The Overlord Trilogy: The Light

15 • Our Demons

1 Hour Ago

Thana

I lay in the cold water, thousands around me. All of us stare up at the sky, extreme heat burning at our backs. I let out a scream and try to move but to no avail, something holding me into the water. Other screams echo throughout this void, all of them mixing together to create one ongoing scream.

"Shut them up already!" The screams slowly die down, something moving in the river with us. A creature looks down at me, his skin scarred from cuts and burns. The creature takes out a pencil, writing down something onto parchment that appears in his hand.

"Thana Nightingale." His voice cracks as he speaks. "Killed over two hundred people, fifty of them being children while the rest were adults or soldiers." The heat under me intensifies, my clothes setting on fire though I am in water. "Your sentence is three centuries Thana."

"Požuri svinjo!" The creature winces and turns to face something behind me.

"Smiri se! Žuri!" The creature turns around and wades down the river, stopping at someone near me.

"Zachary Ilse. Killed two thousand people, two being children while the rest were soldiers. The Council takes pity on you for dying the way you did and removed seven centuries off of your sentence. You now will reside in," I hear the creature flip the parchment before continuing, "Hell?Glupi jezici... Yes it says Hell or if you don't understand some of your kind refer to it as Inferno, Underworld, or as we call it: Pakao. You will reside here for two hundred centuries." The parchment shifts again the creature continuing down the line and repeating other people's names and how long their sentence is.

"Hello my dear Čuvar I am here to retrieve someone." The girls voice echoes throughout the void. I scream as hands come out of the water and pull me under. I scream again and struggle, my face only a couple inches from the surface. Every time I am about to resurface the hands pull me back under, always letting me almost get a breath of air. My lungs fill up with water as I look past the surface and into the cold, dark void above me. I smile and shut my eyes, completely out of breathe. I may die but I will be rid of this place...

I lay in the cold water, thousands around me. All of us stare up at the sky, extreme heat burning at our backs. I strain to look around me, no one screaming like last time. Dread fills me as I realize my sentence. I am going to die, over and over again for two hundred years...

Snow lands in my hair, a firing squad aiming their muskets at me. I struggle against the restraints that hold me in place. The extreme cold bites at my hands and feet, both now numb.

"Fire!" I scream as several musket balls rip into my flesh, none of them hitting my heart. My blood drips onto the snow covered ground, the snow painted red. The soldiers march out of the small area, leaving me to bleed to death. I scream as crows land on me, picking at my skin. They don't leave as I scream and struggle against the restraints, their beaks tearing into my skin.

I lay in the cold water, thousands around me. All of us stare up at the sky, extreme heat burning at our backs. Tears rolls down my face as I look up at the void, no hope left in me. Something moves from behind me, a pulse going through the water as it stops.

"Hello my dear. Enjoy dying twice?" A face fills my vision as the woman hangs her head over my face. She smiles at me, her eyes seeming to be on fire. "I am here to help you so that you can help me." The woman lifts me up, standing me up straight in the water. My feet touch the slime covered surface beneath the water, hands grabbing at them. The woman holds out her hand to me. "Shake my hand and you agree to our contract." I look at it cautiously, the woman rolling her eyes and letting out a short laugh. "You can either agree to help me or you can stay here for two centuries. Which do you prefer?" Without a second thought I shake her hand, my body setting on fire. I am about to scream when I realize that there is no pain. The black fire covers my body but there is no heat or pain just... power.