Bound by Hellfire

Chapter 17

My eyes were heavy. The bright white light that shined onto them kept them closed, like a chest without a key. The fog in my head was clearing and I began to remember everything that had just happened. Mikael, the bird, the demon, all flooded back to me.

The cushion that I rested upon was soft and warm, bathed in the sunlight coming from a window. 

"Could it be that this was all just a dream?" I thought to myself.

Maybe it was. Maybe I was still in my bed from the morning before, wrapped in my mound of blankets. Maybe I could go back further, to the night my sister was taken from me. That's it, all of this had been a dream. A cruel, agonizing dream that my brain had fed me from the depths of my consciousness.

The sun grew brighter, burning my pupils underneath with a warm concentrated sting. My hand raised above my face shielding my eyes from the unforgiving daylight. Finally, my eyes opened, watering uncontrollably as they adjusted.

A mix of shock and sadness filled my heart as I looked at my surroundings. Sadness in the fact that I wasn't in my bed; that this hadn't been just a long terrible nightmare and the events that had occurred up until now were very much real.

The shock came from the room that I was in. It was small, smaller than most bathrooms. The bed took up nearly everything besides a slim trimming of the floor leading to the door. Each wall seemed to be handcrafted, built with what looked to be shrubbery and mud. I imagined that a room like this would be damp and disgusting, but it wasn't. The walls and floor were smoothed to the touch leaving my hands and feet clean as I slowly sat up in the bed.

Shelves hung in the mud and resting upon them stood vials of various liquids and spices.

"Where the hell am I?" I thought to myself.

I tried to recollect my thoughts to pinpoint the last bit of details I could remember. The sight of the bird flashed into my mind striking a grimace across my pale face. Then the demon and its large stature. The quietness in its movements despite the mass it carried. Then my thoughts trailed back to its eyes, and the hypnotic hum that echoed through the trees.

Goosebumps appeared on my forearms. The room I was in grew colder as my hands flung to my shoulders. My thoughts were now stricken with fear. It took me a while to push past the thought and I finally remembered what had happened.

"Someone had taken me," I whispered to myself.

I recalled vividly the hands that wrapped around my face. The peculiar smell that swept me off my feet and the aching of my heels as they dragged me through the dirt.

My eyes locked on the door. My breathing was now heavy and erratic as I bounced around the ideas of what could be through it. Someone had kidnapped me. For all I knew they could be right behind the door, waiting for me to step through so they could knock me out again.

My stomach twisted at the thought, but it was hard to tell whether it was fear that prompted it or the hunger pains that stabbed into my side. I slid to my feet, and my tennis shoes sank into the soft dirt as I stalked toward the door. Fear gripped me once again as my hand reached for the wood carved handle. I stood in front of the door for a few seconds more, contemplating whether I should open it, or stay where I knew I was safe. Unfortunately, nothing would come of me cowering scared in this closet, so I swallowed my fear and stepped out into the blinding light on the other side.

To my surprise, I was met with a crisp cool breeze from the outside air, and I was even more surprised when my foot crunched into an inch-thick layer of snow! 

It was like I was in a completely different world! The black trees were gone; replaced with greyish-white trunks of the same height. The grass that poked through the snow was a lush shade of jade, but the thing that stood out the most were the noises.