Chapter sixteen: The door
Elizabeth skidded to a stop and stared at the demon immobilized. I couldn’t see her face but I could sense the horror overwhelming her. The soul-eater didn’t hesitate, the next moment with great speed rushed onto her. I reached her from behind wrapping my hand around her and tossed ourselves aside. The demon missed and rushed past us.
Elizabeth and I fell down to the ground, rolling over it and finally stopped. I coughed out dust and quickly glanced at the demon. I expected some help from Malcolm, but the old man stood rooted to the spot watching us struggle against the soul-eater like watching a horror movie.
I peered back–there was a half-standing building from twenty to thirty steps away.
“Get up,” I grabbed Elizabeth’s arm and pulled her into her feet. “Run!”
I pointed to the building, and we sprinted toward it. The demon set off as we were on the half-way.
“Quick!” I cried out.
I would reach the building faster than Elizabeth but I didn’t want to widen the distance between us. Keeping a step ahead I ran and glanced back–the soul-eater was approaching much faster.
I reached the building and winded in through the doorway, Elizabeth on my tail. Before entering I dared a glance back finding out the demon right behind us. As we were in, my eyes scanned the surroundings in a second. There was a corridor to my left where I headed grabbing Elizabeth’s arm. As we veered the demon entered the building through a wall as if it didn’t even exist.
Elizabeth’s hand in mine we darted along the corridor and through darkness. There was a staircase in the end. The demon let out a wail that filled into my head and rang my brain.
“Go on,” I told Elizabeth as we reached the stair, and she started climbing them. I stole the last look at the demon and followed her climbing the stairs two at a time. “Don’t stop! Go!”
I was between two floors when the demon appeared right behind me, the next moment ready to catch my poor soul and suck it entirely. I was a lost soul already, I wouldn’t manage my way to the next floor. I wished my soul would slow down the demon and give Elizabeth some time to flee, but then what would be good if she reached the town. The light would be gone with me and she’d found herself in the threshold of hell without any chance to go back and reunite with her body.
I couldn’t do anything, I was weak and slow. I expected a prickle from behind followed by an unbearable pain when the soul-eater started sucking me, instead the stairs under my feet didn’t stand my weight and fell taking me with them through the hole, Elizabeth’s shout crying my name ringing in my ears. With a thud I hit the ground floor rolling over it the ruined pieces raining over me. I shielded my head with my hands until the rain stopped, and then opened my eyes. I could see nothing through the dark and dust. I didn’t know where the demon had gone–after Elizabeth or it had turned back and climbed down–however, it hadn’t jumped into the hole on the staircase.
I crawled over the floor until I was out of dusty cloud. There was an empty room. The demon’s wail came right behind the wall to my right and I realized it was coming after me.
I looked about hoping to come up with an idea that would help me flee from the soul-eater. The only salvation was the hole on the wall across the room. I sprang to my feet and sprinted to it. Just at the very end I unlatched myself from the floor and flew head-first through the hole.
I acknowledged that a soul-eater couldn’t see through walls while it could easily walk through them. I had leaned against the wall and with out of the corner of my eye looked into the next room. The demon glided in and regarded the room, its long ears strained to any sound. If it saw me it’d rush to me in less than a second, but it stood to the spot, searching.
Also I came to the realization that a soul-eater couldn’t jump, it needed steady ground to glide over it or its wings needed storm to fly. Weak wind wouldn’t unlatch it from the ground. It needed light to become transparent, night had removed the curtain off it and my eyes could see it smoking in slow motion.
Amongst all its extraordinary skills it had two weaknesses that now I was aware of. The question was how to use them against this demon and find Elizabeth.
It wouldn’t be difficult to understand where I was lurking, because the only way out the room was through hole, or the other way was up, where the roof absented and I should have magical wings which would fly me up another two floors.
The mystical light that was spread over the night city, like it was a full moon night, let me acknowledge the room I was now. Behind me there was a doorway, and I darted to it finding myself in the beginning of the corridor again. I could turn back and get out of the building through the way Elizabeth and I had come, but I took the way leading to the broken staircase.
The demon wailed savagely. I didn’t slow down, I kept running in my full speed. As I was at the staircase the soul-eater came into the corridor walking out through the wall to my right. I guessed it hadn’t expected me in the building at all, as it rushed past me and got out of the building through the other wall. It had probably thought I had fled from the ruined house.
I took my chance and started climbing the stairs. Now I knew that the soul-eater wouldn’t jump over the hole on the staircase. If I could manage to reach it I’d be safe. Without a glance back I tossed myself over the hole. Next moment I was on all my fours and kept moving ahead.
Reaching the next floor I shot to my feet and peeked back. The demon had leaned against the wall and was edging up rounding the ruin on the staircase. My plan didn’t work entirely. I winded into the room shouting Elizabeth’s name and saw her at the farthest wall.
“Jonathan,” she said. “I thought the demon had you.”
“It’s here. Go!”
She looked about absently as if asking where to go.
“The window,” I pointed ahead.
She climbed onto the windowsill and stopped for a second peeking out, and then she jumped out. I ran across the room, my heart pumping, my blood rushing in my veins. Every moment could be my last. As soon as the soul-eater rounded the hole it’d rush after me in light speed.
I reached the window and without a glance out jumped. Next moment I found myself rolling over the black ground, my arms hitting stones of ruined houses. Pain found every ounce of my body. I stopped rolling and lay there motionless, my eyes stared on the dark sky until I exhaled a painful breath and tried to look at the window. The soul-eater stood by it with menacing eyes regarding me.
“Get up!” Elizabeth grabbed me and pulled me up. “They are everywhere.”
With fearful eyes I looked around at my surroundings. My mind refused to take the picture in front of me steadily. Everything swayed.
“Malcolm,” I heard Elizabeth crying. “Help me.”
I felt another pair of hands on me that lifted me up and helped me to widen the distance between the soul-eater that had been chasing me.
“They can’t see through walls,” I said in a whisper.
Malcolm contemplated around. “That way,” he indicated to the left.
I followed him, Elizabeth running next to me. At first I limped, but then my legs felt surprisingly strong for a man who had just fallen from three metres height.
We entered a ruined house and veered to the right, then left, then out of the building. As soon as we were out into the night Malcolm rushed towards the nearest building, or maneuvered walls that would cover us from the soul-eaters’ sight.
“Aren’t we there yet?” I asked Elizabeth.
“Almost,” she threw back over her shoulder.
I hated that word.
We were running along a passage the long wall blocking our view of the pursuing demons. I felt myself in a maze from one passage rushing into the other one, or into a room, then again. Malcolm was on the lead, then Elizabeth and me on his trail. We had two ways to take at the end of the corridor. Malcolm veered to the right.
“Not that way,” Elizabeth cried out as she took to the right.
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nbsp; I followed her with out of the corner of my eye seeing Malcolm turning around. We were in the middle of the next room when Elizabeth stopped abruptly.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We’ve got to go through this wall,” she said. “It’s right behind it. I can feel it.”
I looked at the wall indignantly, then ahead where a soul-eater appeared blocking our way.
“We’re trapped,” I said.
Malcolm run up behind us and at full power hit the wall by his shoulder. Old bricks gave up easier than I had expected, and the old man forced his way out the room accompanied with dust and pieces of broken wall. I grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and pulled her close to me and both we followed Malcolm.
We were in another house, correctly in a place surrounded by half-broken walls. I was the last running again.
“Which way?” Malcolm asked, and I saw two doorways in front of us.
“Right,” Elizabeth was short.
Malcolm pressed on, Elizabeth on his heels and me two steps behind. They managed to enter the next passage but before I reached it a demon walked into the room through the wall and stopped between me and the doorway. Without hesitating any moment I took the next way.
Alone I passed another two houses. I dreaded to call my friends as my voice would attract too many demons, so I kept running ahead until I appeared in an opening. Spotting nothing in the night I urged forward faster than I had probably done in the storm back in the town.
I was too vulnerable in the opening. A soul-eater spotted me and I was done. My only chance, if it could be named so, was a doorway caved in a lone wall that stood in fifty steps away.
Having no other option I sprinted to it my heart full of doubts that I was going to survive the pursuit. When I was in the middle of the opening, bright light hit the ground just to my right that had appeared from the dark sky. I saw a man–me, or ghostly me, standing at the light, his head tilted, fingers laced together and close to his mouth as if he was praying. In front of him, less then fifteen steps away, the humanoid monster was hung in mid-air with its fists balled up and face wrinkled. It closed the eyes, its body shaking thoroughly in agony. I was experimenting another time traveling but the fragments I saw weren’t familiar.
“Jonathan, here!” Elizabeth’s voice distracted me. She was at the doorway, Malcolm at her side.
I gathered my last strength and darted to her. Wails thundered the opening from every side, the light had attracted too much attention. I didn’t stop, I ran faster than wind, my destination the door. But it wasn’t the salvation either, reaching it we wouldn’t have anywhere to go. I didn’t want to fall and give my soul to the demons in opening, I longed to reach Elizabeth and hug her for the last time.
Elizabeth stepped backward, watching me struggle my way to her in horror. Her magnified and unblinking eyes on me, her mouth twitched praying something under her breath.
“Come on,” Malcolm beckoned me.
At the very end I jumped rushing through the doorway head-first. As I was on the ground I quickly peered back expecting hundreds soul-eaters on us. Elizabeth had held out her hand toward the door and tilted her head. What was she doing?
A high wind came in through the door raffling her hair and picking up dust into the air and hovering around us. The soul-eaters stopped abruptly, the air filled with angry wails and gurgles. The ground quivered, the pieces of broken wall rose and hang in mid-air. I looked around perplexed not fully understanding what was going on.
The walls on my four sides revived, being built by an invisible hand, the roof covered us with a thud, the black ground beneath me vanished and was replaced by wooden parquet. The night retreated like a living thing, taking dark shadow off the walls, and daylight filled the room.