The wooden stairs beneath me groaned, and I stepped quietly ahead, the groans following like warning signals in the heavy silence of the house.
My heart thundered against my chest, a constant thumping that vibrated across walls. I sensed that I had this feeling the Other Five—those nasty things whose existence hovered over me like burning clouds—knew exactly where I was.
Their presence tickled the edge of my awareness, cautioning me to keep away from the windows as I descended. The curtains did not move, but I sensed their black shapes racing behind them, their unseen trajectories curving like smoke on the glass. Every shadow seemed to come alive, every corner menacing.
The front entrance, or what was left of it, stood splintered on the stairs below. The wood splintered on the ground, the frame warped in a manner that implied some abnormal force had torn it asunder.
The raw ferocity of the destruction sent me shivering as I moved cautiously through the wreckage, the thud of my boots on shattered glass and broken wood echoing in the air, and pushed my way through the door into the world.
Outside was thick, choking with ash that burned my eyes and clogged my throat. I suppressed a cough, the stench of rot attacking my nostrils. Above, the sky throbbed with a sick red color, as if the beat of a dying god, an unearthly glow over empty streets.
The roads themselves were a bad dream brought to reality—cars abandoned at crazy angles, glass shattered, doors wide open as if their drivers had jumped out in terror. Left in the ruin were the ruins of lost existence: a school bag belonging to a child, one shoe, a torn photo floating in the hazy air. The world had been torn apart and left to rot.
I glanced at the necklace gripped tightly in my trembling hand. The red ball embedded in its center glowed softly, a light calling me towards the north. It was the one thing that kept me sane, the lone lifeline in the midst of the madness. I moved quickly, low and stealthy.
Cries from the others cut through the air, a cacophony of fear that echoed through the ruined town. Across the skies, the Other Five wandered the skies, dark, hooded figures gliding effortlessly along. Their currents of steam curled behind them, black and snake-like, the tails of ill omens. They were driving people into the town square, driving them in with the cold calculating ferocity of predators driving prey. I knew, with a knowledge that twisted my stomach, that they were hunting me.
I cowered in a dirty hedge, its gray leaves parched against the red color of the sky. My own heart thudded in my ear as someone ran by, their steps spasmodic on the earth. I held my breath, praying they hadn't seen me.
The necklace danced in my hand, and the red ball had disappeared. The blue ball glowed consistently now, and it indicated east. A face occurred to me: Darwin, the boy. The revelation surprised me as a flash of night—he was the key, the reason the necklace had changed.
I needed to find him.
With renewed purpose, I pushed east, my steps quick but cautious. The streets became closer, buildings more deteriorated, until there rose on the horizon a monstrous structure: a church, its steeple thrust into the scorched sky like an insurgent sword. The scene was wryly ironic.
Amidst a world detonating in upon itself with the fury of the Other Five, a church—a refuge of faith and sanctuary—appeared to be a bitter jest. Yet the blue sphere grew even brighter, its light almost painful, driving me toward the structure. The cross at the steeple stood solitary above the pulsating sky, a silhouette jeering at the devastation below.
I pushed ahead, fighting my way through the suffocating crowd, their screams mingling with the far-off wails of the Other Five, while the ground was strewn with the parched shells of the unfortunates who had failed to escape, their twisted forms a black penance for the cost.
And then there was the noise—a noise so abhorrent that it seemed to rend the very fabric of existence. It was a scream, a shriek of agony that tore at my ears and clawed deep into my bone. I lurched, dropped to my knees, my hands flying up over my ears. But the sound wasn't merely heard—it was felt, a thing with mass that clawed at my heart and crushed until I thought it would burst.
It was like a thousand voices shrieking simultaneously, their cries stretched to the breaking point of human endurance, all of them drenched with torment. Even with my ears stopped up, the din just grew louder, burrowing in my brain like a plague.
I was going under, carried out to sea on a wave of despair that could engulf me.
"Run, boy. Suffering is for you," a voice rasped out of the necklace, bitter and urgent. My eyes flashed open, and I saw it—a figure hurtling towards me, its speed unnatural, its form a blur of darkness and wickedness. Its face was contorted into a shape that curled my stomach, a mask of suffering.
It was Suffering, one of the Other Five, and it was coming for me.
I leaped off my feet, driven by fear. I sprinted, seared legs, choking breath. The necklace cracked against my breastbone, the blue ball a muffled, faraway light at the periphery of my vision. I gripped the Book of a Thousand Curses, the bulk reassuringly firm in my trembling hands.
But in my terror, my toe had caught on a crack in the sidewalk, and I crashed to the ground with a thud, the book shooting out of my hands. It skidded along the sidewalk, and hopelessness engulfed me for a moment. Suffering was approaching, its face now gigantic, as large as a house's, its mask a ghastly imitation of suffering. I knew that it would engulf me.
A scream of tires shook me out of my daze. A fearless stranger threw a car and veered into Suffering's path. The crash was tremendous, metal crunching as the car smashed into whatever it hit and sent it crashing onto the ground. The accident provided me with a brief respite.
Getting up from where I sat, I snatched the book, my fingers clutching tightly around it as Suffering's shriek grew once more, louder and more ear-piercing than ever before. I didn't look back. I sprinted, with my eyes ahead of me, seeing nothing but the church before me, its great oak doors standing open like a gateway.
The church was an anachronism, its walls of stone silky to the touch after centuries, its existence a steadfast challenge to the fiery air. I approached it, Suffering's shriek growing louder, its frigid breath at the back of my neck.
It was unthinkable, a corporeal presence that would have suffocated me. My every hair stood on end and a chill ran down my spine, but I would not glance around. Doors towered above me and, giving one final desperate shove, I pushed the book out into the crack and after it.
My body hit the stone floor with a pitiless thud, sending pain through my frame. Outside, Suffering's head filled the doorway, its mask contorted into a frozen scream that appeared to wrinkle into evil. Its scream boomed out, booming enough to shake the walls, but it didn't get past the doorway. The church was sacred, a boundary it couldn't breach.
I gasped there, my chest straining as I realized that I was safe—at least for the moment.
Rolling over onto my stomach, I could feel warmth flowing down my face in tears. I had not even known that I was crying, the fear so ingrained that it had become entangled with everything else. Outside, the sounds increased, the voices joined by new ones—Pain, Ruin, Tears, and Death.
All of the Other Five had appeared, hooded figures crowding in a circle around the church like vultures, black auras churning in the scarlet light.
Their cries were a hymn of terror, each note created to send me running, to get me to face them.
I wouldn't. I couldn't.
The church was empty, its pews empty, its stained glass windows sparkling softly with the deep red glow of the sunlight struggling in. I hid beneath a pew, clutching the necklace and the Book of a Thousand Curses. The spheres glowed with a more intense light, their radiance a meager comfort among the din that stormed outside.
I pressed the book to my body as a shield, wrapping my arms around my head and ears, and attempting to block out the noise. The Other Five didn't relent, their screams an intoxication that would destroy me. But I knew I couldn't get away, had to wait for a mirror—my sole hope for termination of the hell.
Gasping, lying there, I reassured myself softly that I wasn't scared, though the fiction was too real against the reality of their presence.