YOUR SPOOKY KWEEN IS BACK!
*Death shakes his butt in the background*
SHOW YOUR LOVE ON THE FINAL DEATH IS MY BFFLAD CHAPTER BY VOTING AND LEAVING LOTS OF LOVELY COMMENTS FOR LIL OL' ME! SHARE IT WITH YOUR SPOOKY FRIENDS FOR EXTRA CUPCAKE POINTS!
A face emerged, rivulets of blood gliding past a feminine face, as a woman's figure slowly levitated from the marble container. Layla. Her limp figure hovered above the tub in mid-air, like a rope was pulling her chest up from the ceiling, with her head limply back and her arms dangling at her sides.
Blood spilled off of her skin as her body drifted away from the coffin, puddling red on the clean marble floors. Suddenly her body dropped, bare feet straddling the narrowest two marble ledges of the bin. Although she somehow stayed upright, her head remained sagged backwards at an awkward angle, and I feared it would decapitate from the weight as the gruesome gash across her throat split the skin further. Her fingers twitched, her hands animating. They slowly reached up and clutched her skull, tilting it upright. Black wisps of smoke expelled from her mouth in a low croak as the skin of her throat knit together.
Layla's eyes flipped open, consumed by blackness. Her hand dragged down her throat as she absorbed every detail in the room, narrowing in on Malphas motionless corpse across the room. Her hand slowly outstretched, an unnerving sensation washing over me, and perhaps the entire room, as her palm sharply turned upwards, Layla's talon-like nails extending toward the ceiling.
"Evoco."
Malphas jolted upwards, reviving with a harsh gasp. He lurched to his feet as though panicked, his head bowing as he looked down at himself. He gazed at the gory wound darkening his torn black silken shirt, pressing his pale palm to the surface. Warrior braids curtained over pale handsome features as his black eyes lifted to Layla, lingering.
"Phoebe," Malphas said.
"Not quite," Layla replied, a seductive serpentine voice layered over hers.
A windstorm unlike any other hurled around the room, nearly knocking me off the stage. Layla stepped down from the marble coffin, her body transforming in the midst of a twisting airstream. Her identity shifted as the ruminants of blood dripped away from every inch of her skin. A woman with soft features, unblemished olive toned skin, hair like liquid gold stepped out of the vortex unscathed, her eyes consumed by a black storm.
Death's own radiant eyes, bright against the black night of his half-form skin, widened to their full expanse. "Mom?"
Phoebe's head turned slowly toward Death, taking in his midnight half-form, chained to two high-level demons. Recognition flickered in her narrowing gaze, old remembrances peeling away from her ancient eyes, as a distant emerald glimmered through her black irises. "Alexandru..."
"I'd hate to interrupt this precious family reunion," Ahrimad said, his voice carrying in the cavernous room. "But you aren't on the guest list."
Ahrimad's scythe appeared at his side, intricate lines glowing along the staff. The mighty blade drew a cut into the air. A sinister amorphous mass appeared from thin air, a high-level demon charging at Phoebe.
Phoebe launched up into the air at the last second, twisting out of its path. The creature came to a halt and recalibrated, before charging again. Levitating, Phoebe's body twirled again around the high-level demon in a skilled maneuver. Foreign words expelled from her mouth, before she landed perfectly balanced on the ground. Suddenly the demon's body arched with an inhuman sound, like nails on chalkboard. Phoebe clenched her fist and the creature exploded internally, guts spilling out.
"Silly Ahrimad," Phoebe said, turning toward him with blood speckling her face. The serpentine voice had taken over again, her mannerisms animalistic, almost snake-like, as torso swayed ever-so-slighty as she spoke. "For two-thousand years, we have been trapped in darkness. We had no other choice than to let our chaos consume us. Because of you. Hear me once. We will not be entombed again."
Phoebe's hand rose, power collected between her fingers like plumes of smoke. She threw her hand out with a foreign command toward Ahrimad, blasting energy with an all-consuming power. But Ahrimad was faster and moved his scythe in a skilled movement, the power ricocheting off his blade like lightening.
"What a silly, thirsty little demon," Ahrimad said, cold amusement in his eyes. "Dear half-brother, I could have guessed you would find way around our link, but this?" He motioned to Phoebe, who was holding herself up on the ground with one hand, clutching her abdomen with the other. "This was a wonderful entertainment for my festivity. I shall give you this final courtesy, for I pity this deranged thing that you call your son, and this whorish pest that could only ever mimic the soul of your past bride. Fetch me the Book of the Dead," he cocked his head, "or die."
Malphas glanced at Death seething in his chains, and then at Phoebe, before looking back at Ahrimad. "Nah."
A muscle twitched in Ahrimad's face. "You will do as I say, or you will walk this realm a soulless creature the rest of your pathetic, lonely existence."
"Your Book of the Dead isn't salvageable," Malphas said, not even phased. "While you were busy with your obsession with destroying my son in a grand display, I dumped your precious tome into that portal and replaced it with a red herring. Do what you want with my soul. I'm not your bitch anymore, bonecock. It's over. Without that spell, you're done. There is no corpse in this room or anywhere else in the universe that will withstand your vexatious soul."
Ahrimad's expression turned vicious, his head trembling with such rage that a malicious smile turned up the corners of his bloodied mouth. His arm rose, his fingers flexing as his scythe appeared in his hand. Designs appeared along the staff, ripples of foreign symbols, as Ahrimad's otherworldly eyes pulsed with amber.
"Then you are all sentenced to death."
Death's chest suddenly heaved fast, his eyes wide. Shadows pulsed from his frame, slid over the ground, consuming his space. His whole body shuddered uncontrollably as he visibly tried to keep something at bay.
Shadows expelled from Death's skin like inky tendrils in the air, blotting the air in shapeless terrors. They coiled around the high-level demons beside him like vipers. The high-level demons' screams suffocated as the darkness crawled down their throat. Death yanked his chained muscular arm toward himself, throwing the one-high level demon toward him, ripping its throat out with his fangs and slicing the rest of the thick neck away with a vicious swipe of his talons. His feet kicked up off the ground as he punted at the headless corpse away. He launched back into the air in a blur, his legs wrapping around the demon's neck as he took him down and strangled its neck with the chain.
Phoebe suddenly shot up to her feet, her hand pointing out as she threw a command at Ahrimad. Wind hurled around Ahrimad like a twister, cocooning the original grim reaper, imprisoning him in thick magic. Her voice rose as she chanted, leaving Ahrimad imprisoned in the blustery mass, pure chaos that she kept together with her two hands.
"A containment spell!" Malphas shouted. "Now's our chance!"
The high-level demons suddenly snapped into focus. Their snarls turned on us.
A high-level demon trapped between a bull and a wolf in the face and massive jaws materialized in front of Malphas. It lunged for him and took a swipe with its deadly paws, but Malphas evaded a much harsher blow, the creature's nails snagging only Malphas' torn shirt, before Malphas evaporated all-together, like a mirage. The creature staggered back in confusion, gripping Malphas' shirt in its meaty hand.
Malphas rematerialized behind the monster, wrathful, and shirtless. "That was my favorite silk shirt." His hand shot out, blackness expelling from his eyes. The creature gripped its own skin with razor sharp claws, it began tearing at the scaley flesh covering its face, howls unleashing from its throat. It tore at multiple parts of its body, ripping apart chunks of its own flesh. It turned on another high-level demon and began fighting it.
A monstrous howl thundered the room, raking nails down my spine. I slowly turned toward Death, who was now hostile in his chains, his gaze ravenously focused on the high-level demons as some of them continued to tear themselves apart at Malphas' command. A grin lined his mouth, like a lunatic wanting in on the grisly war. Suddenly his mismatched green eyes glowed against the dusky hue of his full form skin. His jaw flexed as he greedily looked around the room, veins engorging in his angular face. Fangs lengthened into knives, filling his mouth in a nightmarish image as his jaw unhinged and an animalistic roar ripped free from his throat unlike anything creature I'd ever heard.
"That can't be good," I muttered.
Ace had seized the opportunity in the chaos to attack the high-level demon guarding him at his side. Swirls of violet magic permeated the air as the creature lit aflame on Ace's command. But that didn't seem to faze it much, as the blazing creature gripped Ace by the throat and lifted him off the ground.
"I HATE MY LIIIIIIFE!" I sprinted at full speed, my feet pushing off the stage as I leapt and slammed my fist forward into the monster's face, the force of my punch taking the creature down to the floor. I tackled the scaley aflame monster and messily landing on top of it.
Quickly sitting up and on top of the wriggling monster, I realized two things. One, my super cool outfit that Romeo had given me was fire retardant. And two, my fist was currently embedded into the monster's face and I couldn't get its fingers out of his brain.
"Ew, ew, EW! Oh my god, this is like one of those weird Halloween games where you stick your hand into a box, and you think its worms, but it's actually spaghetti. Oh, god. Rewind, rewind!"
Two hands gripped my shoulders from behind and tore me and my hand away from the monster. Malphas. He maneuvered the sword in his grasp, a weapon I'd noticed one of the high-level demons carrying and brought it down through the neck of the scaley flesh of the monster, stifling out any life in it. Another high-level demon came at him and he moved the blade in an effortless maneuver, slaughtering it within seconds.
"You decoded my note," Malphas said once he was finished, wiping the sword clean on his pant thigh. "I'm mildly impressed."
"You have nice handwriting," I blurted, a mixture of terrified and in awe of how easily he could kill. And in awe that Death's father was currently shirtless and had abs. But that was weird to think about. Very weird.
"Where is the Book of the Dead?" Ace interrogated Malphas, coming to stand beside me. His fingers prodded the razor thin scratches marking his throat from the creature's talons.
"Did I not just explain that four minutes ago?" Malphas replied with loaded sass. "I tossed the damned thing into that portal, where nobody will find it."
Ace narrowed his eyes. "Oh, I heard your bullshit loud and clear. But where did you really put it?"
Suddenly two high-level demons manifested around us. Malphas took on one by himself, and Ace and I took on the other. Light sparked from my fist as I connected with the demon's hand coming down, my other fist upper cutting as I slammed it into is gut. Ace finished it off with an incantation, and I pivoted around to face Malphas as the demon he was handling choked out its last breath.
"Why don't we all focus on the current issue here?" Malphas asked, jabbing a finger across the room to Death, who just so happened to be punting another head of a high-level demon soccer-style into a wall. "My son is killing anything that moves," Malphas said, drawing my gaze away from the ghastly sight. "Faith, I need you to help me get him back to a stable state. He's still in there, and you're his only chance to resurface."
"And what exactly should I do to resurface him? Kiss him on his big fanged covered-in-demon gore mouth and pray he snaps him out of it?"
"Sure, just do what you did on the roof," Malphas said, mocking me with his eyes as he thrust his sword backwards underneath his armpit and into a creature coming up behind him. He pulled the blade out and turned to slice off its head, before pivoting back around without breaking a sweat. "Try not to get your face eaten off. Yeah?"
"What about Phlayla?" I asked. A crazed roar unleashed from behind me, but the high-level demon dropped dead to the ground before I could even kill it, as Ace brought it down with a spell, and Malphas drove his sword into its torso.
"Your defensive reflexes are too sporadic," Malphas observed, blackness dispersing from his eyes. "Also, what is a playa?"
In my peripheral, Ace threw out a closed fist at another high-level demon, lighting it to flames. "She means Layla and Phoebe," Ace elucidated, leaning casually against a marble pillar dabbing his shirt against his damp brow. "She clearly combined the name of your dead girlfriend and of your now alive wife."
"It's a thing people do with names," I said, seeing as Malphas really wasn't getting it. "Like me and Ace, we'd be...er, Face. Or Aith."
Malphas stared hard at nothing in particular. "I don't like it." He turned sharply and gripped the air with his hand, taking down another high-level demon as it clutched at its skull with madness. "The Familiar used Layla's dead body as a corpse. It worked as a convenient distraction." Malphas explained to both of us, picking something out from under his nail as the creature behind him writhed in anguish.
"Distraction?" Ace scoffed, his eyes glowing white as he shouted a command at another high-level demon, crippling it to its knees. "Her essence is incredibly unstable and consumed by the familiar. She cocooned Ahrimad in a volatile vortex and took a magical nappy. Probably so she can recuperate and take this whole damn building down with us inside!"
"Would you rather I gave Ahrimad the Book of the Dead and robotically killed you all?" Malphas' sword curved as he finished off and beheaded the creature that Ace crippled. "You jellybean-brained fool. Choose your wizardly battles."
I stood with my arms crossed over my chest, my eyes bouncing back and forth between Ace and Malphas, as they hogged killing all the high demons to show eachother up.
"I did choose my battle," Ace sneered. "And I've decided you're on our side, even if it's always for your own benefit. If it were up to me, you would be an eternal parrot right now."
"I'm confused," Malphas said. "Didn't I once pay you thrice your worth to be my son's private physician? And still you have churlish bitch in your tone."
"I don't buy for one moment that you would throw one of the most powerful artifacts in the world carelessly into a portal!"
"Believe it, sunshine," Malphas grinned. "Want it for yourself, do we? By all means, go for a dive and fetch it in the unknown. I'm sure you'll come back in one piece, or at the very least you'll retain your one functioning leg."
Ace growled out something nasty in a foreign language and rose his hand up to his ear with a readied command, magic uncurling into his palm, when I grabbed his forearm.
"Alright, alright, you two silly gooses," I said with a nervous laugh. "Only way to get through this is to blindly trust one another. I don't know if you've noticed with all the high-level monster things we just killed, but we're kinda the Dream Team together. Or, at least you two are, and I intermittently come in clutch." I put my hand out in the middle of the three of us for an epic huddle up break. "On three, 'Get Death's pruner back!'"
Malphas looked to Ace. "What is wrong with her?"
"So many things, I've simply lost track," Ace said, shaking my hand off him, his violet gaze drilling into Malphas. "I might be useless with this fucking bum leg, but I can work try to keep Ahrimad contained in Phoebe's spell. Long enough for you, Weirdo, and the rest of the Scooby gang to euthanize Grandpa Time."
"That was funny," Malphas admitted with a stiff soldier-like nod. "Funnier than what the Weirdo said." He put his deadly black-nailed hand forward. "I'll break on that."
I unenthusiastically huddle up broke with them, realizing my new nickname between Malphas and Ace had become 'Weirdo.' "Love this dynamic," I said sarcastically.
"Wait, ma chérie," Ace said, clutching my hand. His eyes carefully searched mine, and I could see the hesitation as he decided his next words. "See you on the other side."
A small drop of dread landed in my stomach, as I didn't quite know what he meant by that.
Just then, a high-level demon manifested behind Ace, hulking and seething. It threw out its massive arm and shoved Ace to the side into the hard marble floor. With little time to react, I tried to punch my fist forward at the creature, as I'd been doing, but no light fired.
I shook out my hand, panic rising as the creature opened its jaws in a howl, putrid saliva dancing between its fangs. "Dude. Breath mint."
Darkness spread like an aura from behind the high-level demon, and its whole body jerked. The creature's eyes widened, its corpse kicked to the side. None other than Death stood behind it with his fist gripping the its bloody backbone.
What had seemed like Death saving me from certain death, turned into a nightmare, once he looked down at me with a feral, empty look in his eyes.
"Cupcake," I said, trembling it out.
Death dropped the spine in his hand, his chin tilting up as he inhaled toward me with a low, predator noise. I nearly stumbled over my feet as he stalked a quick length toward me, his movements so fast it blurred in my vision.
Suddenly a massive piece of marble hurled into Death's side, knocking him slightly off balance. A roar unleashed from his mouth as Malphas manifested and drew his sword.
"Hey, son. Can't let you kill your girlfriend. She's goofy and a little spastic, but I rather like her. Plus, she helped bring your mother back from the dead."
"Liar!" Death hissed.
Death lunged for Malphas, swiping out his claws, at a speed of which Malphas scarcely evaded.
"I know there's a lot you're processing," Malphas said, and I could tell he was a thrown off by Death's haste as well. "Don't give up on us now. Giving up only makes him win."
Another swipe of deadly talons forced Malphas to fight back, as he disappeared and reappeared behind Death. His sword sliced into the back of Death's legs, nearly bringing him down to his knees. Faltering, but refusing the fall, Death released another thunderous roar.
"Remember who you are!" Malphas shouted. "Remember your training! You're still in control!"
Death straightened to his full height, black curls falling into his forehead as he towered over Malphas. "Murderer..."
Shadows twisted down Malphas' blade and ripped the weapon straight out of his hand. Death moved his head sharply to the side, and the shadows punched into Malphas' torso, slamming him into the ground.
Death's hand flexed and shadows spiraled around Malphas' neck, strangling him.
A shoe bounced off Death's head. Ace's shoe. Death's horned head snapped to the warlock, and he snarled. His feet launched as he pounced off the ground, landing in front of the warlock like a monstrously sized cat. Ace crawled backwards onto the ground, clutching at his shoulder, which he'd landed on, his face tight with pain as he tried to pick himself up. Death plucked him up by shirt like he weighed nothing, pinning him to the floor as his long black fingers gripped Ace's jaw. The fast drum of my heart pounded my vision as I watched, frozen. Deadly fangs elongated, and Death leaned toward Ace's face––
"GIRONOMOOO!" I leapt onto Death's massive back, grabbing two fistfuls of his hair and yanking his skull backwards. Darkness flashed in front of me as Death abruptly transported, and I with him. I never inhaled and choked on my breath, as we reappeared elsewhere in the room.
Death landed on all fours. Shadows manifested in front of me like vipers trying to latch onto my limps. My fingertips ignited with white light as I smacked them away like gnats. Death's clawed hand reaching back to grab my thigh to rip me off his back. I shrieked, tugging at his hair again, and he had the same knee-jerk reaction. We vanished and reappeared forty feet away from our previous spot.
"ONWARD!" I bellowed, pointing toward a high-level demon.
"What the hell?" Death growled in frustration. "Faith––?"
I yanked on his hair. We vanished, and he landed not so gracefully this time but caught himself in a wide stance. "Stop that," he growled.
"Looks like pulling your hair resurfaces you. Who would have thought? You're back!"
"And with barely any of my luscious locks left," Death huffed.
In my peripheral, a high-level demon charged at us.
"LEFT!" I shrieked.
Death feigned easily out of the way, intercepting the blade-like nails of a high-level demon. The demon lashed out again, but Death's hand was faster. Hard muscle tore as Death ripped into the creature's torso with his claws. Another hard swipe of his deadly hand and the creature's throat was cut clean through.
I laughed hysterically against his neck. "THAT WAS SO AWESOME! AND NAUSEATING! I THINK I'M IN SHOCK!" I clicked my heels against his side. "YEE-HAW!"
"Come here!" Death released a monstrous sound reached for the back of my thighs again. The sensation of his fingers digging into my flesh threw me into a panic, so I smacked him upside the head, which lead to a zap of accidental outpour of energy from me to him. His muscles locked up and his voice vibrated, light sparking from my fingertips into his skull. "Ffffffuuuuuckk."
I grabbed him by the horns and hung on, riding him down until he straight-up faceplanted into the ground.
"Damn," I said, patting his muscular back once. "You really know how to drop dead."
Four more demons manifested in front of us.
"Ah, hell," Death and I said in unison, although his voice was muffled into the floor.
Death lifted into a plank formation, his head tilting up. The four massive creatures circled us.
"Why aren't any of them attacking?" I asked in a quiet voice. "Is this some sort of evil creature thing? Who makes the first move in a situation like this?"
"Hold on tight, cupcake."
My stomach lurched as Death jumped to his feet to his hands and straightened his legs fast, launching his massive frame off the ground before the high-level demons could grab him. He leapt onto the wall beside us, talons penetrating into the marble wall like as he anchored to it and climbed higher. The high-level demons launched into the wall after us in a less graceful fashion, their terrifying roars reminding me of dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, as their clumsy climb upward ripped out pieces of marble from the wall, and none of them could seem to hold themselves up. They backed away from the wall, snarling at Death.
"Admit it," I said, feeling dizzy as I looked down at the drop. "You just wanted to show off."
Death's turned his head over his shoulder, glancing at me from the corner of his lighter colored green eye. A grin lifted his mouth. "You do have your legs around my waist."
A screech escaped my mouth as Death dove backwards off the wall, the world arching upside down. He landed effortlessly on all fours and reached back, grabbing onto the beltloop of my pants. He slid me off of him and onto the ground in a smooth motion, before slinking up the length of me. "Stay," he whispered at my mouth. His feet gripped the ground as he sprang somewhere over my head, the sound of a gory fight out of my line of vision.
I touched the pad of my finger to my lip. "That...was kinda hot?"
When I tried to sit up, my limbs wouldn't work. I suddenly felt pinned, as though trapped in a sleep paralysis dream. Stay...
Ahrimad stood facing the portal, the surface undulating violently like waves in a violent sea. Something was terribly wrong, the portal whirled with chaos, but I wasn't afraid. I saw rage, and so did he. Ahrimad turned toward me, silently roaring, his eyes glowing a wrathful amber. The skin of his face pressed rapidly tighter against his skull, tautening with fury as his scythe swung out toward me, the portal slowly rippling closed behind him like an iris. Blood sprayed my vision. My blood. Pain exploded in my abdomen, cleaving through me––
The marble room was falling apart. The ceiling cracked above me as my chest heaved with adrenaline from the revelation of what I'd seen. What I'd felt.
Talon hands yanked me out of the way before a piece of marble came crashing down onto me. Death pulled me to my feet, his half-form frame enormous and sleek with blood and sweat.
Ace stood with his hands outstretched toward Ahrimad and the twisting wind concealing him, visibly straining. Phoebe lay on the floor, pale, unconscious, with Malphas kneeling over her. Her eyes were rolled back into her head, and her body jerked every once in a while. Death fell to his knees on the other side of her.
"What's happening to her?" Death demanded of Malphas, shouting over the whirl of the wind.
"She's unconscious!" Malphas replied. "Ace took over, he won't be able to hold him much longer!"
On cue, a force cut through the vortex of air. Ace stumbled back, collapsing to the ground in exhaustion as Ahrimad was ripped free from the containment spell with an explosion.
Ahrimad swung out his scythe and pure anarchy erupted. Malphas and Phoebe were hit hard, their bodies tossed back onto the stage and rolling until they were covered by debris. More chunks of marble fell away from the ceiling as bits and pieces of the room disintegrated from the damage done.
Ahrimad released a cackling laugh, his blade reflected the terror in my eyes as he held the weapon out toward me. Ahrimad kept coming as he swung out his scythe a second time. Time seemed to slow as his sharp features strobed back and forth between something resembling a mortal and something exotic and alien. His blade arched a crescent in the air with a cruel gleam of silver, and a dark shadow echoed the curved motion with a visible ripple in the air, which shot toward me and sliced into my outer leg.
The force of his power flung me back into a pillar. My back slammed into marble and I slid to the ground, clutching my thigh as an indescribable pain overtook me. I looked down at my leg and saw my flesh severed to the bone, blood seeping rapidly through my fingers as I clamped down on it. This was no ordinary wound, I realized, as my exposed skin through my pants slowly turned black. I lost feeling in my leg fast.
"FAITH!" In my peripheral, Death moved toward me, but a cobalt wall of fire erupted between us, a large circle around Death and Ahrimad. Death jumped back, clutching his hand as the seared scent of flesh permeated the air.
"Kneel." Ahrimad raised his scythe again but didn't swing out. Death's whole body locked up, his eyes consuming with black. Through the flames, I watched his muscles tightened, the tendons in his neck straining as though he were fighting something, the last ounce of his strength being tested. "You don't have the power to fight me."
Death fell to his knees in anguish, in defeat, in obedience. I watched with half-open lids as Ahrimad moved toward Death. His long, boney fingers gripped Death by the skull. I felt my whole world come crashing down, my body betraying me. I slowly fell over, my cheek pressing into the ground. Ahrimad's power crawled up from the wound on my legs to my torso, to my arms, paralyzing me completely. Tears poured from my eyes and I sobbed, forced to watch what played out before me.
Ahrimad's lips peeled back, his fangs red with the blood dripping from his mouth gruesome and gleaming. His face hardened, shaping into something monstrous with sharp, angular features. His scythe vanished from his side, refashioning as a dagger.
"They think what you seek is true death, Alexandru, but I know better. For only you and I know the real truth." Ahrimad held out the dagger out and Death's entire affect changed, black markings lighting up white against his obsidian skin like ancient encryptions. Panic broadened his catlike eyes, and he tried to move away, when Ahrimad pierced his nails into Death's throat and held him still. "The blade from which you reap is the key to your demise. Yet, you've chose life all this time. I do appreciate the pitiful irony."
Then he stabbed Death in the heart, the sickening crunch like a sharp pierce to my own.
"DEATH!"
Death's body lurched on impact, veins protruding in his face and his eyes wide in shock. His hand shot out on instinct, talons ripping into Ahrimad's arm. Death's fangs gnashed together as he suppressed all noise, chords of muscles tightening in his neck.
A cruel smile turned up Ahrimad's sinister mouth. "May you never see the light again, my nephew."
With final hard nudge of Ahrimad's powerful hand, the blade plunged home.
Breaking free from Ahrimad's hold on my limbs felt like knives cutting into all parts of me. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else mattered but getting free as white blinded my vision.
Suddenly I was free, and I was on my feet. I was running, running so fast everything else disappeared except for the blue firewall separating me from Death. I dropped to my knees onto the marble floor and shielded my face instinctually, the flames burning away the forearm sleeves of my fire-retardant clothes at the sleeves as I slid into the ring of fire.
My chest tightened at the sight of Death laying on the ground, writhing. The handle of the dagger stuck out of his chest, and it was pulsing with shadows.
Ahrimad gazed up from Death to me in calm astonishment. "No mortal can move through the flames of the Underworld."
"You talk too much," I seethed.
I punched the air toward Ahrimad, chucking power at him. Ahrimad easily defected it with his scythe, as though it were a fly. I watched the stream of my light hit the marble wall beside the portal and eat into the wall, and an idea came to me fast.
A moment too late, as Ahrimad appeared directly in front of me, smashing my hand with his before I could ignite again. Bone snapped as my whole hand crippled. Black splotched my vision as he shoved me back the ground. I screamed in agony, crawling backwards on ground, the rippling waves of the portal growing louder behind Ahrimad. He loomed over me like a god with his black robes billowing out.
Heat of fire racing down my forearm. My left arm hurled out and pitched toward Ahrimad with a violence I never knew. Ahrimad held out hand at the last second to shield himself, his eyes glowering amber as he reacted fast. Too fast. Too fast to focus on precision, as he is ricocheted the power the path of my light directly into the rippling mirrored portal beside him.
The portal soaked up my energy, marble cracking on either side of it as a black void formed at the center of the undulating mirror like an impending doom. Ahrimad's eyes widened in shock. Turmoil erupted like molecules crackling all around us like thunder. The rippling portal broadened, vacillating.
A piece of the ceiling came down beside me, the blue flames disintegrating. My eyes rapidly searched the ground for Death, but he was gone. He was gone, and I couldn't even process what could have happened to him. I forced myself to turn and run, ran as hard as I could, ran with the will to survive because that was all I could do. A high-pitched whistle pierced through the air, the sound carrying to me like an impending doom, painting a clear picture of the portal exploding, forcing a surge of energy back out.
I turned back and watched a swarm of rippling air come fast toward me. I had little time react as the unforgiving invisible force from the portal came for me next, sweeping me up from underneath into its vicious wave. With nothing in front of me, I went airborne, arching high toward the ceiling. My arms helplessly swung in the air, my body turning over as gravity had its way with me. I plunged facedown, the ground coming too fast. My arms shot forward at the last second to shield my head, bracing for a fatal fall that never came.
Ringing. My eardrums ringing. The thought crossed my mind that I had in fact died dead, but breaths were so loud, and my whole chest pulsated to the hard beat of my heart. Warm wetness dripped from my ears and down the tip of my nose. I slowly opened my eyes, watching the blood collecting into a puddle beneath my face. Strands of damp black hair that escaped my braid aimed down at the floor. I realized I was suspended off of the ground. Levitating. My fists were both healed, locked tight on either side of me, and ignited with white electricity.
"Whoa." I dropped a short distance to the ground, catching myself on my newly healed hands. As I stood with wobblily legs, my vision swam, blurred, strobed in and out. Everything still felt heavy, bruised, broken, but I was alive with adrenaline. Through the smoke and debris in the air, I stumbled over the rubble, my hands searching blindly, desperately.
I saw nothing amongst the rubble. Ace, Malphas, Phoebe, they were all buried, and I couldn't get to them. The continuous ringing in my ears grew louder, as I followed the path of floor not covered by debris annd made my away around a fallen marble pillar. My eyes made a much stronger effort to focus as I saw that rippling mirror again. It was willowing away, the deep depths of its surface tunneling like an endless void.
"Death? Death!" My eyes swept over the ground, stepping over large pieces of debris. The ceiling of the room was almost completely destroyed, and I could see up into the floor above. The sole of my foot nearly slipped on something. When I gazed down, black, thick liquid coated the floor. Death's blood. My fingers curled into my palm, my whole body shaking with fury as my throat tightened. He was gone.
"My destined night, gone. You...ruined...everything."
Unease grated down my spine. I turned slowly, to find Ahrimad stood facing the portal. The surface undulating violently like waves in a violent sea.
"The night yields to no one," Ahrimad murmured bitterly. "The day breaks on, and death is unmoved. And yet, I too have been thwarted by life..."
The portal whirled with chaos, but I wasn't afraid. I saw rage, and so did he. Ahrimad turned toward me, and the frightening sight of his face made my blood curdle. The skin of his face was translucent, the skeleton of an otherworldly creature glaring back at me, tautened with fury.
Ahrimad eyes glowed a wrathful amber. "You will pay for what you have done!"
My feet felt nailed to the floor like in a nightmare, the original Grim Reaper moving in a blur toward me. His scythe swung out, the portal rippling closed behind him like an iris. I imagined the vision of my blood spraying, my abdomen splitting open as the scythe buried into me. Just before the blade could come down and seal the fate I foresaw, shadows exploded in front of me like an armor wall, as Death suddenly manifested between me and Ahrimad. His talon hands shot out and gripped the staff of Ahrimad's scythe, their faces close as he met him at a deadlock.
"Over my dead body," Death seethed.
Death raged with a monstrous noise, ripping the scythe straight from Ahrimad's grasp and kicking him back toward the portal. The markings along the staff of the scythe kindled to life as the staff rotated over Death's palm. Intricate grouping of lines developed over its massive silvery blade, matching the dark tattoos curling down Death's obsidian neck. His long fingers gripped the staff again as it turned over, and he carved the air in front of him. Ahrimad's eyes widened as he split directly in half. His corpse evaporated into ash before he even hit the ground.
A heaviness expanded in my core, as I stared down at the ash with uncertainty that he would raise up again. "Is he...?"
"He's gone," Death said in a solemn voice.
"We did it." I covered my mouth with my palm, the disbelief of what happened making a small, uneasy laugh shoot out of me. "We really did it." I rubbed my hand over my forehead, a rush of emotions flooding over me. "We have to help the others. We have to––"
Death's scythe fell to the ground, the clatter snapping me into reality.
It wasn't over.
Death swayed on his feet, his body tipping. Adrenaline took over and I ran forward, enfolding my arms around his torso. But he was too heavy, he was at a deadweight, and we both went down to the floor.
"Death? Death!"
Everything felt muted, frozen, pained, my palms resting on his chest as I hovered over him. Ahrimad's dagger remained protruding from Death's heart. Shadows pulsed from the handle of the blade, the surrounding inky black skin of his full form rapidly dissolved away. Leaving behind a growing coldness beneath my palms that I'd never known.
And I just kept uttering, "No...no."
When I reached to pull the dagger out, my fingers went right through the handle, like a phantom. I tried again, and again. Until a hand weakly clutched mine. A hand I didn't recognize. A man's hand. A normal hand, one without any markings.
Everything trembled in me as my eyes finally drew up to his face. His face. I felt gutted. Death's features were already thinning, sickly, just like Ahrimad's. I hardly recognized him, except for his mismatched green eyes. They seemed too large, too dim against the harsh colorless complexion.
"You're going to be okay," I said, because it was all I could say. "I'm going to get you help. We're going to figure this out––"
But when I tried to get up, his hand tightened around mine. "Stay," he said. "Just stay."
"I don't understand." Even when I knew the truth, even when I stared him right in the face, my mind didn't want to believe it. "I don't understand. We won. We won, and I was supposed to save you."
"It's not your job to save me."
"What am I supposed to do without you?" I choked out, tears welling in my eyes.
He snickered softly, "You can write a book about me and my sexiness."
I couldn't help but laugh, even in the midst of crying. "That's not funny. Okay, it kind of is."
Death scanned my features, his smile falling. "All of this time, I thought I wanted to die, but you showed me I wanted to live." His eyes gleamed before he broke down into tears. "I want to live."
In front of us, the portal sputtered alive, electric currents flying and charging the air. Death's whole body quaked beneath my hands, his throat convulsing. I gripped his head and tried to keep him still, but I felt so helpless. The seizing eventually stopped, his eyes opening tiredly.
"I should have told you how I felt," Death said, drawing my attention back to him. "I was afraid to let you in and then lose you."
I held his limp hand tighter. "I'm here. You've always had me."
Black dripped from the corners of his mouth, pooling onto the golden marble floor. I watched, horrified, as the roots of Death's hair slowly begin to blonde beneath my fingertips.
"Faith, I love you."
A sudden blast detonated from the portal. It crashed into my body, and I rolled back onto the floor, my side slamming into a fallen mass of marble. The sensation of being pushed turned into a pull, as my cut-up fingers clung the marble beside me, and I held on for dear life. I turned to look back toward Death, but he was gone once again, and this time my mind scrambled to understand.
A piece of fallen marble skidded across the floor, tossed into the deep void, and I knew exactly what had happened. Death's body had been pulled into the threshold into the unknown. By the time I figured it out, the portal's energy waned away almost completely, until it was but a sliver of rippling life against a normal mirror.
Everything pulsed around the edges, the world muting to nothing as I stood before the dying portal. Broken, enraged, robbed.
This couldn't be the end.
In the reflective surface, my eyes inflamed with white as I slowly raised my hands on either side of me. I called upon every ounce of power I had left. It answered, releasing from my hands in the form of a chaos I'd yet to master. A chaos that nearly exhausted me immediately, until I thought of him. Until I remembered what we'd all senselessly lost. I willed the light to grip the thinning remains of the portal, anchoring the sides of the narrow gateway. The weight of the portal grew heavier, threatening to collapse and crush me alive.
"I need you to choose you over me," Death's voice replayed in my head.
But I couldn't keep that promise. I couldn't give up on us. Tears poured down my face, and I surrendered, a roar unleashing from my throat as white exploded all around me. I pulled my hands wider apart and the portal broadened, reopening halfway.
My arms fell. I took off in a hard sprint, casting all fear aside as the rippling void narrowed fast. I jumped through to the other side, with the fading thought that this was my destiny.
This concludes book 2 of the Rewritten Death Chronicles.
SHOW YOUR LOVE ON THE FINAL DEATH IS MY BFFLAD CHAPTER BY VOTING AND LEAVING LOTS OF LOVELY COMMENTS FOR LIL OL' ME! SHARE IT WITH YOUR SPOOKY FRIENDS FOR EXTRA CUPCAKE POINTS!
WELL????? WHAT ARE OUR THOUGHTS??? TELL ME EVERYTHING.
So, I've basically known the ending of this book for a loooong time, and seeing it come into fruition is soooo freaking awesome! I can't wait to read all of your reactions! LOLOLOL. I literally sobbed so many times while writing this, and my sister cried ridiculously hard as she read it over with me, so that's how I know some of you guys really going through it rn. The emotion you're feeling right now is the insane power and beauty of writing and imagination. I'm so grateful to be able to be able to share my craft with the most amazing people ever!!!! You guys are seriously so incredible...
I KNOW, I'M THE WORST, BUT YOU KNOW YOU LOVE ME. AND YOU KNOW #FADE'S EPIC JOURNEY HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN.
Having #FADE withdrawals already? I'm going LIVE on my Instagram either this Sunday or Monday (October 4th or October 5th), and we're going to have so much fun and talk about this #CRAZY chapter amongst any other questions that you may have! (And perhaps some cupcake secrets will be uncovered!) SO FOLLOW ME and keep your pretty eyes peeled! My Instagram is Katrocks247!!!
In the meantime, do you guys have any QUESTIONS for me that you want answered during my LIVE?? LMK!!!
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF BOOK 3! LET ME KNOW ALL YOUR FAV MOMENTS!
P.S- My little sister Christina helped create the SADNESS in this chapter, and I'm so thankful for her editing #SKILLS. Give her a follow!!! chrisrocks247. She's also created an EPIC Spotify playlist for DIMBFF called "death is my bff"! You HAVE to follow it, every song is a smash!!!!
ALSO, my birthday is October 7th. I'm just putting that out there. Because a Libra's gotta be a Libra. LOL YEEEEEEEE. <33333333333333
UNTIL NEXT TIME, MY SPOOKY CHILDREN.
xoxo,
GOSSIP CREATOR/CREATOR OF TEARS
Instagram/Twitter: katrocks247