Follow the Ashes: Book 1 of the Executioner Trilogy

by Kindra Sowder

  Any happiness that Chase had given me since the moment of Gordon’s death was something I didn’t deserve. I didn’t deserve happiness from now until the day I died, and I knew it with everything I had. I needed that happiness though. I needed it to thrive, and to continue to want to fight to save the world. I needed it to keep the hatred and the anger from taking me over to the point where I wasn’t the same person anymore. I would become bitter and resentful. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be happy, and I had a feeling Gordon would have wanted that for me too. That happiness with Gordon was my last chance to have it, and I had blown it.

  I walked into the living room to find Chase asleep on the couch, a fire burning strong in the fireplace. As soon as I saw those flames I knew he hadn’t been the one to light that fire. I wasn’t sure how I knew. I just did. I could feel her evil in the air once again and the stink of it made me want to vomit. I could hear her laughter taunting me, making its way through the halls and into every room.

  I ran up to Chase on the couch and shook him, telling him to wake up. It took a few seconds but he finally opened his eyes, and proceeded to blink at me like he wasn’t fully awake just yet. I wasn’t going to let him die too, so he needed to go ahead and wake up before he got himself killed. I didn’t care about me. I wasn’t going to let someone else die because of me, especially not someone who had nothing to do with any of this. He was truly an innocent bystander, and no more innocence would be lost. Not on my watch.

  “Chase. Get up! You have to get out of here!” I couldn’t help but yell at him. It was as if he wasn’t truly listening to what I was saying. I understood the confusion he was feeling, but my urgency to have him out of the house and safe was surpassing every single ounce of logic.

  He looked at me confused, but he followed my instructions anyways. He got up off of the couch, stumbling towards the door in the haze of sleep. But then as soon as I could tell he had woken completely up, he began to fight me and refused to go out the door. It now stood wide open, and I was practically begging him to leave. I had no choice. He undeniably had to get out of the house before she made her full presence known.

  I used all of the strength I had and pushed him out of the door. I watched him land flat on his back, but it was too late. I could feel her at my back, and I could feel her anger and rage. As soon as I slowly turned to face her, a fear so strong it rivaled anything I had ever felt took over. I almost sank to my knees before her like I would worship her to save myself.

  Then I felt it. I felt the cold steel of a dagger dig its way into my abdomen to the hilt. She didn’t need that to be able to end my life, but it was her weapon of choice tonight. She removed it with such determination, I knew this was it. She then disappeared from sight almost as if leaving my life for good. I knew that wasn’t true. I could feel my blood pouring out of me and over my hands as I tried to desperately to hold it in. I knew that Lilith was going to be playing a major part in my future.

  I fell and Chase was there to catch me, tears streaming down his face. His screams for help were filling the air. He was an emergency service worker right? He would know how to save me, but as soon as I looked into his eyes I knew there was no way I was going to be able to survive this. His honey-colored eyes were filled with sorrow, and I couldn’t help myself. I used the last bit of strength I had left as my life poured out of me to caress his cheek, letting him know everything would be alright. The blood on my hand rubbed off onto his face. I felt myself take one last breath as I blacked out from blood loss, and that was it. It wasn’t as scary as I had thought it would be. Dying was easy. Living was so much harder. My life was over, but someone had other plans for me.

  I was back in the place filled with clouds and Gordon was again before me. This time he was smiling, and was welcoming me with open arms just waiting to wrap them around my body. I was going to be with him in what some called Heaven, but I felt like I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t fulfill my destiny and I didn’t deserve this. The world was still so close to peril and I wasn’t going to be there to save it. As suddenly as I had been there, an earthquake began to shake the ground, making it crack and the orange glow of fire was creeping its way through. It began to turn my happiness into instant terror and bereavement at the loss of perfect happiness with Gordon forever. Again.

  As soon as the ground shattered beneath our feet I was falling and falling fast. All I could see as I fell were never-ending flames and darkness. The same darkness I could feel in Lilith, except more primal and pure than that. Then I landed hard, and the pain was like every bone in my body shattered. By some miracle my body still remained intact. I didn’t want to move at all for fear of what I would see.

  I pushed myself up and was dumbfounded. I was surrounded by jagged mountains on one side. There was lava flowing from every single one of them as well as patches of fire burning along the banks of a deep, glowing chasm. Screams filled the air and I knew where they were coming from. Coughs were escaping my lungs, and I was covered in soot from head to toe. Smoke and ash were filling my lungs.

  I crawled my way to the edge of the chasm and shrieked at what I saw. Men and women of all ages were swimming through boiling magma. They were trying to dig themselves out by climbing up the walls of the chasm or onto rocks sticking out from the burning liquid. This wouldn’t help them. They would only fall right back in again. Their screams of pain and torture echoed through the atmosphere. I looked behind me to find a menacingly black forest with leafless trees and terrifying sounds coming from its depths. This was nothing like I would have imagined. This was much worse.

  As I stood and looked towards the forest that was surely filled to the brim with nightmares, I heard a familiar voice from behind me. I knew instantly who it was. He was there to greet me in Heaven, and he would be there to meet me in Hell. He was there to torture me because I had let him die while I was able to do nothing to save him. He seemed okay until he started to burn from the inside out, just like he had in my dream before my life had ended. My cries were the next to echo through the depths of this monstrous place. I knew letting my fear show was a sign of weakness, but to see him burning yet again was frightening. I wanted nothing more than to be able to pull him from those flames, and take him away from it all. I wanted to save him, but just like before I was helpless and weak.

  I ran as fast as I could from the figure that was supposed to be Gordon, but I knew wasn’t. It was something devised for me to torture me until I gave up. I knew that for a fact. I crashed through the trees before I even realized I was at the edge of the forest. All the while, small branches that hung down to greet me whipped my face, leaving a series of small cuts behind. I was met by bright red eyes peeking out at me through the black foliage, and I had no choice but to stop running. I was surrounded and all I knew was to call out to the one person who had never left my side.

  I shouted out Beth’s name as loud as I could with my smoke-filled lungs. The red eyes came closer and closer, and there was nothing I could do but let them. I would be suffering in my own personal hell, a hell full of creatures I had slain myself over the years.

  I screamed out to her one more time hoping, by some miracle, she could hear me.