Page 10 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

F O U R

I ’ve never woken up in hell before.

The number of ‘new’ things I’m experiencing lately is really concerning.

Beneath me is the curved shape of a giant creature’s ribcage, my body laid out across the bones and raw meat and stringy tendons.

Bits of its body are worn away, rotten, revealing the infernal air beyond.

I slowly lift up from where I’m laying across it’s organ-less gut—my hand looks normal.

My body is here. Ash softly burns across my forehead as the creature I’m trapped inside steps forward, hot air blowing in from a missing chunk in its side.

I wince and look forward, finding a familiar, demonic shape perched one one of the rib bones.

The large maw of the creature is unhinged, a view of hell visible down the pipe of its throat.

Golden horns glint against hell-black skin as the face turns, glancing over his shoulder to look back at me.

A wanting growl forms in Phantasmus’s throat, mouth watering, but he breathes in tensely and looks forward again.

I notice the wisp of a ghost, laying out along the membranes and rotting meat in front of me.

This…this is a car, then. He’s transporting me somewhere in the real world, through hell.

And somehow Stray managed to stick to my side—my heart swells at the dog’s loyalty, and I use that warmth to close my eyes and breathe, slow, calm.

The hellish wind across my face starts to burn less and less.

The progress gives me confidence, and a few more focused minutes of breathing I dare to wink an eye open.

It worked.

The van is wide and spacious, my body laid out along a bench-seat, Stray sleeping on the floor ahead.

Phantasmus is driving, black hoodie and pants and golden mask all in place in his human form.

I reach down and brush against Stray’s fur, the dog taking in a big breath and lifting his head to wake up and look at me.

“Greet,” I say softly to him. His maw opens wide as he yawns, shakes his head, looks around. He even sits up, craning his neck a bit, but eventually looks back at me without having lifted a paw.

I pout my lips in frustration, sending a glare up at the back of Phantasmus’s head.

“Where are you taking me?” I say firmly.

His face tilts, slightly, in my direction.

He doesn’t answer. Unsurprising, I never hear him speak when he’s in human form.

I take in a bracing breath, glancing out the windows, seeing nothing but dense forest around us and winding road out ahead.

The wrap-around headphones are missing from my neck, and I don’t feel my phone in any pockets, so it looks like I’ll have to save myself this time .

Fine.

I sit upright, and launch myself between the front seats to grab at Phantasmus’s sweater, other hand going for the wheel.

The van tilts and turns as we fight over it—then there’s a flash of black, and I run still as he straightens out the van on the road.

The dark eyes behind his mask narrow, staring at me hard, daring me to continue to challenge him while his gun is aimed at my chest.

I can’t die in hell, but I was oh so clever as to get myself out before I started this fight, so…

I glance down at the gun, and growl out, “You wouldn’t .”

His eyes haven’t left me, driving on the curving road as though by instinct. His drowned voice is a bit of a surprise as he retorts darkly, “Oh I would love to .”

That’s not very reassuring…but I can’t just let him take me wherever the fuck he has in store. My hand is still on the wheel as he guides us around a slight turn, and in a desperate, stupid attempt to throw his plans off-balance, I grip firm and wrench the wheel to the side.

It throws my unbuckled body into the side of his chair, then off and around behind it to slam into the wall of the car, and then finally forward in a sharp slam as we skitter off the road and through a bit of underbrush to crash headlong into tree.

I hear Stray yelp, realizing how idiotic my plan was, but the van comes to an abrupt halt and Phantasmus is more or less motionless in the driver’s seat, breathing heavily, somewhat limp and dazed in his seatbelt.

There’s blood coming from behind his golden mask, dripping down off his dark chin. Crimson.

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I reach forward quickly to tuck my fingers under the edge of the mask and attempt to pull it up.

The sensation of it rouses him in an almost fight-or-flight instinct, that dark mouth grinning wide and showing the crimson, carnivore fangs I know from hell.

He struggles to get his dazed limbs working, and I manage to fight one of his hands off with my other lifts and pulls and rips the mask clear off his face.

The dark skin comes with it. The fangs. The demon.

Pale, slightly freckled skin is left behind. Hazel eyes. Almost attractive cheekbones.

He stops fighting me the moment it’s gone, and the animalistic anger begins to melt from his expression into one of cold, steely apathy.

The pretty eyes flick to meet mine, emotionless and apathetic, and somehow that sends a chill through my system and wave of goosebumps across my skin far more than the demonic presence ever had.

The demon was explainable. It made sense that he behaved like that.

This is just a person.

A person without a soul, without a light behind his eyes, without care or concern for anyone’s humanity.

It’s far more unsettling, and my fingers drop the mask as I reel backward.

He releases my wrist where the two had been fighting a few moments ago, seeming wholly unworried that I’ve increased some distance between us.

Stray comes to stand beside me, snuffling at my hair.

The man tilts his head a little, and he lets out a huff of a breath.

“Your choice.” The voice is clean, calm, cold, steady.

I don’t like it. I want the bubbling gurgles back.

“But the human in me isn’t any less of a threat than the demon.

There’s a reason I always showed myself to you with the mask on, but if you really think you can handle it…

” One shoulder lifts in a careless shrug.

Then the lips pull, and lift, and grin with almost pride.

I scramble back in the van, and the moment he senses the chase is back on his grin widens even further and his arm reaches back from the driver’s seat to grab at my leg.

I scream and kick out at him, Stray starting to bark in confusion, and my body is dragged a few inches before I manage a lucky shot that smashes some of his fingers and weakens his hold on me.

I curl in my knees to get my ankles out of his reach, crawling desperately to the van door and fumbling at it with my fingers .

“Should’ve stayed down in hell where you were safe, Hope?—”

Screaming, the door releasing, I both fall and throw myself from the van and begin to crawl through the ferns and fallen pine needles, getting to my feet, checking that Stray is at my side, and then.

Running.

Twigs breaking beneath my shoes.

Clothes catching on branches.

Red pooling at the edges of my vision.

I don’t know whether to fight off the descent or let it happen; he wanted me in hell, and I don’t want to give him what he wanted, but he’s right—I am safer there, safe from death at least. And apparently he doesn’t mind if I die.

The alluring, emerald forest begins to lose its color as the greens turn to gray, the flecks of light turning to flecks of ash, the snapping twigs becoming breaking bones.

I hear the rush of him behind me, the snarling, the screeching, the demonic nature a twisted comfort.

I skitter through the thick trees dripping with garlands of organs and smatterings of blood.

I change direction, zig and zag, trying to throw him off my scent, trying to reason with myself that I know there’s no escape .

I could never outrun him, can rarely ever hide from him, always having to endure until Cornelius can arrive and impart holy justice—but I can’t call him, and he can’t just tell when I’ve crossed over.

I’m alone, this time. No one is coming to save me.

And Phantasmus has a personal vengeance to reap upon me, now.

I thought the mound ahead looked strange, like a small and bulbous hill or an excessively large boulder, and it’s not until it begins to move and shuffle that I realize it’s, of course, another demon.

My feet kick up at the ashen undergrowth as I try to stop and redirect, an amber eye opening from the mound and dust puffing into the air as it begins to move, gaze locked on me with the ravenous hunger of a hibernating bear that just found a fish out of water.

My shoulder slams into a tree as I turn without quite looking, but I keep my balance and keep running.

Until I hear Stray bark, yelp, and whimper.

A new sort of fear floods through me as I turn back over my shoulder, finding the demon swatting at Stray and sending his ghost rolling through the forest floor.

My ankle twists, legs tripping over each other and sending me to the ground as I stare at the demon.

It rises up, and up, standing tall on two thick feet while flames huff from its nostrils.

The long, long maw droops open, needle-fangs set in every which direction across its mouth as it roars and wails threateningly.

Demons in hell can’t interact with Stray’s ghost. Only the real world can.

Meaning this isn’t just a demon, but a genuine threat in the real world, too. Meaning if I die here…my real body is completely defenseless.

The demon leans forward and begins to crash down to all fours, its gaze a straight shot to Stray and I, both down on the ground, both trying to get up, far too slowly.

The freakish mouth opens wide again to roar, body lurching forward in a run, and I feel the ground quaking beneath the behemoth’s weight.