Page 2 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

The behemoth took a big, sighing, tired sort of breath.

Blood oozed from its face and neck. Something about the way he paused to breathe reminded me of my aunt’s big dog.

I was always scared of him, and they said he was just a ‘gentle giant’ and nothing to be scared of.

So far, the big demons like this that I’d seen were docile to me.

Barely looked over at me, never cared how close I got.

One had even stopped and moved around me, once.

I thought, maybe this one was like those.

He turned and the ground shook under his step again, glancing at me.

Thinking.

It looked down at the demons squashed in its hand, tossing their bodies off to the side to roll down the ravine and splash into the water. It saved me, after all. Then, another step closer to me. Another.

The hairs on my neck started to prickle.

Another step. It began to lean, crouch, and reach a hand toward me.

I started to reach a hand back.

…But my mind noticed the angle of its wrist—the palm was sideways, not upward.

Something about that made my brain flip over, and my legs began to kick.

I didn’t know one was broken, just that it hurt bad and that I couldn’t let that stop me.

I managed to get a few feet down the side of the ravine before the behemoth got me wrapped up in his wet hand, and I was immediately screaming .

Their touch always hurt. It had only happened three other times, where I’d been caught and they burned at me.

Not like fire but like something else, deeper.

So much as a hand on me and I would feel weak.

Like my energy was the fuel for their fire and I could feel it being sapped away.

They didn’t need to use their teeth to do it, but sometimes they would gnaw like a dog with a bone or a kid with a too-thick smoothie, trying to get it through the straw.

The screaming was out of fear, not pain.

I thought the behemoth was going to either drain my energy until I passed out, or smoosh me in its hands like the other demons.

But instead it lifted me higher and tilted its head back and the wide, too-wide mouth began to open.

A rancid tongue flopped forward over its chin as I tried to kick and struggle but found myself being forced and dropped into its mouth no matter what I tried.

The stench made me delirious. A hand reached out to whatever I could find to hold onto, but all it found was a cracked tooth gummed up with some sort of meat, and as the top teeth started to come down and the strangely dry, cracked tongue lifted to press me against the roof of its mouth I couldn’t hold my grip.

The light cut out sharply as the behemoth’s mouth closed in around me, and an undeniable forced dragged me down.

I remember the slop sensation of its mouth, smothered by its throat, as my face was smashed against it while I was swallowed whole.

My fingernails trying to scrape and scratch and catch.

I tried to tuck my legs under me, make myself too wide to go down, make him choke.

I was screaming though the pain, feeling my leg bone starting to scratch and push through my muscles and split my own skin open from inside.

It was the worst pain I’d felt, it felt like death three times over—but pain was never enough to make me pass out during my visions.

I learned that the hard way. I’d been hurt in the dark place before either from the environment or its demons, but this was the first time I went through something I thought might actually kill me .

So I let the bone break through my skin, and used that to scratch down the length of his tongue instead.

My descent slowed, and I could hear and feel him gagging, throat expanding away and making me lean back to keep myself as stuck as possible.

The pain of using my exposed bone like an icepick was short-circuiting my head, and the constant drain of my energy wasn’t helping either, and even though I could feel the behemoth starting to choke, lean over, and maybe want to spit me out, my stamina waned and I slipped through his throat anyway.

I slid right back down the tissue as he breathed in relief, throat tightening again to that normal pinch as I cried and shook in pain.

The constriction was gone in a sudden rush of free-fall. My arms threw themselves out to the sides as my breath caught, and I remember how horrifying it was to fall backward in the dark humid rank of this space and know that neither of my hands could feel the outer edges of the wall.

I landed heavy inside that acrid tomb. It wasn’t wet, but like the very air was eating me away.

It hurt on my skin, hurt to breathe, and my body was already so so so broken, my energy so so so drained and empty.

I could feel the world around me shaking as the behemoth walked somewhere, then sat itself down contentedly.

I was so scared I was going to die. I wanted to fight the urge, but I was so tired, and weak, and the dark air hurt in a way that didn’t make sense, and I was too weary.

It wasn’t the pain that did it, I’ve learned—it was the weakness.

No amount of damage to my body could kill me, I’ve learned that, but the drain of energy is different when you’re in hell.

When you’re in hell, it’s all that stands between your life and death.

I quivered in rampant agony as my broken body was slowly dissolved by the demon’s dry stomach acid, and somewhere along the lines, my awareness gave out.

That was the first time I died. I just didn’t know it at the time.