Page 159 of Devil's Doom

I pull on it. Souls are magic. Souls are power. I pull it closer, tugging sharply.

Come, I order.Do a spell.

And so I do it. I channel the very essence of my soul, not caring what I lose, which part of my nature will be gone, siphoned away to power this spell. I’m lacking, anyway. I’m but a tool. It’s all right.

There’s enough for just one spell.

Shatter, I tell the crystal vial.

And so it does. Blood seeps into the soil around the body, and the roots buried in its wounds burrow deeper, the insects crawl slower, and I sleep.

I wake to light. It burns the eyes, the eyes that aren’t mine. There is movement, too. Plowing. The plants scream. The insects chitter, outraged. Someone’s taking their home.

Someone’s here.

I sleep.

Then pain. Deep, thudding, overwhelmingly magical. The lips are wet, lips that aren’t mine, and a voice speaks, but we don’t know this language anymore, do we? All we know is the secret rustles of the roots. The lullabies springtails tap out in the ears.

I sleep.

And pain, again. Fingers on the throat, not gentle. Frustrated. Someone growls. Wetness slips out of the mouth and trickles down the cheek.

I sleep.

Sometime later, still sleeping, dreaming of secret, underground things, it happens. The throat moves. The tongue twitches. We swallow.

And the world grows red.

This pain is fresh and all-consuming, and it fuses us into one. It’s no longer we, butme, no longer the bones, butmybones, my wretched agony. I don’t scream, because I can’t breathe, because I forgot how.

A voice speaks, calmer now. Soothing. There are touches, horrible and invasive. No longer cool and predatory like plants. These are warm touches, coming from a thing with a heart and a breath, and I want to beg the thing to tell me the secret of breathing.

Magic pours in, and roots tear out, taking chunks of me with them. Warm wetness on my lips, and I swallow and swallow, not yet breathing.

My ears hurt and ring. My chest is open, my heart beating in a frenzy. My bones are not right, not aligned, my collarbones too far apart. More wetness. Swallowing, swallowing. Magic.

My bones slide into place and I want to sleep.

But there’s no stopping it now. Things come awake, things that slept, resigned to be buried forever. I want to scream from the pain, and still, and still, there is no air.

Until things are ripped out from my nose and lungs, things that lived there and fed on me, now dead and screaming, now gone. I swallow. The warm body cradling mine is soothing, and yet not. Too warm. I was so cold for so long, the warmth now disgusts me. I crave the temperature of my grave in the strange place in-between, the summer domain of Mokosz in the heart of winter.

But the warmth persists. The blood is also warm, blood trickling down my tongue, until I turn away and refuse, because it hurts, it hurts so much. Warm fingers turn me back, so indecently gentle, and I swallow some more.

My lungs stop hurting. My throat is sore, then not. My nostrils heal.

“That’s it, my sweetest. Just a bit more.”

I startle, the words making sense for the first time. My eyes stay closed. Someone blows into my face, the way I’d blow at a baby who cried so hard, it forgot to breathe.

I rush back into life with the first pull of air.

And it’s not painful. It should be, just like the first thud of my heart after a long rest, but it’s not. The air feels ecstatic. It flows down my throat, to my lungs, to my heart, and fills my blood with quiet susurration. Everything in me is aglow. The air rushes in, awakening me, and I have an orgasm, my back arching, spine snapping taut with pleasure.

“Beautiful,” says the voice. “Another one, sweet thing. It feels good to breathe. It’s ecstatic to be alive. One more. You know how.”

I don’t, or maybe I do. Sweet air tickles my lips, warm and tasting of smoke, and I breathe in again. Another bout of euphoria fills me to the toes, and I don’t make sounds yet, I can’t, but within me, pleasure sings.

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