“Don’t call them,” I screamed. “I’m here, the female just as the history has dictated for all these years and you have me. You can bring yourselves back to life, and then start your race all over again, do whatever you want to do but I am here.”
The noise stopped just as suddenly as it began the swirling of the mist stopped suspended in air in front of my face, the darkness began to penetrate the mist and pull me towards it. I couldn’t control my movements, mesmerised by the darkness and the far away dim light that I could see, I didn’t put up a resistance and I went willingly into the depths of their so called home.
“Where am I going?” I asked aloud.
Talking out loud seemed to ease the fear, if only slightly and I could feel myself easing gently into the darkness, when I looked back I could no longer see the alley way or any remains of the alley way. The rubbish that had been dumped there was now gone, hidden by this mysterious conjured apparition scene that must have been conjured by the devourers to imprison me inside their world, why they hadn’t killed me yet, I had no idea but I continued to walk towards the small light.
The light was beginning to get brighter, it was no longer appeared a faint dot but was now a large bright fluorescent light that seemed to be emit a glow and a warm feeling fired up inside my body from nowhere, I stumbled slightly but with as much confidence and a little less fright inside of me I continued to walk towards the light.
As I approached, the buzzing sound erupted around me along with the faint whispering that sounded as if it was coming from all directions, nothing seemed to have a purpose and I was still alive, or that might have been my imagination playing cruel evil tricks on me and making me seem and feel as if I was alive. There was nothing that I was sure of, but one thing still remained, my blood must be poured onto their grounds and inside their strange illusion of a place they called home, only that was would I be able to stand a chance to defeat them and rid my life and those of my fellow Volcan’s of this despicable Devourers, or shadows whichever they chose to be called.
Silently I trod over the lumps that appeared in the ground, the shadows were closing in around me and held me captive, although a warmth had spread through me and I felt seemingly relaxed inside their spell, paranormal elements kept on appearing that I knew weren’t real in anyway shape or form.
The Devourers were conjuring up many mysterious pathways they expected me to follow, with the small light that constantly dangled in front of me. The chanting around me with the whispering began to get louder, it bounced all around me, and I stopped, breathless with anxiety and impatient to start the fight to end all fights.
“Enough!” I shouted into the area around me.
I bent down to the ground, as low as I could possibly go without feeling queasy, just as I started to see my ankles inside the mist that was thick around my feet the floor seemed to collapse from beneath me and fade away, I watched as my feet began to stand and I was floating in the air, wrapped inside the mist that dragged me inside its spell, deeper and deeper I seemed to be falling.
My breathing was laboured, the chanting was louder, the whispers were chorusing for me to begin, their impatience was apparent, as much as my own was. A large black hand of a shadow came out of the space in front of me, and grabbed my clothes, pulling and tugging me backwards. Back toward the lights it wanted me too desperately to find.
I struggled and swayed, pulling myself upright and defying it, wrestling with something that I thought may have been a figment of my imagination, right up until the point where it laughed, excited to have captured the female Volcan, and still the chanting continued.
I grabbed the knife I’d brought and quickly dashed it across my wrist, the flow of my blood erupted from the cruel deep cut I’d inserted and began to drip slowly and steadily to the bottomless floor beneath me.
The chanting stopped, and was quickly replaced by the sounds of sheer glee from all around me, and the sucking sounds erupted as if my blood was being consumed by some unknown magical person from somewhere that I couldn’t yet see.
I felt my resolve leaving, and I was becoming weak with the loss of blood, the cut was deep enough to warrant stitches which was the only way, deep inside their locked paranormal world, the outside world no longer existed for me, but I could have sworn I heard the faint sounds of Volcan’s on the horizon.
It felt like I was being watched, monitored and observed from some hidden place, I knew the Devourers were around me in every way they could be, waiting for me to die.
“Come and get me then,” I taunted back at them, “I’m right here,”
Nothing happened. I waited, with as much patience as I could muster.
The smell around me was of rotten food, and the smell of urine and faeces in the unclean alleyway was stomach churning, struggling to maintain the balance and my own confidence to face down the Devourers, I swallowed the rapid bile that was rising quickly.
Slowly, out of nowhere the large shadowed hand began to form itself, first the hand followed by the rest of the human body, as my blood continued to drip to the floor, mesmerised and with a small amount of gratification I watched slumped on the ground from where I’d fallen when they hadn’t answered me.
The shadow began to form into a real person, skin began to appear along with the eyes and the facial features one could expect to be humanised, only this wasn’t human, not by any means and was one of them, using my blood to manifest themselves in the hope, and with their own destiny dragging them onto their ultimate goal of the destruction of the Volcan’s along with the human race.
This wasn’t going to happen, I knew for certain.
The screeching above me continued, deafening me until I couldn’t stand the pain it caused ricocheting through my head any longer and I clamped my hands down over my ears, my plan was coming out well and he was not standing in front of me; fully formed and ready to fight!
All too soon the mist disappeared almost as quickly as it had began, and I felt a hand on my shoulder dragging me backwards; dragging me back down the alley and the image of the Devourer started to gradually become a distant spot down the other end.
I squirmed and shouted to be released, but the strong hand wouldn’t listen, when I looked up into the sunshine it was to find Sam’s eyes staring back down at me, the Volcan’s had come to the rescue of one of their own and now they all stood around me.
“What the hell are you playing at?” Ethan demanded.
All his normal humour evaporating.
“I-I don’t know,” I muttered, dazed and confused.
“Are you completely insane?” Regan asked, fuming with my actions.
Sam approached them, and spoke quietly. So quietly that I couldn’t hear what he said, only that he was angry with their approach towards me.
“Zera,” he said. “You need to finish what you have started,”
“Finish what?” I asked dry mouthed.
“What you saw was an hallucination,” he said. “The Devourer you have manifested is the leader, and has taken the blood you offered, devoured it and is about to come out of the mist in a few minutes,”
I watched as Sam fumbled for a second, and then produced a sword. It gleamed in the moonlight, the razor sharp edge ready to damage anyone and destroy.
“What do you mean a hallucination?”
“The mist,” he said. “The sensation of floating was pure fiction, and there was nothing real about what you just saw. They did that to throw you off, to place in a sense of reality and then again an unreality so much so that you wouldn’t know where you were or what you were doing, in that they have succeeded Take this and destroy him, with your blood he has manifested, and only you can finish this. No one else can, it’s the rules Zera,”
“The rules?” I echoed dumbly scrambling up from the floor and feeling the painful and slightly oozing cut on my arm.
“Yes,” he sighed. “You have just experienced your first encounter with them since you regained your memory, and you have come
to them willingly and spread your blood just as willingly, the rules are simply. You now have to face him and defeat him or be defeated, we can stand and watch and make sure he doesn’t try anymore hallucination. For god’s sake be careful.”
I nodded, smiling weakly and licking my suddenly intensely dried lips. I had absolutely no idea how the rules had managed to switch around, all I knew was that just as Sam stepped away from me, the shadow was no longer just a shadow, before me stood a man. Waiting fully formed to fight with me, his eyes glistened, and he smiled menacingly with brownish teeth, which seemed densely odd in comparison to the rest of him.
Slowly he roared, and the chanting of the Devourers began again, chorusing and cheering him on, egging and praying for my ultimate defeat which would cause a catastrophe of some sort across the globe, not to mention for the Volcan’s.
Sam and the others bravely stood around us both, their wings guarding carefully the circle that they made, making sure none of the other Devourers attempted to help or even try to inure me in this contest and battle of wills.
A faint sound of dripping becomes louder, and I looked up into his eyes again, and then down only to realise he was standing in a pool of blood; my blood. The blood drenched his body, giving him a faint reddish tinge to add to his already bizarre looks; a strange oddity that was fully formed into human but yet he was just a mere shadow and this was him using my own blood to manifest himself.
Sharply I shot my head up to look back at him, Sam and the others were near although I couldn’t see them, the devourer had conjured the thickest mist that seemed to blanket around me, and cover the entire area of the alleyway; yet another of his hallucinating tricks.
As I looked up it was to be met by fist as it hammered a sharp blow to the side of my head, catching the corner of my eye and impairing my vision. I was knocked to the ground with my face in the pool of blood, I felt its sticky mass against my cheek, and smelt the metallic smell and the tinge of the taste as I licked my lips; gagging at the same time.
Swiftly I turned and rotated a kick with my right leg, landing him squarely in the cheeks and knocking his head sideways, enough for me to allocated and allow my wings to spread and expand from my back.
Slowly I knelt on the floor, not really seeing much from the eye which I could already feel had begun to swell; I had enough time before I saw him regaining his composure to make the quickest and cleanest transition into my Volcan state as I could.
Slowly my wings released, the tremendous pain was nothing compared to the thrill of the fight I had yet to face properly and in full form, and it felt like coming home, it felt like freedom from my once nightmarish and pathetic state.
I jumped up as he started to regain his stability and I started to issue blows with my wings and my fists to his face, I was relentless, sending torrents of painful blows, using my wings to balance and lightly flutter from the mist in order to regain control of my mind out of his hallucination.
In my haste and my disconcertment I dropped the sword Sam had given to me, it had been securely in my belt, or so I had thought and now I heard it scatter and clatter when it hit the ground, causing the devourer to stare at me and then shriek with what I presumed to be laughter but in the human world it sounded like a noise I hadn’t heard before; gruff and bitter with a tinge of the sound of nails being dragged across a blackboard, a real jaw clenching sound.
Faintly I heard a child’s cry in the distance, and then Sam’s uttered oath from somewhere around me as the sounds echoed and bounced from the walls around me.
With my concentration lost for a split second, he took the initiative and control, and sent controlling powerful blows back at me, hitting my face time and again, blood squirted from my mouth, and splattered across the parts of the alleyway walls that I could see.
He seemed to relish in the image of my blood as it continued to pour from the wounds of my mouth.
I began to back away slowly, and found myself irresistibly drawn to the small child’s voice that I could hear, “Mommy,” it said. “Down here. Mommy come and get me please.”
The voice was familiar and yet vague in my memory, I knew it was her, my daughter but a small part of me, the common sense part knew that she was dead, killed by this beats of a human shadow devourer in front of me; the same one that had been raining blows to my now swimming and a strange disconcerting buzzing noise in my ear. I blinked rapidly when the images of a metal gate came into view, then just as suddenly disappeared leaving me with a black blanket over my eyes.
We ended up at the metal gate and I reached out behind me and grabbed hold of it, hoisting myself up into the air and using the extra strength of my wings to hold me steady and afloat.
“Use the sword Zera,” I heard Sam cry from somewhere inside this mist.
I climbed the steps to what I thought might be a fire exit of some sort, and I grabbed hold of his head simultaneously reaching out with my other hand to feel my way backwards up the steps, as I held his head I thrust it directly into the metal bars, not once but four times making sure I heard his awful grunts and horror when it dawned a female Volcan was stronger and wittier than he was.
He managed to grab hold of my hand and crushed it between his two, using his paranormal strength and causing me to cry out as I heard my bones crack and I felt the painful stab as one protruded through my skin; I was now powerless.
The sounds of my bones breaking and snapping sent a ripple down my spine, and I let out a cry and heard the sound of Sam’s hissing and his Volcan calls as he readied himself and the others to attack, regardless of the rules set out in the history of the Volcan’s Vs Devourers.
I fell to the ground, and lay slumped on the floor, battered and bruised with the taste of my own blood running with force into my mouth and causing me to gag violently on the metallic taste.
I felt around me in the semi darkness, and felt something sharp touch my fingers, I reached out and grabbed hold of it using whatever was left of my hands, and I launched it at him, swiping it at him, and using it as a bat to counteract his attacks and cause him as much harm as he had just done to me.
It was then I realised that what I was holding was the remains of a human arm; flesh hung from the bottom and fresh blood dripped down onto my hands which wasn’t my own.
He laugh, a curious ripple amongst this atrocity and swiped it clean from my weak hands and delved into it with his teeth, cleanly chomping down into the blood drenched fleshy skin, and I heard the sound of bones as they crunched between his teeth and watched with horror as he happily chewed his way through, dropping on the floor only the flesh of the human arm.
His torment then started as he ripped my blood drenched clothes off me, and threw them aside, and bent in front of my now naked body he started to lick the blood that was oozing from my wounds, lapping it up greedily and slurping hungrily for more.
Suddenly, Sam delved down and his claws plunged into the Devourers back and ripped away the skin, dropping it to the ground while from all angles the others attacked simultaneously delving downwards from above and hooking parts of his pretend body away from him.
Lay on the floor I watched as the Devourer began to get weaker and weaker, and wasn’t able to drink my blood much less look at me.
“Zera,” Sam ordered from next to me. “Get the sword.”
Faintly and with my head still buzzing with a loud noise in my ears, I dug around with my fingers nails amongst the dirt and the debris that was now lined at the back of the alleyway and I reached my goal; in the darkness and the faint glimmer of light shining through the hallucinating mist the sword twinkled brightly.
It was then I used all of my strength and climbed to my feet, my forefinger and thumb were the only two on my hand that were of any kind of use, the rest flopped and were limp with the injuries sustained from this monster. Using the remaining resources I swung the sword high into the air and with a loud Volcan screech I plunged it straight into his back, and then ripped it back out and back down again
where I then lopped off his head and watched as he faded and disappeared.
Final Chapter
Sam quickly hurried to my side just as my knees began to buckle, and he scooped me and held me close. His feet floated to the skies above as the mist seemed to follow him and try to claw him backwards.
Screams and awful noises erupted from the alleyway and I peered down to see the shadows descend and hurl themselves back to the walls as they realised their defeat.
“You said females didn’t fight,” I muttered through mouthfuls of blood.
“Shut up!” he said crossly looking down at me and then around to make sure the others were flying with us. “They don’t usually but you went to them willingly and the history will either repeat itself or it will be a new one created; and you created a new history for the Volcan’s where we are now free and the humans are safe,”
“I won,” I said weakly.
“Yes you did,” he answered. “Now can you please be quiet because I’m taking you to the hospital where all of this more or less began with your memory, so don’t you dare lose your memory again. And what the hell is that digging in my hip?” he bellowed.
The others glanced towards us with open curiosity and concern when they saw my limp arms and body as Sam crushed me closer to his chest.
As I shifted I saw the metallic blade of the knife I’d taken from the store drop and fall loosely from the skies.
“My knife,” I said.
We arrived at the hospital, and shortly before the world went black, I thought about the revenge I’d reaped on the shadows-Devourers whatever they liked to be called, and their initial defeat was now the Volcan’s victory.
Leaving safe the humans and leaving my life a whirlwind of happiness with the Volcan’s and of course, with my forever loving Sam.
Volcan Knights Page 12