Page 115 of An Unexpected Ascension
He stalks forward, rips the bag from my hands and tears it open causing the zipper to break loose. The contents tumble out, scattering across the floor. Leaning down, he lifts my toothbrush to my face.
“You’re a fucking liar.”
No, no, no!
Standing, he reaches behind him and reveals a pistol. The black metal glints under the florescent ceiling light, taunting me.
He cocks it.
Devil, save me! Run!
The sound rings inside my ears like alarm bells. It’s here that I die. It’s here that we both die, my bean and me.
Tears drench my cheeks, and my hand cradles my belly as if I have any chance at protecting my child when I so glaringly can’t even protect myself.
“Please, Ben. Don’t?—”
A bright, white light flashes before my eyes and then... nothing.
I clutchat my chest expecting to find blood, the similarities between my nightmare and my death too close. Except, it wasn’t just my daughter that died, I did too this time.
We never made it that far, not to celebrate her seventh birthday. There was no cake, no sweet, innocent smiles. There was nothing in between these two moments with her and yet, I felt I knew her as a mother knows her child.
Pain grabs a hold of every piece of me. My blood heats uncomfortably and my veins burn fiercely. My aching heart breaks, shatters until it’s just dust – irreparable.
I just want to lie here, underneath this Tree of Death. Lie in theashes of all my loved ones. I want to be the particles that drift down onto this tree, this desecrated land. I want to be nothing and no one. I want to cease existing.
The yearning to die all over again spears through me, straight through my bleeding heart and I wail in pain. My sobs die out as quickly as they’re released. It angers me how my agony is repressed by this horrid place, the thick air rendering my screams nearly inaudible.
I can feel my body writhe along the ground, my spine scraping against the boney roots of the tree. The torment inside of me twists and turns, wringing my guts into knots. The pain forces me to my hands and knees, and I scream again.
I scream
And scream
And scream.
Then I crawl.
With despair in my chest and a plea in my eyes, I grab onto the skeleton and beg for mercy. I beg him with everything I am to take me. To take away all this pain.
Its only answer comes in the form of a bone breaking loose.
Slowly, I withdraw that bone. My fingers curl around the end, forming to a handle-like stub and as I draw it from the tree, the object reveals itself as an alabaster sword. The edges sharp and the tip pointed, all enough to easily cut through anything of my desire.
It’s with this weapon in my hands that I feel a sense of calm overtake me, settling that ramped rage. I assess every inch of the sword. The small, twisted bones wrapping in a tight coil to make the handle beneath my fingers. The large, thick bone cast with length and sharpened with lethality.
This unholy weapon... It’s the end of the Gods.
“Briar?” My name breaks through a wall of dense air.
I look behind me and find Lynx’s back as he faces a pack of eight Hell Hounds. Their growls muted and distant, but their gnarly, muscular figures too close for comfort.
One beast Lynx can handle, but a horde of them?
I step forward and am met with a vicious snarl. Rows of yellow, pointed teeth glare underneath the descending red sun. Spit flies from another as it growls in warning. I take slow, cautious steps toward the demon.
The beast in the center inches closer as I approach. Its mouth hanging open with drool pooling along its tongue anticipating the taste of its dinner.
