Smolder

Chapter 24

Russell's world was a foggy imprint of all that went on outside.

The blurred image of a wolf ran around as, encased in a misty spider shape, his spectral vision followed it around. He knew it was Lupa. She beared her teeth at him. They were fully recovered daggers of icy white bones now.

Then someone else stumbled towards him, right into his grasp. He immediately recognize Vivi's small petite body and the short black hair. She fell on her stomach right in front of him, completely helpless. Russell tried to pull back, but the monster controlling him struck.

Fortunately, Vivi rolled over, sparing her chest or head or any other vital organ. Unfortunately, he himself was much too fast to dodge. One of his finger struck her.

His talon sank into her shoulder like a hot nail would into wax. Blood poured out, Vivi's blood, inky black in this foggy world. A shrill cry pierced Russell's eardrums.

He had hurt her.

He had hurt the one person he had promised not to hurt.

Anger went through his body like a wave through water, changing his inner makings. It reached to his face and burst forth with incredible mental energy. Whatever was controlling him was not expecting something like this. He could feel himself overpowering it.

Suddenly the foggy world cleared out, returning to it's prior near superhuman sharpness. He got his feelings back in his limbs and almost lost his consciousness in the pain. But he had no time to wince before the oppressive pulled back on his mind again, now stronger than before. All he could do before getting yanked back into his own mind was pull his finger out of her shoulder.

Russell thought he'd get dragged back into the foggy world, but the demon had other plans. It took him deeper and deeper. The world around him went beneath a blanket of pitch black shadows. The darkness condensed, solidified and became absolute.

There was nothing here. No sound, no vision. No feeling, no emotion. Nobody told him, but Russell somehow knew that this was the most primordial part of his mind, devoid of thoughts and memories, only animalistic instincts. How something so simplistic could hold his entire consciousness, Russell didn't know.

In that place full of darkness and untapped chaos, Russell knew not how much time passed. It could be mere seconds, it could centuries. No way to know.

Then suddenly, there was warmth. A small light, like a candle in a dark hallway, flickered to light in the distance. It burst and spread throughout the black curtain like wings of fire. The temperature went from warm to hot, to searing.

Flakes of ashes fell on the ground, the fire shredding the darkness around him. Soon all the darkness was gone, replaced by a fiery sky. Something had burned away the monster. Something had banished it to the place it came from. Something had saved Russell.

Or so he thought.

When it was done gulping down the world around him, the fire started to close in on he himself. Russell tried to run, but there was nowhere to run.
Bright red agony flared across his existence, turning his thoughts into daggers. He wanted to scream, but he had no mouth to scream. He could only stare in horror as the raging flame tore him apart into million pieces and dragged him along with his monster, to whatever hellish world useless discarded demons went.

.............................................................

Vivi's breath returned to her when Russell took his breath. It was shaky and made a weird rattling sound in his chest( Vivi knew because she was sticking her ear on his ribs) but it was a breath nevertheless.

As the boy tried to sit up, Vivi tackled him with a hug, with much protest from her pierced and bloody shoulder. Russell didn't hug her back. Well, the boy just went through a monster phase or something. He's got the right to be shocked.

Then Russell stood up, Vivi still hanging onto him. Vivi let go to look at him and was awe struck.

His eyes. They were the most vibrant shade of blue she'd ever seen. They glowed like orbs of frozen lightning in the night, swirling and blossoming like tornadoes of light.

"I'd love to cuddle more, little girl," his voice was his, but not quite his. The awkward scrawny edge in it was missing, "But I have something to do."

He picked up a dazed Vivi by her arms and put her aside on the ground, "I was hoping it didn't come to this."

Then he walked right past her, to a slightly less dazed Elli and an absolutely on the edge Arron and instead of slashing or biting or trying bite his head off, he did something even more unexpected.

He kneeled, putting his knee to the ground and one hand over his other knee like he was holding a sword and said, "Your highnesses, I, Orion, guardian spirit of the Forthfire royal family, offer my eternal service to you."