The streets in this part of the city are all but pitch dark. The streetlamps that were illuminated near Kincaid’s mansion are all snuffed out here. Some burned out and others shattered. I have to step around puddles of broken glass on the street as I go to keep from cutting my bare feet.
I keep thinking I can see shadows and the shapes of people at the edges of my vision, but each time I whirl, there’s no one there. The wind sounds like whispers threading through my hair, and I’m almost certain if I listened hard enough, I could make out actual words.
So, I don’t listen hard. I don’t need to be hearing voices on top of everything else right now. Pretending something isn’t there when it is is a poor defense mechanism, but a defense mechanism, nonetheless.
For the most part, it seems this area of the city is without power. Or at least, that’s what I think for several more blocks until I begin to notice signs of life again.
A light on in an old brownstone apartment building down to the right.
The low hum of distant music thumping indoors somewhere.
Voices down an alley where the flickering orange glow of fire casts long shadows on the brick wall opposite. It pops and crackles to the tune of inhuman laughter.
I almost turn around. Almost go back.
Instead, I grit my teeth and carry on, sprinting from trashcan to tree to abandoned car, keeping low. Keeping out of sight.
Once I clear myself from view of the inhabited alley, I turn down a quieter looking street, finding a flat expanse of land. A park. The raw pads of my feet leave the cracked pavement in favor of overgrown grass. A sign further up reads Cherokee Park.
Behind it crouches a graffitied building barely larger than the size of a bus. A public restroom, I decide, peering around it to the rickety old park.
Rusted monkey bars and swings hanging from busted chains.
This park hasn’t seen the touch of a child’s hand in years. Maybe not at all since the city fell.
I’m liking the look of the blackened buildings nearer to the river than the lit ones along the path I’m currently following. It can’t be more than a hundred meters to the other side of the field. I ration that it might be wiser to skirt the edges of the river than to walk down the streets of Elisium hoping not to be spotted.
Of course, there is the risk of falling in, but I trust my footing a hell of a lot more than I trust the streets to remain quiet and vacant through the entire night.
Besides, if Diablim can’t cross the river, they have virtually no reason to go anywhere near it. Maybe even being near it is uncomfortable for them. Maybe that’s why all the buildings along the river’s edge look to be vacant.
It takes me a solid minute to catch my breath before I’m ready. My body isn’t used to this form of exertion, and my muscles are already straining. Strange, though, how I can’t think of a time when I’ve felt better.
My mind is the clearest it’s ever been. My thoughts are sharp and focused. My body may be weakened from near-constant dehydration and lack of exercise, but I feel stronger than I did before.
Like if I had to, I could run all night.
Distantly, my mind draws a connection between that newfound strength and freedom of mind with the fact that I haven’t taken my pills in several days now. But I’m not ready to analyze that just yet.
Breath caught, I count to three slowly in my head, beginning to bounce on the balls of my feet. I clutch the corner of the weathered building, preparing to use it as a springboard to launch me fasted through the barren field.
One.
Two…deep breath.
Three!
I run.
Cool wind whips past my inflamed cheeks. My feet pound dully against the earth and long reeds of grass batter against my legs. The sounds are nothing compared to the flutter of my own heartbeat in my ears, like a trapped bird trying and failing to take flight.
A shadow crosses the face of the moon, and I almost stumble, craning my neck upward. A sound like damp blankets on a line, billowing and snapping in the wind, reverberates in my ears.
I search the field in quick, jerking twists of my head, but find myself alone.
Just another twenty meters. Run, Paige.
Don’t look back.
But back isn’t what I need to be wary of. The shadow passes over the moon a second time, and I find the source.
Spiraling ever lower from the clouds above, a great winged beast descends. When it notices I’ve spotted it, it opens its black maw to reveal fanged teeth in a hissing screech.
The monster’s hairless and noseless face stretches long as it opens its mouth impossibly wide—making its black eyes glimmer in the moonlight.
This time, when the scream blooms in my chest, I’m powerless to stop it. I parry the creature, trying to roll into the grass, out from the reach of its taloned fingers.
Not far enough. It’s formidable and fast. With a beat of its webbed wings, it changes course and is right on top of me. My skin tears where three razor sharp talons curl into the supple flesh between my neck and shoulder.
I cry out, pushing and kicking and shouting as it sinks its talons in deeper, more securely, and I can feel its pull lifting me from the earth.
No, no, no!
This is not how it’s supposed to end. I didn’t escape one monster to be torn apart by another.
I dig my blunt fingernails into the fleshy part of the creature’s talon, feeling rubbery flesh pull away from bone and nearly gagging at the smell.
Like the putrid stench of trash left to rot in the sun.
I fall back when it releases me, my head connecting with something hard hidden in the grass. I scramble backward, dazed, the world tilting up at an odd angle as I move, making me teeter and sway with every inch I gain.
At least ten feet tall, with a hairless naked body of pockmarked red flesh and protruding bones, it screams at me. Rage burns red hot in its black eyes. Its forked tongue slithers over cracked lips.
Before I can even think about trying to stand—to run, it lunges forward, wings fanning out behind it.
I know I may as well already be dead, but I raise my hands anyway, bracing for its scythe-like talons to cut and slash.
Instead, a blood-curdling screech rips through the air, and I drop my arms in time to see another beast attacking the red-skinned thing that was trying to kill me.
It tears one of the creature’s leathery wings from its back as though plucking the wing from a fly. Sharp yellow eyes roll over me as it sneers in my direction, allowing the other demon an opening to strike.
The new demon, whose skin is black as obsidian but matte as ashes, bleeds red as a gash is opened across its bare chest. It roars, bearing down on the red creature with a renewed fervor and begins to tear it limb from limb.
Its silvery horns glint in the light as blood splatters my face and fans over the grass.
It takes me longer than it should, but I am on my feet. I run.
Head still off-kilter and legs sloppy, I make for the river. It’s my only hope of escape. The cold pull of its current is a weapon I can wield in my defense. It may also kill me, but drowning seems a lot less awful than having my arms and legs ripped off, too.
The shrill cries of the dying demon at my back abruptly cut off and the air thickens with a foreboding pressure, clotting the blood in my veins.
I don’t hear it coming. Not until it’s too late. I clear the last two meters of space between the edge of the field and the cracked pavement road. I whirl, taking in too-familiar yellow eyes before I trip backward over a cement bumper and the lights in my world go out.