Chapter 12: Chapter. 12 Pressing ahead.

In the nightmare.

“Where are you? I can’t help you if I can’t find you. Where are you?” Diana walked around the altar in a panic to try and catch the sound of his rattling breathing again. As she came around to the front of the altar where a small wooden table stood with anathame still poised and stained on it, her foot connected with nothing. “AAAAAAAAAA!” What had looked like solid ground was a glamour and she stepped her whole weight through it. She tumbled down through the spell and into a dark pit. “AAAA-ah!” Diana didn’t fall for very long and landed with a painful jarring of her right hip. “A-a-a-a-oooooouch.” She whimpered and jerkily moved herself off her injured hip. “H-hello?” She spluttered at the stale earthy smell in the air and squinted through the darkness. Her hand flew to her mouth as she coughed against the muskiness of her new surroundings.

Diana squinted through how dark it was suddenly. She groaned with the ache of her landing and realised she’d been very lucky. She had landed right by the ledge of a massive pit. A hole within the hole. Her left hand and knee overhung it and another few inches, and she would have tumbled down into the darkness there. She winced as she pushed her hands down into the dirt to sit up and look down into it. The pit looked bottomless and the air down there seemed to suck the heat from all around her. If she had to imagine what the entrance to hell would look like, this would be her best bet. Dark cold and empty.

Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness, staring down into the abyss. Then in an instant something looked right back up at her. Diana wasn’t alone in the pit. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

There.

Looking up at her from down in the pitch blackness were a pair of the biggest red eyes she had ever seen. Diana scrambled away from the inner pit and clawed against the dirt wall to stand and press herself as far back as she could. Her heart raced, adrenaline thundered through her and she panted like she was already running for her life. She whimpered and looked around for a way out. Any way out. She saw no ladder, no rope, no stairs, nothing. She turned and tried to dig her fingers and dolly shoes into the mud to climb out, but that got her nowhere. She just ended up tearing clumps of dirt away from the wall and sliding back down to the ground.

“…h…he…help…mmm…me…” Diana flinched and cowered against the wall. She faced it and trembled with fear. “…rrrrrrrrrrrrrr…” She heard groaning and slowly swallowed the lump from her throat. That sounded like they were in pain. Her mind returned from the numb high alert to flee from danger and quickly took stock.

I’m stick in a hole, with no way out, with something else, with big red eyes, and the voice asking for help is down here too. She gulped and trembled as she slowly turned to look over her left shoulder. Back towards the hole. The voice asking for help…must…belong to the guy with red eyes… He rasped weakly and coughed from the effort to speak. Before she could think through her actions Diana was slowly edging back towards the inner pit. Her dirty hands held her elbows and tears still ran down her cheeks. She ignored the way her skin pimpled with goosebumps, and she peered down into the hole again.

“H…hello?” Her voice wobbled and she flinched with a gasp as those big red eyes looked up at her again from the darkness. “Are you…hurt?” He wheezed and those red eyes held such pain. They were terrifying and her heart raced as she stared down into them. Black suns for pupils licked with dark tendrils out into crimson orbs. There were no whites of his eyes. Just red. He definitely wasn’t human. But he can talk? So he’s not a ghoul. “I’m sorry I don’t know any healing magic.” Or any kind of magic. “I have a chocolate bar though?” She reached into her pleated skirt and retrieved a broken candy bar. Most of the lesser fae can be appeased with an offering. I mean, it’s obviously not a brownie, but what would it hurt to offer it my candy? “I could give you that?” She bobbed down in a hurry to place it by the edge of the inner pit then step back. “I’ve fallen a few times so it’s a bit crushed, but you can have it.”

“…help…me…” The red eyes didn’t blink or release her from their stare. It showed no interest in the candy bar. Diana frowned at the pain and fear she saw in those depths. They also looked desperate. Desperate to eat the stupid human girl that fell into his trap? Maybe.

“I don’t know how.” Diana shook her head, her messy braid swaying down her back. “I don’t know any magic. There’s nothing here I can throw you to pull you out.”

“…come…come…” Diana’s brown eyes widened and she took a step back.

“Uh, come down there? No, sorry. I-I cant come down there.” She took another step back, and the creature whined when they almost broke eye contact. “N-no offence, but I don’t know if I’d get out of there if I did, and I don’t know you. M-my mother taught me not to talk to strangers, and erm, I’m already pushing it t-talking to you.”

“…y-yu…” He started hacking and spluttering, and those eyes vanished for a moment. Diana frowned. Whoever, or whatever this thing was, it was suffering something awful. The more it tried to talk, the more it coughed.

“I’m sorry I left my bag at school, or I’d give you my water bottle.” The red eyes glowed up at her in the darkness once more and watched her intently. Diana sniffled and wiped her tears on the back of her sleeve. Those red eyes made her feet root to the spot, but his fight to keep breathing and talking made her doubt he was capable of hurting her.

“Dr…drr…eee…k…drrii…driiikk.”

“Drink?” Diana cocked her head to one side and leaned a bit closer to the inner pit. “You want a drink? I don’t have one on me. It’s back at school in my bag, like I said. I’d bring you a drink but I don’t know how to get out of here.” Diana sighed and looked back up towards the exit. The glamour seemed to only work one way, as they could see out alright. The sun beat down on them dimly…but no light entered the pit where the red eyed creature hid? He has to be magical to block out the sun.

“…sw…www…rrr…swwwrrr i…i…t.” He had another coughing fit and Diana frowned down at the pitiful creature. “Swwwrit.” He forced out with a his, and then hacked against the strain of doing so. Diana raised a brow an then realised what he was trying to say. She nodded down towards the dark pit.

“I swear. If I can get out of this hole I’ll come back with a drink for you. And some food.” Does he know a way out? Diana looked around again and saw nothing but impossibly tall walls of dirt. When I don’t come home for inner my mother will use a locater spell to scry for me. So I could just wait until- “AAAAAAAAA!”

Diana screamed and her hands flew down to her waist to take hold of the thick vines that ensnared her. Her whole body flew through the air like she was being reeled up by the rebound of a bungee cord. She flailed her arms and legs in a panic, careering up and out of the hole, and landed in another heap on her left side. She spluttered, winded by her landing, and took a moment to realise she was back on the surface.

She watched as the thick vine slithered back towards the hole and vanished beneath the glamour spell that hid the pit from view. She stared at the seemingly undisturbed earth before the alter for a solid minute, before slowly and gingerly lifting herself up to herfeet.

“…swrrr…yuuu swrrrr.” Diana gulped and nodded back to the hole.

“I did. I swore to you. I’ll come back. T-tomorrow.” It snarled angrily, only to practically choke and lurch on it’s own tongue. “I promise I’ll come back tomorrow.” Diana sobbed as backed away until she was outside of the ritual circle. “I promise.” She hobbled back the way she came to school. Her heart didn’t stop fluttering and her hands trembling until she was facing the remote school building.

She moved on autopilot and tried not to think about what she had discovered, and what had discovered her. Diana yoyoed from terrified of those red eyes and what trap she may have sworn to go back into, and pity for the suffering of the poor thing she left down there. It has to have magic, to grow plants like that to get me out of the hole. Yet it’s still down there, so why hasn’t it used the same method toescape itself? Is it trapped down there? It was strong enough to use nature magic, but not to talk for very long.

Classes were over, thankfully, so no one saw her mud caked hands, knees and shoes as she walked home from school. The only clean part of her was her backpack. If I went straight back to the hole right now, my mother would notice I was missing. I can’t go straight back to the hole and the creepy monster without finding out what the hell it is, and if it’s safe to go back. I told it I’m coming back tomorrow, so it can’t accuse me of breaking the deal. I bought myself some time…for now.

Diana took the backroads to avoid being seen in such a state and used the back door. Agnes spotted her, chided her for being in such an unladylike state, and tried to get out of her why she was covered in mud. Diana lied, of course, and said she’d been playing and fell over, before jumping into the shower to get herself clean. Tomorrow is Saturday. No school. Mother will be holding coven meetings in the morning, so I can try and sneak into her office. She has lots of books in there on darkmagic and summoning rituals. Whenever she’s stuck, she goes in there and reads until she has the answer. There has to be something in there that has red eyes and hides in the shadows. Something that is a vegetarian and has no interest in eating little girls…I hope.

One thing Diana knew for sure? Is she was going back tomorrow. Whatever that thing was, it was trapped and suffering. It also helped her out of the hole, and it didn’t have to do that. She owed it at least some food and water…right? It’s never a good idea to cross a magical being capable of manipulating nature. Not unless I want to lose a limb in payment instead.

But those red eyes…gave me the creeps. She shuddered, and struggled to sleep that night as she thought of that crimson stare. Those big black pupils that reached out with wispy tendrils into fiery orbs. Reaching into her chest and making her feel like something gripped at her heart and held her on the edge of life and danger. But he was in so much pain too. I couldn’t just leave him there…How did he end up in the hole? Who put him there? And why?