Page 40 of Dark Rapture
Much like when I first bore witness to Stolas, this demon has my mind threatening to splinter into a thousand irreparable pieces. Every inch of his monumental, towering form is something pulled out of humanity’s darkest nightmares.
This entity is an amalgamation of horror, gore, and petrified flesh. Blackened as though it has been aflame for eons, every orifice emitting a dark burning light as though its terrifying framework houses nothing but hellfire and viscous lava.
“Who are you?” I manage to force out, my raspy voice small and weak in comparison to his, which emanates from his jagged jaws, booming like thunder.
“Belial,” he replies, his inhuman voice contorting. “Great Prince of Hell.”
Seeing the horror of the demon towering before me, I know instinctively this is no lesser entity. But a Prince of Hell? Stolas warned me there was more to banishing these entities than the ones I’ve faced in the past.
“Why am I—” The demon moves, stopping me from finishing my question. He launches towards me with such speed and ferocity, I don’t have time to react before his massive arm crashes into my face and knocks me back to the ground.
He didn’t mean to kill me, I know that much for sure. If he intended that much, my skull would be in pieces on the rocky surface beneath me. Instead, pain blooms from my skull as blood spills in heavy droplets from my parted lips.
“Do not question me, witch. Your only purpose here is to die.”
I sputter, coughing out the blood from inside of my mouth, and struggle to get back to my feet. All the remnants of fear and panic died during my fall to Hell. When you accept your imminent death, and I mean truly accept it, you’re liberated from those pesky emotions. What use do you have for fear when death is a promise?
All I’m left with now is bitterness and rage, and the determination to survive. I didn’t die falling from grace, and I won’t die now, not while the fire inside of me still rages on.
Mocking laughter, sinister and cruel, erupts around me as I stagger to my feet. Turning back to look up at the demon towering over me.
“If I d-don’t kill you, St-Stolas will,” I sputter, spitting blood from my mouth to splatter on the blackness of his petrified flesh. He’s so close now that heat from the living inferno within his body pulses against my skin, joining with the hot winds of Hell, making it difficult to breathe.
Every breath is painful, the winds of Hell entering my lungs with each ragged inhale.
The demon lashes out with a snarl, his massive hand wrapping around my throat and lifting me up off my feet. I rise high as he brings me to eye level, his barbed jaws splitting wide as gusts of scorching air lash at my face with every word from his cursed mouth. “I will not allow Stolas to rise to power. You will die before he becomes a God!”
“F-fuck y-you,” I gasp between breaths as my vision darkens, black spots popping in along the edges of my sight. His mocking laughter booms again, the volume rattling me to my core. The bones in my body vibrate from the impact of the sound.
“I will fuck your rotting corpse after I eat your soul, witch,” he roars as his other arm snakes out to press into my sternum, talons gripping at my flesh with the intent to rip me apart.
No the fuck you won’t.
The burning rage inside of me detonates like a bomb, bursting forth from the place his claws dig into my chest. The explosion is so immense, Belial can do nothing but release my throat as he is sent hurtling backwards away from me.
I didn’t realize I was screaming, but the sound dies on my battered lips as the very winds of Hell rise up beneath my feet to cradle my body as I slowly lower to the ground. My arms are held outwards as fire erupts from my aching hands, flowing through my fingers like whips intent on avenging all the wrongs ever done to me.
I know my eyes are spilling light like lava, because everything I see is cast in a bright golden glow. The demon gathers himself off the rocky terrain until he is standing on his cloven hooves, his chest heaving, and the horrors of his grotesque face pulsating with his perpetual rage.
“It’s not me that will die here today, Belial, Prince of Hell,” I call out, the strength of my voice renewed now that the inferno of my magic is running rampant through every cell of my body. Awake, alive, and ready to serve.
The great demon roars, his voice bellowing with so much force it moves the blistering air between us, before he breaks out into a run. The monstrosity is barreling my way like a freight train, the stony floor beneath my bare feet quaking and rupturing as he draws near.
I lift one of my hands, the once-bloodied palm facing towards him, as flames shoot and spiral out from my fingertips.
Belial is made of hellfire, and that is mine to command. My power may be born of celestial fire, but my roots through Stolas run deep into Hell. As I am bound to the Great Prince of Hell, the forces of Hell are also bound to me.
“Come, hellfire,” I chant in a whisper, my own burning magic erupting from me and spilling out into the dark space, lashing like the tails of a whip as it explodes forward to meet the charging demon. “Bend to my will.”
Belial collides with the wall of fire radiating out from me, and his face contorts with shock as it reaches deep into his being and wraps tightly around him like a python striking out and imprisoning its prey.
He bellows in absolute agony as his atoms are torn asunder by the tendrils of my white-hot fire, ripping and tearing and drawing his evil into me like a siphon. Belial’s essence floods me like a tsunami, crashing into my starving soul and willingly feeding the insatiable well inside of me.
The feelings of brutal starvation wreck havoc inside my soul, and my desire to consume all of Hell has the attention of every demon affixed to me.
This new, maddening addiction burns brightly, as bright as the demon Belial as he slowly disintegrates before me. Every bit of his infernal power feeds into me, merging with my own until there is a nuclear bomb capable of destroying worlds lodged in my chest.
A soundless scream breaks free from my throat, just as the shadowy forms of lesser demons begin to materialize everywhere around me. Legions of demons, tasting of Belial’s dominion, emerging from the burning pits below. Their enraged screams, full of madness, echo around me like a sickening cacophony.
