Walker waved his coat and crossed his arms on his back while secretly reaching for the dagger sheathed on his hip.
"It's pointless… I am a mindless puppet controlled from elsewhere… if I'm killed, another will be sent." The masked demon saw through his act and spoke accordingly.
Walker's attempt slowed down, startled as he responded, "Why should I believe a demon? You speak to deceive."
The masked demon raised its long arm, making Walker jump back a step but all it did was run its hand through the mask of flesh that looked stitched to its face.
Its finger ran through the top of the strange letters then moved along with the rest like traveling through a maze of enslavement.
"This here is the sign of my honesty… My master is a human such as yourself. Though I question if you even are human."
Walker's face grew heavy, his grip on the dagger strong, unwavering. His brows twitched then he realized.
A witch? Witches and Wizards were the worst of humanity, as described in books of all kinds. Even in the Wainwright lineage texts, they were described far worse than Clivers who had the ability to influence the world because the magicians used methods far worse.
Walker no longer felt the need to hide his weapon as he unsheathed and aimed it at the masked demon.
"What business magician does a magician have with me? Is it their puppets I've killed?"
What made the magicians so awful were their control of demons, often influencing other people and befalling ruin upon them, deciding their fate unlawfully.
It also didn't make sense for them to pursue Walker since an enslaved demon's mark was the mask, and Walker had no recollection of that occuring… the only possibility in mind was his forgotten past, he had no clue about his endeavors beyond the past 4 years.
Suddenly the demon twitched, shook violently as parts of its body bulged like balloons of flesh, its head inflating to an extent where it looked ready to explode. It stopped with a final shiver and the demon returned to its original state.
Walker was fully prepared to strike it down any moment, but hesitation came unknowingly.
"Greetings, hunter…" The demon had a significantly different voice now. It didn't have the hoarse, echoing, deep and empty voice.
The new voice was calm, energized with a tinge of malevolence that sounded similar to a demon's but completely different. It was a man's voice, a wizard.
"Excuse my slave's lack of conversation skills, I'll make sure to discipline it thoroughly." The voice spoke playfully.
Walker's guard was increased even further, his hand shook violently by the strength of his grip on the dagger, filled with rage and contempt.
"Stop… put it away! Now…!" The magician controlled the demon's hands and palmed its face, acting scared then its hands dropped loose, head tilted giving Walker a stare from beneath the mask.
"Just kidding!"
Four hands grabbed Walker's head, his mouth and neck strangled by their cold touch as he got gradually pulled down.
More and more hands grew from the pond of black liquid on the ground, sinking Walker forcefully. He tried breaking free but his body could not handle pressure.
The slave demon approached the sinking man, each of its steps crushing bits of the stone terrain.
Walker saw its obscene form once more as it spoke, "Don't it personally, it's just business. Plain and simple."
Aside from the demon, there was one other figure he noticed within his field of vision. A silhouette of a person surrounded by the sunlight on the roof of the building to his right.
Even with the veils and shadows of everything that surrounded them, that mysterious person looked to be the darkest of them all, even darker than the demon that towered over him as he sunk into the black liquid hotter than magma.
The demon crumbled like a stone statue, breaking into rocks and pebbles. The mysterious figure gave Walker one last glance before disappearing from his sight.
Cradled by the icy hands, Walker fully sunk into the pond of dark demonic liquid and vanished from the alley.
The area filled itself with sounds of the crowd, the trees whistling and carriages rumbling.
Thud! A ball rolled over and a boy came running for it. The ball stopped and the boy's running became slower, careful.
He knelt down, almost touching the ball when his heart became heavy, its beating slower. His hand trembled a miniscule away from the ball, he felt a morbid presence behind him.
The boy turned stiff, turning his head reluctantly.
Once his head turned, it was like an overwhelming weight had been lifted off of him and everything returned to normal.
"Howard! What's taking you so long?" His friends called out and he grabbed the ball before bolting out of the alley, removing himself as soon as possible.
•••
Walker felt his body itching, the air dense, and the smell wretched. His eyes slowly opened somewhere strange, the sky oddly purple, branches of a black tree extended above him and instead of its shading covering him, it was the source of the itch produced by gradually sucking the life force of any who leaned against it.
His surroundings with an energy of their own, the air evaporated as if Walker and everything around him were ingredients in one massive pot, breathing became difficult.
He used a branch lying to his side, normally it would crumble like charcoal, but here, it stood firm and helped him move.
The area was bizarre, there were as many trees as a forest but with them was a field of strange white plants and every few seconds, there was a tremor that disrupted Walker.
Walker turned his head left then right, trying to make sense of where he was.
"Where… am I…?" He raised the stick he was using and looked at it, tightening his hold on it. "Why was I out of strength anyway?" Milliseconds later, the stick crumbled, unable to handle the pressure.
This place is… messing with my head...
Walker extended his left hand into the field of white, dirty plantation, touched through several of them before rubbing his finger and finding oil instead of dust.
The strands dragged across his legs not like leaves, but like hair.. He furrowed his brows, not believing the thoughts crossing his mind, the stench, the texture and everything came to him like a horrifying epiphany.
Now, he noticed the limitless land had an edge far away and he ran towards it. Echoes sprouted from the ground, almost unnoticeable to most but Walker had a feel for them.
He kicked up a branch to his hand and stabbed any Echo getting in his way, their intensity higher than usual, almost like he was the invader here and not them.
The swarm of Echoes kept him occupied, extending the duration of his sprint across, exhausting his body once he finally came to the end of it all… The Echoes, the obscure forest and even the land which he walked on.
Unlike everything else, the field of ghostly white plants extended beyond the sliding cliff of the land, the part of it which was far away appearing grey with the atmosphere.
Below the abstruse land Walker stood on, ruins of ancient buildings, trees of unknown nature looked tiny and barely recognizable. They were seeable due to the pools of lava sharing its light with them and the figures of creatures like Echoes and other strange beings drinking from them.
Walker subconsciously took a step back, "Is this… hell?" Letting the question linger in the air, barely more than a whisper.
He felt a violent vibration on his thigh, his compass shaking beyond help. But as he reached for his pocket, the ground began shaking, the air around him hotter than earlier with gusts of a similar wind brushing against his skin as he tried to hold his ground.
The part of the land to his left started to rise, the grotesque trees and vines crumbling and falling. It started to turn to its right and suddenly, a squelch echoed and the 'land' opened an eye, one bigger than the Serina District's clock tower.
Its eye was red with a white slit in the middle, staring right at Walker, freezing every inch of muscle in his body.
The plants… I know what they are now, animal hair… This is no mountain! The unknown being slowly opened its mouth, its teeth big and sharp enough to bite off mountains. It let out an obstreperous howl that forced Walker on his knees and covered his ears as hard as he could, his head reddened by the force, on the brink of exploding.
"Var'ae croúd, Veilhawl." a figure descended on the back of the being bigger than mountains, and despite being deafened by the howl, Walker heard and understood the figure, he understood the words to be, "That's enough, Veilhawl."
The howl came to an abrupt stop, Veilhawl's mouth closed at the same way and speed it opened and it let out terrified whimpers, the ground in tremors by its emotions and the move forward.
Walker slowly turned his head to the left, his eyes moving before anything else.
Entering his vision was a humanoid figure wearing clothes of black, a fiery cloak darker than the others, worn over his casual trousers and shirt of the same color. His hair waved like dark flames, the tips even falling and dissipating like them. His face had nothing, only flesh with some of his hair sinking into it.
At last he yanked out his compass—its needle whipped and rattled as though it were trying to tear itself free. The being's brooding unsettled him, unaware what to defend himself with, neither a sword nor a revolver in sight.
The being stood indifferently. Then a voice breached into his thoughts, "You… who brought you here? Assuming you understand our language."
Is this where I die? I have never rejected the idea of being killed yet… Why am I terrified? I feel like prey… Walker froze in place, wondering the consequences of any action he'd take and even thinking of what would happen if he did nothing.
All else fell silent—only the compass clattered in his grip, like a heartbeat not his own.