Dare to Die

Father Kiran laid out the map on his kitchen table. "According to what the video showed on the News, the epicenter of the circle should be somewhere in this location here." He circled a spot on the map that he was most certain would be the location of the report.

"That far away?" Amara shrieked. "What on earth would he be doing that far out?"

"He's a demon!" Father Kiran answered. "What reason does he need for anything that he does?"

Amara gave a guilty smile as she realized her mistake. "Yes, well that is true!"

Father Kiran bit his lip nervously. "Are you positive that what you saw on the t.v., was the result of the demon?"

Amara nodded. "Without a doubt! I know that work! Something like that can only be done by draining the life force out of everything in the area. Apparently, he is planning something, and he is doing this to declare his first attack. This here was a display of power to show what he could do. Nothing more, nothing less. If I do not stop him, the next attack could be much more severe! Just think, if he could drain the life force out of 20 miles of forest, imagine what he could do to a whole city while they slept? I have to stop him!"

Father Kiran bowed his head towards Amara. "I want to apologize for any doubts or ill thoughts I may have had in regards to you not being able to find my daughter, before. But if he had taken her this far away, I cannot fault you for not being able to locate her! Stop him, before he hurts anyone else! But please, bring my daughter back home safely!"

"We do not yet know if she will be there, but I give you my word Father Kiran, that if he has your daughter there, I will bring her home to you! And finally I will be able to dispose of this creature that I was sent here to get rid of!"

"Thank you!" Father Kiran bowed his head once more.

"This will take me a few hours to fly there, do you mind if I take your map with me so I do not get lost on the route there?"

"No, of course I don't mind! Please take it!"

Smiling, Amara grabbed the map, and exited the priest's home. As soon as she was outside the door, she leapt into the air. Flapping her wings hard, she flew high up into the sky before turning towards the direction that her brother had extracted the life essence of the forest.

"I don't know why you chose a location so far away, nor do I understand why you would have to drain a life essence instead of using your own energy. Maybe you think you can draw me into a trap. Maybe you didn't expect that I would find you so far away. Whatever the case may be, I'm coming for you! And you will not escape me this time!"

~*~*~*~*~

Trinity slowly opened up her eyes. Her head was fuzzy and beating like a drum, while her eyes were blurry. She had to blink several times to focus. She checked the position of the sun and she could tell that the sun had only been up for about an hour or two, so it was still early in the morning.

She tried to move, but the pain she felt throughout her body was intense. It felt as if she had been hit by a truck, reversed, then run over again and again. That's when the memory of what happened, caught up with her. 'Ugh! That's right, I fell into the forest, didn't I?'

She tilted her head slightly, but was surprised that she could see no trees anywhere around her. 'Did he move me someplace new? Where am I?' As she continued looking around her, all that could be seen were piles of ash. No signs of life or any sort of vegetation was anywhere in sight.

Slowly she tilted her head to the other side and could see the tip of a stone wing on her left side. 'Ugh! Just my luck! He just had to be here!'

In reality, after hearing that he had willingly tricked humans in the past to gain their souls so that he could torture them, she knew that the fastest way to dispose of him, would be to make it so that he couldn't survive in this world again. If she had been able to kill herself, the link between them would have broken, and the toxic environment would have returned to him, making it unsuitable for him to remain here.

'Of course he wouldn't allow me to die just like that. Now I am stuck here, unable to move, with pain so severe that I can only wish that I were dead!'

A tear escaped from her eye and rolled silently down her cheek.

That's when she remembered Zyxel's "warning", not to touch his stone skin while he was a gargoyle, unless she wanted to die!

Pushing through the pain, she slid her left arm slowly through the dried up soil. If she stretched, she would be able to reach the lowest tip of the wing. 'Almost... there!' she cried out in her mind. She was on the verge of tears from the pain. 'As soon as I can reach it, it will finally all be over! I'm sorry dad! Please forgive me, but this is something that I have to do, to protect humanity!'

She stretched with her fingers as far as she could reach. Finally the tip of her fingers grazed the cold stone tip of the wing. She had barely grazed it for less than a second, but it had been more than enough to register the touch.

If she thought the pain she was experiencing was bad before. The searing intensity that she felt flowing through her system right now felt like she was being burned alive, only a thousand times worse. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes tight, trying to bear through the pain, before finally letting out an ear shattering scream.

She could feel the heat traveling through her fingers, into her hand, and then traveling slowly up her arm. What she couldn't see, was that this burning inferno was making her skin glow a bright red, as the energy flowed deeper into her body.

Through her screams, she couldn't hear as the stone behind her began cracking. Emerging from the stone was Zyxel, no longer deformed, complete with his full demon form of his red scaly skin, bat-shaped wings, red pointed tail, glowing red eyes, and long elongated talons.

As soon as he broke free of the stone, he heard Trinity screaming bloody murder, and that's when he realized what she had done. He realized too late that he had mistakenly been too close to her when he turned to stone, and she must have touched his stone skin.

"No, no, no, no!" Without a moment's hesitation, he leapt over to the affected arm. He knew that no one had ever survived an encounter after absorbing the energy that they contained within their bodies while they were stone. But he didn't care that the odds were stacked against him. He refused to let Trinity die.

With both of his hands, he grabbed her by the hand, and began focusing on absorbing the massive amounts of energy out of her, and back into his body. But no matter how much he absorbed, it still wasn't enough. It just kept flowing further and further up her arm, to her neck, and then to her chest.

Trinity arched and twisted in her body in agony, her screams were deafening. Unable to move her hand that Zyxel was holding, and no longer bothered with the pain of her broken limbs; Trinity grabbed with her free hand and began clawing at her body, trying to claw out the source of the inflicting pain.

Zyxel wanted to attempt to reason with Trinity, but he knew that nothing he would say would be of any use. She was currently blinded by pain, unable to see or hear him. The only thing he could do was to prevent her from tearing at her skin.

By this point the red glow of her skin had already traveled to her other arm. Kneeling over her, he grabbed her right arm with his left hand, and kept both her arms pinned as he struggled to extract the energy flowing through her. He didn't mind if she attempted to scratch and claw at his skin. His demon skin was too thick for her to be able to scratch him.

Zyxel gasped as he realized that he had barely even scraped the surface of the amount of energy she had absorbed through him. "Fuck! How much of the energy did you absorb? It's like there's no end to it! There is no way her body should be able to contain this amount of energy!"

Trinity clawed at the ground, unable to do any further damage to her body now that Zyxel had her pinned down.

Before he knew it, her whole body was lit up with a red glow from head to toe. Her screams had escalated in pitch, he was surprised that her vocal cords hadn't ripped apart by her own screams yet. The energy had taken hold over her whole body now, and she would soon be dead, just like all the others previously. There would be no way to save her from this point.

As her whole body began to glow red, Trinity's eyes flew open. Zyxel watched as the green in her hazel eyes began swirling and turning red.

"I'm sorry!" he whispered softly, knowing full well she wouldn't be able to hear him through her own screams. "I never wanted this to happen! You didn't deserve to die like this!"

A few seconds later, her body collapsed, her eyes closed, and the red glow began to die down as she abruptly ceased screaming. Her whole body lay there limp, and he knew that she was now dead.

As the last of the red glow of energy left her body, he pried open one of her eyes to check what he had seen. Her eyes were back to being their normal shade of green again. Whatever he had seen, must have been due to the overload of energy into her body.

Zyxel roared with rage as he punched the ground in anger, not wanting to believe that she was truly dead. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I'm so sorry, Trinity!" he whispered.

He brushed the tips of his red fingers over her soft lips, making sure not to scratch her with his claws, and that's when the unexpected happened. He felt a very faint breeze hitting his fingers. His eyes went wide as he placed his hand below her nose. Sure enough, it was faint, but she was breathing!

Unable to believe it, his hand flew to her chest. As he placed his hand over her heart, he could feel the faint, yet steady beating of her heart.

Zyxel's mouth dropped in shock. He had no clue how she managed to survive. But yet here she lay, alive and breathing. He didn't know what to think. In all of his years and experience, something like this had never happened before.

He ran his hand down her body, trying to sense and verify that all the energy that she had absorbed, had truly left her system.

All of the energy that had once been circulating through her system was indeed gone, but there was now something else that caught his attention. His red eyes went wide yet again. "No, wait a minute! There must be some mistake!" He double checked her body once more to make sure he wasn't imagining anything, only for it to confirm what he had previously discovered.

He sat there, staring at Trinity in shock and disbelief. "Your bones, the claw marks you dug into your skin; they're all healed. The pure essence of divine energy that you absorbed didn't kill you, it healed you! How is this possible?"

Gently, he slowly picked her up, as if he felt the slightest wrong movement might break her. Holding her tight against his chest, as he pressed his forehead against her own; he smiled down at her. "Let's go home!" He leapt into the air, as his giant red wings carried them effortlessly into the sky, as they flew back towards the cave.

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(Questions in the Author's Comments below!)

Books I am currently writing:

- The Forbidden Luna

- Divine Banishment