Page 97 of Demons & Damnation

A flash of blue streaked across Kyla’s vision before darkness plunged around her again.

A girly giggle filled the space around her, the sound not too dissimilar to a young girl being tickled. “You should know more than anyone that nothing is impossible.”

“I watched you die,” Mildred yelled, her voice wavering with anxiety. “I saw your throat slit open like the Grand Canyon.”

“Ah,” came the reply. “But what is life if not but a state of mind? A mere perception of being?”

A sharp gasp sounded from behind Kyla. “No,” whispered Mildred. “No...”

Kyla watched, her eyes widening, as a dot of white light appeared in front of her. Like a zip being opened, the dot then widened into a huge horizontal line, bright light streaming through like someone had just allowed the sun to shine.

Consumed only by fear and a dire need to escape, Kyla ran towards it, desperate for freedom. After all, light meant good things, right?

As she took off, a hand clamped down around her forearm, holding her back, keeping her pinned to the spot with that one touch.

“This is not for you,” the voice said. “You will stay.”

Kyla stood, rooted to the floor, watching in nothing but utter fascination as through the light came a long purple cloth. Its fibres reached down towards her, teasing her to take a hold and follow it back up, like a rope of life from the lifeguard when lost at sea.

Just as she debated lunging for the cloth, Mildred screamed, a deep guttural scream that pierced Kyla’s ears and curdled her blood. Cringing, Kyla covered her ears, not able to listen to that animalistic noise.

Strange Latin words started filtering in, reverberating all around her. With each word spoken, Mildred found herself dragged closer and closer to the purple tendrils dangling from the light. The instant Mildred involuntarily touched the cloth, she was whipped back to the light.

The instant she disappeared, the light vanished, but her screams still resonated around Kyla. Wondering what would happen to her next, in the darkness, Kyla held her hands out in front of her, hoping to find the source of the strange voice, wanting something, someone, to hold on to, to make sense of this reality, to ground her, to bring her back.

Inch by inch, the darkness began to fade, light slowly creeping in from her peripheral vision. She then realised she was growing again, filling out her own body. Mildred was gone, Kyla was back. Tears swam over her vision.

As the last of the shadows faded, the tingling of her limbs alerting her to an outside presence, she frantically looked around for the owner of the mystery voice, wanting to thank her, needing a face to remember as she found herself grateful for her life.

“Wait!” Kyla yelled. “Who are you? I need to thank you.”

No words came but instead a picture filled Kyla’s mind’s eye.

A picture of the ring she’d received on her seventeenth birthday.

Chapter 40

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