Dangerous Encounters

Zerek watched as Phayne’s hands and eyes glowed, changing into a deep purple from their usual black and yellow. The dim blue of the arch reacting in turn, glowing a similar purple hue.

Zerek nervously began to feel warmth around him, emitting from the runes that surrounded him along the arch’s stone structure.

His heart made itself known in his chest. Adrenaline pumping back into his veins with its booming voice, screaming ‘Get out! Run! Danger!’ But what was he to do? Clearly something would happen to him, but was it wise he run? He couldn’t.  

A sneaking suspicion that the doors he’d entered through would not open for him. Should he bother trying? Was it foolish not to try, or to try at all?

If this truly was a Portal Gate, isn’t this what he and Akyro had been searching for all along? This is where he wanted to be... isn’t it?- but Zerek knew this was not how he wanted it to be, there was nothing good happening here. The feeling of dread, bubbling inside him was more proof than he needed. Phayne’s intentions were not good, whatever he was planni- “AAGHH!!”

A large whip of purple flame lapped against his right side, coming from the runes that had changed into the dangerous purple glow.

A scorched welt greeted him across his arm and side and he hunched over in pain, his head towards his knees. The heat that had accompanied the flame was still dancing over him, not just isolated to the wound, but everywhere- all across his body! He trembled, the heat and pain beckoned tears to well up in his eyes. He looked up from his spot on the floor, eyeing the door once again.

He needed out.

Had to try.

Lurching forward, he made a break for the door, but didn’t get the chance to pass from under the arch, as the gate lit up before he could reach the exit, halting him in place.
His core felt a familiar pull, as it rested on his soul energy by a power much heavier than his own. The same feeling as Phayne’s thick aura from before. And once again his knees buckled, reluctantly returning him to the ground, unable to rise again. The flares coming from the runes glowed and snapped around him. Another whipped against his back, his body only allowing him to cry out. The shooting pain screaming across his body.

Help… someone help!

Who would help? Akyro- should he miraculously arrive, could not take on a Fire Lord!
The entire world was shaking, rumbling a deep vibration that invaded his ears, louder and louder, heavier with every moment.

He tried to focus on anything else, a happier time (if that existed), but it was out of the question. His mind was racing as fast as his heart, or his heart as fast as his mind, he wasn’t sure what was racing faster but the time was drawing on, as was the white hot pain that prodded at his every nerve.

He screamed.

The whips of purple fire kept returning, ready to punish him more, and all he wanted was it to... “SSTOPPP!” the deep booming and whips of the purple flames drowned out his cries. No one was coming.

Phayne was a blur in his pain-ridden eyes. He knew he was being ignored.
He was so used to his screams being ignored.

Please… someone help, I can’t take this! Someone, please - help me!
Through the whipping flames and the pulsing of the arch’s runes, he heard a faint whispering… softly… and quiet.

Straining to listen, finally able to focus on these whispers, in his ever shaking world of sharp heat and painfully heavy power, that suffocating power weighing him down... the whispers grew louder, but were they whispering at all?

Whispers again. Or talking… he wasn’t sure, but he felt himself getting calmer, as if he was being embraced by a familiar presence.

Something safe? Someone safe?

No… not safe.

Everything was becoming distant, the pain was more like a dull ache now and he couldn’t have been more grateful for it. But who?-

Whispers…

…

A boy talking…

...

Blackness.



----

His eyes were weak. He could barely lift them high enough to see. Heavy as always.

Sealed shut?

Never.

The boy in the wheelchair rolled across the room, nattering about nothing as he always did. Bubbly. Excitable.

Annoying...

The drugs in his system were ever cycling. Despite his blood’s fast filtering.

Cycling… changing as his blood changed. Keeping him down.

Forever?

No… Not forever. Never forever.

The mask around his mouth, rubbed over his face. It pulled at his skin and was too tight sometimes, but he liked that part.

The restrictions to his movement, regulating his breathing, the foreign poisons in his bloodstream… this is what he didn’t like.

The needles in his arms and the one embedded in his spine, all this was causing the source of poisons inside him, and not the good kind.

Those infernal Hunters had figured out how to keep him subdued. It had taken a lot of perfection, many unnecessary deaths (on their part), but if the Hunters were one thing, it was diligent. He’d give them that.

“-aah, but she’s so cuuuute! I mean, really, ‘the bees knees’, as they say! Oh, but you won’t believe it, she said yes! Our date is going to be really romantic! I’ve got everything planned, right down to that very specific navy blue picnic blanket. The one I was telling you about last week, remember?” The boy rambled on as he scooted closer to him, needle in hand, talking so familiarly to him, as if he cared at all about what he was saying.

“I have this whole ‘picnic on the hill’ thing planned out. So, I asked grandma if I could crack out the real good stuff, since she’s eager to help, (I think she wants me married and out of the house) haha! Well anyway, I’m talking ‘fancy linens’, the ‘good china’, ‘the golden basket’- not that moldy one we use for shopping, I mean, candles and flowers the whole shebang! And sweet old grandma, ahh she said she’d bake her famous raspberry jam cookies for us! Only the best for my lovely Chalet!”

The young man, no more than 21, carried out his routine, adjusting dials and hooking up instruments, writing his status on the clipboard in his hand. He'd done so for years now, and as such, treated him as if he were an old friend.

Grieve was anything but a friend.

He felt stranger than usual, however. Something was there in the back of his mind, watching, feeling, it was warm, whatever it was… hot.

His mind was foggy as the second set of drugs set in for the day. Couldn’t focus on that right now. Too tired.

Sleeping?

No. Incapacitated... for now.

He'd counted 12 daily, he had 8 more hours with the chatterbox child, Calem.

Oh, how he wished to pull his tongue from his mouth, watch him fumble about, gripping at his face in pain, tears streaming down his boyish face. His voice too, would have to go. He would make him mute, only able to communicate through movement. A fitting fate for the human who loved to talk so much.

Grieve was not entirely unreasonable, he would give Calem back his ability to move, of course. Perhaps not in the traditional way of legs, but at least there'd be no use for that annoying rolling contraption. The sound of it’s squeaky wheels made his teeth grind, when he had the strength to grind his teeth, that is. Yes, the kid would walk again. A gift only a torture demon could give.

“Hey hey, what do you think?” a hand patted Grieve’s shoulder gently. Physical contact.

Good. He’ll slip up one day. Get too close.

And then…

“Yay or nay on the whole flowers thing? Too much? Like I said earlier, I was planning on having flower petals scattered everywhere, but then my friend Pike was saying that that’s sort of something you do on the third date or later, like its almost too intimate for a first date or something, you know? I’ll have to think about it some more... but, I just really like this girl, y’know? Like, I really like her. I want to show her what I got! Not like in a creepy way or anything haha! B-but just so that she knows I’m no ‘Jaykie Berns’... dang, that guy is such a tool! You wouldn’t believe what he did at the stables the other day-” Calem was next to him, fiddling with the dials of the machine above his head, adjusting the dosage of the poisons to fit with Grieve’s ever changing blood. The demon was able to graze Calem’s hand with one of his antennae. Although the boy had hardly noticed, it was a big feat for Grieve in his current state. The kid’s nattering continued mercilessly, but the drugs began fading him in and out as the poisons grew stronger.

This kind of closeness Grieve longed for. What he needed.

The moment Calem slipped up would be the moment he’d be free. As cumbersome as it was to have him around, constantly talking, talking about nothing - seriously, this child did not shut up-, he was thankful that he'd been placed under the naive, trusting one’s care. A foolish move on the Hunters part, but from what he'd heard, the woman who'd had him summoned here years ago, was no longer in charge. No longer able to dictate what happened to him and how he was dealt with.

Locked in prison, last he’d overheard. The rest of the Hunters treated Grieve as any other Hellspawn demon, but she, she knew better, and it was only dumb luck that the woman's fellow Hunters had turned on her shortly after his summoning. She’d done something illegal by pulling a demon from Hell, after all. Illegal not only in the human realm, but in all realms. Life and Death alike.

Yes… that woman. Proving far more formidable than he'd first given her credit for. He knew this was his own mistake. His own wrongdoing, having allowed Zerek to keep a link with her as long as he had, simply for his own amusement, some attempt at making a ‘stronger creation’. A mistake truly, but not one he couldn’t rectify with time...

He would drag her soul straight back to the abyss with him when this was all over. Zerek would be pleased to finally see her again. A privilege not given to many, to see a literal ghost from one’s past life.

And then he would break Astasia in front of him...

‘NO!’

An echo somewhere within the fog of his mind cried out.

A shock? No.

Expected. Planned.

It was the presence from earlier… someone was watching him, and now he knew who that someone was…

But how?

He fell back into himself, letting the drugs take hold of him enough so he could briefly access the other side that had been opened up to him.

He stood in blackness, stuck in place, unmovable, but he was here with him.

He looked… wrong.

Not how he’d left him.

Grieve frowned, looking him sideways.

“What’s happened to you?”

Zerek’s yellow eyes widened with trembling fear. He looked stunned, full of terror. It brought new light into Grieve’s red eyes.

“H-How? Where are we?” Zerek fumbled frantically looking around, trying to lift his feet but finding he also could not move. The ground was dark. This entire place was dark, but Grieve and him were clearly visible.

“An in between world. A link between you and I. Created by the magic we share in your unfinished state. I’ll ask again, what’s happened to you?”

There was a defiant silence between them that Grieve was not impressed by. He would punish him for this… if only he could move closer, if only he could reach out and touch him, he would be home again…

“Answer-”

“No!”

The sudden confidence in this little unfinished soul briefly took aback Grieve. Taken back, but also amused. It was good to see him again. Hunters were fun to change and they made such strong demons.

“Y-you can't touch me, you're not here…” Zerek stuttered, his confidence faltering. Second guessing his judgement, perhaps he was wrong? What did he see exactly? Where is Grieve right now? “I saw you in that room!” he continued, pointing to the darkness. “You're under constraint. Drugged! I saw it, and I know you can’t hurt me. You aren’t here.”

“Whose with you?” Grieve frowned in annoyance, choosing to ignore what the human said. There was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind. This was not a spell that Zerek, with his feeble human controlled magics would be able to pull off, even if it was something he was unaware he was doing. He’d have needed help to draw out this type of soul magic. There is something far more powerful pulling the strings here...  

But what?- Who.

The heat he felt earlier-

Zerek knew Grieve was ignoring him now. The demon was merely staring him down with his expressionless red slitted eyes. He was silent and this silence always worried him. He’d been silent so many times while torturing him, as Zerek’s screams had filled the lair he was imprisoned within. Why is he silent now? What is he planning?

“Who are you with?” the question was asked again, but this time there was a far more sinister demand to it and Zerek, in all his purposeful defiance, could not disobey a response any longer.

“It’s... he’s a fire lor-”

“Which one?” Grieve snapped, his upper body lurching forward as if attempting to step forward and a genuine emotion flashed across his face? Anger? Surprise?... Fear? What was it that Zerek had just seen cross through his tormentor’s eyes?

He would have responded. If he’d had the ability to.

But at that very moment, his movements froze. His throat seized up and his body stiffened, growing hot, overheating, then relaxed again. His eyes darkened and he felt as if he was falling, fading away within his own mind.

Ever present, but distant.

When next Zerek spoke, it was not of his own accord, nor was it his own voice.

It was Phayne's.