"Where are we now?" Dorian asks her in a shaky voice.
"What?" She seemed confused not getting what he means
"I mean…" She finally gets it and cuts him off.
"We're not in the wasteland anymore; you shouldn't worry about that; you'll be safe with me."
Safe with a war mother? It sounded odd to him, but he looked at the food in his hand, and he thought back to the past few days and realized it hadn't been true.
"We'll be heading back soon"
"Huh? Why? You can't find anything like this place in the wasteland"
"But It's not real, Dio."
"What?" He didn't quite understand what she meant at first.
"You can't make progress here," she said in a sort of lower tone.
"I don't understand"
"It's an unstable dimension, I stole from the prophet when I took his head"
"What!?"
"When we go back out they'll all be coming for you, that why I brought you here, to hide you from them"
"Who?"
"It doesn't matter now, just enjoy your fish"
Dorian kept his other questions to himself, she turned away from him and watched the river and swaying trees. He looked at her and he thought,
No real? All of this? The air does feel lighter here.
He took in a deep breath,
I really missed the taste of fish, he thought about all the disgusting things he had eaten before and he felt like crying as they reminded him of Estiah and Mr Dunn
Hellena turned to him suddenly with a fierce look on her face and Says
"We have to go"
"What!?"
She tosses the fish away and gets up to put on her clothes. She didn't answer him.
"Why?" He says he was in no hurry to leave this place.
"Someone's beating down the gates if we stay here any longer, we'll be obliterated"
"What!?"
"Let's go!"
She quickly put her clothes back on and Dorian looked away. Then she said to him
"Go grab your blanket, and what you need, we'll be taking the back door"
Dorian ran off back to the old campsite; everything was moving so fast; he still hadn't understood it all: dimensions, Prophets, gates, and back doors; nothing seemed to fit each other or be in its right place.
He's been thrust into the middle of a war between gods, having become one of the seven deadly sins. He could affect the tide of the great war.
He returned with the blanket, and Hellana growled at him,
"What took you so long?" she said. "Come on let's get going"
She ran away. Dorian wasn't prepared for a run and that monstrous energy he had when he chased down Estiah's scent was nowhere to be found now.
He was exhausted and beaten from his transformation last night and did not seem in the proper physicality to stand another transformation.
He tried to keep up the best he could but came up short. Hellena barely kept her attention on him, she just kept running.
He saw the sky fall in in what looked like shards of glass and almost hit him, she turned back alarmed, and screamed at him
"What are you doing, standing there idiot"
Dorian wanted to answer her, but then a pounding sound reverberated through the forest like someone was using a battering ram on a castle gate.
The whole place kept pounding, over and over; the war mother ran back to Dorian.
"You're weak, she said. Hell is no place for the weakling and much worse you've got a target in your back"
She leaned him close, bending down so her lips would reach his ears, and then she spoke in a cold voice saying,
"Do you hear that?"
He gulped, terrified of her and a little shy by how close she was then he nodded
"It's not me they want," she said. "It's you"
The pounding continued
"Get on my back", she said
"What!? No!"
"Then run like you mean it, we have to make it to the northern end soon."
She turned and ran off and he followed after her.
I don't understand what is going on anymore; people are after me; wait, is this what she meant by other self? Oh no, I'm falling behind.
"Move it, short legs," she yelled at him in a very harsh voice.
Dorian picked up the pace. He kept going the best he could, but the pounding didn't stop.
She's right I do have short legs, he thought. There is nothing I can do about it; why am I thinking about this now when the skies are falling?
He looked up and saw more clouds falling towards him.
He picked up the pace, running as fast as he could make him, and then the sky crashed behind him, shattering into blue shards of glass. A few pricked him on the back but they only were minor scratches.
He knew more would be falling soon. He kept running as fast as he could, but sooner than he wanted, he began to slow down. He looked on at her and saw she was twenty to twenty-five feet from him.
He knew she was supposed to be much farther than that and was only slowing down to stay close to him, it annoyed him.
I can't stay like this, I'll get both of us killed. Where is that energy I had? Where's that hunger? I don't feel it anymore; it must be there somewhere.
She turned back and said to him,
"Hurry up already, we're almost there"
He felt angered by her remarks as the world around him crashed on all sides. He looked back and saw that everything behind him was gone.
He hadn't realized it before, but it wasn't only the sky that was breaking down but also the lands and surroundings were all falling into the black abyss.
The ground broke off, and its edges looked like sharp crystals or glass shining with varying colors. He felt scared as all the destruction was catching up to him; the pounding kept getting louder and louder, and he could see a tree breaking into glass by his side.
Come on Dorian, run, he screamed at himself. Come on, Dorian, run, dammit.
He stepped on a shard of glass and broke into a scream; he stopped for a moment, the pounding got intense, and everything behind him broke off and fell into the abyss.
He was on the edge, teetering on it, and he was falling backwards, and what was in front of him could break at any moment.
He spun his arms to keep from falling; he could see deep into the endless blackness. It felt like he could see a thousand feet down, but it also seemed a lot closer, like a couple of feet.
He slipped and fell into blackness.