Falling Nations

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

  "Matthias?" I asked from behind his hand. He still had his hand over my mouth covered it came out a jumbled word. But nonetheless, Matthias seemed to understand as I said his name. He moved his hand after he was sure I wouldn't scream.

  "Hej Feli." He greeted me. I was shocked. How was he able to act like it was just another day? Like we're sitting in the Underworld and he greets me as if we had run into each other at the world meeting.

  "H-how?" I asked in a bit of shock. But I could tell he seemed to take the question differently than how I was asking. But how he responded was more helpful than the response I would have gotten.

  "Oh, I hid. Those demon things, they took all of us that have come here to that castle over there. But they couldn't find me, so they couldn't take me." He said. I was confused as to what he was going on about at first before I clued in.

  "So they also took Lovi and Gilbert there?" I asked, looking up at Matthias. He nodded, looking over towards the castle. "What do you think those things were that took them?"

  "Our demonselves. At first I wasn't sure if it was them but I got a good look at them this time. I know it's them." He said and I could hear the certainty in his voice.

  "They're bringing them to Pluto then..." I said when the realization hit. Of course the castle is where the God of the Underworld would stay. And why not bring the countries to him. For what reason, I didn't know.

  "Pluto, isn't that like a planet or something?" Matthias asked. I looked at him and rose a silent eyebrow. Could he really be as closed minded or stupid as he was being right now?

  "Pluto is the Roman God of the Underworld. But I think Gilbert said his name here was Hades, the Greek form." I said and it seemed like something clicked in Matthias' brain. His mouth made an 'o' shape.

  I shook my head slightly. If he was like this all the time I could kind of understand the way the other Nordics acted when he was around. Like on a normal day I could probably deal with it. But not now while where we were.

  "So you know stuff about where we are?" Matthias asked. I liked at him and shrugged slightly.

  "Kind of, kind of not." I told him honestly. "I know about the Roman version of this place. Not the Greek where we are now..."

  "Well some information is better than none." Matthias grinned. That was it. Seeing Matthias grin, I marked him down with the crazy. Like he was grinning when the sound of screaming souls being burned could be heard. How does one do that if they're not crazy? "So shall we get going to the castle?"

  I didn't say anything. I just took a moment to look at the castle. Just looking at it I felt scared. This whole place scared me. I just wanted to go home. But if I did, Lovi wouldn't be there. None of the countries that were down here would be.

  I took a deep breath and nodded. "A-alright." I said. I knew I stuttered a bit but only because of how afraid of this place I was. Matthias seemed to understand and said nothing.

  We started to creep towards the castle. Matthias pulled me into hiding spots every time one of our demonselves flew over head. They were looking for us. They knew we were here, but the didn't know where. It unnerved me a bit to know that. But yet we pressed on.

  I have to say, one of the creepiest parts of this place was the garden by the front of the castle. Everything was either black, dark red, or a dark purple. On the plus side it had the most hiding spots, on the down side, it was crawling with our demonselves. It seemed to be their hang out spot or something.

  "Matthias! Don't eat that!" I whisper-yelled at him. I lunged towards him and smacked the black apple out of his hand. "Don't eat anything down here."

  "Why? I haven't eaten since I got here though." Matthias said. I was glad to hear he hadn't eaten anything. There was still hope for him.

  "If you eat anything down here you'll get stuck down here." I told him. His face changed into a look of confusion.

  "I thought that was only pomegranates." He said. I shook my head. Romania said not to eat anything, so I was going to trust him. We couldn't eat anything down here. I didn't know if it would actually make us have to stay down here or whatever happened to Persephone but I didn't want to take any chances.

  "Don't eat anything." I said before ducking down in the bush. "Matthias we have to move." I said. We had been too loud. The demonselves knew we were here. They were going to catch us if we didn't move quickly.

  Matthias shook his head. "Feli, go. I'll stay here. If they know someone's here I'll be the one to be taken. Find a way to get us out." He said before pushing me slightly.

  I tripped and went to catch myself but it didn't work well because of the hill. I hadn't noticed just how close to the hill we were. But I guess now I did. I was falling down it.

  I managed not to scream while falling down the hill. Not that it would matter anyway because suddenly my ears were filled with screams. The same screams I heard earlier. The screams of burning souls.

  I looked up at then and instantly froze. Their faces distorted and pained. The flames liking at their nonexistent bodies. The smell of rotting flesh even if there was no flesh to burn.