“Get ready, Thea,” I warn as I step out of her scythe’s range.
In one swift movement the creature falls a few feet from us, barring the exit. He’s a terrifying sight to behold. Grayish skin hangs loosely from his hairless body. It’s humanoid with sunken features and bony joints. Emotionless, black eyes pierce right through me and I realize that I’ve never really known true fear until now. It claws at my chest, making each breath a chore, and my hands tremble despite clinging to my weapon for dear life.
Slowly, a sinister smile creeps across his face, baring discolored, sharp teeth that look like they could tear right through me. I swing my scythe in a wide arc, and it glides right through the thing without issue. There’s no hiss of pain or blood, and it becomes obvious he’s immune to our weapons.
Shit.
Thea screams as it starts advancing and I throw open a portal in my panic. I quickly pull Thea through and hope that the creature doesn’t follow.
I expect us to land on the judgment platform, or our room, but neither are true. I look around at a completely new realm altogether.
“I’m so sorry, Thea. I don’t know what I’ve done,” I whisper. She doesn’t speak as I try to open a new portal but for some reason nothing happens. My powers seem to be blocked.
Where the fuck are we?
“Is there a cool-down period if you make portals too close together or something?” Thea asks in a shaky voice as she clings to my arm. I shrug, not knowing how to answer. Somehow I dragged us out of one awful situation and right into another.
Looking around at the world we find ourselves in, my worry grows even more. The sky is a deep black with barely any stars. There is a red haze in the air, courtesy of what seems to be an active volcano in the distance. Crude stone buildings are scattered around and a large, decaying mansion sits to the edge of the volcano. The ground is covered in ash and when the wind blows, it’s hot and filled with embers. My lungs already burn and I know we can’t stay here long.
“Where the fuck did we end up?” My voice is barely a whisper because who the fuck knows what’s waiting for us in those crude buildings ahead.
“I would say hell, but as far as I know it doesn’t exist. Though this place here might just change my mind,” Thea tries to joke, but it falls flat.
Taking a quick breath to calm my frazzled nerves, I try to call a portal again but nothing happens. The last thing I want to do is freak Thea out so I take another breath to swallow down my pure fucking panic. She’s my priority here, I have to protect her, this ismyfault. My scythe won’t form so I reach down and pull out the dagger, hoping it will work.
Having a weapon in my hand makes me feel a tiny bit better. I take a second to check my phone but even it doesn’t work here. We’ve found ourselves in an unreachable realm and now I have to find a way out. And fast.
“Let’s move out; Maybe this area doesn’t allow portals. We’ll just have to be cautious, since who knows what’s waiting for us out there,” I tell her. She bends down and pulls a dagger out of her boot as well.
“Sam,” she states simply and my heart warms that Sam is taking care of her too. He was a surprise to me. Over the last few days while we dropped off souls and shared dinner, he’d been more present. He fit in easily with our group and after stopping by my room the other night, I knew that things would be heating up very soon.
Every time I talk to them it’s like we’ve been friends forever, easily teasing each other and laughing. I don’t understand my connection to them, but I won’t complain about having it. They give me a sense of family that I thought I would lose out on. Between eating together in the evenings and themnot so subtlywalking with us at night, we’ve formed our own little circle of friends.
We tentatively make our way through the hazy ghost town. There’s an occasional wail or scream that breaks the eerie silence, and it starts happening often enough I have a permanent chill running down my spine.
The mansion sits on a hill in the distance, looking far too ominous for me to want to approach. It was likely beautiful in its prime, but now large holes crumble through the structure. There are more missing windows than I can count and even what little paint is left is peeling down the sides. It definitely doesn’t look stable.
The stone structures that litter the ground before the hill are all empty and broken, so we are forced to go for the one thing left that has any sign of life. As we approach, the screaming and wails reach new heights.
Movement inside has me pulling her behind a large rock and I point up in time for a gray skinned creature to lean out of the broken window and take a deep breath.
The same creature we’d tried to escape.
“What the hell is it?”
“Demons,” Thea says. “What else could we call it?”
More movement shows that he’s not alone. Demons pass in front of the windows and a few linger on the grounds below. Everywhere you look there’s a group of them skulking around.
We’ve found the demons’ lair.
“I don’t like that the town is empty, and I definitely don’t want to go in there,” Thea points out.
“Let’s go find a place to rest then,” I offer, but freeze when I see a soul pass by a window in the mansion.
“Thea, they have souls in there.” She lets out a low groan.
“Dammit,” she growls quietly in frustration. She looks at me expectantly and I realize I’m the adult here and have to figure out what to do.