Chapter 23 Gods Save Me
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gods Save Me
NYX
I cannot fight it any longer. The darkness I let in the moment I first opened that wretched grimoire has seeped into every thought and broken fiber of my being.
I was a fool for ever believing I could wield such darkness and not let it drag me deep into the pit where it was born from.
It wanted this. It knew I would try anything to prepare for it to come for me, and now it’s too late.
It owns me. The moment I was born I felt it within, clashing against my light, but now…
now it is all I feel raging inside, scraping and clawing at my mind.
My light is unreachable now. The celestial parts of my soul have vanished.
And my wings, the shimmering ivory feathers replaced by silky onyx are proof that I have nearly lost myself entirely to whatever lurks and waits deep in The Underworld.
The scent of brimstone fills my room as eyes made of blood on a silhouette of thick shadows haunts me from the forgotten realm below.
He is ready. He has been waiting for so long.
I haven’t left this room in days, or maybe it has been weeks.
Partly out of shame for what I know I am becoming, and partly out of fear of what I might do if I were to leave.
For days now after drifting off to sleep I awoke in the middle of doing something I cannot remember beginning to do.
The lurking shadow is playing games with my mind.
I cannot even trust myself any longer. The bright white walls I once loved burn my eyes now that darkness has made its home here.
It is like my body and soul are repulsed by the same blinding light that once brought such comfort.
The dim flicker of candles and the creeping shadows they cast along the walls are all that soothe my blighted soul.
Books are scattered around me on the floor, pages upon pages of ancient spells and cleansing rituals that have all proved to be useless.
There is no healing me. The celestials sense a change in the Realm of Light, a change within the one most of them believed would inevitably succumb to her dark power, and they have begun plotting what they might do when the celestial part of me slips away completely.
They do not know I can sense their every feeling and hear every thought that passes through their minds now that I have let darkness in.
Even from here within this cave of isolation I have created so far away from the others, still I hear their minds hoping and praying for the gods to end me before I end them. I do not blame them.
They do not even know about him, the one who lies in wait in the fiery, gaping pit of The Underworld.
The way he has patiently waited for his chance to devour the light out of each one of them.
Or how he drags his claws down my subconscious, informing me of these things and pleading to allow him to seize control of me.
I am a danger to this realm if he succeeds. I am a danger to everyone.
Conjuring my bright orange flames in my trembling hands, the darkness pushes its way in, suffocating my light.
Flashes of ebony replace color for brief moments, a constant fight of light versus the absence of it entirely in the palms of my hands.
My power grows dimmer by the day. Soon all light left in my magic and even my soul will be siphoned out and fade away as it follows the shadows into oblivion.
I shift my hate and my anger to the grimoire on the floor, the book full of promises of death, rebirth, and power greater than any being should ever possess.
I send my flames spiraling toward it. I need it gone.
I need for it to disappear before I disappear instead.
My power is useless against it. A barrier of protection on the cursed pages sends my flames surging back toward my face, barely missing their target as I duck to avoid them.
It opens back up to the page. The same vile page it always opens to, the one it will not let me avoid looking at no matter how hard I try.
There are words scrawled on the weathered paper in blood that speak of unlocking the Abyss, the flaming pit in the Underworld where a cruel and vengeful death god lives trapped and secluded from the realms. The gods of light and the witches joined forces and banished him there centuries ago, sealing the pit with magic after my birth.
Doing so ended the dark gods reign of terror over the realms for good.
My mother knew him. She not only knew him but was foolish enough to bind herself to him for eternity.
All of it is written in the book. This evil, wretched book.
I am his daughter, what is left of the bond he severed with my mother the day he slaughtered her.
They called him the devourer of light. He feeds on light, devouring it to make himself stronger until the one he drains is nothing but an empty shell of a person.
The darkness calls to me, whispering my name and urging me to do what it asks or risk everyone I love being slaughtered.
The celestials who were kind enough to take me in.
Hekate, who returned to the Earth Realm to be with her coven.
I cannot let it get to them. I must unlock the Abyss which holds demons, despair, and a dark god who wishes to use me, beneath it. I have no choice.
The darkness will slaughter everyone I love.
I try and fail again to burn the evil book as it whispers my name louder.
Nyx, Queen of Darkness, Goddess of Night, this is your fate.
I burn it. I burn and burn and burn it, my lungs aching as I scream, my magic fighting against the flames that spiral back toward me from whatever ungodly magic protects the grimoire.
As I scream, my magic turns darker, the black flames surging back toward the book, and this time the leather and pages turn to ash.
I crawl across the cold floor, picking up the pieces of what’s left, and letting out a sound that is a mix of sobbing and laughter.
The ash swirls, a whisper of wind mixing the burnt pieces, and then the grimoire is again in front of me.
Candles flicker as the shadows move closer and closer, the icy chill of them brushing against my skin.
I shiver, a puff of white releasing into the air as I exhale into the abyss threatening to swallow me whole.
“Darkness guide me. Gods save me. Darkness guide me. Gods save me.” My whispered words do not scare the darkness.
This entity, it fears no celestial, mortal, or god.
It smiles, I can sense it. The thought of stripping me of all light and plunging me into eternal darkness and damnation brings it a sickening joy.
It grows closer to taking over completely.
My room, once full of warmth and comfort, is now as cold as I have felt my heart become over the past few weeks.
As cold as it has made me. Shadowy tendrils like long, pointed fingers reach for me, pulling me deeper into nothingness, into never-ending isolation and eternal abandonment by my realm.
I cannot fight it any longer. I have tried, but it refuses to let me go.
“Please,” I whimper to the darkness, and though I see no face I feel it staring back at me. “Please!” I scream, tipping my head back, my ruined, blackened wings open wide, begging for the gods to save me.
The candles in my protective circle flicker out.
All the books from my shelves lining the walls violently crash to the floor.
Pages are ripped and torn from them by hands or magic I cannot see, one that is angry and hateful and dripping with impatience.
The pages swirl around me as I quickly cower away, my belongings crashing against the wall and tumbling to the floor.
All that is left is a broken, scattered mess of the life I once had.
My light has vanished. It is gone. What I feel coursing through my body now is not the minuscule amount of darkness I once felt there, but a hungry, possessive beast. Only darkness remains.
I belong to it now. Curling up on my side, I continue whispering the celestial mantra over and over, even knowing it will bring no relief.
Even knowing there is no saving my soul, now, not with what it has taken from me.
“Darkness guide me—” Staring at my wrists, I will the skin to rip open and spill my blood on the floor. “Gods save me.”
A puddle of crimson forms around me, and I smile.
Dizziness sets in and my heart rate quickens, blood rushing from my body.
I strain against my power as my body attempts to force me to live, ripping the wounds open wider and deeper, refusing to let magic heal me.
The wounds likely will not end my life, but I have no choice.
I must try. I will not be an active participant in these wicked games.
I just want to be free before it is too late.
The pages in the grimoire flip on their own, and I open my eyes to watch. It again stops on the page it has forced me to focus on for weeks. Unlocking the Abyss. Pushing myself to my knees, my hands slipping and sliding on my own blood, I crawl across the floor and kneel before the book.
No. Gods, no, no no. Glancing down at the spilled blood, I gasp at the way it flows from my body and creeps through the cracks to reach the leathery binding, trickling up the page straight to the center of the dark abyss sketched there in ink.
I gave it what it needed. It begged for my blood.
The nightmares haunted me for weeks, images of me simply pricking my finger or as horrifying as slicing my own throat, to let the blood drip onto the hollow pit on this page.