Page 98 of Demon Monster's Little Human

I hear it.

A language I don’t understand. Ancient. Twisting. Wrong.

I snap my gaze back to her.

She’s standing now. But she’s not looking at me.

She’s looking past me. At nothing. At something.

She’s speaking. But they are not her words.

The sound curdles in my ears, like a song played in reverse, like a prayer meant for something unholy. My claws dig into my palms as I take a step closer.

“Liora.”

She doesn’t hear me.

Another step.

The world tilts. Not the cave. Not reality.

My mind.

A vision slams into me with the force of a thousand lifetimes.

Darkness. A cold floor. Chains biting into my wrists.

I can’t move.

A woman stands before me. Cloaked in light, but her face is hidden.

A voice, familiar and foreign at the same time.

“Forgive me,” she whispers. “You were never meant for this.”

Pain explodes through me. Magic surges over my skin, into my bones, through my soul.

I roar. I fight.

But she doesn’t stop.

She binds me. Seals me.

I realize this isn’t the first time she’s done it.

This is the second.

The third.

The hundredth.

I slam back into the present, gasping. My knees hit the ground, my claws gouging into stone. My lungs heave for air, but my body feels wrong.

Like something was just taken from me.

Or worse, returned.

“Dain?”

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