True Love Never Dies

ASH

I duck into the bookstore to avoid the deluge outside. Of course, the storm had to come right when I wanted to go inside, it’s fate. I am determined to get a copy of Chain of Iron and The Lost Book of the White even if I get trampled in the process.

Wait, let me rewind a little bit and introduce myself. My name is Ash, and I am non-binary (they/them pronouns, please). Anyways, back to the bookstore. I was two feet from those books before finding myself face-to-face with the girl I have hated for years: Alanis Hendrix. How I recognized her with a mask on is unknown to me.

I cannot even tell you the number of times she bullied me throughout high school. What makes it worse is that we were best friends in middle school. I trusted her not to judge me when I came out as non-binary, but instead, she ruined my trust and told everyone. Another thing that made me hate her more was that I loved her at the time.

Alanis stood right in front of me, and I coolly said, “Hey Alanis, long time no see.”

ALANIS

I ran face-first into someone at the bookstore trying to get ahold of TLBOTW, yes I love Cassandra Clare. I read it as a form of escapism. I always have a book on hand to escape to a better world. Fantasy is my favorite. Right now, I need some Malec content. Magnus and Alec’s undying love for each other is the perfect form of escapism.

Also, you probably realized this, but my name is Alanis, she/her pronouns, thanks.

The two of us both grab the same copy even though there are three copies of TLBOTW. Annoyed, I try to grab a different copy, but I freeze when I hear that familiar voice calling my name.

“Hey Alanis, long time no see.”

I turn around so fast that it makes me dizzy, and I give myself whiplash. Standing in front of me is a soft-looking person, but their voice is cold as ice. It takes me a second to place the voice, but I slowly realize who it is.

“Ash? Is that you?"

"Yep, long time no see"

Alright, a secret about me. I hate Ash, but I also love them. However, it is easier to degrade, humiliate, and betray someone than to tell them you love them.

Once we bought our copies, we were underneath the overhang without umbrellas. Somehow, the rain had not stopped during the hour that we were both inside. Sure enough, the bus came by, and we found seats without becoming dripping wet. Sure enough, Ash slowly realized that I did not hate them as much anymore. I mean, I still had a strong dislike, but there was not much animosity anymore. I thought to myself again, “This day started so mundane, and now look, somehow there is a weird storm outside even though it was supposed to be sunny. Also, I ran into Ash after months of not seeing each other. This day is getting more and more preternatural by the second.”

ASH

I am sitting on a bus next to my mortal enemy. I still have not bolted off the bus yet. Then again, the bus does not seem to stop anywhere, which is quite odd given that this is New York City and the bus stops every five minutes. I look outside the window to see an enormous cloud of dust that looks almost like a tornado, except I remember that New York never gets tornadoes. I tap Alanis on the shoulder, and she responds with a clipped, “What?”

“Look over there, what is that cloud thing there?”

Alanis looks and mutters, “Oh you have to be kidding me. That, Ash, is a demon cloud.”

“A what?”

Alanis does not respond to me. Instead, she hollers to the driver, “Hey can we get off here?”

The driver looks back with an annoyed glare and huffs as he stops the bus. We pay him and get off. Before we leave, he says, “Here, give this to the other girl.”

I thank him and hand the blade over to Alanis. As the driver is about to leave, she runs and asks the blade’s name. I think she might have gone insane, but she also has some Shadowhunter runes on her. “Strange,” I think to myself as Alanis sprints back to me. Out of breath, she gasps, “Azriele,” to the blade, and it lights up. She mutters something unintelligible to me, but the blade lights up again and splits into two. The two blades then split in four. Two of them look an awful lot like steles and two that are majestic swords, one black and one clear. Alanis hands me the clear sword and the black stele. “Here,” she says, “Use these, say Aerie and the sword will work, say Azriele for the stele. Now follow me before we become demon food.”

That is what it takes to connect the dots in my brain. “Hold on,” I say, “Are we in the Shadowhunter realm or something? Are you secretly half Nephilim?”

Alanis responds with a muted tone, “No, I am not Nephilim, but something along those lines. We use the same blade names and similar runes, but they are fictional while our daemonium interfectores are real. Now, you have to come with me before we become demon food. Also, don’t activate your blades yet, we’ll need their power later.”

Shocked, I try to speak, but no words come out. I guess now I have to help Alanis, of all people, fight a demon. Or, the entire city will die. Sounds like the Shadowhunter universe to me.

ALANIS

I cannot believe that I have to drag Ash into fighting a demon of all creatures. Those are so hard to fight, at least I have the twin blade. Personally, I don’t know how that guy got access to the twin blade. Only women are supposed to be able to hold it. Guess the blade might have been tricked. Then, I remember the nasty burns on his hands. Clearly, the stele knew that he wasn’t a woman. With a smirk, I tell Ash, “Hey, follow me, I think I know how we can kill the demon without becoming food first.” I think Ash realized that they don’t have a choice and so after a long sigh, they follow me. We scamper along quietly to make sure that the demon doesn’t see us. When we finally arrive behind the tree, I tell Ash to stay in place so I can go scout. They say, “No! I’m not leaving you alone. Are you out of your mind?”

I reply, “Yes, I know I’m out of my mind, but I don’t have a choice.”

They say, “No I can’t leave you alone.”

I scream back at them, “Why can’t you leave me alone? You hated me for four years, what changed now?”

They scream back at me, “Don’t you get it, you dumb girl, I love you!”

ASH

I think to myself, “Did I just say that out loud?”

Alanis responds, “You what? Are you crazy?”

I realize that I said that out loud. Cursing myself, I scream, “You already know I’m crazy, what difference does it make now?”

Her face softens, and for the first time in five years, I think I see remorse in her eyes, and Alanis glances back at me, trying to hold back tears.

What she said next are three words that I will never forget because they meant that much.

“Aku cintu kamu.”

After that, she left to go fight the demon that was eating New York, leaving me alone behind a tree. I cried a little, a good cry for about five minutes. I realized that I had to go find Alanis so that she would not die right after telling me she loved me.

To be honest, it still felt weird realizing that my mortal enemy loves me. However, I snapped back to reality which was that my girl is probably dying out there. I inaudibly crept up behind the demon cloud after activating my blades behind the tree. Alanis was there on the floor, she was severely wounded and most likely unconscious.

Now, sneaking up behind a demon is not an easy task. For one, that thing is a huge cloud and the demon is in the middle of it. Alanis had been thrown outside the cloud, which was how I was able to see her. She was a gruesome sight, but I knew I had to fight for her. Now is also probably a bad time to say that I do not have a copious amount of fighting skills. At this point, I just had to try my best, aim for the best, and prepare for the worst. As I tip-toed into the demon cloud, I noticed that the stele’s powers are actually what lets you even get into the demon cloud in the first place. Thinking of the demon like an annoyingly huge guy that could kill you, I quietly knelt in the cloud, trying to figure out the best spots to hit.

As I was thinking, someone snuck up on me. He clamped his hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming bloody murder. The new guy introduced himself as Andreas and told me he saw Alanis outside and that he was going to save her. Alanis and Andreas are brother and sister. I started to get a wishy-washy feeling because Alanis never said she had a brother, only two sisters. Against my better judgment, I stabbed the demon once in the back of the head, and it screeched louder than anything I have ever heard. I thought I went deaf for a good minute there. Hampering the demon a little, I sprinted over to Alanis, cutting a ridge in its ankle while I ran.

Once I got in front, I knew that Andreas was not to be trusted. He was trying to offer an unconscious Alanis to the demon as food in "one for the many" kind of nature. When realization struck me, I immediately sprang into action. Stabbing Andreas in the stomach was step one. He did not have any blades, and he was holding Alanis up like Simba in the Lion King, so his stomach was an easy target. He dropped Alanis as he went to clutch his bleeding abdomen, and I caught her and placed her aside.

Once I made sure that Alanis would be safe, Andreas was still up, so I kicked off of him to scale the demon. As I got closer to the demon’s eye, it started thrashing, and I was close to falling off, but it had a huge fold of leather that I nestled myself into for a tiny respite. Once the demon was tricked that nothing was on it, I started climbing again. Reaching the demon’s nose, I grabbed ahold of the curved portion and sat on it. I stood and counted to three to calm my breath so that I wouldn’t fall to my death. After I was confident that I could indeed wield the sword and not fall, I stepped up closer to the demon’s eye. I remember something Alanis said about stabbing the demon in the eye and how it would kill it faster. “A blind demon dies quickly,” that’s what she told me.

The demon was looking elsewhere, plus demons have terrible peripheral vision, so I was out of its field of vision. I felt bad stabbing a creature as I am the kind of person who would never hurt a fly. But I knew that if I wanted to save Alanis, I had to do it. I counted to three and used all my body weight to pierce the demon’s eye. 

Once my sword found its mark, I removed it before the demon could close its eyelid. The screech that the demon uttered was completely feral, and it was looking for blood. Its other eye was also looking the opposite direction somehow, and not at me. Again, I counted to three and forcefully pushed my blade into his enormous eye. The same inhuman screech came out of the demon’s throat and I swear that demon will make me deaf. Once the demon started thrashing again, I started descending its body rapidly trying to make out Alanis from above.

ALANIS

I wake up behind a tree. Andreas is lying nearby, he’s alive but barely. I don’t dare go near him, he’s technically my brother, but he’s evil. As a result, Ash knows nothing about him. When I think about Ash, a twinge of guilt starts smoldering in my heart. Speaking of Ash, where are they? My heart sinks as I think about Ash being consumed by the demon, but I try to bolster my faith in them, they’re still alive, I feel it in my bones.

As I stand up, a throbbing pain shoots up my leg, and I realize I’m bleeding. I take a piece of Andreas’s shirt, the non-bloody portion, and tie it to my leg. After that is tied tight enough to staunch the bleeding, I take off in search of Ash. Once I activate my blades, I’m off in search of my love, my Ash. After running around for a few minutes with very low vision, I finally see Ash on the ground. 

“They’re hurt,” I think to myself, “And this is all your fault, why couldn’t you just take them with you instead of almost killing yourself?” Then again, death was a slightly welcoming feeling. If Ash had not confessed earlier, I would’ve let death take me. But now that I am in a brand new relationship, death is not taking me so quickly. I tell my internal voice to knock it off so that I can focus on healing Ash. I take my stele out and start to carve a healing rune into their arm.

ASH

I wake up slowly, and all of a sudden this feeling of my skin getting seared jolts me awake. I hear Alanis’s voice, “Hey, quit moving! You’re alive, I’m just carving a healing rune into your skin. Sorry, I forgot to tell you it would sting.” Feeling their soft but cold touch on my skin, I slowly relax. Once they finish, I try to take her hand in mine to offer a sense of companionship. Alanis seems touched by the gesture as she takes my hand and massages it softly. She seems so calm and serene, I feel calm just looking at her. Taking in her soft black hair and her ice-gray eyes, I smile. Of course, the demon screeching interrupts the moment as Alanis leaves again. This time though, she comes back for me because she knows that I can hold my own. I smile again at the thought and run behind her.

ALANIS

I grab Ash by the hand, and we run together to finish the demon off once and for all. Our blades sit in their holsters, just itching to be held in battle. We removed our masks since it’s hard to fight with them on. This moment brings me back to when I grabbed Ash by the hand in eighth grade, they went by Ashlyn at the time, and we ran through the field of daisies behind our school. We picked daisies and made flower crowns for each other, then proceeded to run through the field without a care in the world. 

Sadly, that was all about to change a few days later when they decided to come out. I reacted in the worst possible way: denial. I denied that non-binary existed as a gender. I refused to believe that my best friend was changing. Now we’re running together again, hands clasped together refusing to let go.

ASH

Alanis and I are running through the field, and it reminds me of the time in eighth grade where we ran together through the daisy field behind the school. I think Alanis is thinking of the same moment from the smile on her face. Anyways, I return to the present moment, and we finally finish off the demon together. I run around the demon’s ankle again, stabbing its flesh as I dash around. Alanis decides to do the climbing this time, and she stabs the demon’s heart, staking it on her blade like a trophy. 

Of course, once she gets down, she throws the demon's heart away immediately as if it were the most abhorrent thing she’s ever seen in her life. Seeing her disgust towards that heart makes me laugh uncontrollably.

ALANIS

Seeing Ash smile melts me inside. It feels so weird to be in love with someone who you hated for four years. We run away, blades tucked in their sheaths, to Ash’s place. My place is on the other side of town, but Ash lives two blocks away. 

When we finally get to their place, Ash goes to shower first, and while I felt tempted to join them, I give them some privacy and try not to get demon sludge all over the floor. Once Ash hollers that the bathroom is empty, I go in and shower. No matter how much I try to scrub myself off, I still can’t get rid of Andreas’s hands on me and the demon’s sludge. Physically, the sludge disappears, but I still feel its blood on my hands. Once we both finished showering, we changed. I decided to cook dinner as a thank you for helping me in battle.

ASH

I never realized how terrible my cooking was until I tried Alanis’s clam chowder. It tasted just like how I used to have it while growing up in New Hampshire. As a surprise after dinner, I kissed her.

ALANIS

Their lips on mine felt so right, and at that moment, I felt alive.