67. AURELIA

Chapter sixty-seven

AURELIA

T he darkness overwhelmed me as I sunk into what felt like the depths of hell. Smoke whirled around my body, creating tendrils of black and gray soaking into my fingertips, unwilling to save me from falling for eternity. It was almost as if time stood still and I was flying through a portal to my death.

There were Deathlies swirling around me, not reaching for me, not knowing that I was there.

The contents of the vial seeped out, touching the sides of the gaping hole. Our crystalline tears sluiced over the sides of the chasm. The murky liquid collided and connected to the Deathlies portal.

Life started to come slowly. As the liquid impacted the sides, the void turned a lively green color, reminding me of the flowing grass on a Tastameii 1 warm day. The Deathlies raced around me, their claws encapsulated with hatred, flying through the vastness with gnawing rakes. Their vessels set off with the life from our tears, turning them into speckled black dust in the air, hurdling in circles that I couldn't keep up with. They disappeared into the air one by one, gradually killing them.

The wails were unforgiving sounds that I would never be able to escape. The sides of the hole kept crawling and crawling, tumbling down, sending me closer and closer to the depths of Haxnau 2 .

1. Tastameii (Taws-taw-mee): Normally Summer (Tas for short)

2. Haxnau (Hah-nah-woo): Hell