Chapter 181

Chapter 181
AMELIA

I suckled in a breath, waking up to a reality. 

I thought I made it through, but it was like a dream talking to them, telling them what I saw. But I swore I was there before something pulled me out. 

I cracked my eyes open, only to see the same darkness I walked in before. I quickly got on my feet.

“What the hell?” I felt like someone just pulled the ground under my feet, throwing me through the hole into the abyss. I tried to walk through many times, but I was still here, in this wasteland of dying people. It was horrible— the smell of death and corpses. 

The atmosphere was worse than the desert in summer. It felt like being inside the heating pot without the water and my skin kept simmering.

The canister smoked a long time ago, and those people stopped running after me. They couldn’t keep up anymore and went back to whatever they were digging. I realized they were not dead. They were just trapped here to starve to death. There was nothing left but bones and skin. The hollow eyes looked like disturbing Halloween decorations.

I tried to walk again and failed. Dread gripped my chest in a painful squeeze. At this moment, I wanted to cry as I began losing all hope of getting out of there alive. Looking at these near corpses, they must have tried hard enough but ended up succumbing to their painful and slow deaths. What a terrible way to die.

I walked away from them towards the unknown with my hopes vanishing in my thoughts. I found a rock, wanting to hide and cry and curl into a ball. I hid in there and looked at the red sky. 

Finally, tears rolled down my eyes. It was cut briefly when the red lightning slashed at the sky and the rolling thunder roared, startling me.

I watched those people run away, and I wondered why. Then it became clearer as day. We were not the only living if we could call ourselves living beings. I flattened my back to hide behind the rock as the huge insect-like crawled towards them. It was as huge as a horse, the body length about five meters long. The four skinny legs were longer and sharper.

I swallowed hard and shut my eyes as it punctured one of those people on the back and ate it whole. Nobody even tried to fight. Who would anyway? Without weapons. I sucked in a breath. Weapons? I patted my back and cried as hope expanded in my chest.

The giant insect was about to eat another person, and I took the courage to stand up.

“Hey, asshole!” I pulled out my sword and distracted it. “Run!”

The giant insect bolted in my direction, those bulgy shining round eyes laser-focused at me, aiming at its new meal of the day. With my heart pounding so hard, I stood on the ground, inhaling and exhaling, waiting for it to come.

One. Two. Three.

Its sharp proboscis-like extended, opened its big mandible, stretching its long sharp fangs just about a meter away. I let go of a long breath and slid under it, jabbing the sword into its abdomen, slicing it through. It shrieked in pain before it fell to the ground with a thud. Dust flew all over me, making me cough.

As I celebrate my little triumph, I lie in there, catching my breath. Still, I didn’t know how to get back, and it broke my heart. 

I got up and went behind the rock again when those people came running. Then I heard cracking and sloshing. When I peeked at what they were doing, I grimaced and almost puked. They were eating the insect I just slaughtered.

I prayed and called my father, but it seemed gods didn’t exist around her anymore. This seemed like hell to me.

“It was impressive what you did back there?”

I gasped, slid back, and aimed my sword at the man talking behind the rock. I got up slowly and rounded to see him. His voice was weak and shaky but sounded very familiar. “Who the fuck are you?”

He could barely lift his arm to push the tip of the sword down. He rested his back against the rock while breathing hard.

I grimaced as I still saw a goo on his stained shirt. 

“Victor? What the fuck? How did—” I did not continue my words. I sat next to him, ignoring his stinky smell. “How long?”

“After you found us playing golf.”

I stared at him in disbelief. He knew. “You’ve been here for weeks?” I examined him. He lost a lot of weight, dehydrated, and aged a decade. “I hope you have ideas on how to get out of here.”

He scoffed but it came out like a pig snort. “I would have tried it weeks ago if I knew how.”

“Where are we anyway?”

“Call it hell because this is hell to me. It’s his lair anyway.” Or another dimension.

“I know you can help me, Victor. I need you to think. Maybe you know an incantation or something.”

“These people worked at the council and the Enochian. They knew many things, and they tried everything. Do you think we would last a day here if we knew how to escape? We’re gonna die here, Amelia. I hope you’ve said goodbye to the people you loved.”

“No!” I stood up, towering over him. “I don’t believe that! I will find a way. And you won’t die here either. This is all your fault. You and Alec fell under his spell, you pathetic lapdog. I will take you with me and you will pay for what you’ve done!”

“Do you think I haven’t been paying for everything I did? Keeping me in the cell at the council was way way better than down here no food and smell like a rotten corpse.”

“No, asshole. I want everyone to watch you suffer! People died because of you and you and Alec are complicit in these major crimes. What were you thinking working with a demon, huh? You’ve lost your fucking mind! Dane loathes you, and so does everyone else, but you can still change everything. You’re still alive, Victor. Make amends for your mistake. Think!” I growled in anger. “Think!”

“I know what I did, Amelia. They can hang me or burn me alive, it won’t be enough to pay for what I did, but I swear I didn’t know he was a demon. He came introducing himself as Arakiel with the aura of an angel, telling me about the Enochian. Who wouldn’t fall for that? The way he talked in his calm voice, I really fell for it.”

“I found an angel wings in his office. I didn’t know who, but if he could cut off an angel’s wings, he could kill anyone and everyone, including innocent humans, children, and women.” I looked at him. My words seemed to get into him. Deep inside, there was still a little soul left in there. 

“Those wings belonged to the former director, the Nephilim, Arakiel’s son. He used his grandfather’s name since no one was old enough to remember the face. The fake Arakiel clipped his father’s wings when his father realized what he’d done.”

“Enough of the history lesson. Please, help me.”

“How did you get in, Amelia? And you smell different.”

“I’m not an elemental werewolf anymore. Ryden is.” I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, which reminded me of my pack. “Shit. Is the demon with them now, posing as me?”

“Yes. Afraid so. Everyone here was once used by him. Look at them, of how many faces he used and no one has ever figured out they were once a demon.”

“Except me.” I looked at him with so much hope in my heart.

“They’re all dead by now, Amelia. The sooner you accept the reality and move on, the better and less painful—”

“No! I can’t think that way when everyone depends on me. I will get out of here, and they’re not dead. They’re stronger and smarter, and they might have figured out that it wasn’t me up there.” 

Up there. I looked up. The constant dark red sky should represent something.

I looked at the sword, its blade. If I could create a rift in the other dimension, I could certainly break out.

I drew a deep breath as I closed my eyes for a brief moment and chanted, “Aperi porta inferni. Portam obscuram aperi.” 

Nothing happened. I could even hear the dramatic sad sound effect in my head.

“It won’t work.”

I rolled my eyes. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“Because you wanted to open the hell, which we’re already inside.”

My eyes widened, and I laughed. “Genius! I could hug you right now, but you stink, old man.” I blew a shaky breath and focused. “Once it’s open, I go first and you help everyone out.”

“Well. See if it works, Amelia. Hurry up.” I could even hear the hope in his voice.

“Aperi portas mundo viventi. Ostende mihi lucem.” I raised my sword jabbed it in the air and dragged my foot in the form of a crescent, the other in its opposite direction. The ground started shaking, like a low-magnitude earthquake.

As I slashed the sword down, the bright light blinded my eyes, and a wave of magic rippled outward opening the rift.