A rush of cold air-filled Kalika's back, along with a deafening whistle in her ears as she reawakened. Opening her eyes, she found a pit of darkness and what seemed to be a big red demon.
"Huh?"
The red demon above Kalika accelerated past her. With a quick glimpse she recognized the demon as Bjorn. She looked back, "Oh, I'm falling…"
In the distance she could see an unconscious Donovan falling.
Bjorn on the other hand, gasped awake, finding himself falling. "What the-!"
Bjorn tried orienting his body, but his hips wouldn't respond. He glanced around, finding that Kalika and Donovan were falling too, as Kalika watched everything from above. He tried keeping himself composed but seeing that they were fast approaching the bottom he aimed both arms at the ground.
"What is he doing?" Kalika wondered.
In that very moment Bjorn released a power wave of fire magic from both hands to slow his descent. Even Kalika could feel it from where she was falling.
At that moment Kalika looked back at the still unconscious Donovan. She continued to watch him as he inched closer and closer to the ground.
She bit her lips, uncertain what to do. "That idiot," she said to herself.
Without thinking she shot herself towards Donovan grasping him. She brought herself behind him and a mere feet before reaching the ground, she kicked him back up. pushing herself into the fire as Bjorn hit the soot covered ground hard. This is followed by Donovan who landed atop Kalika.
Not too long after, Kalika reawakened, with Donovan long on top of her. She pushed him aside, laying him on the ground.
"Where am I…?" looking around she could only see pitch darkness, forcing her to wait for her eyes to adjust.
She could hear rustling in the darkness. She darted her eyes to the noise she heard. Slowly her vision adjusted to seeing Bjorn, as he was leaning himself at the wall, breathing heavily. He was keeping his arms pressed against his huge wound.
Bjorn looked at Kalika for a moment before turning his attention to Donovan. "He's still alive…?"
Kalika glanced back at Donovan.
"I thought you wanted to kill everyone," Bjorn said.
Kalika turned back to Bjorn raising her hand. She channeled the dark pitch-black energy, ready to shoot it off at any moment. Bjorn readied himself, now unable to move he accepted the fate laid before him.
Kalika flinched, hearing Donovan suddenly cough as he woke up. "Ugh... Where am I?"
Kalika immediately ceased as she heard Donovan writhing in pain. She turned away from Bjorn in favor of tending to Donovan.
She approached Donovan's side, spooking him with her presence. "W-who's there?" She ignored him pushing his arm to look at the wound left by her.
After a few seconds, Donovan finally recognized Kalika in front of him. His breathing started to become shallower and skin paler.
"I doubt he'll last long… Just like me he'll be dying soon. Unlike the King and Queen… I'm not able to recover from a wound like this…" Bjorn wheezed.
"Shut up," Kalika said.
Donovan chuckled weakly. "I think he's right Kalika… At this point… I can barely move myself…"
Donovan gazed around, assessing their surroundings. He recognized the extremely tall cavern as the bottom of the pit. Most of it was covered in dark stone while other parts had strange reflective mirrors.
"We… We must be in the Pit. This is probably your best bet to escape. The demons here won't recognize you as human… Ngghhh… And can probably find another way to escape from this place."
Kalika clenched her hands with a feeling of mixed emotions that finally made their presence known to her.
"That's right… you were escorted through the pit from the war that was above…" Bjorn added. He then chuckled to himself, seemingly knowing some inside joke they couldn't comprehend. "Heh…. As far as I see it. we 've walked from one cage into another. Even if you are a demon now, this place is still a hell unlike what's above."
"I'm not a demon," she said softly.
"Hmm?" Bjorn couldn't hear her.
"I-I said I'm not a demon! I'm human!"
A deepening quiet formed between everyone. Meanwhile Kalika could only look upon her blue hands with denial. Donovan grabbed her hand bringing her focus back onto him.
"It's okay Kalika. And sorry… It looks like I won't be able to keep my promise to Tilus after all." Donvan masked his fears and worries with a smile. A smile familiar to her. It reminded her somewhat of Rhonda and Tilus.
She bit her lip. "No… I'm not ready… I don't… I don't want to be alone…I don't… " she clenched her hands tightly. "H-he can't die here… I refuse to let him die!"
Suddenly a faint glow arose from within the palm of Kalika's hand. Looking, she saw a golden glow. she held it up and looked at it in awe.
Both Bjorn and Donovan were also surprised to see this.
"It… It can't be…" Bjorn became at a loss for words.
"Can i…?" Kalika remembered LIllian using this magic on her before, healing what would've been a fatal wound and showing mercy to her for the first time then. With this thought in mind, Kalika pressed her hands at Donovan's wounds and miraculously healed it.
With his wound now healed, Donvan was finally able to sit himself up. Kalika's eyes sparkled, as a wave of relief washed over her.
"H… How did you…?" Donovan looked at his now helped wound. He then glanced back at Kalika and averted his eyes just as quickly. He became flushed, now embarrassed.
Kalika seeing this, cocked her head in confusion.
"H-h-hey K-Kalika… T-thanks for healing me and all but… Umm…." Not long after Donovan took off his prison shirt and handed it to Kalika. "I-I think you need this more than me." he said, keeping his gaze away from her.
Kalika still couldn't understand what he meant until he pointed out an important factor that she had completely neglected.
She became flushed and quickly accepted the shirt, thanking him.
Donovan, then ripped the bottom half of his trousers and handed those to her also. Kalika understood and took the pieces of trousers with her ears glowing red and unchanged blank expression.
Kalika fashioned the piece of the trousers into something resembling underwear the best she could. She then dressed into the prison shirt, tightening the laces around her bosom. And with a belt, she tied it well around her waist and allowed the shirt to hang like a skirt.
With clothing now on, Donovan felt a lot more comfortable talking to Kalika. "S-so… how do you feel? Y-your still not going to kill … everyone… are you?"
"Hmm?" she felt a subtle confusion overtake her. "Kill everyone…? I think I want to do something else…" Kalika turned her gaze up. "In this dream…"
"Dream?" Donvan asked.
"Yeah…" Kalika looked back to Donovan.
Her eyes widened as she caught a glimpse of a familiar reflection of herself. Awestruck and curious, she inched closer to him, not taking notice how close she was to him as she forced him backward.
Donovan panicked. "W-wait! Hold on!"
She then grabbed a large piece of a strange glass like material that was hanging behind him. She quickly retreated back to sit with a strange mirror in hand.
Peering into the mirror, she looked at her reflection. She found her previous human self with her blonde hair and green eyes, "When I wake up, It'll probably be me still stuck in the prison cell Lily put me in... But I hope that's not the case…"
Donovan looked through this mirror too seeing the same thing. He looked back and forth between the current and the past version of Kalika, confused.
"To be honest… I hope that when I wake up, that it's days before I had my sister executed…before she became the Demon Queen… before I became some plaything to her…"
Donovan looked back at the shards of mirrors hanging behind. Within them he found a mix of results from showing him in his soldier's uniform to showing no reflection at all.
"But if I have to play in this fake world a little longer until I wake up, I don't mind doing that." The glass suddenly cracked under Kalika's grasp.
Donovan turned back startled. Looking back he saw that Kalika was now smiling forcefully. Her voice became more shaky. "I can't imagine actually being a monster in real life. To be a heartless demon that kills for fun…!"
The glass shattered before Kalika as her breathing hastened. Her hands became shaky.
Unsure what else to do, Donovan embraced Kalika with a hug in an attempt to comfort her.
Kalika couldn't react, slowly bringing her hands to her side. Now lost within the maze within her mind.
"I want to leave," she said.
Donovan released her and flashed a reassuring smile. "Sure. I'll lead the way."
"That won't… do you much good…" Bjorn stated, before laughing meekly. "Unless you both forgot, you're in the pit. A world where demons and other monstrous beings lurk."
Kalika got up and turned to face Bjorn with a deathly glare. This only served to amuse him a little.
"Very scary. Now you look like a demon." Bjorn teased.
Kalika bawled her fists. "I-I'm not-" she stopped, then suddenly, she held out her hand, manifesting a ball of dark energy in her hand. "We don't have to listen to him."
Bjorn continues to look amused, clearly accepting his fate as he starts to drift off.
"Wait Kalika'" Donovan said.
Kalika halted. holding the magic in her hand. She then stared back at Donovan indignantly. "What?"
Donovan took a second to recompose himself and looked back at Bjorn with a more hardened expression. "He's not wrong about the pit. When I was being escorted. We came across a lot of strange and dangerous monsters. Even the rabbits here are a danger here."
He continued. "As much as I hate to admit it, we should probably keep him alive, for now…"
Kalika glanced back at Bjorn as if pondering.
"I don't think it matters if he's alive or dead..." looking back at Donovan, Kalika sighed. "Fine... I guess we can make things a little more interesting." Kalika ceased the dark magic converting it into a golden glow. Kalika started to heal a now unconscious Bjorn with holy magic.
"And if worse comes to worse, I'll just kill hi-" Suddenly her holy magic fizzled out. "Oh…" she stared at her hand blankly, a little surprised.
Luckily, she healed him just enough for him to not die. Kalika looked at her hand, attempting to conjure forth the dark magic from her hand.
Nothing happened.
"W-what happened?" Donovan asked.
"I don't know, but for some reason I feel a little heavier…" Kalika looked back to Bjorn. "Well… It looks like he's still breathing…"
Donovan could only look on awkwardly at the now unconscious Bjorn. "Uhh… What do we do now… he's uhh…big…"
Kalika stared back at Donovan with a look that said; Maybe you should've thought about that sooner.
********
Rakon now looked over the headless remains of the three demon women he promoted as warden for the prisons. He gritted his teeth with Gaz standing next to him, examining the bodies precariously.
"
"
"
A booming voice suddenly came from behind.
"
Rakon glanced back, finding both Magnus and Mae approached.
"
"
Rakon signed exhaustedly. "
"
Rakon rolled his eyes. "" Rakon stopped. He clenched his hands tightly "It couldn't be…" he said to himself.
Rakon remembered back to when Kalika tried escaping after killing Tilus. And the day after her last escape where they unintentionally became intimate, where she explained being unable to leave.
Gaz looked upon Rakon with concern seeing him now grit his teeth even more frustrated. "
Rakon immediately took his leave. "
Gaz raced to catch up to him. "
"
********
Back in the Pit, Kalka and Donovan pulled an unconscious Bjorn through a rocky cavern tunnel. Despite the rocky terrain surrounding them, the floor was smooth as silk as if flattened.
Kalika continued to pull Bjorn by one of his hands while Donovan took the other, practically scraping his back along the way. Luckily for them, the tunnel led directly outside where an unexpected bright light could be seen at the end of the tunnel.
"We're… Almost there!" Donovan huffed, pulling at Bjorn again. "He better be happy he's still alive! Hrrmmpphh…. We should probably tie his hands up when we find somewhere to set up camp."
"We probably could've stayed here for the day." Kalika stated.
"Probably. But then we'd risk those guards finding us. Besides, you want to leave this place, right?"
"Mmm… Yeah…" Kalika glanced back at Donovan, seeing him with the same piped weapon he used against Bjorn. It hung around his shoulder, broken. He also had what seemed to be a white cloth he found stuffed in the pipe. She paid little mind to it.
"Are you sure you want to keep that… strange thing around?" she asked, practically staring at the pipe now.
"Yeah… It might come in handy. besides... It's better than nothing… and I know a thing or two about how to fix em." Donovan pulled again.
"If you're sure…" soon. They reached the exit ahead. The bright light outside became blinding leaving the tunnel exit.
Looking out, it was completely hard to tell whether they were actually in a cave or not. It was like a whole new world with strange creatures, yellow plains and forest sheltered by black and purple leaves. Strange looking fauna pranced throughout the plains to the edge of the forest, most of which had red eyes.
The far-off edges of this world resembled that of a mountain with magic crystals littering throughout the entire area. Some of the crystals around looked jagged, protruding from the ground. While others seemed to have been tamed and shaped into tiny square pillars.
The world before them had a strange and haunting beauty to it. But it also carried an air of mystery. This was not even mentioning the gigantic crystal that seemingly covered the entirety of this world's ceiling.
Donovan took a deep breath. "Alright… Let's go."
He pulled with no results. He then turned to Kalika finding her mesmerized by the view. Unknown to him, Kalika could see a variety of colors encompassing the whole world before them. That of green, red, blue and brown.
Suddenly a feeling within her told her not to step any further. She recognized the feeling. She stepped away unsure back into the shadow of the tunnel they came from. But to Kalika's surprise, Donovan grabbed her hands.
Clearly seeing her distraught, he tried to give a comforting smile. However, the stuttering of his hands betrayed him. "I-isn't the weather great. I think it's starting to become spring." Donovan stuttered.
Kalika focused herself back, drawing out those feelings she once had. And in that instant, the dark crushing feeling went away, as if all doubts were cleared. "It looks like it," she agreed, stepping back up to continue to help.
With that final push, Kalika and Donovan pulled. Down the dirt carved path and onto the yellow plains.
"I think I know a great place we can set up camp at… Nghhh! It's not too far from here." Donovan stated.
"Ok…"
"[Find me...]" The sudden voice said.
Kalika stopped and looked around to see where it was coming from. finding nothing.
"Hey. Are you alright?" Donovan asked.
"Yeah… Let's go." With those last words they ventured further and deeper within the Pit, the very homeland of demons. And the very place that will decide the fate of this world.
********
Within a snowy tundra three figures with mask's straddle their way through the dense chilling blizzard. Traveling down a mountain they found a shabby cabin. They soon entered the cabin forcefully, with a dog and an old man by the fireplace.
The dog went on the defense but was swiftly put down, upon seeing their horns the man became frightened and whimpered. "p-p-p-please don't kill me."
"We won't kill you," the woman said. "We just need to borrow this shelter for some time."
"How much longer until we reach the hole leading to 'the Pit'?" the black haired, masked man asked.
"Another couple of days west." The other white-haired man answered.
The old man scampered away upon seeing the woman approach. She sat herself on his chair facing his fireplace, she removed her mask, exhausted from wearing it.
"That's good." she said. "The sooner back to the castle the better… I don't want to keep Kalika waiting too long…"
The other two removed the masks too. Revealing themselves to be Jala, Lucius with Lillian sitting on the chair unamused, with eyes glowing a bright red.
"And I'd like to see Rakon pay for his treachery!"
TO BE CONTINUED...