I lie here, cursing fate for being so cruel and bringing me so low. I don’t know why the world hates me so much. It constantly takes every good thing from me, and I wish I knew what I did to deserve it. I wish I knew what I could do to make it stop.
I stare numbly at the tiny puddle of tears I’ve left on the ground, tapping it with my fingertip. I haven’t felt this gutted since the night I got the news of my parents being killed. I never wanted to feel that again, and yet, here I am. Grief is acting as my gravity, holding me right down on the ground.
It takes me a minute to recognize that the sound filling my ears isn’t the rhythmic beating of my own battered heart, but rather, distant footsteps. I lift my head slowly to try to track where they’re coming from, and spot a small figure in the distance. They’re moving hurriedly through the chalky nothingness, as if they came from some secret door and have to traverse this endless space to get to another. The figure’s steps have purpose, and for some reason, that gives me hope.
“Hey!” I call out as I push up from the ground.
The figure jumps and releases a startled shout.
“Can you help me?” I ask, squinting as I try to make out what they look like as they balk and stop in their tracks.
I stand all the way up and then awkwardly wave like I’m in a crowded room and I’m trying to help them identify that I’m the body attached to the voice that just scared the shit out of them. Being that I’m the only thing in this place, it’s easy for their shrouded attention to land right on me.
I pause and wait for them to respond, but instead, the figure turns and sprints away like their life depends on it, disappearing into nothingness.
Panic rises up in my throat.
“Hey!” I shout after them. “Come back!” I plead, hopelessness once again resuming its stranglehold on me. “Please!” I try, my voice frail and wounded. I don’t want to be alone, stuck in this place forever.
When the figure doesn’t come back, frustration bleeds into my sorrow, and the combination makes me heady with anger.
“Fuck you then!” I yell at nothing, pissed that after everything I’ve been through, this is what I get.
I look around, the need to rage taking hold of me, but there’s nothing to break or throw. I bend down and wedge off my shoe. I throw it as far as I can, on a grunt-scream that oddly makes me feel better. I pull off the other one next and chuck that too. It lands with a hollow thump, but instead of feeling satisfaction, it just reminds me of my hollow heart.
Heaving out a sigh, I feel like a weight of regrets has settled on my shoulders. But then that weight at my back isn’t just emotional. It’s physical too. It feels like I’m wearing a backpack.
With a frown, I turn to look over my shoulder, but I spot my scythe about ten feet away and rush to get it, the weight forgotten. I scramble for the Hell weapon like it’s my last hope. I wrap my hands around it and pick it up, but as soon as I see the ash still on it, I’m slammed again with more painful memories.
I bring the black wood and silver metal-ringed staff to my chest and hold it like it’s precious. The faces of the Hellgate Guardians flash past my eyes. I thought I was going to spend my life connected to the four of them, but that reality was just yanked away, and an overwhelming feeling of drowning takes over.
Iceman’s patient blue features and crown-like horns swim forward in my mind. Crux’s twinkling, mischievous green eyes and beach bum good looks fight for my attention next. I can practically feel the heat radiating off of Jerif as I recall the look on his face when the lava demon told me to run. I wish more than anything right now that I could crawl into the deep abyss of Echo’s eyes and live the rest of my life there with him in the shadows that he commands so expertly. I miss them. I want to be where they are. Anything would be better than this white nothingness all around me. I hate this.
I hate it.
I stare at the scythe in my hands and shake my head. Like I’m some fucked up, possessed human Uber not in my right mind, I wrap both my palms around the staff and then slam the end of it against the smooth, colorless ground. I want to smash this place into smithereens. Break it until it resembles what I feel on the inside.
I slam the scythe down again and again, the hits reverberating up my arms and into my chest, like they’re trying to soothe me. With inky black rage bleeding into my vision, I scream like a banshee and fling the tears from my cheeks as I do my best to gouge the snowy floor under my feet.
Bam!
For my mom.
Bam!
For my dad.
The scythe thunks loudly as it connects with the ground again, and I picture each of my demons’ faces and demand retribution. I won’t stop until this place is as cracked as my heart.
Bam!
“For me!” I shriek out as my arms grow heavy and my body tired from the fury I’m expelling and the abuse I’m delivering to the only thing I can punish in this place other than myself.
“Excuse me!” The voice thunders all around me, making me jump. “Exactly what do you think you are doing to my meditation room?” the smooth arrogant voice demands.
I whirl around, shocked, and find a breathtakingly beautiful winged man stomping toward me. I’m so stunned by his presence,
