Haunted Devotion

28.

Gerald gets word from the unknown voice where Devlin ended up wounding up, scared she might get her soul taken by the creatures there.

"And you just left her there? No help at all?"

The unknown voice tsk their tongue then hums out a no.

"She won't last a night there! Are you that empty headed?"

Gerald now sighs heavily going over to his bedroom grabbing a leathery journal with old twine metal rings keeping it together.

"Nolan might have found her...he won't give her up...we know that for a fact."

Gerald ignored the voice and looked for a spell of some sort to see if he could reverse what Devlin had done to herself.

"Her body had to be brought to where she is for her to become human—-alive again."

Snickering is sounded out from the voice as it knows Nolan won't let Devlin leave him.

"Let them go through this rough patch. Might learn a lesson or two not to take the easy way out of things."

Gerald shuts the journal aggravated not wanting to be lectured by a being who couldn't even keep a form of a human being itself.

"My daughter shouldn't have to go through such things."

The unknown voice now laughs, "You made it that way when you had her with that devil."

Gerald huffs in disarray looking at the food he was cooking until Devlin vanished into thin air.

"I thought it would be different..."

With a sigh, the unknown voice says, "No, you thought she would become different. Rowen won't ever change. Evil is in her nature. Thank the man upstairs, Devlin didn't turn out that way."

****

"They won't come in," Nolan says while taking a glance at what I was looking at.

I hugged myself feeling how cold I was forgetting there's no actual body for me to hug.

"How are we going to leave then?" I say as they make themselves comfortable a few feet away.

Nolan hands me a blanket as I have on clothing now crossing his arms as he admires the snow falling.

"It's a vicious cycle, it torments you with every fear you have until you submit to it."

I looked to the side, "What was yours?"

Looking at me, he says, "Watching you die and not making it in time to save you. The second one was not being able to be with you at all."

Turning around and sitting on the lodge's wooden floor, I cover myself more with the blanket and scratch my head with anguish to my own thoughts.

"How do we beat it? How do we overcome our fears?"

Kneeling down, Nolan touches my face, analyzing every inch of it.

"Are you sure you'll be able to handle it? It's head on. Nothing else to it."

Eyeing outside with the creatures still there, I take a deep breath in.

"And them?"

Turning back, Nolan then looks back to me, "I can take them while you try to make it out the other side returning to the land of the dead."

I shook my head, "I'm not leaving you here–" Nolan holds my hand, "I'll be right behind you."

Having me stand, he kisses my forehead, "I'll make it back to you always," Backing away he opens the door slowly then has me rush out as he makes his way to the creatures. I hear yelps as he brings them down with a snow covered branch hoping I make it past where we were. My feet carried me as much as I could go as the snow kept mounting up like small mountain piles. Cries of other creatures try to sway me away from the location I'm trying to get to, but I keep going hoping I can do it.

Once I stopped at a cemetery crafted ironed gate, I tried to touch the big metal lock with chunky chains all around it until it burned my hand.

"Look how you turned out...if we were alive we would be so disappointed..."

The woman I thought to be my real mom comes closer, repeating the same thing having me see the gashes of her rotting flesh being draped over like old wallpaper.

"You're not my her...you're just fear trying to mess with me."

The woman flashes a rotting smile while holding her arms up towards me to hug her.

"Come on...don't you miss me? Don't you miss your MOTHER!"

I stumbled back on the chains and it burst open with a rattling noise as the chains broke swinging back and forth hitting each other.

Crawling backwards then standing up to run forward I kept trying to pick up speed as I heard crows gathering above me.

"You didn't forget about me did you?"

The man who I thought was my real father says while limping with a broken ankle and broken neck.

"We loved you Dev...didn't you love us too?"

Scrambling away faster, I don't turn in time when I bump into a tall figure with a hood.

"I'm sorry your time's up," They're about to take my soul until Nolan grabs me, having us transport past the figure and into another part of this continuous death limbo.

"Please tell me we're almost out of here," I say now, clinging onto him.

Looking around, he sees the area where we have to go through to leave this place.

"Over there," He points, then grabs my hand running us both to the spot but then the snow covered ground started to shake.

There wasn't much time and we both knew that so when he grabbed my face, kissing me tenderly, I knew he was staying behind so I could be safe.

"I love you..." He whispers out then pushes me away from him so I could pass through and be back in the land of the dead.

"Nolan!!!"

I yelled out but it was too late, all I could do was watch as the ground crumbled and him falling with it had my inside curl with desperation of heartache.

"He'll come back...he said he would always be back," I cried out to myself holding my knees to my chest being swallowed whole by the pitch black sky in the land of the dead.

"Oh how the mighty fall..." The unknown voice says while being there to see what happened to Nolan.

I wiped my eyes now angry with it, "Bring him back! Do something!"

Laughing they grin, "You never wanted him in the first place...what's changed?"

Ready to defend myself, rotting spirits come out and the unknown voice vanishes.