Telluric

Chapter XXXI: Demon Child

XXXI

Clary's flames quickly began to consume the rest of the building as Mayla and Diego raced out of the dining room and into the halls of Monotory's very own Graywood manor. Diego could feel the tickle of the flames on his heels as he tried to extinguish as much as he could before the flames reached them. Despite his attempts, they seemed to be enchanted to be inextinguishable, which would be bad as they were currently escaping the mansion themselves.

Graywood Manor seemed to melt into its original non-enchanted form as they ran, transforming into a dismal (yet less creepy and confusing) version of what it was. The mirror that they had travelled through in order to get to Elizabeth and 'save' Clary was now just a plain mirror, though a door had appeared to the left of it.

The words 'Save Clary' echoed through Diego's mind. He should have been easily able to save Clary, shouldn't he have? But he didn't, and now the picture of her smiling as they ran from the room seemed to burn into his mind permanently. Despite committing suicide to help them escape she had gone down in his memory with a smile, and that unsettled him the most.

For some reason he felt like she knew that she had to die in order to save them. That had to be a coincidence, right? But considering that more often than not when people see things like that in novels, television, or movies, the answer being a coincidence was notably quite slim.

As the duo fled through the door and into the foyer of the mansion, the flames tickled and crackled at the wooden walls and floors behind them.The structure, Diego concluded, would not hold much longer, with the crackling and straining noises of the house providing his evidence. Luckily they would be outside in just a few seconds... just a few seconds.

As they passed down the stairs of the foyer, Diego looked back and saw Death standing silently with Clary and Elizabeth, clutching both of their hands. Just as he looked back however, the house creaked significantly louder. It wouldn't hold much longer...

Just as they reached the cool, hard floor of the foyer, Mayla pushed him down, and they landed with a thud on the wooden floor. She had saved him from being struck by a broken beam that swung out of place. Unfortunately, they were delayed just enough that the entire ceiling collapsed.

Suddenly the world went black for Diego, and he wasn't sure if he was knocked out by the falling of the building around them, or if he survived and the world had just gone dark around them.

***

"Diego, wake up!" Mayla whispered in the darkness. The world was no different behind eyelids than it was with his eyes wide open. "Are you awake? Diego, please wake up!" Diego reached for Mayla and touched her face, unsure how he knew where to find her. Making a startled gasp, Mayla sighed in relief and touched Diego's face back. "He saved us..." She whispered.

"What?" Diego was still dazed from being knocked unconscious.

"Melliculus... he saved us," Mayla repeated.

"The demon?" Diego asked.

"Yeah, though we still have to find a way out of this wreckage, but at least we're alive." Mayla replied.

Suddenly, Diego knew exactly how to get out of the dark labyrinth, as if a gear had clicked in the darkness. Grabbing Mayla's hand, he rushed urgently as the ticking of the gear in his head led him where to go.

"Where are we going?" Mayla yelled in the darkness.

"To the exit," Diego replied.

"How do you know where to go?" Mayla questioned him.

"I don't know," Diego replied.

"What?!"

"Just trust me... it's like the darkness is leading us out of itself."