Chapter Twenty-Six
Kara
As I wandered through Hell, one question refused to leave me alone: How the fuck does this place actually work?
Surely, it couldn’t all run off the Devil’s will alone. Could it?
The deeper I roamed, the more it felt like I was walking throughnothing.Just endless darkness. A void that swallowed me whole no matter which direction I turned. There had to be more. More rooms. More dungeons. This was supposed to be a prison for damned souls—so where the hell were they?
Worse?I had no clue how to get back to Luke’s room.
Could he see me? Know where I was at all times? Probably.
Which meant the second I slipped out, he knew. And honestly? I hoped so.
Yeah, I was trying to find a way out. Duh. But if this didn’t work, I was going to need him to show up and drag me back. Preferably to food.
Gods, I was so hungry.
The last of the snacks I’d stuffed into my back pocket were gone, and now my stomach felt like it was clawing at itself from the inside out. A cramp hit hard, doubling me over. I stayed like that, folded, for several seconds, just breathing through the pain.
Then I pushed forward.
…Or maybe it was backward?
I couldn’t tell. In a place like this, directions didn’t matter. For all I knew, I was walking straight down into a deeper abyss.
Hades, I’d kill for a steak. A rare one, juicy, sizzling off the pan. My mouth watered even as my stomach twisted.
I paused and stared out into the void. Couldn’t even see my hands.
Maybe I’d been thinking about this all wrong. Maybe Hell didn’t have an exit.
But if I treated Luke’s domain as a realm—an entity—maybe I could attack it.Break it.The way Harvest had torn the realms apart to start the apocalypse. Random holes between planes had appeared ever since.
And I was strong.I was strong.Starving but strong.
With enough willpower…maybe I could rip open my own damn exit.
It might hurt like hell. But I was already in it.
Besides, I’d need to eventually get out. One way or another, I had a fight ahead of me—with Harvest and Luke both.
But first?
I wanted that steak.
I was going to need the energy.
Materializing my scythe, I shifted it into a blade. The purple glow of my essence crackled along the steel, lighting a path through the dark. A grin curled my lips.
“Big, juicy steak. Big, juicy steak,” I chanted under my breath, keeping my focus sharp.
Food was an excellent motivator when cursed with endless hunger.
I swung the blade forward, slicing through the dark like fabric. The air split with a sound like tearing silk. A seam opened, curling at the edges like the corner of a burnt page.
Warm, muggy air spilled through. Insects buzzed. The stench of something hot, swampy, and undeniably contaminated rushed into my nose. I winced, covering my face with my arm as I peered through the slit. It looked like some kind of jungle—maybe the human world, maybe not. I didn’t see water, but the whole placefeltsoggy.
