Page 90 of Demonic Affliction

Willow

My heart shatters into a trillion pieces, and my first instinct is to follow him into the abyss. Cin, Dravik, Nyx, Rhune… we can be together again.

I take one step over the edge, and a pair of strong arms wrap around my middle, hauling me back onto the ledge. I’m hit with a wave of déjà vu, only this time, I know it’s not Dravik saving me from the abyss.

“No! Let me go!” I fight, kick, scream, but it does no good. He won’t let go.

“He’s gone, Willow. They’re all gone.” Vhalthor’s voice is thick with emotion—the finality of the horror I do not want to accept.

“No!” I cry. “No, they’re not! They can’t be!”

I sob brokenly, still fighting toward the edge. Vhalthor is barely standing from his injuries, but even half dead, his demon strength wins out over my desperation. My boots slide against the melting ice, and I claw at Vhalthor's forearm hard enough to draw blood, but his hold doesn't budge. “Please! We have to go after them!”

“They went into the abyss. There is no getting them back,” Vhalthor chokes out. “They’re gone.”

“No,” I moan. “No…”

Above us, the Welwig has turned black, and the roots are no longer pulsing red, but falling from the walls in thick clumps. They hit the ground with wet, rotten thuds, releasing a stench of sulfur and spoiled meat that clings to the back of my throat with every shuddered breath. Ice breaks loose from the ceiling in slabs, crashing down around us in a fantastic spray of chaos. One slab shatters an arm's length away, spraying razor-sharp shards that slice into my exposed skin, but I don't even flinch. I can’t feel it. I can’t feel anything.

Everything is dying. The world is coming apart. It’s over.

Amid the destruction and chaos, Vhalthor lets out a cry of pain, unintentionally freeing me. I slump to the ground out of Vhalthor’s grip, my breaking, aching heart the only thing telling me I’m still alive.

“We have to go!” Vhalthor yells, attempting to snap me out of my trance. “Willow! We need to retreat!”

His voice barely reaches me through the ringing in my ears. “What’s the point?” I stare blankly up at the collapsing ceiling. “They’re gone. Gone. Gone…”

“Fuck!” Vhalthor jumps back, retreating from a particularly large slab that crashes down two inches from where I’m kneeling.

The serafyn’s voice breaks out in the back of my mind, filled with authority and… fear? In all the time it's lived in me, I have never heard it scared, but it is now. For me? Why?

Willow, you need to move! You’ll be crushed! I can only protect you for so long without full control of your body!

Ah. So that’s why none of the slabs have crushed me yet. Here I was, thinking I was lucky. I just laugh, the sound ugly and hollow. So? Maybe that’s for the best.

Spoon makes a noise somewhere between a yell and a sob. It has ordered me before. Demanded control and expected it. This time, it begs. Willow… please… if you won’t run, then let me take over. Let me save you. Please.

I just stare at the pit, remembering how their faces looked as they fell into the dark. I am already gone. There’s nothing left to save.

The serafyn goes quiet, searching for something I can’t name. When it speaks again, its voice sounds softer, farther away. Almost… sad.

This feeling. Wh-what is it? I’ve never… I have never experienced this. It hurts. Why does it hurt, Willow?

I don’t respond. I can’t. I can’t breathe, can’t think. It feels like my whole world is ending—because it already did.

Heartbreak, the serafyn says. I have not felt this pain before. The voice is silent for a long time—long enough that I almost forget it's there. No… No, that’s not right. I remember now. I had forgotten for so long, but I remember.

Flashes of memories play like a slideshow in my mind, but none of them belong to me.

A dark-haired woman with a wide smile and beautiful, strange, red-ringed eyes. A sunset. A series of explosions. Blood, and death, and a single blooming flower in the middle of a barren field. A woman and a man, grinning down at a beautiful baby girl. A car accident. Flashes of light, color, and the feeling of loss. So much loss, and pain, and heartache.

And above it all, a single, pleading voice breaking through the fog. Please, it says. Please, save my Willow.

Slowly, the pictures fade, and I come back to reality. Ice is still crashing behind me, and Vhalthor is shouting for me to move, but for a moment, I’m stuck in that memory. The woman's smile. The baby girl. The wreck. A voice that begged someone to save my Willow.

I don't understand what just happened. Those weren't my memories, yet I felt every one of them as if I had lived them. And then, it hits me. Those were Spoon’s memories. It showed me something important. But what? And why?

I remember her now, Spoon says. I… I remember what she asked me, what I promised.