March from Darkness | ✓ (to be edited)

TWENTY-THREE

DEMITRI

We didn't have to look for Sāma for very long after we moved from the alley. We were making our way back down the street, towards the edge of town, when I felt the leech's presence behind me.

I whipped around, causing him to almost smack into me, and crossed my arms over my chest. "And where the gods have you been?" I scolded, glaring at him.

He appeared to be taken aback for a split second before he composed himself. "I had stopped to look at something, and when I turned around, you guys were gone," he covered, although it seemed that even he didn't believe what he had said. He swallowed roughly when I continued to just stare at him. After another few moments, his eyes hardened as he spoke again. "Look, Demi, I'm sorry if I worried you, but I don't know what else you want me to say."

My irritation flared into full-on anger at this bastard's insistence on his innocence. I think I projected that feeling a bit too strongly; Sāma's eyes widened, the briefest flash of fear in those strange, traitorous orbs before he covered it with indignation. My gums and eyes began to burn as my temper was stoked with even more kindling.

Shit, I couldn't let It out now, It would destroy half of this block and would probably attract Chaos. I ground my teeth together, clenching my jaw so hard that I thought the bone would crack. I forced my vision to blur, keeping me from focusing on anything aside forcing the Beast back into Its cage. I deepened my breathing, feeling my eyes burn sharply for a painful second before everything stopped hurting.

I refocused my vision on Sāma, glowering at him. "Whatever," I ground out. "Let's just hurry up and get back h— to Phrer's."

I felt Phrer's momentary surprise before I brought down my mental wall, I didn't need his commentary right now. I turned back around, gesturing for him to continue. He didn't say anything, just brought his hand to my shoulder before we were sickeningly teleported back to his home. I didn't wait for either of them, making my way to my room to change into a pair of loose pants.

I need a goddamned stress reliever right about now.

I found myself in the studio, punching a punching bag without wrappings on my hands, my knuckles scraped and bleeding. My hands hurt, my arms were beginning to ache from the non-stop assault for nearly an hour, but it was making me feel better. Sweat dripped down my face, causing some of the strands that had fallen from the hair-tie to stick to my face. I had caught sight of my eyes in the mirrored wall on the other side of the studio, and I wasn't at all surprised to see them flashing different colours: red, black, white, red, back to my natural green, white, over and over again.

Everything that was going on, first with my being here, then with having to be tried by Odin and his family, then whole situation with Hel and whatever she sent me to, and now the Sāma imposter, it was all too much. I hadn't even considered the consequences of having powers, nor those of having to fight Chaos in the first place. My brain felt like it was going to melt at every new thing I found out.

What would happen if I won? Would I stay here, go to Hel, be sent to Valhalla? Would it be something else entirely? And what if Chaos won? I mean, I had already been told that Existence would slowly end, but what happens before that? Would he kill me, or would he keep me around as a slave or his stress reliever? Would he torture me in the same ways I was tortured in Hel's imprisonment, was what I had experienced a prediction of what would happen if I lost? What would happen to everyone else? Supposedly, Chaos was delusional enough to not understand that the entire Universe would fall apart if he won, so what would he do to Soria and Talia? To Sri? To Marshall and Docri? To my Sāma?