Page 80 of Devoured
“I won’t leave you,”I said fiercely. “Not after everything.”
“You don’t know that yet.”His voice held something I’d never heard before. Sadness. “You haven’t seen the sun in days. Haven’t breathed air that doesn’t taste of death. You may feel different once you’re free.”
“I’m a monster,mymoth. This place is hell. When you’re back in the world above, you’ll remember what I am. What I’ve done.”
The pain in his voice made my chest ache. “You’ve been better to me than any human ever was. You’re not a monster. You’re good.”
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. Just centuries of self-loathing given voice. “Good? I’ve killed thousands. Tortured souls for eternity. Made furniture from their skin.”
“You protected me. Saved me. Chose me over everything else.”I pressed my hand against his scarred chest. “That’s not what monsters do.”
A distant crash echoed through the tunnels. Marion shifted behind us. “Zahra. We need to move. Whatever’s happening up there, it’s getting worse. We could hear screaming, things breaking through the walls...”
The Executioner released my face and turned towards a wall. “Then we go down. All of us. Now.”
Sela limped forward. “Can you really get us out? All of us?”
The Executioner nodded once. “The ritual chamber connects all levels. From there, I can open a path to the surface. But the Judge...”He paused. “Not the chamber you know. There’s another. Older. Much older.”
“How old?”Marion asked.
“Before the asylum. Before the town. Before humans gave it names.”twin embers glowing behind iron, shifted downward. “It lies deep. Deeper than the Rust, deeper than the Weeping. At the very bottom, where stone becomes something else.”
“And we have to go down there?”Isaac’s voice cracked slightly.
“Down and down and down.”The Executioner’s words were heavy.
“Then we must go, because going up is no longer an option!”Marion said firmly. She looked at me—at the way I stood so naturally beside this creature of darkness. “Together.”
The Executioner pressed his palm against a section of wall that looked no different from the rest. Ancient symbols flared to life under his touch, spreading outward like veins of fire. The stone groaned and split, dust cascading as a hidden doorway ground open. Beyond it, stone steps spiraled down into darkness.
“The old paths,”he said. “Built before the asylum. Before everything.”
And so we began our descent. The Executioner led the way. I walked beside him, our hands still clasped. Behind us, my friends followed—injured and exhausted, but alive.
As we descended toward whatever waited below, I wondered what would happen when we reached the bottom. If I would still be the same person who had entered this hell. If the woman who had skinned Alan alive could ever exist in the world above.
But those were questions for later.
For now, we descended—toward our escape, toward the ancient chamber, toward a choice I wasn’t sure I was ready to make.
The Executioner walked with his massive blade ready, every sense attuned to the dangers lurking in the darkness ahead. “Keep moving,”he commanded, his voice echoing off the tunnel walls. “The longer we stay exposed, the more likely we are to be overwhelmed.”
Behind us, Marion and Isaac supported Sela between them, her sharp features etched with pain, though her eyes remained alert and calculating.
“How much farther?”Marion gasped, her strength waning under Sela’s weight. Sweat beaded on her forehead despite the cold air that seeped from the stone walls.
“I can walk,”Sela protested weakly, though her legs trembled with each step. “Don’t slow down for me.”
“Like hell,”Isaac replied, adjusting his grip on her arm. “You can’t walk on your own. It will hurt bad.”
Tobias stayed in the middle of our formation, his usual predatory swagger replaced by nervous energy that made him jump at every shadow.
“This is insane,”he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. “We’re walking deeper into a trap. The Judge wants us down there.”
“Would you rather stay up here with those strange creatures?”Marion snapped, her patience wearing thin.
“At least up there I know what’s trying to kill me,”Tobias shot back, his voice cracking slightly. “Down there could be anything.”
