Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Caged
I remember what it was like to live in a cage. From the days when I was little, I remember how it felt to be sold, used, beaten, and persecuted. I remember then as the last vestiges of my humanity fled from me and created the monster that they so feared. The Angels? God? They had abandoned me. An empty cry to a mother never to be answered. Humanity likes to cage that which it fears. To tame forces of nature, to control that which is beyond their understanding. They had tried to capture me again, and they had failed.
I remember the day they killed me. I remember the day they made me…'We of the Succubi show no weakness.'
Fire rained from the heavens. The once black sky glowed a crisp, burnt orange. Smog partially barred the rays of the incandescent moon. Ash and embers slowly fluttered to the Earth. Embers crackled and great walls of flame engulfed wooden homes. Orbs of flame descended quickly, crushing their targets and exploding the surrounding area in an inferno. Everything burned. Trees stripped of their bark gave way and tumbled into a massive schism that opened the Earth, its vast depths a terrible void.
I tuned toward the schism, the claws of my hands gripping my onyx hair over my pointed ears, tears freely streamed down my face. My breath came in short, shallow gasps. Blood trailed down my frail arms and into the dirt. A firm grasp at my shoulder shoved me to my knees in the dirt. My white diaphanous dress was in tatters and covered in filth and blood. I pulled at my hair, whimpering at the cacophonous symphony of chanting from behind me. The pressure in my head threatened to burst, I crawled forward on hands and knees, gripping the edge to the schism, and stared below. I was blind, all I could see were shadows, glowing softly in the abyss. Lights flashing across my vision in halos and haze.
The hand of the man behind me gripped the top of a soft, feathered black wing that emerged from my spine. He trailed a finger along the firm bone lining the top, and I shuddered. Suddenly his grip turned vice-like and he yanked. A loud crack echoed through the night. My scream echoed across the barren landscape.
"Mommy!" But no one came.
Hurricane winds swept up from the cavernous opening, whipping my hair about my face. The hand behind me released me as my shrill scream continued. The ground surrounding me began to glow and cinder, it radiated from me like lava traversing harsh terrain. Screams echoed from the village, the chanting grew frantic and out of pace. A low growl emerged from my throat; fangs pierced through my lips. I felt a bone crack back into place, and slowly I hovered off the ground.
I turned to the group of men and women behind me, those from the village who were not scrambling to put out the fires, to run, held their books up to me. They chanted the painful words that shredded my ears. I lifted a bloody arm and directed the flames to take them. I smiled when I heard their blood curdling and their shrieks of agony.
In the distance, a man stepped out of the shadows. His dark silhouette was sturdy and confident as he sauntered forward through the blood and gore. His crimson eyes crinkled at the corner, and his strong jaw was dusted with a shadow. Stygian black tresses curled from his head. He strode forward with purpose, not even flinching as he stepped directly on the cindered, glowing ground. There was no sign of pain or burning. He walked across the sea of fire, and stopped inches from me, with my small frame we were eye to eye as I hovered.
"You have to let go; it is not time yet." He said softly.
He reached forward to tuck a flyaway behind my ear. I growled and launched away from him, baring my teeth I snarled. His face fell, and for a moment he looked almost sad.
"I won't hurt you." He whispered and reached forward. Gripping my shoulder, he stared into my eyes, I felt myself losing consciousness, but as I fell, I heard him continue.
"God help the world…"
Needless to say, my experiences in the demon realm left much to be desired. This was my first, the previous story was my last. Let's go back to after I escaped from my cell…
The endless black of purgatory consumed me. Chains unseen bound my limbs, my flesh burned, I was immobile. I will always remember choking as I struggled to breathe through the dense fog that flooded my lungs. For days I lie, unable to notice the passing of time.
"Kayra above! A Fae." Fae. That sounds wrong. A poor farmer had found me, and brought me to his hutch muttering prayers under his breath to ward off the evil eye. Although he placed salve on my eyes, and I could feel the skin repairing, the dark remained. The man did not know that I had never been Fae. Knife ears. I remembered.
Over the days I learned to stand. I did not speak. I learned to take timid steps, to map the space around me in my mind to navigate. On the thirteenth day, shadows began to appear. The shadows flowed across the black abyss, soft tendrils that caressed the air. These glowing tendrils radiated and formed shape, the outline of a man before me. A table off to the left, the small bed I had been occupying in my recovery to the right. I could sense the air on the other side of the wall, the glowing outline of bushes in the distance. A bunny thumped a danger warning to its family. There was no colour, no light. I was in the shadow world.
"Lass, you have no pupils!" The man exclaimed, as I finally opened my eyes. I said nothing. I knew what my eyes looked like. The solid, radiating silver depths devoid of all colour, and without pupil. Rumored to absorb the soul of those I preyed upon. As they said in the village. I saw the shape of the man lower in the corner, his fingers crossed in front of him, raised towards me.
"Get Out, Demon!" He growled. His eyes darted towards a silver claymore larger than I am tall mounted on the wall. His fingers twitched.
I clenched my jaw, dug my nails into the palms of my hands. I had not been outside in two weeks, my bandages had only just been removed. I would not cower before this man, I would not give him the satisfaction of reacting. I nodded at the man, raising my palms towards him to demonstrate I meant no harm. I moved towards the outline of the bed, and lowered my right hand to feel along the surface until I gripped the quilt. I wrapped it around my shoulders, and stepped towards a faint outline of my large sword.
I gripped the hilt of the claymore with both hands, the metal seemed to pulse beneath my fingers. With all of my strength, I yanked pulling the ancient sword from the walls. The heavy tip thunked against the ground of the hutch, my shoulders trembled with the effort. Dragging the sword with me I moved towards the door.
The man had moved toward his counter, and he gripped a knife that lie in the open. He moved to stand between me and the door. His lips curled in a snarl, his arm raised pointing the blade in my direction. His hands were trembling.
"Leave it!" He growled, his feet planted slightly apart in a soldier's stance. I took a deep breath to calm my trembling figure. Recognizing my hesitation he darted forward, knife raised. As the blade descended towards me, I could see the currents of the air rushing away from the blade as the object moved through space. I twisted to the left, the blade grazing the flesh of my shoulder.
Hissing, I felt the familiar sweet pull of the spirit rising up within me. With preternatural speed, I rushed the figure. Easily the blade lifted, my left palm first slamming him back against the frame of the door and my right pointing the edge of the claymore directly against is carotid artery.
"How can you lift that with one hand?" The man gasped and his trembling increased.
"I owe you a life, my debt is repaid, but your time is near." The multi-layered spirit infused voice asserted.
With that I shoved the man out of the way. I gripped the handle of the door and pulled it open, gazing at the expanse of emerald fields and rolling hills bathed in the light of Selene's Orb. I took one last look at the cowering figure in the corner, gripped the sword in both hands, and stepped out into the night.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone