David heard the chorus of screams, and then he felt the heat. It was beyond hot. Endless. Even the air was a furnace. Someone slammed into him from behind, pushing him forward. He almost caught himself before another push sent him sprawling down.
He gasped, a smooth, deep gash opening on his palm. Blood trickled down, staining the glassy sand. The wound throbbed. But it was dull, bearable. Chloe’s lute appeared in her hands, and she started a slow tune. But the chaos around them overwhelmed it. The screaming was distant, but they could all hear it as if they were within it, drowning in the endless pain.
Domain of the Sixth Warden—Jezril
Jezril watches over the wasteland of Elogas!
You have entered the sixth domain—Elogas! Once, this was a vast world. Filled with people who loved nature, music, and pleasure. They worshipped Loratz, the god of plenty. And he blessed them in abundance. He gifted them all they desired, and they worshipped him and those who came from him. But like all things, even joy must come to an end. And Jezril, living flame from the torch of the god, Orlon, was marked as the end of this age of happiness.
“They all just…died?” Zoey asked as David watched his hand heal. It was slow because of the fire. He strained to see far into the distance, but the haze was like a shifting glass.
“Guys,” Carlos called, holding his chest. Four runes glowed around his throat. He pulled the neck of his shirt down, trying to breathe with his mouth. Gis suffered worse. She was trying to hide in Elisha’s shadow, but that wasn’t working.
“Up,” Carlos whispered, pointing. David looked up, expecting to find a burning sky or something. He stumbled back, cussing at the giant balls of fire that hung where clouds should be. They burned with fierce intensity. And as he watched, behind them, the balls shattered into tiny droplets and fell like rain.
“We have to go,” David called.
Gis passed out, almost falling if Elisha hadn’t caught her. Zoey lifted off the ground, her wings unfurling. She hovered briefly, then hissed, falling as her wings vanished.
“Too hot,” She cursed. “I guess we have to run.”
“Chloe,” David called, still staring at the rain falling in the distance. “Can you carry us in your orb thing?’
“Too heavy, and I can’t play the notes while I run,” Chloe responded, now looking in the same direction as David. “I can carry Gis and Carlos, though.”
“I can run,” Carlos groaned. David shook his head, already backtracking. His eyes felt hot, and the air blowing against his face was a burning, sharp blanket. It tore at them all.
“Carlos, run. Elisha, carry Gis. Run!”
“To where?” Zoey asked as they broke into a run. “There is nowhere to go.”
“As long as it is not here, and that rain of fire doesn’t meet us. And can you hear the screams?”
“Yes, David. I can!” She screamed, running past him. “I also can’t see anyone! We are being tortured.”
They kept running.
David risked a glance back and wished he hadn’t. The rain of fire was drawing closer now, the droplets hissing as they struck the bone-littered ground. Each droplet exploded into patches of flame that clung to whatever they touched.
This Jezril has a frightening control of essence. These flames are not simple fire spells, Ignis warned as they ran.
The flames spread like hunger itself, devouring bones, sand, and air. His throat dried up as the heat intensified. Every breath scraped him raw.
“People!” Zoey shouted suddenly.
David snapped his gaze forward. Through the haze, vague shapes formed, stumbling, sprinting, and collapsing as they ran under the crushing heat.
For a heartbeat, he thought they were illusions, the same way the screams clawed at their minds. But then he saw one fall, roll across the glassy sand. He scrambled back to his feet, blood leaking from new wounds as he ran desperately.
The Warden has opened the 1456th door!
“They’re real!” David said, pushing harder.
The survivors were ahead of them, clumped in ragged groups. Some clutched weapons, not that there was anything to kill out here. There was no hope. No task to complete to end the scorching heat.
The air rippled in front of the last group. Essence collected, gathering as it had when Ishkar opened the gate that sent them to this hell. A glowing archway blossomed in front of the survivors, brilliant and golden. A door.
The crowd shrieked, voices breaking in relief. Some stopped and turned or made a bend for the door.
David’s chest clenched. He knew. He sensed it was wrong even before the first hand touched it.
The molten door convulsed. Instead of opening into salvation, a wave of liquid fire poured out. It hit the first dozen people like a tide, drowning them in molten light. Their cries lasted only seconds, and then even those were no more.
The wave rolled over the ground, chasing the rest back.
The survivors scattered. Some dropped to their knees, too broken to run. The fire swallowed them, leaving behind nothing that could be recognized.
Some turned and tried to flee. And some—those with nothing left—simply kept running forward into the fire.
David’s stomach turned. The stench hit them like a wave, sharp and horrible, clinging to the back of their throats.
Zoey gagged. “Oh Go…”
“Don’t look!” David barked, but his own eyes betrayed him. He saw them as the fire ebbed and solidified on the blackened ground. Some faces were frozen mid-scream, bodies crumbling as the fire licked through them.
Not all of them were human.
He caught sight of a tall man with black wings. They jutted sharply, proud and terrible, but their edges were aflame. The feathers were all that remained, even as the body burned. As if cursed to smolder forever. The man’s face twisted in fury. He roared, his voice a guttural challenge that carried over the chaos, then collapsed to one knee. Fire gnawed at him until nothing was left but a scorched skeleton and two blazing wings beating once before falling still.
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David forced his legs to move faster. His blood thundered in his ears.
“What is this, Vith? Ignis? Aza?”
I have never heard of this Jezril. And the fact that his flames affect means he is stronger than you.
“That doesn’t help me,” David growled.
The silence that met him made him shudder. The fragments had nothing to share. No wisdom to impart. Or they simply didn’t care?
David pushed the thoughts away. They were no help, and he needed to think before they all died.
They ran past the remains of the dead. The sand cracked under their boots, still glowing from the flames. Gis stirred faintly in Elisha’s arms, then went limp again, mercifully unconscious.
Two more doors appeared ahead.
One to their left, one to their farther in front, each a swirling shape of molten gold, humming with false promise. The crowd split again, panic overriding reason. Men and women screamed to one another, breaking apart, diving for whichever door they thought would save them.
The Warden has opened the 1457th door!
The Warden has opened the 1458th door!
“This is a tra—,” Carlos croaked, his throat raw. “They’re baiting us!”
“Run anyway!” David snapped. “We don’t stop.”
The doors pulsed. The left one flickered and crumbled, crushing the others after the first person leapt through. The other door rippled, warping as if something on the other side was trying to tear through.
David’s eyes darted to his siblings, to Zoey panting, her face streaked with sweat; to Chloe, clutching her lute even as her small hands trembled; to Elisha, a walking bastion of shadow even here, his helm turned toward the storm of fire at their backs.
“Stay with me!” David yelled, voice breaking over the screams of the crowd. “Don’t split, no matter what happens!”
Two more doors split the haze as David and the others drew closer. The air warped around them, shimmering. Each door pulsed with a rhythm like a heartbeat, daring them to choose.
Carlos stumbled. His knees buckled, and he went down face-first into the cracked sand. He let out a strangled groan, his hands clutching at his throat as if trying to force air into his lungs.
“Carlos!” Zoey stopped, spinning back for him. She reached out, trying to haul him up.
“Run!” David barked, grabbing her arm and dragging her forward. “Don’t stop. I’ll get him!”
Zoey blinked rapidly, her eyes stinging. She nodded and spun back, sprinting after the others.
David dropped to his knees beside Carlos. The man’s runes flickered faintly across his throat, each glowing weaker than before. His chest rose in shallow, desperate pulls.
“Go,” Carlos rasped, clutching at David’s wrist. His eyes were bloodshot, wide with pain. “You can’t carry me and run. I’ll slow you down. Don’t—you’ll all die.”
“Shut up!” David snarled, ignoring him. He heaved Carlos onto his shoulder. The man screamed, his body shaking in agony as the heat seared his skin.
David staggered to his feet, his body screaming in protest. The weight dragged him down, every step a battle. His muscles burned, his throat raw. He could feel it now—the heat wasn’t just in the air.
He could have lifted Carlos easily before, but this place was doing something to him. He felt it now—the heat. It was inside him, running through his veins like liquid fire. His skin prickled, bubbling under the onslaught of Jezril’s domain.
He pushed forward anyway.
Ahead, Zoey, Chloe, and Elisha slowed their pace until David caught up. Zoey glanced back at him, her eyes narrow with worry. Chloe’s golden ropes snapped out again, binding Carlos to David’s back so he wouldn’t slip free.
They were slower now. Much slower.
David realized it with dread. He could see the others, the survivors scattered through the wasteland, stopping one by one. Some collapsed to their knees, too broken to continue. Others writhed on the ground, their screams high as the heat washed through them, undoing them slowly.
The unlucky ones didn’t even scream; they simply curled up, waiting for the inevitable.
David forced himself not to look at them. If he looked, he’d falter. He kept his gaze forward, watching out for the shimmer of essence gathering again in the air.
Another door was coming.
“Elisha!” David called, voice hoarse. “Hold us together!”
The shadow knight grunted. His helm tilted back as black tendrils of shadow whipped outward from him, lashing around the group. They tightened, holding them all close as one.
For a moment, David was relieved to feel Elisha’s strength anchoring them. But then the tendrils began to pale, streaks of gray running through the black. They frayed, unraveling like threads burning at the ends.
“Elisha!” Zoey shouted.
“I know!” Elisha’s voice was guttural, strained. “It’s the fire—it burns the shadows!”
“Then I’ll do it,” Chloe cried.
She lifted her lute again. Her fingers, already raw, pressed to the strings. She strummed fast, urgent chords that tore through the blistering air. Golden threads shot outward, attaching to each of them, weaving through Elisha’s failing shadows.
David saw her fingers split, blood smearing the strings as the tune steadied. The notes were sharp and fast, and she had to keep it so while she ran.
Her face was pale, drenched with sweat, but she kept playing.
“Chloe,” David whispered, but he didn’t tell her to stop. He couldn’t. Without her, they’d scatter and be lost in the wasteland.
Ahead, three doors formed at once.
The Warden has opened the 1518th door!
The Warden has opened the 1519th door!
The Warden has opened the 1520th door!
They rose from the ground, their frames burning bright. The survivors shrieked in feverish delight. Hope leading them. They all split, moving for the doors closest to them. Some went toward the middle one, surging in desperation. Men and women in ragged armor shoved their way forward. Their cries broke against the roar of fire closing behind.
“Don’t trust it!” Carlos rasped weakly from David’s shoulder.
David didn’t trust it. Not for a second.
But they had no choice.
The crowd pushed, shoving toward the middle door. If his group got caught in the crush, they’d be trampled—or worse, forced into one of the false gates.
David slowed. The shard of Ignis appeared in his hand, and with it, an ice-cold resolve.
“David?” Zoey’s voice cracked.
He didn’t answer. He lifted his blade, essence flaring. Wind gathered along the edge, sharp and violent. He whispered the spell through clenched teeth.
Spell: Gale Slash.
The arc of wind ripped forward, invisible until it struck. He had expected to hurt them. He had prepared himself to leave them behind as the wounded screamed and cursed at him.
David froze as the bodies split apart. They were cut clean, torsos separating from legs, blood spilling across the cracked sand before the fire consumed it all. Those who survived his attack fell back, their faces locked in shock and their desperate eyes fixed on him as life drained away.
Silence hit him for a breath. His own chest heaved. What have I don…
“David!” Zoey’s voice ripped through him. “Which door?”
His heart thundered. He could feel the heat behind them, closer. The screams didn’t stop. The fire roared louder. The glass sands screeched and then exploded behind them.
Chloe’s music faltered, her bleeding hands trembling on the strings.
“Middle one!” David bellowed. His voice tore from his throat, harsh and final.
There was no time for guilt.
The ropes pulled them forward. Together, bound in golden light and frayed shadows, they hurled themselves through the middle door.
David was the last. He looked back for just a second, long enough to see the ruined bodies. Their blood steamed as the fire swallowed them whole.
For his family and friends, he had done what was necessary. But to those he left behind, he was the devil.
Then the gate slammed shut behind him.
Yet the screams didn’t vanish. They followed David through.
