The Dark Between Dreams | ✔️

Chapter 42 🔻 To Heal a Broken Heart

Before I rose from the sands in the Dark, I believed the nights on Earth when there was no moon were darkness. Then, after I arrived in the wasteland that was the afterlife, I believed this realm was true darkness.

But now I knew the Pit was complete and utter darkness.

I couldn't hear anything. I didn't even have the luxury of my own pulse pounding in my ears to break the silence. I had no idea what was happening to the hollows and shadows of After once I'd been thrown down the abyss that was the Pit and a heavy metal grate closed over the top. I attempted to scale the slick walls. My fingernails scratched at the stone, desperate for any purchase. But, one by one, they all snapped from my fingers, leaving behind cavities that leaked cold air. After they healed and regrew, I tried again. I tried so many times.

But eventually, I slumped against the wall in defeat, head buried in my ice-cold hands. My scarred arm screamed at me. That stinging pins-and-needles feeling never once truly subsided ever since waking the sun. All my efforts, and for what? I suppose the same question could apply to my ended life on Earth as well.

All this...for what?

After was in peril, and I couldn't do anything to save it from the bottom of this hole. All I could do was wait to go catatonic with no idea what had become of my friends. My nearly frost-bitten fingers twisted in my hair as my imagination painted a macabre picture for me. I saw their ripped-open corpses tossed into the sand, their flesh flaking off and rising into the sky. They'd be gone—just dust, nothingness—while I continued to persist in the dark.

"So are you just going to sit there and mope in ghost jail forever, or are you going to climb this rope and come punch Blackburne in the face with us?" an accented voice spoke.

I lifted my face from my hands and stared into the pulsating blackness around me. "Vale?"

"Up here, love."

I squinted upward. Far above me, a light had appeared. The heavy metal grate that had sealed my prison remained, but I saw two familiar silhouettes peering down at me from an opening in the wall about halfway up. In a flash, I was on my feet. "Guys!"

"Holy crap. Skye. Did you really ride a giant shadow all the way to Blackburne?" called Webb. Nannāru croaked from atop his head. "I mean, yeah, that's awesome as all hell, but do you know what subtlety is?"

I couldn't help smiling. "Guess you two are no longer the biggest idiots in After, huh?"

"Feel around for the rope and climb out of there, and we'll relinquish our crowns to you." I could hear the grin in Vale's voice. I reached a hand out and found my lifeline.