Unknown Ch. 02

When can I leave?

Why are you keeping me?

Are you going to kill me?

Why am I in Hell?

Who am I?

"What year was it you last remember being on Earth?" Luci asks softly.

The water takes my curiosity as I duck under and try to ferret out the trap in her words. Unlike the other demons, Luci seems the most affected by my humanity. Whereas Asmody wants to lay me on a table and dissect me to discover where my humanity lays as if it manifests into a tangible thing in my blood and bones, Luci pokes and prodes at my mind, infinitely more cruel.

Water drips from my face as I resurface and place the washcloth on the lip of the pool. It's taken by a maid before my arm's back at my side. Instead of the soft planes and dark wings of Luci's back, I'm presented with her face, the long column of her neck, the top of her breasts.

"I can't remember."

I feel her hand around my neck, squeezing, before I see it. Her expression doesn't morph. No sinister smile curves her lips, no question arches her brow. It's blank. Waiting for my true response to shape it.

I wheeze out the year, feel it scrape against my vocal chords.

Her expression remains blank, hand continuing to cut off my oxygen. "Do you miss it?"

"No."

"What do you miss?"

"Lexiss."

"Where is he?"

I gasp, vision darkening, head lightening as I try to hold the conversation. Talking means breathing, breathing living. I need to live. "I don't know.

"Where. Is. He."

"Across the veil."

"What veil?"

It was only a matter of time before she asked this question, before I told her about Sharica and the eclipse. Before, Hell was below the Earth and Heaven above it. I could believe in neither as the spherical world continued to turn. The North and South Pole, the equators, even the Bermuda triangle didn't house these two states. Beyond the world was a vast universe of infinite possibility. The possibility, the alternate worlds and timelines, was what I believed in.

But when the worlds aren't above or beneath, but beside? When an eclipse lowers a curtain and cold gives way to warmth in that constant ebb and flow of the universe... How easy would it be for me to tell them where I came from, how I got there, and how they could get there too? I didn't entertain the notion that demons resided here for any other reason than because they were trapped. Yes, on rare occasions they stole humans. But it was through guile, through false promises and hopes and magic. They did not simple pop to Earth and snatch a baby from a crib. Though it could be that easy. Simple. If I told them how I came to be here.

I was hoping never to give them a peek at the world beyond their box.

My vision became layered black and white circles as she continued to crush my windpipe. But I'm selfish, and the world's done nothing for me. "In Sharica. There's a veil between it and Earth."

"How do you know?"

"Because I came through it."

Her fingers unclench, face morphing with my answer: lips parted and corners lifted, eyes wide, face flushed.

Pleasure.