The Stronghold

Rebecca Is Satan

Hands pressed down on my shoulders and I realised that I was being carried somewhere. I groaned to announce my awakening, not noticing how cold I was until warmth started to spread through my hands.

I opened my eyes and moaned again, shivering as my strength returned. I could hear my heart beginning to beat again, a bizarre experience.

Hang on... I was dead?

"No!" I cried in shock, wriggling free of my captors and landing on the floor. My nerves were on edge and I winced as I came into contact with the cold, hard ground.

"Pepper!" several voices cried in as equally a shocked tone. My vision wasn't back into focus and by the time it was Georgina had her arms around my neck, hugging me tightly.

"You were dead," she whispered, holding back tears. "You died, Pepper."

"But I'm alive now," I murmured, rubbing her back comfortingly (as you do).

"Don't do that again. Don't leave me."

"I'll never leave you."

"Who are you?" another voice demanded. I looked past Georgina's head, one arm around her, and saw Josh standing a foot or so away from a stranger.

"Dream man," I said in surprise. Georgina turned around and gasped.

"You..." she breathed, twisting properly so that she was sat on me.

"You..." Shaade echoed, growling it through gritted teeth. "Loki."

"Loki!" Sophie and Rebecca squealed, running over to hug dream man. He stepped away from them and held up his hand.

"Not Loki," he corrected. "Tom."

"Why is everybody called Tom?" Emmi muttered.

"No idea," Amalia replied.

"Why Tom?" Georgina asked. The man, Tom, looked down at her, a smile on his face.

"Because," he explained, "I'm not Loki. I'm a.... demon."

"With blue skin," I added. The second I uttered the words his skin went pale and then white. His hair curled slightly and stuck up, stopping the slicked back, evil villain effect. A smile spread across his face and his outfit changed too: from golden armour to leather jacket and grey-blue, open necked shirt. A beard grew incredibly fast around his mouth and his hair changed to the same colour as the beard, a gingery, browny colour.

"Isn't he in the Avengers?" Emmi wondered out loud.

"Probably," Amalia sighed.

"No," Tom laughed. "No, not me."

"So if you've been living in my head-" I said with a feeling of dread. Tom seemed to read my mind and shook his head.

"I did sleep, you know," he said. "And I could shut down the link. I wasn't as powerful... then."

"What's he on about?" Shaade asked in confusion. Nobody replied and so he turned to Josh. "What's he on about, Josh?"

As Josh explained awkwardly with a lot of hesitating and everyone else started talking amongst themselves I started to reflect on the past events. Unable to find a connection between me falling into a death state and the demons going, I asked Georgina.

"You just went," she said, tilting her head so that her hair brushed my cheek. "Your heart stopped beating and poof, you were dead."

"Poof?"

"There was a poof sort of noise," she shrugged. "And then you collapsed, tumbling out of the archway thing and hitting the floor, hard. They-" she motioned towards Josh and Shaade "-were just going to take you to help, to S perhaps. But then you woke up and Tom-slash-Loki appeared."