The Necklace: The Trial Realm

Chapter Twenty Four: We Go Or I Go

"You could have killed him?"

"In a heartbeat." He nods. "I wouldn't have liked it though, not like the others, they enjoy seizing the pain in a person and letting their fear destroy them from the inside out. I don't. Any soul stolen is awful. You feel their terror and agony pass through you as the soul is tattered and pulled from the body...it's not something I've ever enjoyed."

I hold his gaze, trying to let him know I'm not afraid of him. "You saved me."

"I felt the...there's a light inside of you...I felt it and I didn't want it to go out."

"A light?"

"It's hard to explain, it's just something I sensed. Still do, actually. It's right..." He points to my chest. "There." He whispers to me. "I've never seen a soul like that before."

I put my hand against my beating heart. "Maybe because I'm a Utopian." I shrug. "In the seventh realm they call us angels, I think someone mentioned they were of light and goodness. I haven't ever really felt like that description matched me too well though."

"It does."

"I'll have to take your word for it."

Again he almost smiles, and I find myself wondering what it would be like if he did, but the ground beneath us rattles harder, shaking loose a few stones and dark dirt from the cave walls.

"He's getting angrier." Raven whispers at my side.

Without meaning to I inch closer, my fear spiking at his words. An angrier Lucifer didn't sound good. "I don't understand how he's your father."

Of all things, this is what makes him finally smile. And it doesn't disappoint. It stretches slowly across his face, revealing perfectly white and square teeth, causing the skin at his eyes to crinkle. "Thank you." He says. "He'd also take that as a compliment."

"You said he rules over this realm?"

"Yes." He nods. "Lucifer is the top of the top here, everyone else must answer to him. He even likes to tell tales about how he was also one of The Six-."

"The original Gods?"

"Yes, he tells everyone that he is one of them and that though Hellena gets the credit for creating Hell, it was actually made for him. That he was one of them but that his ideas were too big and the others were too weak and afraid to implement them in dealing with The Demi Gods. He says they ganged up on him and banished him to this realm. According to him, Hellena was actually a good God. She enjoyed light and was sympathetic to The Demi, so when Lucifer supposedly broke her heart and the others banished him here she made a realm of everything she hates and then they dropped him here and left him to his own devices. As revenge back to her he made sure he caused as much pain and suffering here as he possibly could."

"That's awful." I say, thinking I had problems.

"Yeah, it is, if it's even true." He shrugs. "Most don't believe his claims."

"And your mother?"

He shrugs again. "I have no idea who she was. Only that she had me and that Lucifer took one look at me and killed her on the spot. He's said since I was born that he senses weakness in me."

It's funny how sometimes you live your whole life believing that you're the one who has it bad, only to find out it could be worse. I could've been born here. Instead I was born in the Utopia and because of my parents, I was sent to the Ring. My parents are dead, but not because they killed each other or because one was inherently evil like Raven's father.