3. Will I wake up when I hit the ground?can I die here?

Chapter 3

Will I wake up when I hit the ground? Or can I die here?

ZENYA

"Falling in the Black" by Skillet

"Her Name is Alice" by Shinedown

I 'll never escape.

Penrose steps—all black and iron—ever shift and move in a twisted, ominous rhythm like the beating of a heart.

With his black cape brushing my bare toes, I follow Nyxion.

Random passages open and close like the jaws of a beast, beckoning me forward only to vanish as I approach. Icy shadows claw at me from every corner, pushing me closer to Nyxion.

My heart pounds in my chest, each beat echoing in the eerie silence. Dread and anticipation thicken the air, intensity between me and this dark god with his skull growing by the second. I need to stay close to him, my only compass point in this disorienting maze.

I catch a glimpse below me and choke. Empty darkness. It seems to go on forever like an oubliette. Every step is precarious.

Nyxion moves with an ethereal grace, gliding through the chaos as if it's second nature. He reaches the crest of a staircase and steps onto another platform, leaving me on the former. Panic bolts through me as the one I stand on begins to shift to the left. Heart slamming against my chest but with sharp instincts and reflexes, I lunge off the staircase.

The one he's on lifts higher, and a scream tears from my throat, knowing my hands won't find the edge, much less my feet. I close my eyes as my body starts to fall—falling for the second time. I'm always falling.

I've been falling all my life.

Will I wake up when I hit the ground? Or can I die here?

When a strong, skeletal hand seizes my wrist, yanking my body up in a sudden and violent sweep, I collide with Nyxion. Those two black orbs focus on me as his bony fingers touch the backs of my right knuckles where tiny dream catchers are inked. The steps beneath us shift again. But my soul is frozen, caught in his gaze.

"Take hold of my robe." His low and haunting voice sends shivers down my spine. He urges my palm to his frost-cold fabric. I obey. "Do not let go," he warns, the words hanging in the air like a noose before he turns again.

Swallowing a hard knot, I stumble after him, my senses bombarded by the shifting architecture and the relentless, grasping shadows. Dizzy and confused, I cling to his shadowy robe and focus on his presence, a dark beacon guiding me through the madness.

As soon as a wall caves in, unveiling a passage, Nyxion embarks inside. I sink my clenched hand in to find strong muscle. A gasp leaves my throat when that muscle moves, giving me the barest brush of a curve and a…talon. Wings?

I don't have time to ponder before the passage slams shut behind me like the pages of a book closing.

At the sight of a long passageway, I let out a deep sigh. No more crazy stairs. But now I want a Penrose tattoo. There's a little patch of bare skin between the gold and black seraph wings on my back. Maybe I could get it there.

I still don't let go of Nyxion.

The passage seems to go on for infinity. So dark—like a yawning mouth ready to close around me forever.

"What is this place?" I whisper in the stillness.

"My domain," he says without turning.

I consider a quip about him being the King of Vague and Ominous Comments, but for all I know, he's a vampire who could suck the marrow from my bones. And I'd like my marrow to stay in my bones.

"No, I won't be sucking your marrow, little killer. But I will have you on your prayer bones worshiping me soon enough."

Unless I jump your bones first . I smirk. No idea why I just thought that. Really hoping he didn't hear it.

"I did."

Shit. He didn't even turn around. Back still to me. No hint of a smile in his voice. Chills wash over me, and a dark silence takes up the space between us.

After what feels like an eternity, he arrives at a grand set of double doors. Nyxion raises his skeletal hand, and they push open on his command, revealing a room unlike any I've ever seen.

A paradox of light and shadow with seduction and violence.

In this multi-level suite, each tier seems like an intricate nightmare. Black iron chandeliers hang from the high ceiling. No, not iron. They are bones, the wick holders being hollow phalanges. Their candles flicker with dark flames casting eerie, dancing shadows on the walls.

Moving portraits of bone frames adorn the walls, each one depicting macabre scenes. Some perhaps more macabre than the left side of my body. Dark forests with twisted trees, shadowy figures lurking in the fog, and ghostly apparitions with hollow eyes seem to follow me. The air is thick with the scent of smoke and something ancient, a fragrance that speaks of long-forgotten fears and whispered secrets.

"This is your sanctuary," Nyxion says, his voice a smooth, dark velvet that wraps around me like a cloak while looping around my throat like a noose. "A place where your deepest fears and wildest dreams can coexist."

The canopied bed, draped in a luxurious duvet of deep purple that matches my hair, could fit five bodies. My breath catches in my chest when I understand the bed frame and posts are all formed of the same fused bones.

My relationship with bones is…complicated.

Shackles fix to iron rungs in the wall. Bondage instruments slumber in glass cases against the walls. A twisted thrill rushes up my spine, spreading electric tingles across my skin.

My Chemical Romance and Sleep Token songs erupt in my head.

I stand in the center of the room, my heart still racing, my mind reeling from the journey. Despite the darkness and the unnerving atmosphere, I feel a morbid sense of belonging, as if I've finally found a place where my inner turmoil makes sense. And yet, a place of forgetting where I can fade into the dark and find I am safe.

Turning to him, I wonder, "What did those faceless…things want with me?" My voice wavers, but defiance edges my tone.

Nyxion's skull-faced visage softens slightly, an almost imperceptible shift in his demeanor. "They seek the Eye of the Sandman, Morpheus, the one who weaves dreams into existence," he declares gravely. "But they pursue you for a different reason."

A surge of confusion and frustration courses through me. "Of course," I mutter, rolling my eyes with exasperation and disbelief. "And here, I thought it was my sparkling personality."

I shouldn't be too surprised. I've been a magnet for the creepy things of the world since I was practically conceived. In my blood. Literally.

Nyxion says nothing but I sense his muscles hardening beneath his robe. How much of him is bone vs. flesh?

He regards me with an intensity that curdles my blood. "You possess a vitality, a rare passion in this realm," he explains cryptically. "It is both your strength and your vulnerability."

I don't like vulnerability. I'm a master seeker of the thrills and chills. I'd rather get trapped inside a mirror than have a long look in it. Especially one of those haunted carnival ones that warps your body.

Or meet my evil twin.

I laugh maniacally inside my mind. I've already met my evil twin. She lives on the wild left side of my body. Signed and sealed there forever.

"So…" I rub my arms for warmth while eyeing him. "Are you going to tell me what this place really is and who you are? Am I in Purgatory?"

He chuckles darkly, which only twists knots in my stomach. "You are not that fortunate, Zenya."

I freeze, all my limbs locking up. "Am I…dead?"

Now, there's a hint of a smile.

"Not yet."

Not yet. Lovely. "This night just keeps getting weirder." My snarky internal voice is a meager defense against the overwhelming strangeness of this dark realm.

"Fitting for a strange girl, don't you think?"

I scrunch my brows, remembering how Zenya means "stranger". I think I like ‘little killer' more.

"Perhaps I should show you instead of tell you," he says right before lifting his bony hand to something behind me.

When I turn around, all the breath in my lungs withers. It's made of bones. But it's the shape of it. A rectangular frame with two vertical posts and a horizontal crossbeam connecting them at the top. A set of small stairs rises to the platform. No, not a platform.

A scaffold.

And the most sinister part is the rope dangling from the cross beam—a rope with a noose at the end.

Less than a second later, I'm stripped, bound, and suspended. Whatever power Nyxion possesses, he can manifest whatever he desires.

My body forms a pronounced arch. Ropes woven in a Shibari hold that binds my hands tight to the center of my back, my legs spread and my ankles positioned near my hands at the base of my spine.

A blindfold restricts my vision.

Graphic memories swirl in my mind, the trauma of that night scribbling pain and tightness along my spine.

How did he know? How did he know?!

My senses fire on all cylinders, my nipple piercings seem colder than usual, hardening the buds. A prickling along my spine contests with the heat surging to my lower regions. I've been to BDSM clubs in Europe, but I never wanted to try Shibari.

Considering the tapestry of tattoos all over my skin, I've hardly ever felt exposed—not even when stripped. But Nyxion…he said this place was for my deepest fears. I've never felt more vulnerable.

I throw my head from side to side, seeking him. "Where are you?"

A pause. But I sense his breath as it curls across my face, betraying his presence before me.

"Everywhere," he whispers, crystallizing my blood.

"If this is your idea of ‘hanging around', I think I'd rather count grains of sand."

A low growl rumbles in his throat, and I lock up more, wondering what I said to set him off.

It's a cruel contrast when he drapes bony fingers along my cheek and says deeply, "You will remain in this state until I decide otherwise, little killer."

"Who the fuck are you?"

Tender fingers, far too tender and affectionate, loop the noose around my throat, tightening it just enough to thin my breath without restricting it. I try to wriggle, but the rope squeezes more.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Zenya, I'd advise you not to move," he scolds me while tracing a finger along the curve of my spine, along the spinal cord I have tattooed there—bloody and broken on the left and bursting with random flower sprigs on the right. "The more you struggle, the more the noose will tighten, and while I will enjoy some marks on your lovely throat, I would rather not return to find you strangled yourself."

"You're crazy," I spit out, careful not to move, my muscles already protesting from the action.

"I prefer creative ," he says, his voice deep and velvety, and I clench my eyes, as he brushes his skeletal knuckles along the swell of my breast. When he takes my nipple between his thumb and finger and twists it, nothing can prevent me from jerking. I moan, throat contracting from the noose. When I arch more, it loosens, granting me a gasp of air.

I guess I'm a little crazy, too since something damp and warm forms in my center. Like a swirl of liquid heat.

"Hmm…the real question, my little killer, is are you?" His breath curls along my ear following his whisper. When pain stings my earlobe, I whimper, registering the nip of his teeth.

"Am I what?"

"Creative, Zenya. Can you turn your fear into a friend?" Those teeth roam to my throat in a delicate scrape, haunting my skin and spreading heated tingles. "Or a flower? Perhaps a fracture? Fangs…"

What the hell is he talking about?

"Or will you give into the darkness of this nightmare?" He finishes by curving every bone of his hand toward my heart. "I will be most eager to learn when I return. If I find you did not apply yourself, there will be a punishment."

The second he turns, horror needles my spine. I arch my neck as much as possible and shriek, "You're leaving me here? Like this?"

He turns his skull slightly, the barest curve of the jawbone showing. "You have everything you need, sweet dreamer."

"Wait! Who are you? Please…just tell me who you really are," I desperately gasp, eyes careening to the corners, begging through tears.

"I, Zenya Alice Myre, am your worst nightmare."

Nyxion vanishes into a swirl of smoke and shadows.

Fear paralyzes me even more than the ropes. My soul itself seems to shiver. But my center awkwardly grows hotter.

What does he mean? How am I supposed to do anything like this? Oh, hang him!

Poor choice of words since I'm the one hanging.

That fucking devil! How can he do this to me? Maybe he's worse than the devil. I try to rationalize, remembering how he saved me from those…faceless things. How he saved me a second time from falling to my death on the Penrose steps. But even demons can be beautiful and wear disguises.

My mind reels with a host of questions. I'm not supposed to ask questions. So, I write over them instead. Like I write on my skin.

It feels like I'm suspended between worlds. For some reason, the word psychomachy echoes in my thoughts. A conflict between the mind and soul. One of many strange vocabulary words my father taught me.

He taught me much. Like my relationship with bones. And shovels. But I grew the flowers.

The rest, he'd said, was in my blood.

But right now, all my blood has frozen in my veins. If this is some nightmarish test, and I don't pass, I don't want to know the punishment!