Joey Opened his Eyes Slowly as he was feeling numb all over his body and his eyelids were too heavy. He felt the pain all over his body. he couldn't move a muscle. and felt chills all over his body with a chilling cold in his limbs. it was too hard to move.
As he was still waking up and a little absent-minded suddenly all the memories came rushing to his mind at once and due to this he felt choked and tried to get up, he put his hand on his mouth and started coughing as he felt something was stuck in his throat. Something wanted to come out. and after a few seconds, after the coughing ended, he looked next to him to see that he had returned to his room again and Zain was still asleep in the same position as he was in the bed next to him.
Joey could not think well due to his shock at what happened "Was this a nightmare? No? ...." Then a picture of his friends laughing at him while he was choking because of this demonic drink that was pushed down his throat with force appeared in his mind, suddenly something was pushed up to his throat and he felt an urgent need to throw up, he put his hand on his mouth and got up to ran to the bathroom as he wobbles as he still felt dizzy, finally he got to the bathroom and closed the door and vomited All the black liquid that he drank.
He felt very dizzy as he was barely able to stand on his feet, he panted while standing in front of the sink with both hands on both sides of it, he washed his face, and he could not think straight due to the dizziness and excessive events.
As his feeling of weakness and dizziness got worst. Joey heard the sound of walking feet about to enter the room, so he rushed to the bed, straightened his body, put the blanket on him as it was before, and closed his eyes.
When the door was opened quietly, Joey felt terrifying energy spreading in the whole room with horror and darkness. something was taking heavy yet cold steps toward him.
Hot air began to touch his face gradually, As he concluded that someone must be near his face by now, horror and fear began to take a hold of him, and his heart started to beat rapidly.
If this goes any longer, he would not be able to conceal his fear anymore, but suddenly, after seconds, that energy and this terrifying hot breath started to fade away until it disappeared.
And as soon as the room door was closed. Joey opened his eyes and his heartbeats were like drums on his chest, he was breathing heavily up and down. He does not know the reason for this fear, as for all that dark energy he felt it was the most frightening thing he had felt as if it was something that entered the room. and absorbed all reassurance and warmth in the room, leaving only fear, terror, and coldness.
Joey stood on his trembling feet, and as soon as he stood up, he found black footprints on the ground what shocked him was that they seemed like skeleton footprints and it seems bigger somehow than a human's. As soon as he saw these terrifying traces, Joey felt the urge to throw up again, and as soon as he got into the bathroom and vomited the rest of this black liquid he felt much better.
Once Joey got out of the bathroom and felt better he got that black liquid out of his body. He heard a humming sound and as soon as he turned around to the source of the sound, he found that Zain was moving his hands, waving them, but his eyes were still closed, Joey ran towards him, as he kneeled, grabbed his hand and started shouting, "Zain! Zain! Do you hear me? can you hear me? You are conscious? Are you okay? '' Zain patted his hand in a reassuring gesture.
Joey smiled, and life began to return to his face which was terrified and colorless a minute ago.
Suddenly, Zain's grip tightened on his hand as he began to mumble some incomprehensible words, "What? What are you trying to say?"
Joey did not understand a word: "Eli...Eli...a ... You.... run ... they ... Joey...Ru..." he mumbled stuttering.
Then his fist tightened, even more, and he pulled Joey closer to him until his mouth was just in front of Joey's ear: "Run Joey she....is coming... for you"
"What!? WHO!??"
Zain got quiet for a while as catching his breath. "Elia...The Mountain Spirit..."
" Who is Elia ?" Joey asked nervously. Zain felt his eyelids growing heavy again and his body became numb.
Zain's brows twitched as he felt it hard to even talk: "I don't feel my body. Can't move, You have to take everyone and run away before she comes" he said with what seemed like a whisper.
Joey got irritated "Right now I don't want to hear this! I only need to know what to do next! don't leave me alone in this! " Joey observed Zain's body " and what happened to you? why are you this numb? "
Zain closed his eyes with tiredness and opened them again to answer Joey in low voice " My blood has an anti-water magic effect which the river has, which I've seen, also your body has, so they've put a drug-like substance on me, I am like rotten food right...now So they're paying attention to you and the rest"
Joey's brows curled slightly " What do we do now?"
Zain tried to move his head as he still didn't feel well, he looked around with his eyes. as his body is still numb " Don't know, but it will not be long till they take what they want and hand us to her..."
Zain understood that Joey didn't know what he was talking about, so he turned his head to him again in exhaustion," Elia seems to be an evil mountain spirit, and also seem to be a sucker_demon type, so be careful, this river seems to put... some kind of spell on whoever drinks from it, which put them under some kind of control and arch a being which doesn't like to commit crimes like killing, as some creatures from the underworld seem to find themselves higher in rank and blood, so it does not like to be compared to other low-class demons which like to kill and feed in barbaric bloody ways, so it takes different actions as it does not kill by itself unless someone does a major sin, so often it may push people to do thongs to get their souls by their own hands, like committing suicide"
Zain looked at Joey and found his face fell with sadness and disappointment" How does something so evil exist..?"
Zain looked blankly into the space " It's how it was created since we were born, The Underworld always represents whatever humanity is "
" So if want if Humans became bad and evil does it mean the Underworld would become better than ours?" Joey said not realizing Zain's is a very complicated face. if humans are bad, can the underworld have good ones too?
"seems like the villagers have been serving it for centuries," Joey said cutting Zain's rope of thoughts.
Zain looked up at him "there have to be weak points, I have read it somewhere, that every creature, demon, human, spirit, name it what you want, each one, with great powers, comes fatal weakness points! which we only must figure out.." Zain's voice became weak with each word. but Seemed like wanting to give Joey the slightest hope he could get in such a situation. even in his current weak state.
Joey felt that the room went quiet suddenly, he raised his head and looked toward Zain and found that he fell asleep again, it seems the drug is still in his system. "Hey! Zain?"
But it was too late he was asleep again.
"Shit..." Joey sat down and put his hand on his head, but looking on the bright side, Zain would soon wake up again and fight again alongside him, it's only a matter of time.
While He was deep in thoughts, Joey began to feel the ground shaking under his feet. He looked at his feet, then looked at the ceiling and the walls surrounding him and found that everything was shaking.
"An earthquake ?!"
Suddenly, the light was cut off, and the place became dark and quiet.
"What is ... ?!"
After a couple of seconds with no response or even any sound, the door was slowly opened
Joey panicked and had nothing to protect himself with, he looked at Zain and looked around again, and found a glass of water on a table near his bed.
He threw the water and then broke the glass on the table to have any sharp weapon that could protect himself and Zain who is still Unconscious.
Suddenly a very strong wind hit him and caused Joey to bounce against the wall with force.
A simple light that illuminated a few sights of the features of the room entered through the door, while a scary figure entered from the midst of this light, it was something with a gray cloak and the figure looked a little larger than the size of a human being.
This thing was taking slow yet broad steps toward Joey.
Joey's eyes widened and his body froze to the ground since he fell and no longer could move a muscle. And death is the only future he sees now.
After that reached him, Joey was able to see some of what was under the cloak, which is the thing that made him panic even more and wanted to get farther and farther as he could.
The face of this creature was a skeleton skull as the eyes were hollow, there was nothing but blackness inside. It was empty. Which sent shivers to Joey's body and froze him.
And the rest of its body that appeared was a skeleton too. which held an ax in hand and the other covered the hand with the cloak's long sleeve .
Joey's body was shaking from fear, this thing stretched out its hand more and more until it reached his face, causing Joey to turn his face to the other side to avoid that hand, shutting his eyes.
Then he felt a gentle touch on his face, which made him open his eyes and stopped his breathing.
when he opened his eyes, he found that thing directly in front of his face, his eyes were Infront of the monster's. he didn't dare look elsewhere, He felt as if he was looking directly into an open window to deep black space, he was drowning in its eyes. He was drowning in darkness.
Joey did not blink he only kept looking into its eyes while the monster patted his face gently.
Joey was surprised as he felt it was telling him not to be afraid, for a while one could say it was patting him like a mother patting her son's face to calm him, and strangely it did for a second.
But when Joey looked at the monster's other hand, his eyes wide open as he got shocked when he saw its other hand holding a long, silver ax. As if it's getting ready to slay him.
"It's going to kill me!"
End of Chapter 16