Demon's Awakening Ch. 09

MINA

The first thing I felt was cold. My skin sticky and wet. When I opened my eyes, there was an white opening, moonlight blurring my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut, begging for them to refocus, and when I opened them again I moved my head to the side, discovering a golden lit chamber.

Wait a second. Didn't I get eaten?

Goosbumps rippled across my skin at the memory, I flexed my muscles. Good, my body was in one piece. I tried to sit up when I felt restraints on my wrists and ankles.

Oh God.

And the wetness all over me was drying. I lifted my arm to see my arm hair had gone hard. Gurge must have regurgitated me back out...

I scanned the surrounding cavern. I was elevated well above floor level on a dais. Stairs led down to the cavernous space at the bottom. Broken sandstone statues stood like guards around the perimeter, holding spears and shields.

Where have I seen this before?

This place felt familiar, and that made no sense. But there was a growing pit in my stomach at the feeling that I knew what this place was.

A sacrificial chamber.

It came back to me in a vision, another life.

A hulking figure of darkness was chasing me through a spacious gallery. A black box pressed to my side. I couldn't let that thing have it after what I'd done to Alor. It wasn't apart of the plan.

"You can't keep it all to yourself, whore!" Gurge thundered, causing me to fall down the stairs into the sacrificial chamber. Hot pain bloomed in my ribs and arm. I cried, the box slipped out of my grasp across the floor. A foot stamped down onto my back, forcing all the breath out of me.

Gurge leaned down, showing me the cruel human face he wore. "It's a waste of power not use it." He chuckled.

I knew it was only a matter of time before the hunters would close in on Alor. People think selfishly when they're in love, and I could think of nothing else. A world without my supposed enemy in it wasn't one I wanted to be in, but then I found another way we could be together. It pained me to lie to Alor for it, but the price was worth it.

Gurge had promised me he'd mess with the hunters while I castrated Alor, in exchange he wanted the source of his power. My compliance was only a fabrication.

"Ahh!" I groaned as Gurge shoved me with his foot harder. The pain in my ribs blinding.

"Pathetic." He spat, shifting over to the box. "To think I was going to wife you."

I shivered, and began to pull myself upright. I hissed. "Never!"

"No matter, you'll just be my slave to pay for your trickery." Gurge stood atop the dais, moonlight cast down on him awaiting his sacrifice. A wide grin stretched across his face as he unlatched the box and threw it open.

At his silence, a drop of satisfaction swirled within me. I felt for the dagger sheathed at my side as I sat up fully against the sandstone.

Red faced, Gurge shrieked. "Where is it?!"

I smirked, gliding the blade across my wrist.

"You said it'd be a waste not to use it."

His eyes glowed a bright yellow when he realised what I'd done. Speaking in a sacred tongue, I recited a sacrificial incantation, my blood running thick down my arm as my vision began to blur.

Put him somewhere to rest. Only where I can find him.

This way, I could ensure Alor was stored in a safe place where I could resurrect him. In another time. Until then, I enjoyed my last breathe, as Gurge raged.

As the vision faded into my current state, I stared up at the ceiling open mouthed. A waste to not use it? That can't mean... I screamed as it dawned on me.

I put him inside me?!

Past me had some fucked up sense of humour! What the fuck? I flailed at my restraints, unable to reign in my cringe and disgust. "This is awful! Get me out of this place!"

"I will kill you and put you out of your misery." Came a ragged voice, behind it a gurgling somewhat like breathing. "You little wretch!"

Gurge stood in the centre of the room below, presenting himself as a black monstrous mass with two sinister glowing eyes. I hoped Ethan didn't have to face this thing... but I had a feeling he must have heard me scream when I was swallowed. Demonologists didn't back down from Spirit Realm inhabitants.

"What did you do with Ethan!" I gritted through my teeth. If I could keep Gurge busy while pulling at my restraints, they might've loosened. I didn't have much else to work with.

Gurge gave a pleasant hum, rubbing his belly. "He was delicious."

There was a muffled shout coming from Gurge's stomach before he punched himself in the gut, groaning.

"Oh my god Ethan!" I shouted. "Don't worry I'll get you out somehow!"

Gurge appeared beside me, a ratty tome materialising in his outstretched hand. "My sacrifice will work this time."

"You do know," I paused, awkwardly. "Alor's not inside me?"

"No," Gruge said. "His seed has found purchase."

No way. I was on birth control. It'd been months since I'd slept with Alor and I'd felt nothing. "You're looking for an excuse."

The moon was almost in full view now, shining down on half my body. Gurge scanned a particular page in the tome, pacing up and down the length of the dais. "Your disbelief will make this easier."

His flat tone was unnerving. It occurred to me Gurge's sacrificial ritual would be no use if there wasn't a part of Alor here. That was the only way he could get his power, to have it in his possession.

Ok so maybe I was pregnant? I'd never heard any record of a half demon-baby, but this whole situation was strange. Human birth control was a no go with Demons? Did Alor know?

As the moon came into full view, glowing down on me, Gurge began to recite an incantation. He stared down at me smugly, leaving the tome floating mid-air to retrieve something from his side.

I stiffened at the cool metal pressed to my throat. My breath came in sharp.

This was it. Worst Christmas ever.

I squeezed my eyes shut, the blade nicking my skin.

Gruge roared and the blade clattered to the floor. I surged up, my heart racing.

Down the stairs, Gurge was crumpled on the floor with a red figure on top of him.

"She belongs to me." He growled.

I knew that voice. My heart swelled.

Alor had changed. No longer was he inhabiting Jin's body, but his true one. Though he was smaller than Gurge, there was considerable power in his bulked body, pinning Gurge down by the throat. He wore a tattered black robe, a red sash tied at the waist. Alor's laugh echoed.

He sounded on the edge of delirium. Gurge choked under Alor's tightening clawed hand.

"This body feels like coming home." He said, hauling himself into the air. "Give me a homecoming to remember Gurge!"

Like hauling a sack of potatoes, Alor threw his opponent into the far wall, caving it in. The temple shook from the impact, sandstone particles spraying from the ceiling.

"Alor!" Despite his injury, Gurge rose from the wall with pure admiration in his yellow eyes. "I have waited for this day! You give me the honour of killing you!" He exclaimed, dodging Alor's punch. He rolled until he put distance between them both, and faced Alor with bloodthirsty glee.

Alor swaggered over to one of the statues, pleased as punch by Gurge's words he took a spear. "The pleasure is all mine."

They charged toward each other. Gurge leaped over Alor, showing his soft under belly, the spear tip just missing it. Alor bulked as he was grabbed by the back of his robe and sent flying back into the adjacent hallway lined by columns, smashing through one. He groaned.

"You want to play damsel in distress any longer?" Intoned a voice, as if examining their nails. I gasped, whipping my head to find Kaz standing at my side, pointing the discarded knife at my cut restraints.

"Oh thank you!" I hugged him without thinking, and Kaz stiffened. I broke away and got up from the table. "Sorry, I forgot you don't like thanks."

"No mind," He said with vague disgust. "I need to destroy that magic tome. Alor will take this whole temple down in this fight, so I need you to get moving before its difficult to get out."

"But Ethan is stuck inside Gurge!" I said.

He floated into the air and said. "We know! Just do what I say, I will meet you over near the hallway ok? This won't be a second." With that Kaz went and reached up for the Tome, which was now floating aimlessly in the opening of the ceiling.

Mindful of the commotion Alor and Gurge were causing, I aimed to be quick-footed among the collateral damage of their fight. Blocks of sandstone were strewn about, though the wall on this side of the temple had yet to give out. I stayed on the outer edge off the room, creeping carefully over the first few blocks. The air was stifling hot as a tomb, and I had to take a moment to catch my breath, bending against a fallen column.

I was bleeding down my leg. When had I done that?

But then I felt a sharp burn rip through my cheek, snapping my head against the wall. My knees gave way, but I tried to scramble away to see what had struck me.

It was a knife. Floatting in a pink glow before me.

"Kaz!" I screamed, diving low as the knife went over me. Searching for flesh to sink into.

With the book now in his possession, Kaz landed beside me, trying to use the book as a shield when the knife came surging towards us again. But it would stop right before plunging into the leather cover.

"Fuck, it knows! The book is what is controlling it." He said, hitting the knife so hard it flew to where Alor and Gurge were still fighting. He grabbed me and surged us over the remaining debris. "Go go go!"

At some point, Alor had used all the spears in the room only to have them broken or swallowed by the beast before him. Kaz and I watched from the adjacent hallway as Alor stood his ground. There was a gash in the side of his head, blood as red as my own dried down his face. One of his horns had been shorn off to a stump, he didn't seem to mind that though.

"Haven't you had enough?" Gurge panted. "Sleep. Let me eat you."

As if triggered by the word itself, Alor's red eyes began to flutter. "What the—"

"No!" I cried. "Alor you have to stay awake."

Alor met my eyes for a moment, then tried to shake himself out of his growing languid state. He jerked forward with a painful grunt as something hit him. He clutched at his shoulder, pulling out the bloody knife.

Gurge chuckled, confident he had mastered Alor with his enchanted words. He turned to Kaz and I, and made for us. "Give me back the book!"

Kaz pushed me to run while he stood his ground, holding up the book in clear view.

"Alor throw the knife this way!" He said, sweat pouring down his forehead. "You kill the book, his magic stops."

"Kaz!" I watched as Gurge lept into the air, opening his maw wide for Kaz. But a block sent Gurge past Kaz deeper into the hallway where I was.

That wasn't great aim Alor!

"Oh shit," I don't know if Alor impaled the knife into the tome, or if they were back on their feet after Gurge because I was booking it down the hallway. I felt the ground tremble as Gruge crashed into the paved floor right behind me, the force of his massive body made me fall onto the floor.

My legs were pinned beneath him.

Gurge stirred and I felt his breath wash over me. Then it went pitch black.

I screamed as I fell back down into the wet darkness of Gurge's oesophagus.

The insides of supernatural Gods aren't like humans. What was meant to be an oesophagus turned into a soft water slide, shooting me out into the dim chamber of a stomach.

"Mina!" Ethan prepared for my landing, catching me and falling back against the pile of broken weapons Alor had lost and a particularly slimy wall of... I don't know what.

"Oh my god your alive!" I cried, hugging his face.

"I hope we can stay that way," He muffled, setting me down onto my feet. I grimaced as the bottom of the stomach was submerged in two feet of fluid. Ethan's expression turned fearful as he gestured around us.

Warm and tepid, I could smell what remained inside Gurge's stomach; we hadn't been the only one's subject to Gurge's eating tactic. Apart from the inanimate objects Gurge collected in the crossfire of his fights, there were corpses. Piles of them.

And none of them were human.

I covered my nose, averting my eyes. "I thought demons didn't have physical bodies?"

"I don't think the laws of reality apply here." Said Ethan. "I saw you get eaten, but Gurge didn't actually eat you."

I hadn't ended up here the last time I'd gotten eaten. It was just floating darkness, stuck in a deep sleep until I'd woken on a table. Treading through the stomach fluid, I tumbled knee deep when my foot broke through something.

I lifted it out of the fluid, part of a ribcage was stuck on my shoe. My throat constricted.

"I think he intends to eat us this time." I said, squeamishly flinging the bone off with a karate kick.

Suddenly, the stomach began to rumble. Ethan grabbed my hand.

"I've been trying to spear through this bastard's stomach to no avail." With darting eyes, he watched the walls of the stomach as the rumbling grew insistent, he cornered me against the wall where there weren't as much debris. "Because when he's fighting—"

Something bulged into the other side of the stomach, making the whole world turn on its axis. Everything at the bottom of the stomach went up, and we were flying among the fluid, sludge, and debris. My stomach was up in my throat as we descended.

"Don't let go!" Ethan cried.

Unsuccessfully, we bashed into one another on impact, slumping down into the stomach fluid. Saturated, I jolted up off my hands and knees, furiously patting my tongue to get rid of the taste.

"Ethan," I said through a gagged cough. "Are you alright?"

I looked, to find him still face down in the fluid. Oh fuck.

I grabbed him, supporting his weight on my shoulder and slapped his wet cheek softly. "Wake up!"

He didn't move. I brought my hand to his mouth, feeling his breathe. He must have been knocked out when we collided.

As I struggled to stand up, my hand brushed against his wrist, knocking against something heavy.

My amulet. The demon repellant.

An idea struck. He hadn't been wearing it properly, the idiot. I set Ethan down against the wall, sitting him up to make sure he wouldn't drown. I slipped the amulet around my neck, comforted by its presence against my skin.

I had to do this fast before everything went topsy-turvey again.

I shucked one of the spears protruding from a submerged corpse and assessed the far wall. To cut clean through flesh seemed easy in theory, but there was more to cut through. A stomach wall, potential ribs and muscles stood in the way.

If Gurge had any anatomy. That was possible.

This required more power on my part. I had to go fast and hard. I held the spear up with true aim, and charge off my back foot for the wall.

I was sent up into the air. Screaming in frustration, I tried to find leverage but everything in Gurge's stomach spun and rebounded off the walls like clothes inside a washing machine.

I tried to keep the spear clean, using my body to take the impact of flying corpses and walls. I knocked a few spears away with mine, barely missing getting impaled.

And I was falling. I gripped my spear tight, noticing the incoming wall. If the amulet did its job, I should've been like a supernatural stomach bug, a sickness the body repels.

Here goes nothing.

I raised the spear with a roar.