by Lola StVil
“I can’t tell what the problem is from here. I’ll have to take a look at the panel in the back. Cover me,” he says.
A fireball whizzes past me, nearly taking my head off. Aaden blasts the demon that took the shot at me. He dies screaming in flames. A stray fireball lands on Key’s shoulder, and she howls as she tries to put out the fire. Randy takes off his jacket and smothers the flames from Key’s body. A pack of demons descends on East while he inspects the back of the Port. I hold out my hand and Pull them; they die before they can strike.
“Damn,” East says, shaking his head.
“What’s the problem?” Swoop asks.
“The Brothers damaged one of the wires,” East shouts.
“Can you repair it?” Aaden asks.
“Yeah, just keep the demons away from me long enough so I can reach the wire and fix it,” East says.
“East, hurry! Even if we keep the demons away, the light on the Port is fading. If it goes out completely, we’ll be stuck here,” Randy pleads.
“I don’t need a recap, Randy. I got it!” East scolds as he gets down on the floor and places his hands deep inside the Frisbee-like device.
“East, we need to go, now!” I order.
There is no more space between the demons and us. They are everywhere. They pull at us from every possible angle. The more we fight them off, the more they come for us.
One demon has Swoop by her leg and is trying to drag her off the Port. Aaden kicks the demon in the head, and Key opens her palm and sprays his guts all over the cave walls.
I hand Randy the blade I brought with me just in time for him to use it to stab a demon in the neck. The demon doesn’t die instantly. The blood pours from him, but he’s still alive. His last act is to fire at Randy. Aaden pushes Randy out of the line of fire, but the fireball makes contact with Aaden’s thigh and takes a chunk of his flesh with it.
“Shit, shit, shit. East, we have to go!” I bark.
“Hang on…I almost have the wire…I just need to…”
“EASTON, GET US OUT OF HERE!” Key demands.
“Got it!” East shouts.
He closes the back panel and gets back onto the Port. The Port does not move.
“EAST!” we all shout at the same time.
“It should work,” he replies in his defense.
The light on the Port is about to die, and the fireballs coming at us are too close to block. If the Port doesn’t take off this instant, we are dead. I close my eyes and take Aaden’s hand. If this is my last second on Earth, I want to be holding his hand.
Suddenly I feel movement beneath my feet. The Port is taking us up into the air. And as the fireballs, demons, and certain death reach out for us, we are instantly whisked away on the Port. We have survived level one.
The Port whirls us through a series of dark mazes embedded deep in the earth. It’s a jarring ride with no known destination. When we finally stop, the Port disappears beneath our feet and literally drops us onto the ledge of a cliff. The moment we land, all our wings are gone. We are in a no-fly zone.
The air is thick with the scent of blood and malice. Foul creatures with multiple tails and beady red eyes scurry in and out of holes along the canyon. We hear unnatural cries echoing through the dimly lit canyon.
The first thing we do is tend to Aaden. He swears that he’s fine, but he’s not. He has lost a lot of blood and his face is pale. He snaps at us for taking time to treat him, but we don’t care. Diana takes out her small pouch of mixtures. She hands one to Randy and tells him how to apply it to Key’s peeling flesh. Thankfully the fireball that hit Key didn’t get a chance to do major damage.
East and I then help Diana prop Aaden up. He keeps scolding us for not carrying on with the mission. We tell him to shut up so we can help him. Diana gets on the floor beside him to study his wounds more closely. She then bursts into tears.
“Diana, what is it? What’s wrong?” East asks.
She’s crying so much she can’t get the words out.
“Diana, what’s wrong?” Aaden asks frantically.
“It’s not Diana; it’s Sparks,” Key says.
“Key’s right. Her tears are grey; our tears did the same thing when we cried as kids,” I reply.
“She’s worried about you, Silver. She’s never seen you hurt this badly,” East says.
“Sparks, look at me,” Aaden orders her.
Diana turns to Aaden; I can practically see the little firebug behind her eyes.
“Sweetheart, Daddy’s okay,” Aaden promises.
Diana shakes her head.
Aaden takes her hand in his and manages to not only calm her down but also convinces her to take a nap. Finally, Diana returns to her old self.
“I’ve never had her take over like that,” Diana says.
“Is she okay?” I ask.
“Yes, I think she was exhausted from level one. It took nothing to make her sleep,” Diana replies.
“Good. Patch up Aaden as best as you can. Meanwhile we’ll look around to see where the Port is hidden. It’s the only way to get us out of here and on to the last level,” I reply.
“Hey, Pry, what’s that coming out of the water below and onto the shore?” Randy asks.
We look down at the creatures crawling in and out of the water. They are the size of soccer balls. They have the legs and tail of a scorpion, the body of a piranha, and multiple tentacles with tips that curve into fangs.
“Pry, what is that?” Randy asks again.
“They are called zentu,” I reply.
“Are they as awful as they look?” Randy asks.
“Zentu are nicknamed ‘desire demons.’ They seek out your biggest desire and use their tentacles to give off fumes that make you believe that desire is close at hand. It will then lure you into its nest and then feast on your intestines,” I reply.
“ARGH! I HATE THIS, PRY, I REALLY HATE THIS!” Randy roars.
“Calm down. They won’t climb up here. They live underwater. And when they come out, they stay close to the shore,” I inform him.
“So the breeding ground for these lethal creatures would be in the water?”
“Yes, Randy, now why are you so focused on that?”
“Because that’s where the next Port is.”
I look down and, sure enough, a circular orb is radiating brightly on the surface of the water.
Randy leans over to me and speaks in a soft voice. “I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the Forest.”
“Are we sure there is no other way to get to level three?” Randy asks.
“The Brothers would not have allowed for that,” Key says.
“Yeah, I know. I just had to ask,” Randy replies.
“The only way to escape a desire demon is to trick it into thinking you don’t have any desires at all,” Diana says.
“Tell me you have a mixture for that,” Aaden says, inspecting his newly bandaged wound.
“I have one, but the creatures down there are bigger than the average desire demon. That means their detection ability is far superior,” Diana informs us.
“It’s the only option we have,” I add.
“There’s another problem. Randy is human. He can’t hold his breath long enough for us to get to the Port,” Swoop says.
“I can stop Randy from needing to breathe for five minutes by giving him a suppression capsule, but it will weaken the effect of the vial that is supposed to protect him from the desire demons,” Diana warns.
“Randy, thoughts?” Key asks.
“I think I should have stayed in bed this morning.”
“Diana, give him the capsule. We’ll stay with Randy in the water and keep him from following the desire demons to their nest,” I reply.
“The good thing is that as long as we don’t let the fumes from their tentacles lure us, we’ll be safe. So as soon as we get in the water, swim quickly and focus on getting to the Port. Got it?” I ask.
Everyone agrees. Diana and Key hand out the
vials to protect us from the desire demons. Key hands Randy the capsule. He’s trying to act like it’s no big deal, but we all know Randy would rather be anywhere but here right now.
“Are you ready?” I ask.
“Yes,” he lies.
We all stand on the edge of the cliff and jump down into the water below. The hundred-foot drop causes a massive hole in the surface of the water. The freezing river does not want us to enter its domain, so it whips us around without mercy. The team joins hands in an attempt to stay together.
We swim deeper and deeper until we’re at the very bottom of the river. The water is murky, making it difficult to see. In fact, the only thing we can make out clearly is the beams of light coming from the tips of the desire demons’ tentacles. The creatures swim among us in small groups of three. As I swim by, heading for the Port, I catch a whiff of something, but I can’t be sure what it is or where it’s coming from. It’s very faint.
It could be coming from the seaweed around us.
As I continue to swim, the odor gets stronger. I slow down just a little so I can figure out what it is I smell.
Green apples!
Green apples were Sam’s favorite human scent. Mom got him a kid’s “Green Apple” scented bubble bath set. It came with six scented bubble bath bottles, shampoo, and conditioner. Suddenly the bedtime rituals we had in my house play out before me…
Sam would beg Mom to let him take a bath by himself and promise that he wouldn’t use too much bubble bath like he did the last time. Mom says no because she knows the bubbles are far too tempting for Sam to resist. She would then tell him to wait until she was there to supervise him.
I’d watch across the hall from my room as Sam tried not to give into temptation. He’d hold out for about three seconds; then he’d peek out into the hallway to see if Mom was coming. When the coast was clear, he’d run into the bathroom, turn on the water, and dump in enough green-apple-scented bubble bath to bathe all of New York City.
The bubbles would take over the entire bathroom and work their way into the hallway. My dad would warn him that my mom was coming and that she had her “someone is going to get grounded” look on her face.
Sam would hear my mom’s footsteps coming up the stairs, headed straight for him. He’d leap out of the tub and panic so much, he’d forget he could fly. Instead he would run out of the tub with his soapy bare tushy out and scurry into his room. My dad and I would stand in our doorways and laugh.
Mom would follow Sam’s tiny footprints, which naturally led right to his room.
She’d enter and find him pretending to be asleep. He’d wonder how she knew he had been in the tub. Mom would scold all of us and make us clean up, including my dad. We got in so much trouble, but man, it was so worth it.
The green apple bubble bath is silver. No, wait! Why is it silver? It should be green. Yes, it should be green and smell like apples. But this liquid in front of me isn’t green. It’s silver and smells like blood.
Why are the green apples bleeding?
It’s not the apples that are bleeding.
Someone pulls on me, jarring me out of my thoughts. I look up and find Aaden looking back at me, panicked. That’s when I realize there are no apples. That is blood—my blood. I’m in a nest of desire demons. They pin me down and slice into my flesh with their tentacles. It’s only then that I realize the horrifying truth; I’m being skinned alive.
The agony I am feeling cannot be described in words. It’s a blinding pain that makes you beg for your life to end. There is simply no way to register that kind of torment. It’s like someone bored a hole inside me and is now filling it with liquid fire. My insides are being pan-fried.
I scream as loud as I can, but the river swallows up the sound I make. The team tries desperately to pull me away from the nest, but the demons literally have their fangs inside me. As they slice down my sternum, silver blood oozes out of me and colors the river floor. My body can no longer take the torture of being awake, so it decides to sleep—forever.
Yes, let’s sleep. There’s no pain in sleep. Must sleep.
As I start to close my eyes and give in, I see a light blinking on and off from a round object. The team frantically points to the object and silently begs for me to move towards it and away from the nest. Yet I don’t move; I can’t. It hurts too much.
The blinking light means something, but I can’t remember what. It’s much too painful to think clearly. Apples, I want to think about apples. And Sam. My Sam. The blinking light means something…
I don’t care anymore. Everything hurts. I’m about to close my eyes once again when I catch a glimpse of Randy. He looks so sad. Maybe he’s in pain like me. Is he getting cooked from the inside too?
No, it’s my blood that’s making him sad; oh, and the blinking light.
What does the blinking light mean?
I see my father in the doorway again as I give more blood to the river. We were laughing together before, but now he looks very serious.
“This is not the way a First Noru dies. Not here. Not now,” my dad orders.
That’s when I see the light dying from the Port a few yards away.
The light…the Port…our only exit…
Shit!
I close my eyes, but this time I don’t focus on the pain, I focus on starving the demons. I think about the happiest I have ever been. The most complete I have ever felt. I think about my first night with Aaden. There, in his arms, I had everything. I longed for nothing.
It works. Now that I am not longing for anything, the demons have nothing to feed on. That doesn’t mean they stop, but it does weaken them. I summon everything I have and start to fight them off. I keep the memory of Aaden and me front and center in my mind.
The team battles the surrounding desire demons as I wrestle my way free. Half of my chest has been cut open, and the pain is unrelenting, but I manage to break free. The team takes my hand, and together we quickly swim towards the Port just as the light is dying. I am badly wounded and on the verge of passing out, but miraculously we have passed level two.
When I open my eyes, I find myself lying down on a metal bench, with the whole team looking at me. I’m hurt, but the pain is nowhere near as bad as it was before. Diana has applied a clear mixture that is acting as an adhesive to keep the wound in my chest from opening up again. Aaden helps me sit up slowly. I’m not sure where we are, but wherever it is, it’s a no-fly zone. We are without our wings yet again.
“Pry, are you okay? How do you feel?” Randy asks.
“Yeah, I’m good. What happened? Why didn’t the vial I drank work?” I ask.
“Because some desires are too great to hide, no matter what kind of mixture you take,” Key says.
“So no one thought to tell me this?” I ask.
“Sorry, I should have guessed that Sam would be fresh on your mind,” Diana says.
“Pry, maybe you should wait here near the Port by the entryway,” Randy suggests.
“No, I’ll be fine,” I promise him.
“You don’t look good,” Aaden says.
“You sure know how to sweet talk a girl,” I tease.
“Pryor, I’m serious,” Aaden says.
“I’m okay. Where exactly are we?” I ask.
“We’re in an abandoned train station. Well, not just any train station, this is Last Call Central. There’s only one train that comes through here: the Black & Blue Express,” East says.
“I was going to ask him what he meant by that, but I thought I would wait for you to wake up. That way you could see the look of regret on my face when East says something like ‘this is the train station that goes to hell,’” Randy says as he laughs out loud at his joke.
We all exchange uneasy looks. Randy continues to laugh and waits for one of us to join him, but we remain quiet.
“What, that’s funny, right? A train station to hell?” Randy says with a big smile.
“Well—” Aaden begins.
“No! No!
Don’t tell me that there is going to be a train coming by here headed for hell. Don’t!” Randy says firmly.
“Hell is called Difi. And the train is—”
“Swoop, I’m serious; stop it right now. I don’t want to hear about a freaking train to hell!” Randy says firmly.
We all silently decide to let Randy have his moment. No one says anything at all. We just sit on the bench as time ticks away, time we simply do not have.
“All right, all right, fine! Go ahead! Tell me in what new ways we are screwed,” Randy says, shaking his head.
East pats him on the back, and Swoop honors his reluctant request for more information on our current location.
“Sometimes humans are so evil and so beyond redemption Omnis doesn’t wait for them to die. He sends their souls on this train while their bodies are still on Earth.”
“Why?” Randy asks.
“Because they simply are too evil; having them on Earth throws off the balance. Yet their time on Earth is not up yet,” Key says.
“So this train is a moving ‘waiting room’ for humans who will end up in hell?”
“Yes. It stops here every night; the door opens and sucks in any souls that are damned. Since no one here is damned, we should be fine on that end. What should concern us is that the souls on the train are pure evil. They seek nothing but death and destruction,” Diana says.
“So as soon as the train door opens, the damned souls will attack us?” Randy says.
“From what I know of the Black & Blue Express, the passengers are blind. They have been down here so long they can no longer distinguish light from dark. They can’t even see shapes,” Diana replies.
“That works in our favor, right?”
“Yes, they will not know we are on the train; however, their sense of hearing is impeccable. So while we need to search the train in a hurry, we also need to be absolutely quiet. Any sound, any sound at all and we are majorly screwed,” she warns us all.
“Great, any more ‘good’ news?” Swoop asks.
“The train is called the ‘Black and Blue.’ The black is the dark souls on the train, and the blue comes from the color of the sheen that coats the tracks. Do you see it?” Diana says.