Chapter 32
Sera
Persephone’s memory swirls through my mind, so fresh and tangible.
It’s like the incident just occurred, as though my soul is recalling it as “now” instead of “then.” But I know it happened ages ago.
And it’s Persephone’s last true recollection.
After that is simple darkness, akin to death. Yet it’s peaceful, too, suggesting her mother kept her word—that she put Persephone in some sort of stasis that protected her daughter’s spirit.
Then she resurrected her… into me.
Only, I don’t think Demeter understands that I’m not her daughter in any way, shape, or form. She raised Persephone in a very specific manner, and while Nightingale Village may have demanded I adopt similar submissive tendencies, I was also influenced by Alina.
And more recently, my experience in the Netherworld Kingdom.
Maliki, Morpheus, and Hades have played their parts in my life as well, thus helping me to discover my inner spirit. Not the one tied to Persephone and her past, but the spirit that is all mine.
A spirit that is currently being led by Pip to that golden glow.
We’re close enough now that I can see the source of it is a swirl of souls, all of them swimming upward into a blinding light above.
It’s like a cyclone, which explains the wind.
Except… except that roaring sound also might be coming from the souls, as they appear to be screaming. Their mouths are open in a way that expresses agony, making me wonder what this funnel is doing.
When Pip pauses right beside it, he looks at me with his big blue orbs, his features somewhat recognizable now that I seem to be able to properly see again.
Only, he’s not wearing his trademark cloak.
And he’s translucent instead of being made of bone.
He’s also touching me, I realize with a start.
I… I should have considered that before.
But I was too overwhelmed by everything else to contemplate the meaning of his tendrils touching mine.
We’re both dead.
Er, sort of.
I… I can sense that I’m still me in a strange sort of way. Just as I can feel another life source inside me. The baby, I think, startled. I can actually sense the being inside me, something I couldn’t do before. I’m still carrying my child.
I look down, wishing I could see the little spirit inside me. But all I find are smokelike strands of blues and silvers.
This is so weird.
As is the swirling stream of souls beside me.
What are we doing here, Pip? I want to ask him. How do we escape?
Because I assume he’s trying to help me in some way.
Only, he’s looking at me with the saddest eyes right now, which gives me pause.
I wish I could ask him what’s wrong. But he pulls me into a hug in the next moment, his transparent arms surprisingly strong.
His head touches mine for a brief moment, like he’s giving me a kiss.
While it’s amazing to finally feel him, I… I’m scared of what this means. Pip…
He squeezes me even tighter, like he can hear me.
Then he jolts to the side and sends us both into the swirling pit.
I try to scream, but I can’t. Because, unlike the others, I don’t appear to have a mouth.
Pip holds me close, his head still against mine, then he gives me a final squeeze before shoving me away with a force that has me going against the violent storm.
I flail inside, whirling invisible arms as I try to understand what’s happening. I have no control over my trajectory. I’m falling instead of flying upward, my spiritual form seeming to leave the cluster of souls to go sideways to plummet faster.
Thorns!
I gape up at Pip, horrified by his betrayal.
But the sadness in his expression nearly kills me.
He lifts a little hand in a waving gesture.
And then he vanishes into the swirl of souls.
Pip! I scream in my mind, confused and hurt. And… and worried.
Because that felt like a goodbye.
He waved.
Why did he wave?
Why did he push me down here?
Wh-why did he disappear?
I palm my chest, my heart aching inside. Because I feel disconnected. Like I just lost my friend. My familiar. My Pip…
My fingers curl into a fist as pain spirals through me, my soul splintering inside as something irrevocable occurs.
He’s gone.
Not just visually, but… but gone.
I can feel it, the loss, the separation, the finality. He’s… he’s not coming back. He’s lost in that spiral and I’m… I’m…
I blink, then gasp when I realize I have hands again.
Not just hands, but also arms. A chest. Legs. I’m corporeal again.
I run my palms over my bare skin, startled by the discovery.
How? I wonder.
Then I look sharply up at the spiral and realize Pip did this. He pushed me down here to… to rejoin my body.
But he sacrificed himself in the process.
“No,” I whisper, my voice a rasp of sound. “No!”
I fall to my knees, the scrape against my bare skin confirming I’m very much me again. But I don’t care. I want Pip back.
This… this can’t be…
Pip! It’s a scream in my mind, one I want to release through my lips, but I can’t seem to vocalize his name. I can’t speak. I can barely breathe.
The pain spearing through me is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
It’s harsh. It’s cold. It’s devastating.
Like I’ve lost a piece of my soul.
And I did.
I… I lost Pip.
My vision blurs behind a sheen of tears, and I don’t even have the energy to blink them away.
I’m broken.
I’m overwhelmed.
I’m confused.
I’m mad.
I’m…
Why? I want to demand. Why would you…?
I bite my cheek, unable to finish the sentence.
Pip… His name sounds like a prayer. A whispering plea.
But the voice that responds isn’t one I expect. Sera?
He’s gone, I whisper. Pip’s gone…
Sera, where are you?
My forehead touches the ground, my heart in tatters. I know I need to stand up and figure out what Pip meant for me to do. But I… I…
Sera, that voice says again, the masculine undertone demanding my attention.
Maliki, I breathe. Pip is… I can’t finish the statement. Because I refuse to believe it. I have to find him. He’s in the spirit tunnel thing. I…. There has to be a way, right?
Sera, I need you to take a deep inhale for me, okay?
Wh-what? I ask, confused by his request. I don’t need to inhale, Maliki. I need to find Pip!
And I want to help you do that, sweet mystery. The first step is breathing with me, yeah?
I nearly growl. Because his request is ridiculous. Maliki—
Sera, he says, his dominance washing over me in a wave of fiery heat. Inhale.
I want to fight him.
To argue.
To tell him he’s being impossible.
Yet I need him to help me find Pip. To help me… help me figure out… Stars, what am I even doing? I have no idea where I am or how I’m suddenly corporeal.
But it’s clear that Pip… Pip is the reason.
And I… I didn’t even get to say goodbye, I think, breaking again. He waved, and I just stared at him, horrified by what I thought was a betrayal, Maliki. Stars, I… I… I don’t… I swallow, my eyes falling closed. Oh, Pip…
Breathe, trouble, Maliki tells me. I need you to breathe, yeah?
I shake my head. He can’t be gone. He… He just…
No.
No, I refuse to believe he’s gone.
I… I have to…
Dampness touches my cheek.
I hate that I’m crying. I hate that I don’t know what happened. I hate that I… that I couldn’t stop him from whatever he’s done.
Serapina Everheart, Maliki growls into my head, his use of my full name startling me a little. I know it hurts, trouble. But Pip needs you to be Sera right now. I need you to be Sera, too. Understand?
I blink, his words chilling me to my core.
It’s… it’s a jolting moment. An unexpected one. Yet it awakens me to my surroundings.
I’m lying on a slab of obsidian rock.
Souls scream in torment way above me, the swirl of energy the same one that stole Pip from me.
But beneath it all—where I am now—is a pit of skulls.
Talk to us, little dreamer, a soft voice murmurs into my thoughts. Tell us what you’re seeing so we can find you.
Morpheus, I whisper, my heart skipping a beat in my chest. Oh, stars, is this even real?
I was lost in stasis. Feeling nothing. Hearing nothing. Seeing nothing. Only thinking.
Then Pip… Pip tugged me out of that state of nonexistence.
And he… he…
I swallow, my eyes closing as I curl into the cold ground. It certainly feels real. But what if I’ve lost my mind? What if I’ve entered some sort of fantasy state?
Do you think I would ever allow you to dream of such nonsense?
Morpheus asks me. You’re my heart, Serapina.
My love. My Omega. If you were to enter my realm of fantasies, you would not be weeping alone in some unknown place.
You would be experiencing pleasure, not sadness.
So this is most assuredly real, sweetheart. Which is why I need you to focus.
If it’s real, then Pip…
We’ll find him, love, Morpheus assures me. However, I need you to help me and Maliki find you first.
A shiver traverses my spine, one born of fear. Maybe despair. But also… also something else.
Something akin to annoyance.
Or anger.
Because Pip sacrificed himself for me. Might be in pain right now. Or gone. I… I don’t know.
Yet I’m on the floor… weeping?
That’s not what he would have wanted. Not who I want to be. Not what I should be doing.
It’s all been so much. So overwhelming. So… infuriating.
Because of Demeter.
And while I understand her desire to save all of Omega kind, she’s no better than the Alphas who treated Omegas like property.
She never gave any of us a choice.
Not even her own daughter.
Definitely not me.
My fingers curl into fists against the chilled marble, my bare skin pebbled with goose bumps from the icy air around me. But I barely sense the wintry elements.
I’m too incensed to feel anything other than heat.
Shoving away from the floor, I go to my knees and look around the cylinder-shaped room I’ve landed within. It’s like a cavern of skulls, I mutter to myself. Similar to the maze, only a lot creepier.
This place feels more like a dungeon.
A pit, I think. My brow furrows. Wait…
“Enjoy your pit of despair, Hades.”
Demeter’s words play through my head.
Followed swiftly by a memory of Maliki telling me about the death pits. He said it was a place where judgment occurs. And Pip made it clear he didn’t go there.
Yet…
My throat works, my insides aching once more.
I can’t…
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and whisper, Maliki, what do the death pits look like?
Because wallowing in my aching loss isn’t going to help me right now. It’s not going to fix this. It won’t allow me to find Pip.
They’re linked to the Soul Yards, Maliki replies without asking questions. Basically, it’s a cavernous hole where spirits come and go in the afterlife.
I look around. I don’t see any souls coming… just… just leaving… This place is more like a geyser than a revolving door; all the spirits seem to be flying upward at a rapid, swirling pace.
Are there any runes on the walls? Morpheus asks, suddenly in my mind.
I suspect he’s with Maliki right now.
Rather than inquire, I answer with I don’t know. Because I have no idea what a rune looks like. Can you describe one to me? I can… search.
They’ll resemble glowing symbols etched into the walls, Morpheus murmurs. You may need to touch the stone to ignite them.
I nibble my lower lip as I glance around again, determining which stone to touch and how. This still feels like a weird dream, Morpheus.
Trust me, Serapina, when you dream, it will be a lot more exciting than the death pits.
His words are punctuated by the eerie howling above. I guess this is more like a nightmare.
Which I would never allow you to have, love, Morpheus promises me. Now, can you reach one of the walls without touching any of the floating souls?
The souls are all above my head, I inform him. Like, fifty feet above my head.
He doesn’t immediately reply but eventually says, Move very slowly in that pit, just in case some of the spirits venture that way.
I don’t think they can. They seem to have a one-way ticket upward. I try to tell him what I experienced when I fell down here—when Pip pushed me—but I’m not sure I’m conveying the information correctly. I was still, er, translucent, when it happened.
Morpheus falls quiet again, and I wonder if he’s talking to Maliki.
I swallow, not liking the silence. Although, it’s not entirely quiet. The screaming souls tell me I’m still corporeal, that I still have ears, that I’m still here.
Assuming this is real…
Little dreamer, Morpheus says, his tone holding a light admonishment to it. Once we’ve resolved the Demeter issue, I’m going to teach you a thorough lesson on how fantasies work.
Morpheus says you’re questioning if this is real or not, Maliki adds. My worry for you is very fucking real, Sera. So do what the God of Dreams tells you to do so I can bloody find you.
The hint of desperation in Maliki’s tone has my heart kick-starting in my chest. Okay, I reply, pushing upward to my feet. I’ll go… touch the wall.
Because it just looks like black rock right now.
No glowing symbols or anything else.
Careful not to touch any souls, Morpheus reminds me.
I glance around the empty cavern. That won’t be hard. I already told him there weren’t any down here. However, he must not understand what I mean. Maybe I’m not in the death pits at all, but somewhere else entirely.
My lips curl down as I raise my palm toward the wall, a hum of electricity rolling across my skin. This feels weird, I tell Morpheus and Maliki. I—
Power rips up my arm, causing me to jolt back away from the rock.
Ow. I try to shake out the static residual, but it rumbles through me, causing my insides to pulse with intensity.
Then everything goes quiet.
The souls.
The whoosh of air.
My mind.
And the world… shifts.
I part my lips, ready to scream.
However, no sound escapes me.
Other than a breath.
As I find myself suddenly airborne, the ground no longer existent.
I’m falling, I realize, my mental voice a shriek of terror. I’m falling into… into a void…