3 months later.
The wet earth caught her fall.
"Tired yet, halphlín?"
The growl came unbidden into her mind as she swore, the cold steel of an ancient rock digging into the flesh of her palm as she slid down the belly of a hill. The mud licked her dark hair as she scrambled to her feet, fumbling for a grip on her 2 AR-15. She grasped for the surface but still her Altberg military boots threatened to dip into the darkness. Strands of hair fluttered between her eyes as she exhaled lung-fulls of air but she allowed herself no time to replace the lost breaths as she surged forward. Holes decorated her sleek leggings and she was immensely glad for forgoing the beige and cream ensemble today in place of her almost all black outfit. Well, her white top was black now.
The howls of furious, happy, indifferent - who could tell what these demons were expressing? It all sounded like howling to her - stalked her path. She didn't allow herself the chance to glance back as she "cursed through sludge", reciting poetry in her head. She wondered if this was what soldiers had had to endure everyday, a perpetual threat to their lives in a disgusting environment, and sent a quick prayer of pity to the scattered souls of war heroes past.
"Cheese and rice." Silver's neck arched back as she met with the crumpled manmade structure leaking black blood. She spun around for anything, anything to help her cross this... "[Waterfall] of slime," The Sentry by Wilfred Owen. But of course, there was nothing. She was trapped within the bloated corpse of a crude oil factor puking its laments for its perished creators. She wondered where she might find a tissue large enough to absorb its tears.
"Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nobody to cry for. Poor little halphlín."
A stream of creative curses left her mouth as she searched for an escape and prayed to whatever ultimate reality there was out there to please, please, oh god, let her shower, dress in billion-dollar clothing and decorate herself in daisies before she was killed. She refused, refused to die looking like she'd actually had to try hard to die. No. She was Silver and Silver always looked good. In life and in death and-
#YOLO.
She dove into the mud.
So this was what it felt like to be buried alive.
It wasn't so bad, actually. A little suffocating. Overheated. Kinda smelly. But nothing a little spritz of perfume and a few potted plants couldn't freshen up.
"Wakey, wakey, pretty lady."
What the frac-
"Ssh, sshh, no need to be startled, pup."
Silver blinked, her eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness, but her lips were not adjusting to being trapped beneath the industrial strength duct tape. Her gaze widened as she took in the lump of a creature crouched before her, its toothy grin gold in the moonlight that streamed through the splinter of a window. The sheets of rock it called skin pressed against her body as its weight expelled the air in her lungs. Her tied wrists were trapped beneath the mass of their bodies, connected to arms that were twisted at awkward angles. She attempted to shove the creature off of her but he barely seemed ruffled by her measly strength.
"My, my, what lovely eyes you have, halphlín." His voice was harsh, the scrape of earth as gravity pushed the continents apart. "They'll do well in my collection." Silver resisted the urge to shut her eyes, instead drilling lasers into the back of his skull. "Quite a bit of collateral you cost me. " He wiggled his eyebrows, if you could call the fossil worms on his face something as delicate as eyebrows. It had its humongous head propped on a fist the size of her head as it stared at her, a finger trailing the smooth slant of her jaw. Molested by a rock by the age of 25. Tick. "What was it? Three Imps and a Hound?" Clearly, he didn't expect a reply because-
She flinched as the tape was ripped from her mouth. Not tape. She shivered in disgust, glancing quickly away from the thing he flung across the room. Some hideous, leech-like demon. "You must be quite powerful by now. Surprised we didn't catch you before. I'd have enjoyed some company with a halphlín that wasn't half useless. Pun intended." Why did Demons even speak English? Had they been bored out of their pathetic lives after they'd killed every-
"Stop, stop, stop shouting." The creature flicked its fingers at her forehead, which was a nice way of saying he slapped her with a stone pillar. "Such a loud projector." He sighed a gust of hot wind into her face. Like fire and brimstone. "Get ready for dinner, pet."
Get ready for dinner, roast lamb, she mocked.
She inhaled hungrily as the demon's weight disappeared from her body with a rumble that might've passed for a chuckle in another world. Before the heavy door shut behind him, she caught the end of a sentence from the other side, "...pity."
"Tch," she snarled before a sly grin illuminated her features. Silver sat up, resting her elbow against her bent knee as she rubbed the blood and mud from her lips with the back of her hand. The useless ropes fell around her. She should be insulted that they thought she could be held by back rope. Please. She'd learned to free herself from rope knots when she was a girl scout. She raised an eyebrow as she examined her body, noting her lack of nudity, not that that would've swayed her. They'd stripped her of her weapons, her boots, her leather jacket and her array of hazardous jewellery. She felt the simmers of irritation. There were only twenty in the world of that designer wish bone necklace. It would be a pain to find another with all the planes in the world reduced to bird-shaped lumps of metal. Man, she was pissed.
She leapt to her feet, her body overwhelmed with adrenaline. This was what she'd been waiting for all her life. A near-death experience to out-near all other near-death experiences. She stared at the door, contemplating her escape. Should it be extravagantly dramatic? Quiet and hush hush? Ninja-mode or Assassin's Creed style-
"THE PRISONER'S ESCAPED!" yelled the burly guard as not a moment after he threw open the door. They weren't fun at all.
She lunged forward, catching the demon's wrist before his fingers grazed his weapons. She slipped the crescent daggers sheathed at his hip between her hands and into his abdomen. "Ssh, sshh, no need to be startled, pup," she echoed the words of the demon's superior with a roll of her eyes, dislodging the blade from his body. Elephant footsteps marched from the corridors as she threw herself into motion, racing down the winding paths past countless prison cells. Where the hell was she? She hadn't realised demons had an abode, much less kept prisoners. She just thought they... Milled around. Slept in piles of their victims. Hid in caves or portals or, you know, other fantasy-horror-esque things.
Deja vu.
"Cheese and rice," she groaned, coming up against the second detrimental wall of doom of the day. Dead end. Again. Woah, maybe this is, like, Inception. The growls were inching closer. To think or not to think. To think or not to think. Don't think. She jabbed a key she'd stolen from the fallen guard into the prison door beside her. Wrong one, her thoughts hissed as she fumbled for the next and the next and-
Click.
Silver swung the door open and threw herself into the cell.