Sitting down in a crouch, Freya tried to think of where she should go now and what she should even do. Since no one was around, she was at least free to try to rationalize the very irrational situation she found herself in. It would seem that there was someone using magic to kidnap people right in the middle of bleeding Ireslone. If she managed to get out of this, that meant she would have to be much more cautious than what Freya typically deemed acceptable.
At the thought, Freya ran her hands through her pale blue hair and let out a scream of frustration. She really hated all this political stuff. All she wanted to do was go back to studying and having a good time, where her biggest concern was finding someone to sleep with for the night or impressing her professors. This train of thought caused her to bite down on the nail of her right thumb so hard, the fake red nail broke off.
To take off some steam while she thought of a plan, Freya started pulling off each nail one by one as she thought of what to do. The pain of ripping the acrylic plastic from her fingers providing some reason in this unreasonable situation.
Half a nail. She already ate and drank so she should be fine on that end for a few hours.
Two nails. Ifera wasn’t here so they were either separated or Freya, herself, was the target.
Three nails. No one she knew was aware of her current location.
Four nails. When she walked into this weird place, she didn’t feel sick.
Five nails. The weird book that sent her into Raziel’s castle and this current place are probably connected.
Six nails. If that old rabbit was to be believed, this was probably ancient magic.
Seven nails. In the tiny, minuscule, atom-sized chance that the giant walking furball was right and Freya could indeed use ancient magic, it didn’t matter because she didn’t know how.
Eight nails. There’s no clear path for her to walk towards.
At that thought, two actions simultaneously occurred. The first was a strange heat formed at her wrist. This was the same wrist which held the strange bracelet Raziel had magically placed on her wrist only a short while ago. Just as she was about to pull the sleeve of her leather jacket up to see what was going on with the weird thing, she heard a voice speak.
“Are you lost,” asked a light feminine voice.
Pausing, Freya decided to ignore the bracelet and the strange heat it released for now. Freya tilted her ice-colored eyes up, staring at what was probably a woman wearing a large black cloak. She couldn’t make out her face, but she could see light pink hair falling from the hood and the edges of dark blue jeans and dirty sneakers from where the cloak stopped.
Having been the subject of numerous magic related pranks throughout her young life, Freya decided that the best thing she could do was to ignore the woman until she made her real intentions clear. On that note, Freya peeled off the ninth nail and added it to the pile.
“Would you like help?” the strange woman ventured.
At those words, Freya’s heart skipped a beat. It was a simple sentence, but the situation reminded her of situations which were spoken about in history books. Those types of accounts where someone gets lost in the woods and they are offered help. Sometimes if they accept it they are rewarded, but other times worse things were said to occur. Thinking on this, Freya wondered just how she had gotten herself into this situation.
The woman asked, “Are you going to respond?”
Freya had taken too long. For a second she got nervous, but then mentally shook her head as she peeled the last nail off her pinky finger. If Freya couldn’t accept or deny what the odd woman was offering, then she would pick the path of indifference. With a slight smile, Freya gathered her discarded nails and placed them in her backpack.
Standing up slowly so not to trip from her heels, Freya stretched her muscles a bit and then walked away. She made sure her steps were even and calm so that it didn’t look like she was trying to escape, but all the while she could feel eyes boring into her back accompanied by that nearly unbearable heat on her wrist.
After what seemed like an eternity of that uncomfortable walk, Freya felt that the eyes on her had disappeared. Strangely the heat on her wrist had also receded after Freya had managed to put some distance between them. If she made it out of here, Freya would have to ask about this later. Pausing on that thought, Freya ventured a look behind her and was oddly comforted that as per her expectations, there was nothing behind her except for darkness.
Thinking on this darkness, it was really weird. Freya could clearly make out her body parts and belongings, but everything else was just darkness. She knew that she had to be walking on a ground of some sort, but there was no familiar clinking of her heels as she walked. When the woman appeared she was also able to clearly see her, but not around her. The more she thought about it, the more it sounded like spatial magic.
“That’s outside my expertise,” Freya muttered to herself.
She would have to ask one of her professors or classmates when she got out of here about this. She’d never heard of spatial magic of this magnitude existing among either mages or demons. Shaking her head again, Freya mentally slapped herself. This was not the time to be getting lost in the workings of a spell she, herself, had become trapped in.
Just as the thought appeared, she noticed a rectangular shaped light appear in the distance. Looking at such a suspicious light, Freya couldn’t help but think that it was a trap. Still a trap in a door of light was still better than wandering around in a dark void. Besides she had managed to talk her way out of a cannibalistic demon and avoided a potentially dangerous confrontation. Freya was sure that whatever lay on the other side would also be something she could overcome.
Smiling to herself at this thought, Freya quickly made her way to the rectangular shaped light. The closer she got, the more she had the feeling that it was almost door shaped. When she had finally stepped in front of it, Freya found it slightly odd that the door of light was only slightly bigger than her own height or width.
“This is totally going to be a trap,” Freya muttered out loud.
One last time she looked all around her and seeing no other course of action, Freya gave a silent prayer to whatever god was willing to listen to her and stepped through the light. For a moment, it was so bright that she had to shut her eyes and blink them a few times before gaining her bearings.
When her eyes were finally able to adjust, Freya let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Instead of a void, she looked to be in a library of some sort. All around her were books of all sorts. Some were in bookshelves, but most lay in messy stacks on the ground or in desks. Putting her finder on one stack Freya thought it odd that these books were all incredibly dusty.
Walking through the room, Freya noticed that although these books were well preserved, but they were also covered in layers of dust, cobwebs, and other such materials. As she walked, Freya adjusted the strap of her backpack when one desk caught her eye. Like the other desks in the library, this one was also covered with stacks of old books and papers, but unlike the others there was an open book laid out.
Curious Freya approached the book to see that unlike the other books in the room, this one was clear of any dust, its bright red and gold binding sticking out like a rose in a garden of wildflowers. Freya made out a date at the top written in the ancient language:
23 Garis 3648
Before Freya could read anymore, she felt a hand on her shoulder and was spun around to face what looked like Raziel. No, it was more like his older brother though Freya wasn’t sure if he had one. This man was at least ten years Raziel’s senior, if not older. Moreover, there was something odd about his eyes. They were the same bright crimson color as the young demon king’s, but they were different, much colder. Although, the Raziel that she had met had been a little frightening, he had also given the impression that he was bored and curious. In comparison, when she looked into the eyes of this older look-alike, all she saw was an absence of emotion. It was almost as if she was staring at a painting of an eye rather than actual one.
After a moment of silence, a flicker of something appeared in his eyes as he said, “But she died…”
Before Freya could respond, the man gave a glare. If she had more time to think, Freya might have wondered why even his glare seemed to be lacking in emotion. Instead, she panicked because with that one look, her voice was lost. Stranger was that the longer he glared, the more her body began to change. After her speech disappeared, her skin was next. Where before it was as pale and clear as ivory, it slowly began bubbling up as if the composition had changed to green acid. Each pop, releasing disgusting green slime that filled her nostrils. The smell akin to the stench of garbage that had been left to bake under the hot sun for weeks on end.
As mucus-colored bubbles began to spread and pop all over her skin, Freya let out a soundless scream as the feeling of boiling from the inside out began to slowly consume her flesh. Never having experienced such pain in her life, Freya felt her legs give out, the seemingly soft carpet amplifying the feeling of her own flesh rotting and bubbling from the inside out. Then came her hair. Where moments before Freya had long pale blue locks, each of the strands now began to clump together until they formed a multitude of snakes the same color as the rotting bubbles all over her skin.
The snake hair began hissing allowing Freya to barely make out their sharp fangs and piss-colored eyes just before they bit off both her ears. Freya saw the appendages fly in front of her as her world was engulfed in silence. Despite all the pain, she could not close her eyes or pass out.
Freya’s mind kept screaming.
It Hurts! It Hurts! It Hurts!
Make it stop!
Anyone, please make it stop!
And then, without any warning, it was over and Freya felt herself falling into the sweet embrace of darkness.
The author's note suggests there would be more to read, but why is this story on hiatus?