by Callie Stone
And, despite the growing din of horrid, anxious static, the sounds of actual panicked screams had begun to cut through it all, with the high registered shrieks of horror and the stampeding of shoes across the supermarket floor telling the aural story that what was happening was real and it was happening to everybody in that store, at the very least.
My mind reeled in horror at what I could sense. It felt like something was ripping open a hole in the sky and a tidal wave of color was pouring out, bathing everything it touched in an unearthly glow.
Troy and I were the only ones left in the grocery store, at least that I could see, seemingly paralyzed as the glow evolved from a pale color to a deeper and darker red.
There were a few terrified voices still filtering in from somewhere—maybe still with us in the store, or maybe whatever was causing all of it was toying with our perception.
Whatever this energy was, it was taking on a demonic dimension.
2
Lost in the Supermarket
Troy
I stepped protectively, although with some great effort as the air had become like molasses, in front of poor Natasha as the evil energy continued to flood through the grocery store. I could tell Natasha wanted to shiver, and honestly I did as well, as the aura the pouring over everything had was becoming a hellish crimson and the atmosphere was becoming frigid cold.
The floor started to vibrate and crack, as if the building foundation was breaking down.
Then, as the demonic power kept flooding through the area, stair-like cracks formed from the floor and ascended up to the sky. It started to become like a dream, or a movie, where I felt as though the feel of the ground beneath me was fading and I were simply floating, forced to passively view whichever images were before me.
From between those cracks, red lightning started to split the sky and rain poured down molten silver.
There were all seemingly mirages, though, as the apocalyptic visions kept shifting and morphing like a waking nightmare, much more vivid than any dream.
The demonic magic was fearsome and unfathomable.
My mind was overtaken with the occasional freezing cold which would grip the usually warm and pleasant place I came from, where I once lived long ago. There was no doubt that there were malevolent forces afoot, be they demonic or some other evil, playing with my own store of memories and likely Natasha’s as well. Out of the growing swell of the buzzing, droning sound, I heard a deafening scream of monstrous proportions and the scene faded out and another faded in—almost as if the two visions were dissolving into each other—I saw a bright red dragon the size of the Arc de Triomphe swoop down from the sky and clamp its jaws around the Eiffel Tower.
That horrible series of sounds and images vanished as the reality of Natasha and I, subtly shivering in the cold in the empty Parisian grocery store flashed before me again.
The feeling of being near frozen yet near paralysed, the sad, empty spaces of the supermarket with the scent of mass panic still lingering—it all felt so real and was so real. Yet even realer was the sight of bright crimson then flooding every part of my field of sight and the sensation of being lifted then thrown hither and thither in a vast, empty realm with a formless red and orange glowing atmosphere.
Natasha and I did not land as much as found ourselves tumbling on a warm, dewy ground of dirt and unkempt grass. It took neither of us long to find ourselves upright in the midst of some meadow which, to me, was so strangely familiar that I almost let out a gasp.
What had begun as a routine trip to the grocer by our flat in Paris, had somehow led to Natasha and I taking a quite unplanned journey and ending up in a place I recognised but had never necessarily expected to ever see again.
The Kingdom of the Fae was an idyllic realm, widely known—to those who knew of its existence at all—to be a place quite simply yet best described as being full of magic and wonder. At least, that’s how I’d remembered it from eons ago—and until that moment I had assumed it was the same as when I’d last seen it.
As Natasha and I stood there then, as familiar as it was to me, it was also devoid of any life I could perceive. However, I recognised so clearly that we were not only within the kingdom itself, but I believed I had recognised the area in which we had found ourselves as well.
It was, or at least it had seemed, near to where the main palace was located, although the palace was not in sight of where we were standing—and wherever that was within the kingdom exactly, I could no longer recall.
It is an incredible phenomenon indeed, the way that memories of all sorts could come flooding back almost instantly with only the barest reminder of a time and place.
For me, it had been countless years, many human lifetimes since I had last seen the kingdom with my own eyes. Yet, before I could even consider what was currently afoot, the deepest recesses of my memory flung a vivid recollection of that palace into my consciousness:
The palace was made of black, veined marble, with a courtyard of similar marble paving around a stone fountain which, as far as I’d ever seen or known, provided a never ending flow of water. There were once bewitched lanterns that made the surrounding forest bright as day when the sun dipped below the horizon, but for whatever odd reason in my reminiscent vision, those lanterns looked long burnt out and badly decayed.
The sudden evocation of the palace in my mind’s eye must have been influenced by the barren, desolate landscape which laid out before Natasha and I in that moment.
This was not the kingdom I remembered. Natasha was next to me, still shivering although whatever strange demon-created version of my kingdom of origin we were in was much warmer than that of the Parisian grocer from which we’d been transported. Instinctively, I grabbed and held the poor woman against me. I’d never felt Natasha that near to me before. Even in that horrible moment, it made me feel better.
“What is this place?” Natasha asked me, her voice quiet and concerned. “Where are we?”
“The Kingdom,” I started. “It is, it was, in my mind’s eye, an enchanting and idyllic place. There was, I mean, for long I’d thought if I’d ever see it again, it was supposed to be vibrant and brightly coloured flowers, and trees, and rabbits and deer prancing freely around in the fields. It was a whole world of nature, happy and free.”
“It doesn’t look like that anymore.”
“No,” I told her. That was quite obvious, but it was a moment in which it was understandable to not know just what in this world or any other to possibly say.
The Kingdom of the Fae was a place where such beings as fairies and pixies resided, as well as other peaceful creatures. The denizens of the kingdom, including those who made up my maternal lineage, were largely beings who did not die of disease or age in the same way as humans—thus my own memories being centuries old. My brain had held onto these memories for long enough that many of them lived in a blurry haze of idyllic nostalgia. However, all those eons of nostalgia would not be sufficient to provide the contrast between my personal image of the vibrant realm and the forsaken, desolate expanse spread before us in all directions.
Determined, in some sort of silent bond of shared competency and a stoic intelligence I believed Natasha and I both to share, we started along a dirt path through the fields of long withered grass, towards the visible turrets, over a hillside, of one of the myriad stone castles which overlooked all of this once beautiful land.
As we got closer to the castle, we saw that a large number of fairies were flying around it, laughing, floating, frolicking throughout the land and air. There was no relief on my part upon seeing this sight, though one would expect it. The gulf separating the somber scene we’d been walking and the joyful scene magically occurring defied belief because it was literally magical.
Surely enough, the vision of the joyous, playful creatures began flickering in and out, another demonic mind trick for sure. It was replaced by the continued reality of a barren wasteland, a kingdom empty of life, with the lively image even teasin
gly flickering in and out of view like a hologram atop the derelict castle.
As we lumbered forward, outwardly numb to the insanity we’d just witnessed, I could finally feel Natasha break our near-zombie-like spell of listlessness with the warm sensation of her eyes upon me. When I craned my neck to see Natasha’s large, usually winsome eyes, then full of confusion and uncertainty, I realised that what I thought was stoicism on her past may have been the much more appropriate reaction of shock.
“This is…” Natasha began her question the moment we made eye contact, although she was not sure how to finish, I knew exactly what she was asking.
“This is where I came from, I’m still sure of it.”
“But what was it like?”
Never had I dreamed about returning to the kingdom under the current circumstances, and especially not with Natasha. Yet, there was something inside of me that sensed that she could grasp my connection to that place more than anyone, and that she was also somehow grasping the pain which I may not have yet realised I was even feeling.
In that moment, as Natasha was looking up at me and not straight forward towards the castle, there was a sudden urge to take her hand, which I needed to nip in the bud. However, I did take the opportunity to spell out some facts about the kingdom for her illumination and my own memory.
“All that time ago, this was a utopia…in some ways.” What I intended was for a big, long, elaborate speech, conveying everything I could about the kingdom’s past, about my past and what I knew, about what I thought was happening and what I knew for sure was happening, but the words only came to me in jagged fragments of thought. “Everyone was content. I saw no injustice or cruelty, and the forests were filled with all manner of magical beasts and plants.”
I didn’t even know how to continue. I felt like I’d just keep repeating the same sentiments, an innocent, almost childlike series of platitudes painting a fuzzy image of a home I then knew assuredly that I’d never see again.
I dared glance over at Natasha, just for the briefest of moments as not to forfeit caution to the dangers ahead.
Again, with a measured calm and only the hint of bemusement, Natasha nodded her head slightly. Whether I was projecting or not, there was a clear message to me in that nod.
There were more relevant things to explain.
Yet, as we heard the faint sounds of cloven hooves and claws begin to echo in the landscape, I still wasn’t sure where to begin.
The place where Natasha and I had found ourselves thrown—from the inauspicious environment of a supermarket in France—was a far cry from the kingdom I remembered. It had been ravaged, surely, by the same demons or whichever that had brought us there.
There was a remnant of a dirt path which happened to be underneath our feet as we marched towards the large structure in the distance. While at first I had been certain that none other than demons themselves could have been responsible for the predicament my teammate and I found ourselves in, there was something strange about the way a series of dead leaves and fallen twigs were laying on the ground as we continued. The debris looked like it had been left there by natural forces, but there was something about the way it seemed almost consciously arranged, resembling some odd starlike symbol I felt I would have recognised if it had any significance.
As we passed the strangely-arranged pile of sticks and leaves, whatever odd, vague associations it made towards the back of my mind faded with merciful haste.
Our dazed walk of horror—in the possibly misguided guise of reconnaissance—continued in renewed yet even more absurd silence as the then much too familiar sound of demon hooves doing their ghastly work became more and more apparent.
While the monstrous legions were not immediately present in our sight, I felt my right hand—the very same hand with which I’d been tempted to tenderly take Natasha’s own hand—was now clenching into a furious, tightly drawn fist of in bounds indignation as the demons’ handiwork became sickeningly apparent.
Between us and the castle was a marketplace, or at least the site where a market once stood. I had not noticed until we were nearly stepping over the remains of it, much of it had been buried under the debris of shattered, scattered and burnt tree branches and all matter of other vegetation.
Walking, approaching the utterly decimated outdoor market, my stomach began to drop, firstly when I noticed the vestiges of lumber materials—the remnants of wooden kiosks—amongst the downed tree branches. However, what had made my hand just grip into itself furiously, and my jaw tender into a grinding furore was the sickening sight of blood, flesh, and nauseating gore.
It felt like less than an hour previous, I’d been stepping through the doors of a Parisian supermarket with my colleague and friend, Natasha, on a lovely summer morning. In barely more than the blink of an eye the two of us were about to find a way to step around or over the remains of fairy folk, shop owners leading once peaceful lives, torn apart and left to rot like the debris surrounding them.
There was nothing that could prepare any creature in any realm to witness such a sight—except, of course, those creatures whose inner workings were wholly ensconced in pure darkness. The creatures whose nature was to dedicate their eternity of existence to the pain, destruction, and torment to any other beings capable of enduring their atrocities.
“You have not been good at all. You have not been good, and now you will feel the wrath of Hell!”
As the reedy voice suddenly growled from near directly overhead, I instinctively unclenched my fist just in time for Natasha to grasp tightly onto my hand.
That time, it was her idea, and she went through with it, not only clasping my hand with her own but gripping tightly and securely.
Smart move, Natasha, I thought to myself. Now the beast knows we are united against him.
It had seemed to make perfect sense at the time, you see.
As Natasha and I looked up at the floating, stinking, wisp of a creature above us, the demon hissed at us as nonsensically as he bellowed in guttural, rasping tongues of some sort before his words—quickly yet somehow with a painstaking slowness.
The winged thing was limbless and its entire body was a putrid shade of reddish brown, with jagged stumps for horns and a diffused orange aura that seemed to hang like an ineffable cloud of filth around it. Not wanting to waste the energy it would have taken to fight him at that point, I could tell by the looks of the thing that a touch of backbone would be enough to send him packing.
“Gone with you!” I commanded to the flying beast. Annoyingly, it continued to hover, fluttering overhead. I knew it had no answers, it had not a mind capable of such, and would only follow us and make trouble if we had attempted to ignore it.
“Go away, little angels,” he crooked at us. I could feel Natasha bristle at his asinine, feathered attempt at sarcasm, her hand’s grip loosening from mine.
“You know not what we are,” I replied to the beast, speaking loudly to ensure it knew we would not fear a fight if it came to that.
“Angels. So proud and serious. We’re just having fun up here. You angels always take everything so seriously.” And with that, the thing flew off, back in the direction Natasha and I had been walking from.
Why he referred to me as an angel, I did not know, nor did I care whether he had mistaken me for such a creature or if he were simply playing some standard monstrous mind games.
However, I certainly appreciated the flying thing leaving us be. I may not have cared, but I didn’t appreciate the way he seemed to mistake me for an angel, serious or not. I especially did not appreciate the way Natasha had seemed to slacken her grip on my hand each time he repeated the word until she’d let go entirely.
While it had somehow seemed like a safer and more efficient idea for us to stay hand in hand as we continued, I respected Natasha’s wishes as a colleague and teammate and we seemed to reach a taciturn agreement to walk around the worst of the marketplace carnage, giving it a wide berth.
“Is it…him?�
�� asked Natasha. She was not referring to the floating little gnat of a demon we’d dispensed with, or anything that was in our sight at the moment. In yet another moment of evidence that Director Hask had made the right decision in teaming us up together, I was able to intuitively grasp who and what Natasha was referring to with her cryptic query.
She was referring to the half-demon, Zavier, who we had battled only recently. In a previous mission, Zavier and his minions had insisted on making our lives a quite literal living hell with frequently disruptive demon battles, portals and transit between realms both planned and unplanned. Natasha was assuming, not unreasonably, that Zavier was behind this. “This all seems like his handiwork, but no, these are real demons,” I told her. Zavier was half human, and likely still imprisoned the depths of the lower realm.
“No, I mean right there.” Advancing through the lifeless landscape of my former kingdom, Natasha pointed towards the only other being currently in our line of sight, who I had not noticed previously.
It skulked, vaguely human-like, covered in some sort of garb of a nature obscured by the acrid air. From where I stood, I could only see a grey mask of a soulless, emotionless, face with two deep, dark chasms of black nothingness where eyes would be. Its appearance only became note ghastly and lifeless the closer it drew. It seemed to be walking in our direction without notice of us.
“No, that’s also a demon, with no humanity I can discern. I’m not sure why you mistake it for Zavier, but perhaps I’m missing something.”
Natasha’s body inched subtly closer to mine as she tried to get a closer look at the ghoulish being. “I...I’m not sure what I was thinking.”
Zavier was half human, and likely still exiled in the depths of the lower realm, humiliated by the defeat he had suffered at Natasha’s own magnificent hand. We continued wandering slowly through the almost lifeless landscape of my former kingdom, but with the open, unobstructed path in front of us, we could not escape the sight of the demon, which was moving in some almost mindless, ambling way.
