was light all around them. She blinked to adjust to the new setting. Dark, twisted trees, vines and thorns that scratched against her leather boots, the stench of rotting wood. And, in the distance, a flash of dirty auburn hair and a laugh that sounded like the the bells used when Moracians sang a safesong.

"Today you were happy."

"Was that happiness?" she asked, her chest tight. "Was it real?"

"As real as the mark on your face."

She bowed her head. "It's been so long since I've laughed like that." She smiled a small, sad smile. "I was happy."

"No need to sound so surprised." He waved his arm again and the scene faded into shadows. "When you were a child, you were happy all the time."

He waved his arm again and Karina was home.

It was a small, wooden house, with plants drying above the hearth's blazing flames. Scents of sage, lavender, and fresh chopped pine wood filled the air, all mixed with the smoky smell of veal. Karina tried to recommit everything to memory: the table in front of the hearth that they had eaten all their meals on, the soft wool blankets on the chairs that made their home in a corner during the summer months. The countertop behind the hearth where Vasilisa had made her cooking area and would chop up herbs and meat. The butter churner right beside the countertop where Vasilisa had taught her to churn butter, the way her mother's hands had fit over her own. Her father's bow and arrow in the corner that she had once pretended she could wield. 

This--this was home.

She turned away from the sight. She had to remember that this was all a dream, a past memory that she couldn't relive. Now she and her parents were a disgrace to this village, and her home-- 

Her home was dead.

The villagers had burned it away after they burned her mother down to bones. It was said that yagas could contaminate a house, make it filled with evil magick. And the only way to eliminate magick was to burn it away.

All they ever do is burn.

A sick thought made her lips twist into a smirk: Since she was living in Olga's house, the villagers would have to burn all of their nice things to the ground. Everything Karina had ever touched had to go--and she was their servant, that was quite a bit.

Nyx nudged her with his arm. "Look."

She reluctantly turned her head back to the familiar scene just as the simple wooden door swung open to reveal a dark haired, slender man with a sharp chin and kind eyes. "Vassie!" he called, and Karina felt whatever was left of her defenses crumble. This man was one who had known her since the day she was born, who had picked her up and carried her when she was tired, who had taught her how to fish in the river that ran through the Good Forest. This was the man who had wiped her tears away when she was crying--at least, when he could.

"Da." Her resolve broke in sharp, shallow gasps that led into hot, quick tears. She buried her face in Nyx's shoulder. "Da."

"I know," Nyx whispered, rubbing her shoulders with his long fingers. "I know." Karina stayed there for a moment--a minute, a year--before turning around to see him. Her father. The man that the villagers called suicidal--the man that they had killed as easily as slaughtering a pig upon a countertop.

"They--they killed him. They murdered my mother, and they killed him, too!" Her fist hit the wall before it dropped down like a stone. She tipped her head back and let the tears fall even faster. "I--I need to--I need to go."

Nyx pressed his arm around her in a one-armed hug. "No," he said, "because then you'd miss the important part."

"Archie?" asked a voice, a voice that made Karina hot and cold all at once. Even now it was familiar. She spun around in the direction of it.

Vasilisa Hedge.

Her auburn hair was tucked away into a handkerchief, and her brown eyes sparkled. Her face was  more shadowed than Karina remembered it; more worn. There were dark caverns under Vasilisa's eyes that made Karina wonder if she ever slept. "She's beautiful," Karina whispered, her chest constricting at the sight of a person she'd never thought she'd see again. She stepped closer to the woman, who stood shorter than she remembered. 

"You know," Karina told Nyx, her voice low, "I was afraid I'd forgotten what she'd looked like."

"How can you?" Nyx asked, his voice as bitter as poison leaves. "All you need is a mirror to see her."

"What do you mean?" she asked sadly. "I'm a shadow. My face is marked. My hair is dirty and ratted and my eyes have no shine to them. I'm not beautiful." She looked longingly at her mother. "She is. She--she was." Her voice broke like glass and dry sobs shook her body. "She was, she was, she was."

The sadness seemed to go on forever, a rainstorm that eventually melted away into a puddle. 

"Karina Hedge," Nyx said, "you are." He smiled at her, revealing pointed teeth.  "And you were. And this is your were, your past." He dug a piece of cloth out from the pocket of his trousers and gave it to Karina. She wiped her face with it carefully as though she was afraid that she might break. "And your past isn't that terrible." He smiled sadly, like he knew darker things. "Don't let tragedy tarnish happiness." She tried her best to smile, but it fell flat. No matter what happened she was still Karina Hedge, the girl with the dead parents.

Okay. Wow, late update. And hi, everyone!

A couple things to address here--

I am so sorry about the late update! I have had limited access to Wattpad all week (which is why some of my responses are late on comments), making it hard to write this chapter in a timely fashion. I've gotten this to you as soon as I could. *apologetic smile* 

Also I have a huge massive thank you to give to every single one of you. 3.4K reads, 400 votes, and #135 in Fantasy?! That is so crazy! (I had a squealing fit when I saw it and still can't believe it). Thank you all so much! 

On the chapter--

So...this scene was definitely not one of my better ones. I'll have to come back and edit sometime soon. But do any of you have any ways this can be improved? Were Karina's emotions well expressed? 

Bye! See you all next week!

Edited 4/10/16--Last line added.