Forsaken

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

Jason slept again but found no rest, tormented instead by dreams so vivid, they seemed more like memories, no matter how impossible that was.

When he opened his eyes, a barren landscape, like the surface of the moon, swam into focus around him; the bottom of a deep chasm framed on either side by steep, cragged cliffs. Overhead, the sky was a smooth and featureless plane of black. A pale luminescence with no visible point of origin draped about the terrain like moonlight. The air was heavy, icy and still. Jason's breath framed his face in a hazy, iridescent cloud as he lifted his head, shoving his hands beneath him and struggling to sit up.

Where am I?

The cold penetrated his body almost immediately, seeping through flesh and underlying muscles to nestle deep into his bones. He was naked, his body vulnerable and exposed. He drew his arms around himself in a vain, instinctive attempt to stay warm.

"Welcome to the Netherworlde."

Startled by the voice, Jason stumbled clumsily around. A man stood him him, tall and lean, with coal-black hair that hung down to the small of his back in a heavy, glossy sheath. His face was vaguely familiar to Jason, and he frowned in sudden, bewildered recognition.

Fucking, fighting, filling beer mugs and failure, the man had said as he'd leaned over Jason in the hospital. That's all this boy has ever known. And yet, he'll go on to an eternal reward likely greater than anything you'll ever enjoy. It doesn't seem fair, does it?

"Who are you?" Jason whispered.

The little hook to the man's mouth lifted higher. "My name is Sitri," he said, affecting a little bow. He was naked, his flesh as pale as marble, almost every square inch of his lean form covered in elaborate, intertwining tattoos. Some kind of grotesque worms, their O-shaped mouths ringed with sharp teeth, had been drawn twisting and tangling down the lengths of his legs. Gigantic spiders splayed their outstretched legs across the plain of his belly, the breadth of his chest. Scarabs followed meandering paths from his shoulders to his elbows. Scorpions and centipedes trailed from here to his wrists.

"What is this place?" Jason asked, shying hesitantly away. "How did I get here?"

"This is the Netherworlde," the man, Sitri, replied, still smiling, his tone of voice patient, if not somewhat condescending. "I brought you here."

Fucking, fighting, filling beer mugs and failure. That's all this boy has ever known.

"Why?" Jason whispered.

Sitri's smile stretched wide with a dark, wicked sort of glee. "Because you belong to me. This is your home now."

All at once, the tattoos on his body began to move like something alive or in a cartoon. They slipped and slithered together, worms and spiders, scorpions and scarabs all scuttling about, tracing the contours of Sitri's musculature, following the lines of his limbs.

Just a dream. Jason shook his head, shying back from the man and his crawling, squirming tattoos. This can't be real. This is too fucked up. It has to be just a dream.

He stumbled into something low-slung and heavy behind him, something that moved at his clumsy impact, chattering moistly, as if scolding him. Whirling in surprise, Jason recoiled anew to realize they had been surrounded by a throng of hideous creatures. Some looked like massive oversized scorpions, with large claw-like appendages framing numerous tiny featureless black eyes, and heavy tail raised high above each, each taller than a grown man, each capped with a massive hooked stinger.