Supernatural in Real Life 5

Chapter 66

Apparently, Lucifer wasn't exaggerating when he said things would get bad, and he also wasn't joking when he said they'd lock me up.

It took about twelve hours, but in the middle of the night, I finally snapped. It wasn't long after that when I found myself locked in what almost seems like a bomb shelter, out past the dungeon of the bunker. Now, when I say locked, I really mean locked. I tried my damnedest to get out of here, but to no avail.

After a lot of screaming, I finally give up, collapsing on the cold hard ground. It's not that I want to give up, but I can't keep fighting. I don't have the energy to stand up, never mind bang on the door continuously until someone lets me out.

I guess I finally understand this physiological dependence thing they always talk about with drug addiction. There's this craving that I don't really know how to explain, just gnawing at my stomach. It's not quite hunger or thirst, yet somehow it's both of them at once, and all I can think about is how to make it go away before I go insane.

I'm just staring up at the ceiling for a long time, letting out almost animalistic growls when the cravings get too strong and I can't control myself. No one told me how long this is supposed to take, but I suppose it doesn't matter. I don't even know how long I've been here.

But where am I? Looking up, I can see the stars shining down on me, twinkling in the cloudless sky like Christmas lights. It's then that I hear a voice, one that I haven't heard in so long. Or maybe it was just days ago. I don't know.

"Bailey, look, it's the Big Dipper!" Julia squeals, sounding just the way she did when she was young.

"Yeah, it is," I agree, though I have no idea if the Big Dipper is in sight or not. I've always sucked at finding constellations. It's just a bunch of dots in my eyes.

I sit up on the blanket and look over at my little sister, only six years old. Something seems off with that, but I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired. I certainly feel out of it enough that it's a possibility.

"Can we roast marshmallows?" she asks excitedly. She doesn't wait for an answer before running over to the fire pit. I wonder how I never noticed that earlier.

"Hold on," I laugh, grabbing some nearby firewood conveniently lying in the grass next to the fire pit. It's almost too easy to be real, I observe as I toss some wood in the pit. I pause, looking around. "How do I light it?" I'm not sure who I'm asking, because the only other person here is a six-year-old, and she won't be much help.

"Just want it to burn and it will," Julia tells me.

Seems legit. It must be true, because it only takes a few moments for the wood to catch fire. I smile to myself. Now we can roast some marshmallows.

Julia picks up a marshmallow and sticks it on her finger, then thrusts her entire arm into the flames. She screams in pain but doesn't pull her arm out. She doesn't move at all.

"Jules!" I cry, trying to pull her arm out.

Slowly, the flames creep up her arm, and her screams quiet as the fire consumes her. She turns to face me, her entire body just one big fire, and says, her voice unnaturally low, "It's your turn."

She touches my shoulders with her hands, and I feel the fire scorching my skin. I fall to my knees, screaming for help, until suddenly, that pain stops, replaced by a different feeling, a hunger. My desire for blood — I can only imagine that's what it is — picks up, almost as if there's some archangel blood here within my grasp, but that can't be possible. There's no angel here.

"Bailey, you okay?"

I whip around to face the voice, Julia and the fire long forgotten. I can see a pair of eyes peeking out through a slit in the heavy metal door, and I instantly launch myself at it. I stare into those icy blue eyes on the other side of the door, trying to reach through to them, to him. Anything for the blood.

"Bailey?" he says again, so many questions in his voice, but none I want to answer.

I weigh my options — and I've got a lot of them — before putting on my puppy dog eyes. "Let me out!" I whimper. "It's so lonely in here! I can't take it! Let me out! Please!"

He sighs, and I can hear it in that breath that he almost wants to do it, but he doesn't, instead just saying, "I know. Trust me, I know."

I can almost see pain in his eyes, as if this hurts him, but I know it doesn't. If he really cared, he'd let me out. He'd help me. He'd feed me. But he doesn't care. Of course he doesn't. The devil doesn't understand sympathy.

"I'm losing my mind in here!" I cry out. "Lucifer, help me, please! You can't leave me in here!"

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

"Bullshit!" I yell, and I almost don't recognize my own voice. It's so raw and scratchy. "If you were sorry, you'd break me out of here!"

"If you're trying to guilt trip me, you're wasting your time," Lucifer tells me. "I'm sorry, but I'm not letting you out."

"Then what are you here for?" I demand. "Just to watch me suffer? To taunt me? What do you want?" I scream the last part, not intentionally.

I can see Lucifer roll his eyes, which just serves to piss me off more, before he says, "Gabriel sent me to see if you needed anything — anything but an escape."

"Why didn't he come himself?" I demand. I'd much rather talk to Gabriel than Lucifer.

"Because he doesn't want to have to see you like this," Lucifer replies.

"But you — you, what, you get off on it or something?"

"But I couldn't care less," he corrects me. "It's not my fault you're falling apart at the seems; it's his. So, do you need anything, or can I leave?"

"Leave." Before I try to break down the door to get to him, because I know I don't have the strength for that.

"Alrighty, then," Lucifer replies. "You've still got another couple days ahead of you, and it's gonna get worse before it gets better. Good luck."

With that, he shuts the latch, and I can hear his footsteps fade as he walks away, leaving me alone again.