by Lola StVil
The apple lies on the ground before us, and I reach down and pick it up. Nothing is happening to it, but we did it. We broke the curse. I know we did.
“Glow, you stupid thing. We did it. We broke your curse. Love is always stronger than hate and chaos,” I say to the apple.
As if it was just waiting for my command, the apple begins to glow a deep golden color.
“We did it, Kane,” I whisper.
I reach for his hand, and we clasp our hands together and raise them over our heads in pure triumph. The team cheers.
And that’s when all hell breaks loose.
The gentle vibrations that run through the ground begin to intensify until the ground beneath us is shaking so hard that I can barely keep my footing. I stumble, and the apple flies from my hand. Kane reaches out and snatches the apple from the air. He hands it back to me, and I jam it into my jeans pocket as he reaches out for me again.
The shaking is worse than ever now, and I am thrown from my feet, missing Kane’s outstretched hand by half an inch. I land in the soft blanket of snow and find myself looking up into the sky. The sky is darkening rapidly, fast-moving black clouds rushing in above us. An almighty clap of thunder sounds so loud I cringe, and a flash of lightning casts an eerie strobe light effect across the world. The wind howls around me, whipping up the flakes of snow and creating an almost blizzard-like effect.
“You really thought you could beat me? That you puny mortals could break my curse?” a voice booms from the sky. “Now you will see what happens when you mess with Eris, Goddess of Discord and Chaos.”
The mocking shout is followed by a burst of what I can only describe as horror movie laughter.
The shaking is so strong now that I am being thrown into the air and then slammed back down again. I shout out for Kane, for Saudia, for all of them, but no one responds. A split begins to form in the ground starting from the spot the apple was buried in and continuing to run down the ground until it’s gone further than my eye can see.
The split widens, becoming a chasm, and the violent shaking stops. The thunder and lightning continue, and a deluge of thick snow falls all around me, making it difficult to see more than blurred shapes.
I spin in a circle, trying to spot the others.
“Is everyone okay?” I shout.
I hear a few “yeses.”
“Oh fuck,” Langston shouts.
I spin again, trying to spot what she’s seen that made her react that way. I expect to see one of the team on the ground, injured. What I don’t expect is the army of demons that are crawling from the chasm, their mouths split in eager grins.
The howling wind drops down to a gentle breeze, and although the snow still falls, I can see a little better now. And here’s what I see.
Me, Kane, Langston, and Regal on one side of the chasm. And Saudia and Perry on the other. The demons, as well as the chasm, separate us. The chasm isn’t going to be a big problem (I hope) as it’s narrow enough to jump over. But the demons are another story. They’re grinning at us in glee.
“We have to be all together to use the dime,” I shout. “Saudia, Perry, find a way to get across here while we take care of the demons.”
The ground begins to shake again, but this time, it’s Regal causing it and the ground we stand on only shakes gently. The part beneath the demons rises and falls like waves on the sea. Most of them are able to jump out of the way, and they charge towards us as one unit, but a few tumble back into the chasm.
“What the fuck is this?” Langston says as she throws a shield up around us.
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing Eris isn’t too happy about us breaking her curse, and this is her army. I’m also guessing a lot of the people who came here in the early days and didn’t come back were victims of this bunch,” Kane says.
The demons have us surrounded already, and the firepower we’re discharging doesn’t seem to be slowing them down all that much. Kane is jabbing at the closest demons with his sword, and I am firing and firing into them. Regal continues to shake the ground beneath them, but they’re too close to us now for him to apply too much power to the shake, and it’s more of an annoyance to them than anything life-threatening. They screech and laugh manically, taunting us and enjoying doing it.
Already, Langston’s shield is shattering under the constant assault of their firepower. I glance behind me and see a band of demons on the opposite side of the chasm, surrounding Saudia and Perry.
The shield breaks and the demons charge us. I take a step back and then another, and within seconds, the demons have us separated from each other, each of surrounded by our own personal cluster of demons. I am facing three of them.
One of them is a tall creature that is half man, half goat with long curved horns, and where his tongue should be, a purple snake darts in and out of his mouth. The other two are smaller, and they hang back slightly as the goat demon sends a blast of brown smoke from his chest towards me.
The smoke stings my eyes and nose, and I’m coughing and coughing, almost retching with the intensity of the coughs, but I still manage to fire at the goat demon. He neatly steps to one side, laughing and baring his dirty teeth. The snake tongue flicks towards me, and it extends much further than any tongue should.
I hear myself squeal in pain as the snake latches onto my cheek. I reach up with both hands and wrap them around the snake. It burns where it touches my skin, but I ignore the searing pain and hang on tightly.
I wrench it away from my face, feeling a chunk of flesh come away with it followed by the now familiar rush of warmth as blood courses down my face and neck and soaks into my shirt. I squeeze the snake, and even as the pain in my hands becomes too much to bear, I twist it.
As I twist it, I pull it down towards the ground. The goat demon shrieks and swipes out with his hands, but he’s too far back to reach me. I drag the snake lower, and the demon falls to his knees. He fires another blast of brown smoke at me, and I cough again. I know I can’t pull the snake from his mouth as I planned to, so instead, I dart forward, letting go of the snake and planting a vicious kick in the center of the demon’s face.
I hear bones crunch as his nose explodes in a flurry of black sludge. As I release the snake, I fire into the two smaller demons that still stand on either side of the goat demon. They are so fascinated by the sight of their leader falling to his knees and being owned by me that they don’t even see the shots coming. They both explode in a shower of black ashes, and I turn my sole attention back to the goat demon.
I kick out again, and this time, I follow the kick up with a blast of power from my palm. The goat demon sprawls on his back, his body twitching as he dies. But that’s not quite the end of him. As he takes his last shuddering breath, the snake breaks free from his mouth and launches itself through the air.
It’s coming straight for my face, and I reach up to grab it. My already scalded palms scream as I touch its burning skin once more, but I have to stop it from biting me again.
I can already feel the first bite it gave me turning septic. It burns and throbs, and I know the venom is spreading through my body. Another bite could finish me off.
I roar in pain and anger, and it lends me the strength I need to ignore the pain a moment longer. I pull my arms hard in opposite directions, stretching the snake out. I feel it stretching in my hands, pulling out way further than it should, and I feel something inside of it give. It hangs limply in my hands, and I drop it to the ground.
I turn and look through the swarms of demons looking for the team. Kane is making his way through the crowd, swinging out blindly with his sword. He’s cutting demons down left and right, but for each one he takes down, it seems that two more are there to take its place. Kane is bleeding from his chest, and I can see he’s limping, wincing with pain at each step.
Langston keeps erecting shields, but the second they’re up, they’re blasted to pieces again and again. She’s firing into the demons, and although she’s making some hits, it�
�s not enough, and she’s fast becoming overwhelmed by the sheer number of demons that swarm towards her.
More and more of them are pouring out of the chasm, and I wonder briefly if there’s a never-ending supply of them. If we’ll just keep fighting until we exhaust ourselves and only then will they stop coming for us. It’s a depressing thought, and I push it away.
Regal has positioned himself as close to the chasm as he dares to get and he’s shaking the ground all along the edges of it. Demons keep toppling back into the chasm as they climb free, but for every one that falls, it seems as though four or five make it out of the chasm and run towards us to join the battle.
Perry and Saudia have made it back over the chasm, and they stand back to back as the battle rages around them. Perry fires out his red web over and over again, and the demons are giving him a wider berth than the rest of us, but he still sports a cut on his face, and one of his arms hangs loose and limp at his side.
All around Saudia, demons squeeze in on themselves and rupture, dropping to the ground as she dispenses her waves of plasma and squashes the life out of them.
Another thick flood of snow falls, obscuring my view of the others. At this point, I’m just pleased they’re all alive, but I have no idea how we’re going to get close enough together to get out of here as one.
A flash of lightning lights up the battlefield, and I am shocked to see a demon has managed to creep up close enough to reach out and touch me without me even noticing. Before I can react, he reaches out and puts his hand flat on my stomach, and the lower half of my body goes numb.
I fall to the ground, paralyzed from the waist down, but I fire as I fall and the demon explodes in a shower of blood that splatters me and makes me feel sick at its slimy, oily touch. I use my hands and elbows to drag myself away from the battle, hoping that the paralysis is very temporary so I can get back in and help the team.
Another flash of lightning shows me Langston. She is facing four demons, and they’re not firing kill shots. They’re taunting her and pushing her slowly backward. Horror seizes me as it dawns on me what they’re doing. They’re pushing her towards the chasm.
I try to get to my feet, but I can’t, of course, and frustration seizes me.
“Langston, look out,” I yell.
My shout has the opposite effect of what I wanted. Other demons look in her direction and go to join the fun.
“Fuck,” Kane yells.
He charges toward the pack of demons, and I relax a tiny bit. At least someone who can move has seen her dilemma. Kane swings his sword and slices through demons, some of them so much so that their bodies land in two twitching halves on the snowy ground, but more and more of them are appearing every second and Langston is only a couple steps away from going over the edge of the chasm.
She is desperately fighting back, but it’s not enough. Regal has seen what’s happening, and he goes to help Kane, but even with all three of them in on it, it’s not enough. Saudia and Perry are completely surrounded now too, and they’re fighting a rapidly losing battle.
“It’s over,” a voice says in my head.
I don’t want to believe the voice, but what can we do now?
“Use the dime, Atlas. Save yourself and save the mission,” the voice says again.
“Fuck that,” I whisper. “I’d sooner die with my team than leave them all behind.”
“I have an idea,” Regal shouts to Kane. “I can really make the ground shake and send the demons over the edge, but Langston is going to go with them. Can you grab her and stop her from going over?”
“Yes. Do it,” Kane shouts.
I look away from them for a second to take down a stray demon who has spotted me and gotten too close to me. His blood sprays over me and where it touches, it burns. I look down at my arms in horror as each tiny burn turns into a dollar-sized hole and begins to bleed.
I feel the tremors going through the ground beneath me, and I tear my eyes away from the horror show that is my arms, ignoring the stinging pain that screams out of each hole.
The ground beneath Langston is shaking violently now and around her demons are losing their feet. She seems to look right at me as her face twists in horror as she too is thrown up into the air.
Kane reaches for her, but before their hands meet, a demon springs up from the ground behind him.
“Kaneeeeee,” I scream, but I’m too late.
The demon drags a small dagger over the back of both of Kane’s ankles, cutting through his Achilles’ tendons and dropping him to the ground in a heap. Regal is surrounded by a throng of demons so thick I can’t even see him.
I watch as Langston falls into the chasm in slow motion. I can hear her screaming for help. She hasn’t fallen. She couldn’t have, or I wouldn’t be able to hear her cries. She is clinging on for dear life.
I begin to drag myself forward on my elbows again. I know I’ll never reach her in time, but I can’t just lie here and wait for her to plummet to her death. A demon runs towards me and steps on my back, pinning me in place on the ground, and another wave of pain grips me. I grit my teeth and push my upper body up fast, throwing him to one side. He stumbles, and his weight is gone from me, but he keeps his footing.
I feel a rib bone scraping against my lungs. The demon must have broken it when he stepped on me. I roll onto my side and fire into his legs, cutting them out from under him. He falls to the ground beside me with a roar of anger.
He fires into me, and I feel another searing pain through my rib cage as his shot connects. Two more ribs snap, and it’s all I can do to fire back. This shot catches him in his pug-ugly face, and I close my eyes as his face explodes before me. This time I’m not just splattered with blood, I am covered in lumps of flesh and gray gobs of brain matter.
I retch again, and then I remind myself that Langston is hanging from the chasm edge and I swallow hard. I roll onto my front again and turn back towards the chasm and start dragging myself forwards.
Each pull makes me scream in pain as my ribs protest being dragged along the ground in their broken state. Even the snow does nothing to cushion me now, and I might as well be dragging myself across a field of broken glass.
I look toward Langston, and I feel the first tiny ray of hope I’ve felt since the demons first attacked us. Kane has dragged himself to the edge of the chasm, and he has Langston’s hand firmly in his.
“Pull yourself up,” he shouts loudly.
Langston’s head appears over the edge of the chasm as she does what he said. I am almost to them now. Another fifty feet and I’ll be there by their side.
A demon runs in and pulls back his foot to kick Langston in the face, but my shot reaches him before his booted foot connects, and he falls to the ground. Kane is bleeding so heavily now I’m amazed he’s even still conscious, let alone has enough energy left to hold Langston’s weight as she drags herself back out of the chasm.
Langston hooks a leg on solid ground, and she’s up. She lies beside Kane panting.
“I’m okay,” she says. “Come on.”
She goes to stand, and she sees Kane’s legs. She gasps, and I see the fight go out of her as swarms of demons run to them. A demon spots me lying amongst the scattered bodies, and he grins in delight.
“I’ve got a live one,” he shouts, and instantly I am surrounded by a pack of them.
I make a half-hearted attempt to fire into them as I accept my fate. Evil won over good. Darkness extinguished the light. And chaos ruled over love.
A foot connects with my already screaming ribs and my vision goes white, flashes of yellow light exploding through the blinding whiteness. My ears roar and I feel a rush of dizziness. I almost succumb to it. It would be nice to just float away and not feel any more pain, but I can’t just give in.
I bite down on the inside of my mouth and bring myself back to my senses in a flood of saliva that tastes of coppery blood.
Langston is on her feet as the demons around her kick at Kane. One of them looks at
her and grins a grin so evil it makes my insides freeze up. She fires into him, and he’s down. She tries to erect a shield around Kane, but it’s hopeless. The demons are so close to him that any shield that covered him would include them inside of it.
He’s rolled onto his back, and he’s somehow still swinging his sword, but I can see him getting weaker with each swipe. I have lost sight of Perry, Saudia, and Regal completely now and I can only hope they’re still hanging on.
I feel a pain in my ankle as a demon stomps on it and the bone is mashed against his foot. Rather than causing me distress, it gives me hope. The paralysis is wearing off. But what good will it do?
“Guys, I have an idea,” Langston shouts. “Get down.”
She throws her arms towards the sky and pauses. What is she doing? Has the thought of imminent death sent her over the edge? I think it has. A demon fires into her stomach and she screams as a hole appears there, blood spraying all around her. But she doesn’t lower her arms.
Her head is thrown back, staring into the sky, her mouth forming a silent scream. A boom of thunder so loud it shakes the ground sounds out, and Langston actually smiles. A flash of lightning follows it, and Langston screams out, a wild, animalistic cry of triumph and pain and longing.
The tendons stand out in her neck as the lightning rushes towards her and strikes the tips of her fingers, and I know what she’s doing. She’s controlling the electrical current of the lightning.
“Get off the ground, guys,” she yells.
She holds the charge in her body, and I can see the pain of holding it on her face. She reaches down to Kane and roughly shoves him. He screams, but she doesn’t stop until she’s rolled his body onto the body of a dead demon. I know what I have to do now, and I clamber onto the nearest dead demon, thanking my lucky stars that the paralysis broke when it did.
Langston drops to her knees and presses her palms flat against the ground. With an ear-splitting scream, she lets go of the lightning and slams it through the ground.
I swear she lights up as she does it. Sparks fly from her, and a fork of lightning flies up into the sky from her body.
