Page 2 of Demon Monster's Little Human

The thing behind me moves faster. Hunting.

I lunge forward, gripping a broken column, twisting myself through a narrow passage barely wide enough for my shoulders. My ribs scrape against the stone, but I shove through, ignoring the burn, ignoring the blood.

Silence.

I press my forehead against the damp wall, forcing myself to slow my breath, to listen.

Nothing.

Maybe it was never there. Maybe it was just?—

A gust of breath at my nape.

The temple roars around me as I tear myself forward, nearly tripping over my own feet. The passage opens into a chamber, vast and open, the ceiling swallowed by darkness. The air hums, thick with a power so ancient it makes my teeth ache.

Something waits in the center of the room.

Not a monster. Not a beast.

A throne.

Black stone, shattered at the edges, covered in chains. Carvings of talons, of wings, of something once great now crumbled into ruin.

At its base, half-buried in dust and time, a wing.

Not just any wing. A gargoyle’s.

It isn’t attached to a body. At least, not one I can see. It stretches across the floor, massive, carved from obsidian and cracked with age.

My pulse thrums against my throat.

The power in this room—it isn’t just in the walls. It isn’t just the temple itself.

It’s him.

The stones beneath my feet tremble.

The chains rattling over the throne tighten.

The world explodes.

The ground splinters, a light erupts from my hands, sharp and blinding, lancing through the temple like a bolt of raw magic. The air shudders, deep and guttural, the temple groaning as something ancient begins to stir.

I stumble back, my breath sharp, my vision flickering between this life and something else.

A memory of another me standing in this very spot, whispering words that burn my tongue.

I press my hands to my chest, my pulse slamming against my heart. The air crackles around me, thick with something I don’t understand, something awake.

The chains snap.

Stone shatters.

The stone moves.

I have nowhere left to run.

2

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