“Ah, and another place lost to time,” Somnus said, his voice echoing.
He spread his hands wide, orbs springing from his fingertips and diving deep into the pool. As his hands followed, the water erupted into a burst of starlight, mingling with orbs that danced slow, meandering arcs beneath its surface. Depthless as the pool was, there were no signs of monsters lurking within. It felt clean, inviting, even. I found myself standing over its waters, watching as Somnus traced symbols and figures over the silver light.
“You are ready, I assume,” Somnus murmured, continuing to thread shapes into the surface. “Use what you were given, and conquer all that you face.”
I stared at the surface, expecting something to jump out at us. The water rippled, steady and bright, iridescent with stars. Clear and demonless, it held no clues about what he wanted me to see. I turned to Somnus, several questions upon my lips.
But he was gone.
Before I could react, a force cracked against my shoulder. My balance was already unsteady from the half-light of the cavern and the power vibrating under my skin. I tripped, flailing.
The water caught me quickly—but it was no longer water at all.
I was in a pit, a forest of snow-covered bone and rot spanning beyond it. And in the center was Elliot, his eyes bruised and hollow.
Elliot!” I screamed, lunging toward him. But my legs wouldn’t move—they were stuck underneath me, caught by something dark like mud but thick with bone, rot, and other disgusting things. It clung to my feet and forced me into stillness.
Elliot hunched over his knees, thin arms gripping his sides. His hair was dirty and matted, his clothes nothing but long, dwindling rags. They reminded me of the gray demon’s attire—nothing suitable for a human boy.
“I’m sorry,” he moaned, sobs racking deep and heavy from his chest. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry, Father. I’m sorry, Esmer.”
I took another look at my brother. He was thinner, smaller, his voice wavering and more childish than I had heard in some time.
“I’m sorry!” he howled again, raising his face toward the endless pit of bone, snow, and filth.
The pit changed as he howled, slowly unfurling one of its edges. A winged demon peeked over this unfurling edge, its skull ringed in horns that crowned red smoking eyes. Where its face should have been was a mask of swirling darkness, devoid of features save for those eyes, and itsbody was colossal, clothed in armor that formed to every crevice of its unnatural shape.
Every inch of my body screamed at me to run.
Run.
My mouth felt dry, my bones liquid and soft under my skin. This demon reeked of ancient, all-seeing power that felt familiar, somehow. I couldn’t place it, but the sensation that I had seen this demon before somewhere—or that this demon had once seenme—tugged at the back of my mind, desperately begging me to take note.
Elliot howled louder once he saw the demon, crying to a snowing, horrible sky.
“Elliot, look at me!” I fought against the ice-slicked wind that was now whirling around the pit. It stuck to his back, froze against the strips of his rags. “You need to wake up right now! Fight it—fight this! You can’t let it get you.Please!”
Somnus had thrown me into one of Elliot’s nightmares from back when he was dying of fever after Eden’s Corruption. I had been thirteen at the time; it was a year that had no end or beginning. There was only hunger, darkness, and the lingering stench of death. Mother and Father had managed to provide us with elixir—the Norhavellian supply, I knew now—but only after Elliot had told us of his wicked dreams.
They had been horrific, those dreams. Filled with things most vile and terrifying, they were far worse than any of the stories we had known. But he had kept them from us for a time, convinced that his silence would mean our safety. He thought his dreams were his fault. That he had done something to deserve them.
But he had never mentioned a demon.
The demon descended slowly, crawling over the lip of the pit and staring hungrily at my brother. Elliot sniffed, his slight shoulders trembling, and tilted his face toward the sound of my voice.
“I’m your sister—it’sme. It’s Esmer.”
Recognition dawned in his dull eyes. “Esmer? You look different.…”
Boom.
Continuing to descend, the demon grew closer and closer, its eyes glinting with hellfire. Its armor shifted with each step, the sound of it echoing, booming—a deep rumbling that shook the core of the earth.
Boom.
And as it walked, my body sank deeper into the mire. First my ankles. Then my shins. It reached for my thighs, bit deep into my hips. A breath later, and it was seeping up over my stomach, cold and foul.
Boom.
