Xylia

Twenty One

There comes a point in life where you just become numb.

It's a hollow sensation that feels like someone  carved a piece of you out of your own body. It's the same sensation that left me vulnerable in the empowerment ritual. It stripped you. Gutted you. Abandoned you. 

All in all, being numb sucked.

I robotically weave my way through the maze of trees, with that empty sensation reverberating throughout my chest, while tailing the group of Cyrans that had rescued us. Glancing down at the gnarled rope that tethered my hands together, I decided rescued wasn't the right word.

It had happened so fast. Finding us, capturing us, and now leading us to spirits knows where. I shift my eyes around the group and doubt that there's even an 'us'. Drea was slung over one man's shoulder like a sack of potatoes while Volkan was thrown into a wheelbarrow being hauled by three Cyrans. Both unconscious. Both (hopefully) alive.

I didn't see Everest.

Adding on to my angst came the soul crushing realization that the very fabric of my reality lied upon severing my soul from my body to give to an arrogant asshole of a spirit. So one could say I was having a bad day.

I heard a scoffing sound in the back of my head, the words 'drama queen' muttered in the distance. I elected to ignore said comment.

The group had stopped at the top of the hill we had been traversing, and the guard who led me tugged my bonds to the side, avoiding the gaping hole that gutted the earth. It was deep, dark pit. Flooded with a black so dark that it consumed the light, leaving a vacuum of ebony in its place.

"Jump."

I blinked once. Twice. "Come again?"

The man who'd found me stepped forward. He gestured a meaty hand toward the opening once more.

"I said 'jump'."

"Uhhhh—age before beauty?" I finished with a nervous chuckle, he didn't seem to find it as humorous as I did, with his scruffy beard pinched into a frown.

We had a stare down for a solid ten seconds. His hooded eyes met my exhausted ones. He studied me with those keen, narrowed eyes before straightening his posture and facing the crowd.

I smirked victoriously.

"Throw her friends down first," he barked out.

My smirk slid off my face.

The Cyran that carried Drea stepped forward, dangling her limp body over the pit. One second Drea was there, the next she wasn't. Her body plummeted like a meteor before being swallowed by the black void.

All the air was sucked out of my lungs.
"Drea's gonna kill you when she wakes up." Was all I could manage.

If she wakes up. The thought was quickly shoved aside.

Volkan was carlessely heaved into the pit next, my stomach dropped with his descent. I visibly flinched as he fell, the weight of the bearded man's gaze heavy on my back.

Fuck you.

The crowd stilled. Then, two guards surged forward, bringing the next victim to the hole; however, that was proven to be more difficult than anticipated because the victim was conscious. 

Everest was conscious. And he was fighting. Limbs flailing and mouth cursing heavily in an ancient tongue.

His melting pools of amber bore into my own. He stopped his struggling, immediately going limp like a puppet whose strings were cut.