Xur continued to forcefully push me down flights of dark staircases, growling as we apparently drew nearer to the Below.
I wanted to say something to him, to ask him why he endured the harshness that Salazar threw at him... but I couldn't find the words to speak. They were lodged somewhere deep inside me where I was shaking with fear.
Before too much longer, we reached a large, iron door, rusted and full of age. Completely solid, I realized, except for a small cut out closer to the top that was closed off with three evenly spaced bars. With that, it was equipped with locks that seemed untouchable from the inside. I gulped at how intimidating it seemed.
Xur, with a bit of struggle because of the rust, snatched open the locks and shoved me into another dark hallway. The first thing I noticed was the putrid smell, worse than the smell from earlier. There was more than a scent of death... I could smell the suffering and despair of poor and lost souls, some who were probably dragged here against their will, even when innocent. A scent that also carried the stench of rotting... corpses. I was certain that was the smell because I had obviously smelt it before.
The second thing I noticed was the jail cells aligning each side of the hall. They were lit by torches placed on columns in between each one, barely doing their intended job. I had a feeling it wasn't an accident, though.
I heard groans and moans of suffering, small cries, loud cries, begs for help, some for death. No doubt they were coming from the cells. It wasn't until I began my walk down the hall that I soon found their sources... and the reason the people made them.
The cells were sheeted in filth, blood, and other substances I didn't dare begin to think about. Their inhabitants were just as worse, skinny, dirtied and bloodied, and so shabby looking I wasn't even sure how they were still alive. Some of them clung to the bars begging for my help and others clawed at me with long, ugly nails. I hadn't noticed their deformities before, but some were so crippled, they couldn't even stand. Some didn't have arms, some with no legs, and some with faces that looked either burnt or skinned. I don't want to go into depth about some of the other things some of them were missing. To sum it up, I'd say these were all victims of torturous experiments... or just torture itself.
Part of me crumbled while passing them and the other part cringed and turned away. I hated that honestly... these people had been here for I don't know how long and had to endure such torment the whole time. They were stuck in eternal suffering until death... if they could even die.
"Monsters," I whispered.
"Indeed they are," Xur growled in disgust. I glanced over my shoulder at him and snarled.
"I wasn't talking about them."
"Shut up!" he barked while shoving me forward. I had no choice but to follow his orders and continue walking. Eventually, we reached the end of the incredibly long hall and almost as if it were fate, there was a conveniently empty cell on the right that I soon occupied. Xur said nothing else when he locked it and left.
"Well this is great," I groaned to myself as I collapsed onto the filthy floor. I sat close to the bars so I could get a bit of light and possibly see anybody coming down the hall, although it was too dark to see that far. I ended up just leaning against them and thinking quietly to myself... waiting.
I was distracted by the inhabitant of the cell in front of me when they started groaning out of nowhere. I could tell they were turned away from me, laying down and twisting uncomfortably. By the deepness of their sounds, it was safe to assume it was a guy. His hair was dark, his clothes a little shabby like mine, and his form oddly muscular, unlike all the others.
I immediately took an interest in him, curious to figure out why he was so different. I couldn't see any missing limbs or other body parts, but I still didn't get to see his face because he never twisted over completely. He continued to groan, not once saying a word or crying. His agony was just as heartbreaking as the others'.
I found myself clinging to the bars, gaining a feeling of recognition out of nowhere. Something was sparking inside of me... but I knew it wasn't my powers. And when I gathered all of my observations, my own gasp almost startled me.
"Kade!" I yelled, rattling the rusty, yet durable bars with my grip. The guy's groaning switched to heavy breathing for a second... and then he finally turned over.
My whole body flooded with relief when I met Kade's blue eyes. He was shocked for a second, but when realization hit him his eyes widened and he strained to sit up. My heart broke seeing his beat up face.
"Bella?!" he whisper-yelled. He gripped the bars too and gazed at me with empathy and relief.
"What are you doing here?!" I frantically asked.
"The others wouldn't let me go into the field after you. But when you got dragged down I managed to break away... and end up with the same fate as you. I tried searching for you after I fell but Salazar found me first and... well, I think it's obvious what happened next," he explained.
"What did they do to you? You look awful!"
"What they're famous for... torture." My heart shattered. Earlier, I was upset about nobody coming to my rescue. Now, I realized it'd be better to have that than what I was witnessing.
"How are you containing your madness?" I whispered painfully.
"I don't know," he whispered back. "But I think Salazar's curse is starting to work its way out." He lifted his shirt to reveal a small patch of some rough, pasty looking black substance that seemed to sizzle against his skin. He then gently touched it and winced. "It burns worse than any kind of sunburn you can imagine. Maybe even worse than fire."
My grip tightened around the bars. "We've got to get out of here." He put his shirt down and leaned against his bars.
"I've already tried. It's no use," he groaned.
"If there's one thing I've learned it's that there's always a way," I insisted, already searching for an escape. Kade watched me but he didn't offer any words of encouragement, but not once did he discourage me either.
The bars were too close together for me to squeeze through, so my only option would be to pick the lock somehow. But the cell was empty... besides its filth, of course. This frustrated me greatly and I took a bit of my anger out by shaking the bars. Right at the moment, I heard something clatter to the floor to my right and I instantly turned all my attention to it.
A screw. A screw from one of the door's hinges. It was a large, heavy duty one, but with all the rust it must've become faulty.
Not completely, though.
I swiped it off the floor and stared at the tip, a plan forming inside my head. Is this thin enough to fit inside the lock? I stuck my arm through the bars and tested it just to be sure. To my relief, it was (thank God for a big lock). But one wasn't going to be enough. After checking all my screws and resulting in failure at finding a second loose one, I called over to Kade and asked him to do the same. Upon his second to last one, he found one that was just slightly parted from the wall but with little space for his fingers. It was a loss.
I quickly thought of something else, possibly completely different than a screw, that was small enough and sharp enough to fit into the lock alongside my screw. When I finally thought of something, I wanted to punch myself for not thinking of it before.
I reached under my shirt and began struggling with the straps of my bra. "What on earth are you doing?" Kade whispered over to me, a smile hidden in his expression even with our current situation.
"My bra has wire in it. Maybe I can use that for the lock," I said. "Sometimes being a girl has its perks." I eventually managed to snap a piece of wire (without rendering my bra useless) long enough fit into the slot and instantly went to work with my equipment. Now... I had never picked a lock nor attempted to do it before but I'd seen it done in movies, so how hard could it be?
I realized just how hard it was when I didn't get it after ten minutes, not thirty minutes, not even an hour. After continuous breaks and adjustments to my wire to strengthen it, I successfully heard a satisfying click and watched the door part from the frame two hours later. Well... approximately two hours. I couldn't really tell the time.
Kade scrambled to his knees and watched me slip from my cell, barely moving the door since it made such an obvious squeaking sound. "Oh my God. You actually did it," he whispered, sounding genuinely surprised.
"Of course I did," I said with a smirk as I went to work on his lock. It took me only about ten minutes this time since I had grown familiar with the locks. As soon as the door opened, he pulled me into a tight hug and stroked the back of my head. I hugged him back. No questions asked.
"Now Miss Genius, how do you plan to get out of the big door down there?" he asked after pulling away. I motioned for him to follow me and while ignoring all the hands and cries (there wasn't much I could do for the poor souls) we reached the door, my eyes instantly focusing on the cut out with the bars.
"Maybe I can fit my arm through there and open the locks. If I remember correctly, there are only three of those slider locks," I informed Kade. The spaces between the bars were narrow and he wouldn't be able to fit his muscly arms through. Another perk of being small, I guess.
"You can't reach the locks. The opening is too high," he said. I smiled at him.
"That's where you come in. Lift me on your shoulders!" I ordered. He gave me a skeptical look but then knelt down for me to climb on. I'll admit it was a bit awkward when I sat on his shoulders and tucked my legs against his neck. Neither one of us said anything though, he just held onto my shins and lifted me closer to the opening.
My arm fit through with just a minor squeeze, and my hand touched the first lock instantly. I remembered how a big creature like Xur had a bit of difficulty pulling open the locks, making me think I'd have an even worse attempt. But when I slipped both arms through the bars and tugged forcefully, the first lock slipped open with a screech. "First one's done," I called to Kade. Reaching even farther, I tugged even more at the middle lock and eventually succeeded at its release. My arms weren't long enough to reach the third one so I had to get Kade to lift me as high as he could. He grabbed my thighs and pushed up with a grunt, obviously still feeling a bit weak.
"Good?"
"Good."
I tugged open the third lock, instantly snatching my arms back in since they were sore from the struggle. Kade set me down and pushed open the door with my help and we were left staring at a dark, spiraling staircase.
"Come on. We'll figure out what to do next when we make it back up," I said before we started to quietly sneak up the many staircases. For some reason, I was able to remember my way through this puzzling place... or at least the way I was led through. We resurfaced minutes later at the main floor I presumed. There were rooms and doors everywhere and none seemed to stand out as an exit. I led the way into a room that appeared to be some kind of sitting room, then gazed out the enormous window that it had. We were indeed at ground level, allowing the window to be our quick escape route. Once outside on the red soil, Kade stopped me.
"How do you plan to get back to the real surface?" he whispered urgently. I looked up at the black and red misty sky, pondering the important question. Why was I having to figure out everything?
While I was thinking, I heard heavy footsteps coming into the room we just left, considering I hadn't closed the window yet. There was a nudge at my shoulder and then Kade pointed at what looked like a small stable to our far right. We sprinted for it while also trying to keep our footsteps as quiet as possible. We crouched behind a stack of large crates, watching as Salazar's silver-white hair appeared when he poked his head out the window, fury buried into his red eyes.
"What the hell is your problem?!" he screamed, apparently speaking to someone behind him. "This is the second time you've let this happen, idiot! I'm still wondering why I don't have your head pinned to my wall!" He ruffled his hair and pounded the windowsill. "You let them escape... from the Below! Why wasn't it guarded?!"
"I-I'm sorry Sir...," I heard Xur stutter. "Everyone was preparing for the war."
"The war?! Total bullshit!" Salazar was furious. The angriest I'd ever seen him. "I called the war off and you directly disobeyed me! First you injure my Cerberus and then you let our two most important prisoners escape... again! That Cerberus better be at the gate or-"
"It is!" Xur interrupted, trying desperately to make it sound like the greatest thing he's ever done.
"I swear if they make it past that gate and crawl back to the surface...," Salazar mumbled to himself as he tried to calm down. All the while, I though... score. Thanks for the tip!
"N-no worries, Sir! I'll get a search party out right this instant!" Xur growled nervously, and heavy footsteps trotted off. Salazar let out another growl of fury and slammed the window shut as he too left the scene.
"Well I guess we just figured out our way back up," I whispered to Kade. He gave me a skeptical look and stared off in the distance.
"The Cerberus is guarding the gate, Bella. I'm like ninety three percent sure we're not getting past it," he said.
"Well that leaves us with a seven percent chance of survival, doesn't it? I'll take whatever we can get." A smile formed on my face even though I wasn't very excited about this task.
"Look," he said, pointing at a long black line in the distance. The gate. "How are we supposed to get there before we're found?" Before I could say anything else, I heard the snorting and whinny of a horse from behind. A bigger smile formed on my face when the realization struck Kade's face.
"Maybe it's fate," I whispered with a smirk. We stood and admired the two long rows of stalls, all seeming empty except for the bit of movement in a few. I approached the first one on my left and gasped at the kind of horse I saw. But it really shouldn't have surprised me.
Being a horse from Hell, its fur was a deep black and its eyes were just hollows with fire, as well as its nostrils. It sort of reminded me of the three headed dog... or Cerberus. But it seemed just as docile as an earth horse.
I don't want to go into detail of how tough it was to get it out of its stall quietly. We didn't even take the time to suit it up and just jumped on, Kade in the front guiding it by the mane. But the important thing was we were finally off towards our destination, and halted just out of sight of the enormous dog creature sleeping at the doors. When we jumped off, Kade sent the horse galloping in the other direction to keep it from making anymore loud noises that could possibly disturb the dogs' slumber... or attract the attention of our search party.
Beyond the gate was a huge wall of thick mist, hiding everything behind it. But according to Salazar, we should be able to crawl back up to the surface.
Kade led the way, keeping an arm out to inform me to stay behind him. We tip toed even closer to the Cerberus and doors, not once taking our eyes off them. The doors were the only part of the gate that had bars that could we could slip in between. Everything else was solid.
We snuck halfway past the dogs when an abrupt growl stopped us dead in our tracks. The creature was just feet from us, able to snatch us up if we didn't act efficiently. The middle dog lifted its bloody head (thanks to Xur) and sniffed the air. I prayed it didn't look behind it... but with my luck it did just that and my heart nose dived into my stomach. Its loud growl woke the other heads and they followed its movement and actions. Kade was already tugging me forward when screeches rung out in the distance.
Gargoyles, a dozen maybe, were flying our way and the Cerberus was scrambling to its feet. Kade and I booked it, sprinting hard for the doors that were right at our finger tips. Once my hands touched the iron, I propelled myself to the other side with him while at the same time hearing the sharp order of "open the gate!" come from behind. A loud squeaking sound came from the opening doors, but I didn't turn around once. I continued to sprint into the mist ahead of me, instantly latching onto the wall of rough rock I touched. I couldn't see where it led, only that Kade was already climbing his way up. As I followed, I realized it was more of a steep slope, which just made the task even more difficult.
I didn't stop to rest once. My hands and knees scrapped hard but that didn't stop me from reaching my destination. I just made sure I kept up with Kade as we climbed, crawled, and scratched our way up. I could hear the barking of the dogs, the screeching of the gargoyles, and the falling of rocks as they followed us up. At one point a gargoyle grabbed my ankle, but I managed to kick him off easily and catch up to Kade.
My hands and feet ached and we crawled for what seemed like hours. A wave of relief washed over me when my fingertips touched dirt above me. Together, Kade and I began digging and throwing dirt below us. I wasn't sure how that even worked but I didn't stop digging. And when we had dug an opening big enough, we climbed into the dirt (which I must say was a bit harder to cling to than the rocks) and continued digging until our fingers hit air. I felt around for another grip on the surface, and then began to pull myself up after I managed to dig away the more softer soil.
My eyes gazed up at the blue sky for just a quick second until I remembered the hole I created. I quickly kicked in random mounds of dirt around me, magically filling the opening to Hell and erasing all traces of it. Kade had just finished doing the same thing and we collapsed next to each other with exhaust.
"Oh. My. God. Guys, over here!" I heard a familiar voice yell. Looking to my left, I saw Maeve and the rest of our crowd waving us down. Then I realized Kade and I were laying in the field we had been drug down from... and the others were on the other side. Afraid of it happening again, I motioned for Kade to follow and we trudged over to the group. Although we were covered in filth (and ash for some reason), Odis and Maeve hugged us, Maeve wiping away tears afterward.
"I can't believe you actually crawled from Hell," she breathed. "H-how did you-"
"Another story for another time," I groaned, throwing myself against a healthy tree.
"How did you know it led to Hell?" Kade asked them painfully.
"Krishna figured it out as y'all were taken. The whole field is one big portal to Hell," Odis said, motioning towards the tall blonde.
"Yes, after a certain distance underground, you hit the Boundary of Hell. Once I saw that the corpses were trying to force you down, I remembered a spell that wiped out the 'Hell-controlled dead' and did just that," she said proudly.
"So you were just gonna leave us?" I growled to everyone. "You just let us get dragged down? What, y'all get a free pass over the field but we literally have to go through Hell to get our passage?"
Hurt looks washed over everyone's faces, especially when Kade gave them the same glare. "You've only been gone for an hour," Maeve said quizzically.
I shook my head. "No. Time works different down there. We were gone for more than just an hour, two or three," I snapped, even though I realized where she was coming from.
"Once we got across, we were actually trying to figure out a way to get you back," Odis added. I waved off his explanation and groaned.
"Well Salazar might've called off the war for a second there... but when he realizes we slipped past... all I can say is we better expect all of Hell's fury," Kade said to me. I only nodded my agreement.
"How much further to the castle, Delilah?" I mumbled. She pointed to her left and I followed her finger to find a giant hill out in the distance, miles away.
"Just over that hill," she whispered mysteriously. Although it may have seemed far to everyone else, I felt like it was just at my finger tips. We were almost there... so close to the castle.
So close to home.
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Thank you to Wattpad for putting the save button right next to the publish button so when I go to save I accidentally hit publish... twice. :|