Reaper Kissed

13. The Cherry Coke Ad

Imps have no desire to grow things. No eye for beauty. No mind for the future. They live and breathe pain, strength, fire and iron. The Obituary Pits are an obliterated landscape. An absence of hope. A hell on earth.

They levelled the city that once had been - leaving only broken shells still standing, parts of walls now leaning and weathered like colossal tombstones in an eerie cemetery. With greed and cunning the imps dug deep, sinking their warren far from daylights rays.

Anniina fidgeted her feet. The ground was hot, soil and dust flaking away beneath her melting trainers. She had a scarf wrapped around her head, protecting her nose and mouth from the ash and embers that rose through cracks in the debris. Amongst this grey, bleak landscape were cracks of orange - firelight from the flames burning continuously in the pits below.

Anniina struggled to follow after Lakhee. The imp was a light creature, its slender feet barely disturbing the ground - its tough scaly skin immune to the broken tarmacs heat. Anniina however sank and stumbled, her palm blistering every time she had to catch herself from falling.

Lakhee led her to one of the mineshafts. Scarred and starved imps (serfs in their hierarchical society) operated the shafts. Their little arms struggled to push the levers and the great chains groaned in protest. Anniina tried to make herself as small as possible - hard when she was twice the size of everyone else. The narrow shaft began its juddering descent and Anniina grimaced as hot air assaulted her eyes. Blinking back tears she looked down in horror at the pit laying vast beneath her.

Imps swarmed the walls and crisscrossing bridges - like ants. Waves of heat washed over her as liquid fire plummeted from the falls into a vast cauldron below. The cavernous walls amplified the imps' frenzied shrieks until the sound seemed to be beating against the inside of Anniina's skull. She put her hands up over her ears, cringing in terror and revulsion. Sweat slid down her forehead and dripped from her chin. How quickly could imps procreate? She's seen hunting swarms before - dozens overwhelming grown men but this wasn't dozens of imps...this was thousands.

The shaft came to a rickety stop on one of mid-levels. Craning her neck, Anniina could no longer see the sky. Lakhee led the way, sure to create a path wherever she chose to tread. The imps shrank down around her, hunching their shoulders to sink their servile chins upon their chests - scurrying with their large lamp-like eyes averted. Lakhee didn't wear bone armour today - instead she wore a thick bulletproof vest - once owned by the human police - but altered with spikes on her shoulders.

Anniina followed Lakhee into a smaller chamber - they walked along a swinging platform that circled the outer edges of the room. Anniina pulled her scarf off her head and pressed it up against her nose and mouth. They were in a giant chimney. Fires burnt furiously below and a column of thick black smoke rose beside them. Anniina stooped over, hacking and spluttering uncontrollably. The smoke seemed to attack her eyes and throat and smelt fouler than a latrine.

Lakhee was swift to lead the way out of that chamber and into the next. Anniina had no idea how large the next cavern was for there was very little light. She had one hand touching the rough stone walls - keeping her from feeling completely lost in the obsidian abyss. The ground sloped beneath their feet plunging even deeper underground. Anniina licked her dry and cracked lips nervously. Her legs felt heavy, wobbly and weak beneath her and she couldn't escape the feeling that she meekly walking to the slaughtering block.

Anniina lost her footing, a startled cry of alarm escaped her as she fell. She flung out an arm and her elbow scraped against the jagged cavernous wall as she fell. Her stomach jolted as she registered a lack of floor beneath her. Lakhee's hand seized Anniina's wrist and Anniina yelped as her arm socket wrenched in protest. She'd fallen over the edge of the narrow slope and now her body dangled over the chasm, only the tiny clawed hand keeping her from falling. Tears shone in Anniina's eyes as she stared up into Lakhee's large glowing iris'.