The demon realm

“It doesn’t count if you’re already planning your defeat.” Gerreth smirks.

“Shut up.” I glare.

“You were planning to die here, right from the start. I wonder how Jo would feel about this. She would be crushed.” He smiles. “Good thing she knows right?”

I try to push myself up.

“Oh don’t worry, I’ll let her know. You’ll be in no condition.” He raises his sword above me. The last thing I see is the glint of the blade diving towards me. 

“AHH!” I sit up quickly breathing heavy.

“Hey, hey calm down. You're safe.” I feel someone’s hand on my shoulder.

I whip my head around to face them. It’s a girl, she has blue hair in two braids that fade into green at the bottom.

“W-who are you?” I stammer.

Her face falls. “You don’t remember me. T-that’s fine! We get to become friends all over again!” She says but I can tell she’s sad.

I look around the room and see a bunch of bags filled with red stuff. There’s some other beds in the room as well.

“Where am I?” I ask. “You’re in a hospital, we got in a fight at school.” Jo laughs. “You’re a bit hotheaded. Someone was teasing me and you went completely nuts.” She rolls her eyes.

“What do I look like?” I ask. “Well you’ve got red hair that matches your soul. We dyed our hair at the same time so yours is like mine, it bleeds into orange. You’ve got brown eyes and freckles.” She smiles.

“How bad do I look?”

“Well, you picked a fight with the football team captain so, “ She trails off.  “Black eye, split lip, broken rib, broken arm and broken nose.” She lists.

“Geez. I got beat that bad?”

“Well, the rest of the team joined him and they teamed up. You got a couple of punches on them but not much.”

A nurse walks in the room. “She’s awake!” She cheers. “I’m Doctor Macdonald.” She introduces herself. “Your name is Anima.”

“Wow. It’s weird to have someone tell you your name.” I laugh a bit.

“Here’s basically a file that Jo put together about your. Your accomplishments, your dreams, your hobbies, everything.” She hands me a file and I start reading about me.

I’m 17. I guess I’ve gotten into a few fights throughout my life, there’s two pages full of people I’ve fought with.

“When you said I was a little hot headed, I think that was an understatement.” I say as I flip through the pages.

“Most of them are you defending me. I believe that magic and demons exist and people don’t really like that.” She shrugs.

“Can I check your nose?” Dr. Macdonald asks. I nod and she moves forwards to inspect my nose. “This looks like it’s almost done healing. We should be able to let you out sometime tomorrow.” She says and walks out of the room.

“That’s awesome!” Jo cheers.

“Am I going to have to go to school or something?”

“Nah, don’t worry. You missed the last day of school lying in here you lucky duck.”

“So it’s summer?”

“Geez, I didn’t know you forgot that much.” She jokes.

Another nurse comes in with a tray of food. “She’s awake!” The nurse says and he sets the tray down on the table next to me.

“Guess that means Jo can’t steal all of the hospital's fine cuisine set aside for you.” He laughs.

“Says who.” Jo grabs one of the carrot sticks on my tray.

“Hey!” The nurse slaps her hand. “She needs her vegetables more than you do. Just look at her.” He waves at me.

“Nah, I’m fine. You can have all of the veggies and I’ll just eat the soup.” I pick up the bowl and start eating some of it. It’s actually pretty good.

“Jo, your parents are here to pick you up.” Another nurse pops her head in.

“Text me ok? Oh wait, I’ve got your phone. One sec.” She pulls up her bag and starts digging through it. Eventually she hands me a phone with a red case. “Text me.” She repeats then walks out of the room. 

“Ok, I know it’s only been a while since you got the cast removed and you probably don’t want any adventure but I found a really cool spell in the book.” Jo says.

“What book?” I ask confused.

“I found it upstairs, you know my mom goes crazy at garage sales and then just throws them up in the attic. I think we should do it over at the school, just in the yard.” She continues.

“Ok, sure. Should I come meet you there?”

“I’m already there but take your time.” She replies.

“Ok, on my way.” I hang up. I hop on my bike and start pedaling towards the school. I see Jo standing in the middle of the field so I leave my bike against the side of the school and walk to meet her.

“Hey Jo!” I call out and wave.

“Anima!” She yells and tackles me with a hug. We both topple over onto the ground.

“Geez Jo, what’s up? You just saw me yesterday.” I laugh.

“Yeah but yesterday was, yesterday ago.” She whines.

“That doesn’t even make any sense.” I roll my eyes and stand up.

“Now what’s this spell you wanted to show me?”

Jo stands up and walks to the center of the field. “Watch this!” She puts her hands out and mutters something under her breath. A giant portal appears in front of her and she takes a few steps back.

“Woah!!”

“I know right? It’s awesome! You wanna go explore it?” I

whip my head around to face her and stare blankly. “You want to go in there?” I point at the dark looking chaos realm.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun! And maybe we can bring back some proof that it exists for those stupid people who don’t believe me!”

I roll my eyes and laugh. “This is why we’re friends. You just made a portal to the other world and you want to use it to prove others wrong.”

“You bet!” She winks.

“All right, let’s go.” I grab her hand. We both walk through the portal together. There’s no ground underneath our feet.

“Jo?” I call out. Our feet hit the ground hard and I stumble. Jo helps me to find my balance and we stagger to a standing position.

“Woah.” Jo breathes and I look up.

It looks like there are demons flying through the sky and walking around on the ground. The entire world is a deep crimson. There’s a castle at the top of a hill and it seems like a lot of demons are going to and from it.

“Demons exist!” Jo whispers beside me.

Then we hear a scream behind us. We both spin around to see what’s causing the noise. There’s a boy about our age getting carried away by a demon towards the castle. A scrap of fabric falls and I scoop it up. I look up at the portal and see that it disappeared. Not soon enough apparently.

“What is it? Who was that?” Jo asks.

“That was Darrien.” “Wait like, football captain Darrien? How do you know?”

“Based on the description you gave me and the pictures of him beat up in my file. Plus this is the jacket you say he always wears.” I sigh. “We’re gonna have to go get him aren’t we.”

“Nah, we can leave him here right?” Jo jokes.

“Sadly no. He came through the portal, which we put there. It’s our fault he’s here and I guess that means we have to help him.”

“FIINNEEE.” She groans. “How are we gonna help him?”

“We’ll go up to the castle and rescue him. You can make another portal right?”

“Yep.”

“So we can just portal out of there. Then we use it as blackmail so he never bothers us again.” I smirk.

“You’re pretty devious you know that?”

“Come on! We’ve got an annoying boy to save.” I start walking towards the castle through the shadows.

“How are we gonna find out where he is?” Jo asks.

“Listen for the screaming.” I joke.

She laughs. “Really though. We can’t just run in with our only plan being to find this guy and get out.”

“I dunno, that seems like a pretty good plan to me. I’ll go ahead and scout out if you want to. See any potential threats, maybe find out where they’re keeping him.” I suggest.

“If you’re ok with it. You’re probably the best one when it comes to fighting anyways.”

“Which normally would be a compliment but right now it’s more of a death sentence.” I look up at the castle, we’re at the bottom of the hill it rests on. “You should probably find a place to hide, I’ll go alone and meet up with you down here once I'm done looking around.”

Jo nods and walks away. “Good luck!” She calls over her shoulder.

I see a line of demons walking up the hill towards the castle so I grab a cloak from a market stand and join the line. Climbing up the hill isn’t too bad but it takes a while. Once we reach the top all of the demons file into the castle. Thankfully there’s no guards blocking the entrance. I get in without any fuss. I stick with the group and find myself walking through the halls towards what seems like a throne room. There’s a boy sitting on the throne and right beside him I can see a few demons leading Darrien away. I’ll look over there if I can sneak away. I turn my attention back to the boy on the throne.

“Lord Gerreth.” Someone walks up to him and bows. They hand him a box and walk away.

Shoot. I have to get out here. I squat down and hope no one sees me. I awkwardly make my way towards the entrance. I get to the door unseen and lean back against the wall outside of the room. I peek in once more and see that the lord guy is staring at me. We lock eyes and he glares at me.

I quickly run out of the castle and back down the hill. I start searching for Jo. It's kind of hard because there’s a ton of demons walking around the market space.

An arm shoots out and grabs me.

“Hey!” I shout.

“Yo, calm down.” Jo says.

“Jo! Good news and bad news.”

“I’ve got some, well, I wouldn’t really call it news, I found this guy.” She pulls someone out from the shadows.

“Hello.” A boy with wings and glasses says.

“I found him sitting around doing nothing and I figured it could be useful to have him on the team.” Jo says proudly.

“How do we know he doesn’t worship this Garreth guy though?” I ask suspiciously.

“Garreth?” Jo raises an eyebrow.

“The bad news.”

“Lord Garreth is more than just news. His family has been presiding over this town for centuries. He has been the ruler for a few years now.” The boy says and fixes his glasses.

“I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?”

“I never told you my name. I am called Eldrigde.” He sticks out his hand for me to shake.

“Well El, it sounds like you’re a Garreth follower so I don’t trust you.” I cross my arms and glare at him.

He turns to face me and studies my face. “There’s something odd about you. Your aura is, off.” He narrows his eyes, then they go wide with surprise. “You’re stuck in a paradox!”

“Aaaaaand this is where I jump in and stop the fight.” Jo stops me from punching this brainiac.

“This could be a serious problem, if you’d just let me ask you a few questions we can prevent it.”

“There’s not much preventing me breaking your nose in a few seconds.” I fire back.

“There’s me. Now if you don’t stop fighting I’m going to kill the both of you so shut up.” Jo says impatiently.

We both silently glare at each other.

“Good, now, do we have a plan?”

“I saw them take Darrien into a room off of the throne room. Maybe there’s a dungeon or something?” I shrug.

“I know the layout of the castle like the back of my hand.” Eldrigde says.

“Great! You two can go and find the idiot and I’ll take care of any possible problem with Garreth.” I push the two of them out the door and grab a few more cloaks on my way out. “Here you go.” I throw the cloaks onto them.

There’s already another line of his devoted subjects walking towards the castle so we join them. We walk up with the line until they reach the throne room then we duck out of sight.

“Ok, see you later El! Good luck Jo! I’ll stay out here and keep an eye on Gerreth.” Jo nods.

“Come on El, let’s head to the dungeons."

“You go scout ahead and make sure there are no guards.” El instructs.

Jo walks off and El turns to me.

“You have to die to live.” He states.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You have to die to live, that paradox.” He repeats.

“Whatever, just go make sure Jo is ok.”

I wave my hand as if to shoo him away. He walks away and I turn so I can see in the throne room.

I see a small tower thing that would make a great hiding spot while still being able to see Garreth. I start to walk towards it but I’m so focused on Garreth that I smash my face into a wall.

“Shoot.” I mutter and grab my nose. It feels like it’s broken. I smashed my face into this wall hard. I rip a tiny piece of fabric off of my cloak and hold my nose to try and stop the blood.

Wait a second. Broken nose. I have to die in order to live. Paradox. I have to die here so I’ll live back then. I woke up in the hospital with no memories and a broken nose. Somewhere along the way I’m going to break a rib, my arm, get a black eye and split my lip. And I guess I’m supposed to die as well. This is so confusing.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here? I’ve never seen you before.” A shadow falls over me. “You’re not a demon.” Their hand picks up a lock of my hair. “Although you certainly would fit in with the outcasts.” They drop the hair and smirk.

I get a good look at them. It’s Garreth. I quickly stand up and put my fists out.

“Calm down, I don’t want to fight. You’re far too weak for that. I just need you to tell me where your friends went. Who were they? Jo and Eldridge?” He smirks.

“El isn’t my friend. But I still wouldn't tell you where he is.”

“I don’t think you understand. This isn’t a choice, tell me or I will have no choice but to fight you.” He draws his sword.

“You couldn’t even beat a child.” I taunt.

He narrows his eyes at me. “You’re going to regret that.” He growls.

He charges at me with his sword and I duck underneath it. I kick his leg but he doesn’t flinch.

“You’ve never been trained in fighting. You’ve simply picked fights and hoped to come out on top. I’ve been training for years.”

I roll my eyes and try to punch him in the side. He slams his elbow down and brings his knee up so they collide on two different parts of my arm.

I hear a loud crack and I back up. Well there’s the broken arm. He kicks me in the stomach and I fall to the ground.

“Where are they?” He hisses.

“Go die in a hole.” I spit.

He punches me in the face. “WHERE ARE THEY?” He yells. He immediately smooths his hair back and regains his posture.

“I almost lost my cool for a second there. All right, if you won’t react to physical harm I’m sure I can torture you in other ways. For example, the fact that you don’t plan to make it out of here alive.”

I look up at him shocked and he smirks.

"It doesn't count if you're already planning your defeat. Oh, think of poor Jo." I try to get back to my feet. "I'll find them eventually. Would you like to send a message? Seeing as you’re here to die after all."

I open my mouth to say something but he cuts me off.

“Nothing? Alright then, goodbye.” He raises his sword and brings it down.

I look to the side just before it finds it’s target and I see Jo and El running over. Jo raises her hands and the whole world goes dark. 

I sit up with a jolt and look around. Jo and El are sitting down beside me.

“This isn’t supposed to be happening.” I panic.

“Don’t worry, Jo threw a portal at you and took you here.” El explains.

“Wait, so I didn’t get in a fight with the football jerk?”

“Hey!” I look over and see Darien sitting in a chair at the end of my bed.

“What is he doing here?”

“He’s cool now I guess.” Jo shrugs.

“Sorry for being a bit of a jerk.” He apologizes.

“You’re only safe because I have a bigger problem.”

“The paradox?” El asks.

“Yep.”

“That was broken when Jo used the portal spell instead of the time spell that would have sent you back to your fight.”

“So everything’s good?”

He nods. “Everything’s good.”