I Am Never Alone

by Campbell, Jamie

  We needed to yell now to be heard above the commotion happening around us. The lights, the wind, and now the steady rumble of the earth. It was creepy the way the candles were still burning even through the layers of swirling wind.

  The room was shaking so much that I prayed the roof would hold above us. If that started tumbling down, we would have no chance of escaping. We were too far underground, in the belly of the earth, too easily swallowed and consumed.

  “Lirach tasa vefa wehlic, Belial.”

  Our mouths moved but I could no longer hear anything. Rocks, shaken loose from the movement, started to crash around us. Any moment now I expected one to fall on us, tumble down and wipe us out.

  But they didn’t.

  The wind twisting around our linked bodies seemed to be protecting us, acting as a force field to keep us safe.

  Safe was a relative term at that stage.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw new movement. I forcibly tore my gaze away from Jet to look to my right. Through the wind, lights, and shower of rocks, there was a new glow which had nothing to do with the candles.

  The side of the cavern was opening up like the walls itself were being ripped away. At first it was nothing more than a foot big, but then it grew. Inch by inch the wall burned away, making the hole larger.

  I saw what was on the other side.

  And I had never known true horror until that moment.

  We were looking directly into Hell.

  Between the fiery pits that looked to contain something like lava, the damned souls of humans toiled in despair. Some were sprawled on the ground, crying out as if to call an end to their torment. Others walked around in a haze, their features twisted with pain of an endless eternity in amongst the horror.

  These souls were once people.

  Their forms still resembled how they would have looked when they walked the earth if you looked hard enough. You had to see past the perpetual physical and mental anguish to truly recognize them.

  I could feel the heat emanating from the hole that now covered the entire wall beside us. My body felt like it was on fire, ready to ignite at any moment. My skin was about to melt to my bones and then my bones would turn to ashes.

  To make it all that much worse, it was calling to me.

  As incredibly horrible as Hell was, it drew me in. It lured me to it like a siren’s song. I wanted to be in there, in amongst all the lost souls.

  I needed to be in there.

  One foot started my movement toward it.

  Jet pulled me back, refusing to let me out of his tight grasp.

  But going through the hole seemed like the most important thing in my life at that moment. I had to go through it, I had to enter Hell or I would die just by being outside it.

  “Everly, don’t!” Jet yelled, his voice barely audible over the roar of the fire.

  I heard him but it was like he was speaking to someone else. I didn’t understand who Everly was or what she was supposed to not do.

  How could the boy be able to refuse the pull so easily?

  He tugged at my hands sharply, making me face him and not the portal into Hell. He only looked vaguely familiar.

  I tried my step again.

  And got the same sharp tug back.

  He was stopping me entering the place where I really needed to be and it was making me angry. I tried yanking out of his grip but he only held onto me tighter.

  I would have hit him if he didn’t have both of my hands.

  On my third attempt to get away and dive through the portal, a flash of fire stopped me. The impact of the rush tore our hands apart. Finally I was free of him.

  But the portal was hidden behind the wall of fire. And standing in front of it was Kostucha. I was returned to my being, remembering why I was there again. The fog containing my brain lifted.

  “How dare you!” he roared. His breath came out in streams of fire, licking at everything it touched.

  He didn’t hesitate for a second before rushing at us. Both Jet and I stumbled backwards to avoid the first blow he sent our way. He was manipulating the fire, using it to throw balls of torment at us.

  “Jet, what do we do?” I screamed. None of this was in the instructions for the ritual. We were completely off the books now.

  “Try to stay alive,” he answered, ducking another fireball.

  We walked backwards down the tunnel as Kostucha continued coming toward us. The further he got from the fiery wall, the more solid his body grew.

  Which meant we could fight him.

  His eyes were nothing but black globes in the sea of his brown and lumpy skin. There was no nose, just a lump in the middle of his face with two holes for nostrils. There were no lips, just rough edges to what had to be his mouth.

  His brown body, covered with the same layer of bumps that had the same texture as sandpaper, was large but spindly. His limbs seemed to be too long for his body, able to be everywhere all at once. His feet were little more than webbed blobs.

  “Jet, look,” I said, pointing. “He’s taking form.”

  Jet nodded, quickly catching on. The minute Kostucha was completely separate from the flames, we stopped our backward motion.

  And then we charged.

  I wasn’t a fighter, I couldn’t even fathom being in a fight with someone before the Event. Even now, all I thought I was capable of was some poor attempts at self-defense.

  But when you were fighting for your life, you found some skills.

  Jet took the brunt of the attack, having much more experience than me. He landed one, two, three blows to Kostucha’s stomach as I kicked at his shins. He was taller than both of us but he was outnumbered.

  We could do this.

  We landed blow after blow on his body, Jet’s more strategic while mine were wherever I could reach. We fought with abandonment, holding absolutely nothing back.

  Kostucha suddenly struck out with his arm and Jet went sailing backwards. He landed with a thick thud against a bank of rocks, his body folding backwards in a way in which it was not supposed to.

  It only made me angrier.

  I charged, landing a fist to his side and another at his chest. I pounded on his body until he flung me away like I was nothing more than a fly to be swatted in annoyance.

  My back hit the wall… hard. My head snapped backwards with the momentum, sending a crack right through my body. Everything spun around me for a few moments as my vision blurred. The last thing I saw was a flash of movement as Jet rushed at the demon again.

  The temptation to keep my eyes closed was considerable but I fought against it. Jet needed my help and we had to kill Kostucha before he killed us.

  Now was no time for weakness.

  My eyes sprang open and I took stock. Jet was trying to use the demon’s size to topple him over. That was something I could help with. I charged at him, grabbing his arm and yanking just like Jet was doing.

  Kostucha staggered forwards with the surprise, he hadn’t been expecting me to rejoin the fray so soon. He let out a yelp, it was a nice change from the threats he had continued to spit at us since being summoned.

  The portal to Hell behind him was still blazing brightly. Every time I looked up I was reminded of the blinding light and had to squint just to see anything.

  “Everly, now!” Jet yelled. I followed his lead and pulled again, putting all my weight behind trying to slay the dragon. Perhaps we should have brought weapons. If we suspected for a moment that Kostucha would have a corporeal body, we would have loaded up on every sword, knife, gun, and dagger we could find.

  The demon swayed and tripped. My heart stopped while waiting for him to fall.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, he lunged at Jet. He took him into his embrace, managing to get both hands around Jet’s neck. He struggled against him as all the air was squeezed from his lungs.

  “No!” I screamed.

  There was no thinking, only reacting. I had to get him away from Jet at all costs.


  I rushed at the demon, jumping on Kostucha’s back and reaching for his face from behind. I wanted to inflict as much damage as I could on him and I figured his eyes were a good place to start.

  Over his shoulder I could see Jet’s face. He didn’t have long, maybe only seconds. He couldn’t breathe, his windpipe was being slowly crushed while Kostucha enjoyed every single moment of the torment.

  My fingers found the sockets of his skull and I didn’t hesitate in crushing them into his eyeballs.

  Kostucha roared in pain, releasing Jet and standing taller to throw me off him. He staggered from side to side, moving quickly and deliberately to make it difficult to hold on.

  I couldn’t.

  My grip around his neck slipped, giving him the advantage he needed. I was thrown against the wall for a second time. Either it wasn’t as hard this time or I was already numb but the impact wasn’t as bad as the first go.

  My money was on the latter.

  Jet was on the floor, one hand around his throat and the other against the wall as he tried to re-inflate his lungs. My instincts were to rush over to him, do anything I could to make his suffering less. But I couldn’t.

  There was still a demon to deal with and he wasn’t going to stop until we were both down for the count.

  The sound of Kostucha’s laughter echoed in the cavern, bouncing off the walls and making it sound like there were dozens of the demons instead of just one. There may as well have been. Our odds of defeating them couldn’t have been any worse.

  New movement behind the demon caught my eye. My gaze reluctantly moved to see what it was, even though I was hesitant to take my attention off Kostucha for even a moment.

  Spirits were rushing into the portal, breezing through into Hell without hesitating. There had to be at least eight of them, all their human forms bunched together.

  And then the screaming started.

  These were not spirits that were supposed to be in Hell. I knew the truth of that down to the very core of my bones. They were sucked into the underworld with nothing more than the mere force of the portal.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

  I must have started moving toward the portal because I was abruptly stopped by a strong hand gripped around my waist.

  “Everly, there’s nothing you can do. You have to stay here,” Jet said, just loudly enough for me to hear over the noise.

  Innocent souls were being forced into Hell to spend the rest of eternity being tortured by every inch of evil the place had to offer. They didn’t deserve that. That shouldn’t have been their fate. It wasn’t their fate. They should have been in Heaven now, resting in peace in the hereafter.

  Kostucha had caused this.

  He was the reason why the spirits were here to begin with instead of passing over naturally. Nothing about this was natural. Or fair. It was unjust in the worst possible way.

  What if Oliver had been one of those souls?

  The thought hit me harder than a wrecking ball. A punch to the gut could not have made me stagger backwards any more than that image in my mind. That fear in my heart.

  The burning terror morphed into searing rage.

  Kostucha was not going to get away with this.

  I needed to stop this before any more souls were taken to the depths of Hell.

  “Jet, stand back,” I ordered.

  My hands balled into fists, clenching and unclenching with the rush of the blood in my ears. Jet took one look at me and stepped backwards, realizing there was something I had to do.

  “You think that was something, little girl?” Kostucha taunted, sneering with each word. “It’s only the beginning. If you play with me, you’re going to get burned.”

  If he thought he scared me, he was wrong.

  I lived with worse monsters.

  Without giving him any warning, I ran at the demon. My shoulder collided with his stomach with a whoosh that knocked the air out of his lungs. He had strength, but I had the element of surprise.

  He took one step backward.

  And then another.

  Both involuntary.

  I rushed at him again, this time going for an injury to his leg. He hadn’t expected that either. He took another step backwards.

  This time, it was enough to knock him completely off balance. Kostucha’s ankle caught on the bottom of the portal. It was just enough to tip him backwards.

  He reached for me, determined to take me with him wherever he was going. I struggled to get out of his grasp, desperate to put as much distance between us as possible.

  I could not let him take me.

  My mind screamed with the order. I had to get out of his hold or I was going to suffer the same fate as him. Alarm bells rang in my head, eclipsing every other rational thought that might have been present.

  I twisted my body, forcing every limb to fight against the demon. My hand collided with his arm, scratching with every single one of my fingernails.

  It was just enough.

  The demon fell into the portal with a roar so loud I had to cover my ears with my hands as I was released. The power emanating from Hell rushed out, forcing me backwards too. I was pushed back until I felt an arm around me. Jet held me in place, my anchor just like he was before.

  And then the portal closed.

  It had taken minutes to open and only seconds to close again. From covering a whole wall down to a single point no larger than a needle. And then nothing.

  Darkness surrounded us once again.

  The quietness after all that noise was deafening. It didn’t feel real, everything that had just happened felt like it was little more than a dream.

  Or a nightmare.

  But I couldn’t think of that right now. There was only one thought in my head.

  I had to get to Oliver.

  Chapter Eighteen

  My legs couldn’t move fast enough. All the injuries I wore like proud battle scars screamed in pain with every step I pounded on the ground under me.

  Oliver.

  I had to get to him.

  If Kostucha was vanquished into Hell that meant the barrier to the afterlife was open. Oliver was waiting for me, he wouldn’t leave until I told him I was ready.

  But, God, I was not ready.

  I had to get to him before anything happened. He promised me he would wait and he had to be okay. But until I saw him with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. I needed to see him more than I needed to breathe.

  “Everly, what’s wrong?”

  Jet.

  I had heard his footsteps fall into step with mine but they hadn’t registered into my conscious thoughts.

  “Oliver. I have to make sure he’s okay,” I panted back.

  As if understanding my urgency, Jet remained silent, not asking anything further as we silently ran through the long tunnels. I had never noticed just how long they were before.

  Around twists and turns, corners, ramps, and under vents, we moved fluidly like snakes in unison. Every second felt like an hour, every minute as long as a day.

  The entire time all my thoughts could scream was Oliver’s name. The image of his face floated in my mind, reminding me exactly what I had been fighting for.

  Up and up we raced. My heart was exploding in my chest, ready to burst through and shatter at any moment. My breaths were coming in large gasps, hungry for air and thirsty for oxygen.

  It didn’t matter.

  I pushed through it.

  The daylight at the end of the tunnel was the most beautiful sight of the day. I flew out of the entrance and slowed down, scanning the area for the one face I so desperately needed to see.

  He was there.

  Oliver was standing exactly where he promised he would.

  “Oliver, I did it,” I muttered, bordering on crying tears from relief at seeing him.

  I had been wrong. The daylight hadn’t been the most beautiful sight. Oliver was.

  I hurried to stand in front of him, conscious of Jet still
refusing to leave my side. He could stay there, for once I didn’t mind.

  “You did, the other side is open,” Oliver replied. The words made everything worthwhile. Already spirits around us were starting to disappear as they faded into the light.

  Oliver started flickering. In and out like a lamp being switched on and off.

  He was leaving.

  He couldn’t be. He promised me he wouldn’t. Not until I was ready for it.

  I wasn’t.

  “Oliver, what’s-”

  “Ev, I can’t control it.”

  “No, no, no. This isn’t meant to happen. We’re supposed to have more time. Oliver, please, you promised.” Tears started rolling down my cheeks as every breath became a struggle.

  “Ev, listen to me, we don’t have much time,” Oliver said. His voice sounded statically, like a radio not quite on the station. “I need you to hear this. It’s good that I’m going.”

  “No, Oliver, it’s horrible. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  “Listen. No, it’s the right thing. You need to move on with your life, Ev. You need to let someone else love you, you need to have someone special in your life. Someone that deserves you as much as you do them.”

  “No, I don’t. I need you, nobody but you. You can’t leave me.” I hated that I was a sobbing mess but couldn’t move past the pieces of my shattered heart.

  “You are the strongest person I know, Ev. You will get through this and you will survive. No matter what happens, please know that I love you. I have loved you since the moment we first met. But it’s time for me to go. Please promise me you’ll move on and let someone else in.”

  His eyes tore from mine to glance briefly over my shoulder.

  How could he make me promise him that? There would never be anyone else for me except Oliver. He had been such a big part of my life. My entire life for the past year.

  He couldn’t leave me.

  He promised.

  The flickering was starting to get worse. We were running out of time. No matter how much I wanted him to stay, he wasn’t going to.

  He wasn’t going to.

  He really wasn’t going to.

  There were things that needed to be said.