From Night On: Pathways

Chapters 13-14

Chapter 13:

My House

(Les)

We raced down the path so quickly I could have sworn my feet weren't even touching the ground most of the time. Hellenus couldn't even keep up and I soon found myself standing at the edge of the desolation in front of a massive army of thousands upon thousands of vile and wretched creatures spitting, snarling, roaring, and clawing at the ground, waiting for the order to attack. I stood there, alone, and turned to see how far away Hellenus was, but I couldn't see him anywhere.

I turned back to the army and willed the ground underneath me to lift me up to an overlooking platform. "This is my house. This is my house," I repeated to myself as the sweat of fear trickled down my forehead. At that view, the real numbers of this army were revealed.

"Oh... my... god...," I whispered as the horde didn't appear to have an end as it stretched out and beyond my view. "They've opened the gates of Hell just to deal with me." I smiled and laughed a little, "Am I really THAT bad-ass?" I tried to look further and see where they were coming from. If I could have cut off their entrance, I would only have to deal with the ones that were already there. It was beyond my eyes, but my mind imagined some sort of portal, similar to the one I created, where they were pouring through. I imagined a stone slab protruding up and around the portal and then heard the army's cries peak in annoyance and aggression. Their screams became deafening.

"This is my house. This is my house," I repeated to myself, again, but their bellowing became so horrendous that I eventually cracked and screamed back, "SHUT UP!" My voice echoed over the entire area like I was standing on five hundred speakers and wailing into a microphone. Silence swept over the intruders in a wave of what Icould only guess was shock.

I could see the closest ones to me looking at me as if they were surprised that I would dare talk to them like that. The silence lasted only a couple moments before they started up, again. "SHUT THE HELL UP!" I wailed even louder, rumbling the ground and shaking many of them to their knees. "YOU ARE IN MY HOUSE AND, FOR NOW, YOU ARE MY GUESTS. WHO SPEAKS FOR YOU?" I saw a few groups attempting to brake away and circle around past me. I closed my eyes and focused into existence a massive dome shooting from the ground and trapping us all within it in total darkness. "You are guests in my house," I called out to the groups attempting to get past me. "Did I give you permission to go further?"

Within the darkness of the massive dome I had created, all I could sense was their shuffling and scurrying about on the floor. They had gone quiet and moved about, looking for a way out or a way to get to me. It was pitch-black, but they were demons, I thought, they should be pretty adept to moving through the darkness. "Who speaks for you?" I called out, again, but I didn't receive an answer. Had I trapped only the grunts? "Great," I whispered to myself, "thousands of demons trapped and not a single brain cell between them. This should be entertaining." In the blackness, I didn't think to close my eyes to imagine and willed a bonfire into existence right in the center of the floor. I watched, from over a mile away as many of them scurried away like cockroaches running from the kitchen light. "Who here can speak for the rest of you?" I called out, sending my voice echoing around to mask my location. This caused a few skirmishes as some fought over who would be next in command. "Stop it!" I yelled. "You're acting like idiots. There is plenty of space around the fire for us to meet. Anyone who thinks they have the mind to speak calmly, meet me at the bonfire."

"You sound like the master, our masters," a voice came from next to me. A smaller demon had managed to find his way up to the platform and was sitting quietly.