"You may try to live like them, Alex…but your blood will always betray you."
Alex's breath stopped for a moment as he went back to what his father used to say to all of them.
The man's father, Lucas Morningstar, had always been deemed to have a mental illness according to the doctors back in the day.
Alex always remembered how that crazy old man would blabber weird things to him and his siblings.
All of them had believed him to be wrong…but if that so-called psychotic man was wrong….then what were they?
Unable to believe the situation, Alex repeatedly read the floating messages and how his race and lineage were exactly what his father used to tell him.
The man's mouth went dry.
No.
This wasn't real.
It couldn't be.
But then Ivy gasped, her body glowing faintly, shifting as if her very DNA were fighting to rewrite itself.
The girls skin shimmered, her hair curling unnaturally as her eyes flashed a bright crimson.
Another ding chimed inside the man's head as he heard a strange mechanical voice in his head, 'Reverting to Origin.'
Alex's vision blurred as his own skin began to burn, he realised that his muscles were starting to tense and break, like strings of a guitar.
Ivy started screaming louder as she hugged the boy in her embrace with all her strength, making Lucifer grunt in pain.
Alex could almost see Lucifer's eyes widen as the change in the girl's body became more and more obvious.
Looking at his precious little daughter changing into something else entirely, the word couldn't help but escape Alex's mouth.
"A demon."
Just like his father had said. The words echoed in his mind.
"You may try to live like humans, but the blood in your veins won't let you forget what you are. A Morningstar never escapes Hell—not truly."
Alex staggered.
Lucifer, on the other hand, got…nothing.
No screen.
No ping.
He felt absolutely no change at all.
He stared at the glowing duo in front of him like the universe had suddenly glitched in front of him.
And just for a second, the air around him felt…wrong. Like something was meant to trigger but didn't.
"What the fuck is happening?!"
The boy's blood rushed through his body at extreme rates as he felt panic building at him, but oddly, he realised…that it wasn't terror he was feeling.
No.
It was just confusion.
No matter how crazy the situation might seem, it was almost like there was a deep rooted sense inside him that told him that this was normal…
Like something inside him was still sleeping.
His hands were still shaking, but out of worry instead.
He grabbed Ivy, trying to steady her as she cried out in pain. Her body convulsed in his arms as he tried to calm her down.
Alex was on the floor now, breathing hard, hands gripping his head as he groaned. "It's the system… it's real…"
Lucifer turned to him, knowing that it was not the right time to question things as he bombarded Alex with questions. "What do I do?! What do I—how do I help?!"
Alex looked up, dazed. For the first time, he didn't have a snarky answer.
Just a pained, honest whisper.
"I don't know..."
Lucifer paled, his body almost turning stone as he realised that there were 2 big horns trying to pierce out of the girl's skull.
Blood flowed down her face as the process continued, Lucifer hurried to the bathroom and bought some wet towels for the girl to clean.
By the time he returned, the horns had already been studed into the girl's head and even Alex was beginning to grunt as he bore the pain of whatever this transformation was.
The next half an hour went by with Lucifer doing nothing more than trying to handle the father and daughter duo who by now seemed almost too unrecognisable to him.
Lucifer realised that he should be scared, terrified of the monstrosity happening in front of him…but somewhere between all these years living in an orphanage and the huge hole in his memories—
Lucifer had long lost the ability to differentiate between what was normal and what wasn't.
All he remembered was finding himself in an orphanage one day, with no memories of the world he was living in or any idea of who he was.
For a boy like him, could there really be any situation stranger than that?
Lucifer continued whispering Ivy's name again and again as he caressed her, brushing strands of hair from her face as the girl's transformation finally slowed down.
His hands didn't tremble as he took the entirety of her image in.
Because somewhere along the way, living as a stranger, no one cared about, only Ivy had told him that he mattered.
But even as he clung to her, the echoes in his mind grew louder and louder by the second.
The words from his dream.
Live like the king I always wanted you to be…
And for the first time in his life…Lucifer felt like the nightmare was more than just a dream.
It was a reality.
***