Page 39 of Dark Rapture
With a blood-curdling scream, my arms flail and my hands reach for the frame of the door as it rapidly recedes from my field of vision. The demon that shoved me through is standing at the precipice, a mocking grin on its twisted face, until the sight of my home disappears.
My hope dies with it.
Chapter Twelve
Imusthavepassedout, because when awareness returns to my body all I can sense is the sickening feeling of falling without end. I am spiraling ceaselessly through the darkness, my body folding and twisting on repetition as I grasp desperately at nothing with my unsteady hands.
I cannot tell where I am, what direction I’m facing, or where I am going. All I know is that I am falling at a speed so unimaginable that I keep passing out and regaining consciousness. A cycle that annihilates my sanity and leaves me begging for death.
I’d give anything to collide with the ground. To end this torment now, so I don’t have to experience another minute of this. The idea that I may be trapped here forever has me screaming and begging for mercy. I scream so hysterically that my throat aches, but I cannot even hear my own voice.
The air I am falling through booms with the violence of a hurricane all around me, and all I can hear is relentless whooshing as my body gives up and I black out again.
This time, when I jolt back into a state of awareness, pain echoes all over my body. A broken scream escapes my stinging throat as the sensation of rough hands grabbing at me fills my senses. It is no longer pitch black, and for that I am grateful, despite the onslaught of pain as I am grabbed and pulled until my descent slows.
There is a low, flickering light from somewhere far below. The incandescent glow of fire, illuminating my path as I plummet down through the shrinking space between the jagged, dark cliffs surrounding me.
What I believe, at first, to be dead trees, turns out to be bodies. Countless, writhing bodies, with arms outstretched and reaching for me as I fall. Every time their mangled hands grab at me, my descent slows a little more, until I am slipping through a mass of thrashing corpses.
Although I am no longer free falling through a void, I am not sure this is any better. The endless rows of charred bodies are dragging me down, pulling at every limb, ripping at my now tattered clothes, and even pulling out a couple chunks of my hair as they guide me lower down.
Just when I think I’ll pass out again, I hit the surface of what feels like a system of thick, wet webbing. My movement stops for the first time in… I don’t know how long, and immediately every bit of stomach contents empties from between my gasping lips.
My blurry eyes struggle to focus, but when they finally do, I can see the small, smoldering fires littering a black, rocky ground below. I scream in agony when I shift my body, pain lancing through me from the trauma of my descent, but the movement I make breaks the webbing I am laying across, and I fall the rest of the way to the ground below.
Reaching my bloodied hands out in front of me, I scream something unintelligible, until a gust of hot wind rises up to meet me. The dusty tornado collides with my body, and instead of smashing into the rocky face of the floor, I am lowered gently until my exhausted body collapses in a heap.
I lay there without moving for so long, that I can only assume I fainted again. It takes me several long minutes of effort, but eventually I lift myself off my stomach and prop my body up on my forearms.
My eyes, still a little blurry, blink rapidly to adjust as I stare at my battered forearms and hands. All I see is red, my skin drenched in blood from countless cuts and abrasions. I cry out as I shift my body, and pain explodes across my nerve endings.
I should be dead. Maybe Iamdead.
When I finally muster the strength to lift my head, I take a rattling breath as I survey my surroundings. Everything here is made of dark, jagged rock like tarnished obsidian. There is dust and broken bones littered everywhere, as well as pieces of flesh—both rotted and fresh.
There are small fires scattered all over the place, and the uncomfortably warm breeze carries ash and embers with it. I don’t have the strength to flinch as those hot embers occasionally drift too close and land on my exposed skin.
Forcing my eyes up, I see a thick canopy looming overhead. It’s the dense webbing I landed on before breaking through. I am horrified when I realize the net is made of blood, flesh, and sinew. Never in my darkest nightmares could I imagine a place as terrifying as this.
When I drop my eyes again, I scan the immediate area. I’ve landed in a comparatively empty clearing, one that is surrounded by jagged protrusions of black stone and menacing spires. Many of which pierce directly through the bodies of what look like rotting human corpses.
Corpses that aren’t really dead. Those are people, an endless sea of them stretching beyond the reaches of my eyesight, rotting away down here. They are writhing, their mouths open wide as silent screams of agony and quiet moans gargle up through lips coated in blood and thick, black mucous.
I’m in Hell. This is Hell.
Struggling to my knees, I will my body to rise. I cannot stay here, I need to find a way to contact Stolas. My arms quiver as I push myself up, kneeling on the dark stone beneath my sore, scraped knees.
“St—” I choke, coughing as my aching vocal cords struggle to produce sound. I mutter to myself over and over again until I can speak something more than crackled stuttering.
“Stolas…” I finally manage to whisper, my voice unbelievably hoarse and almost unrecognizable.
“The Great Prince can hear you, witch, but he cannot come to save you,” a dark voice responds, the shifting tones and inhuman vocal range telling me all I need to know of its owner. “My legions have him pinned down in the burning pits below, and by the time he fights his way to you, you’ll already be dead.”
Another fucking demon, and likely the very reason I’ve been dragged down to Hell.
Although I have no physical strength left in me, I force myself to find reserves hidden deep in my soul. It is not the strength in my physical body that brings me stumbling to my feet, but strength from the bottomless well of magic newly awakened within me.
When I finally stand, swaying in the scorching winds of Hell, I reluctantly turn myself to face whoever spoke to me. Mentally preparing myself, knowing I’m about to come face to face with the horrors of another Hell-born demon, isn’t enough to prevent the audible gasp when my eyes finally meet the eldritch monstrosity towering in the distance.
