Thanks to a dare gone wrong, Maggie Brumfield finds out the hard way that Heaven and Hell are real.
Prince Laudon, Lucifer's son and the current ruler of Hell, has locked Maggie into a sinister deal that grants him temporary ownership of her soul...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
ღ
MAGGIE'S POV
I wake up drenched in sweat on the floor of Lila's bedroom.
I'm not sure how long I've been unconscious, but my body is still burning up like I have a terrible fever. The amount of pain that I'm in brings tears to my eyes, and if I hadn't been on a mission to help Laudon against Zul, I'd have prayed for death to come take me away.
The back of my head continues to throb relentlessly, and all my muscles ache as if I pushed past my limit in doing an intense workout. My vision is blurry and it's hard for me to get my eyes to focus as I attempt to turn over and sit up. That's when I feel it, the nausea and the tightening of my chest. Both happen simultaneously, overwhelming me as I begin to gag like I'm about to throw up. My heart is hammering so fast that I swear it's rattling my ribcage.
Despite whatever is happening right now, I refuse to die like this. I refuse to die in Hell.
"Neira," I choke on her name, gasping for air because it feels like all of it is starting to slip out of the room. "W-Where are you? I... I really need your h-help. Think I may be... dying."
A sharp pain shoots up my back and wraps itself around my skull, squeezing tightly as if someone has placed several rubber bands around my head. I scream out loud, not giving two shits about who can hear me, as fresh tears stream down my face. The room begins to spin, and I'm scared that I may pass out again, suddenly feeling lightheaded.
"What is happening to me?!" I pant, looking down at my trembling hands. "What the fuck?" My trembling hands no longer look like mine. I blink several times, thinking that my eyes are playing tricks on me until I realize this delusion isn't going away. My brown skin is now pale white, my new fingers elongated and slender. "Goddamn it, this hurts!"
I fall flat on my back, convulsing wildly as I feel my limbs being tugged and stretched in the most unnatural ways. The pain becomes too much for me to bear, and I begin to slip in and out of consciousness after that. At one point, I even find myself floating in midair surrounded by a bright yellow light. Silence then fills the room; I can no longer hear myself crying and I fear Zul's snarky statement from earlier about me meeting my maker may very well come true... until I hear her voice.
"Maggie, can you hear me?"
"N-Neira? Is that..."
"Yes, it is me. I am here with you."
I feel a cold hand brush against my damp cheek, my eyes blinking open to find a translucent version of Neira sitting next to me on the ground. I gasp in shock and sit up quickly, feeling none of the pain that I was screaming through seconds prior, and I hug her tightly. It's such a weird thing, how she feels solid yet I can also see right through her.
"H-How are you here right now?" I ask the most important question.
"First, I need to apologize for not being clear when we last met. I should have asked for your permission, but I was desperate and wanted to get to Laudon before he..." Neira pauses, breaking eye contact. "Before I met you, I never thought it would be possible for me to ever escape my prison in Heaven. Then I discovered just how powerful you are, and that Kalleste lives within you, so I selfishly took a chance assuming your body could handle it."
