The Mare's assault seems stronger this time, more fierce. The sky is darker than it usually gets so early on in our bout.

Obviously this mortal's mental defenses are particularly weak... but It could also be because she is not meant to be here. At least I think she isn't.

I can see in her thoughts, she did die on that tree. Her soul left her body and headed down.

So why did she end up in The Sands?

We are not meant to receive fallen souls here, all who have come before still had a foothold in their original realm. Maybe there is more I'm missing, maybe I'll learn while having her look through her past.

Speaking of which, time to change things up. She'll damn her soul if I don't step in now.

With a song of chirps I quickly disperse the power of the Night Sky. The Mare's influence is easy enough to reduce temporarily when I'm close to the mortal.

The girl waits for a good moment, eyes looking to a place that doesn't exist. She croaks out some words. She could hardly be considered as speaking right now due to her crying more than talking, but I can understand it just fine.

"I... I don't want to die. But there's nothing left to live for."

I see then, how... pitiful. I can not communicate with the girl yet, that would only serve to frighten her more. However, no progress will be made with her in this state. I can not allow this to continue.

I must comfort her as an animal, so I chirp a few more times and then jump on her lap.

For a brief moment the girl looks confused. Good. If she's confused it means she is not being sad. I then rub my slightly sandy head against her face.

Luckily, my sand quickly falls to the ground due to it's new soaked status.

This face has more tears than skin it would seem, I didn't know mortals could physically cry so much.

My actions seem to calm her enough, and she talks in her croaky broken voice again.

"Thank you little Bird. I hope I didn't kill you."

She has remorse, that is a good enough start.

Still this is getting nowhere fast. I have to change things up, go somewhere she can take a breather. Let's head forward through her mind.

If I'm lucky It might even reveal how she's here. How she ended up in The Sands.

I use my powers to change my domain just a little bit, a few hours forward at most. I also take her out of the cave, let's be at the village. The Mare had less power there.

The world moves around me and the girl, the shifting lights barely registering in her mind. As everything shifts around us I stay on her lap. I might as well keep protecting her for a bit, give her some mental respite.

My domain stabilizes and I suddenly remember how a few hours can mean a lot of changes for humans.

The forest I flew behind her in is now in flames. And worse still, I see an apparition of her past. Apparitions often form when I replicate someone's memory, they don't have a will of their own. They solely exist to replay what the mortal remembers. Apparitions are out of my control, I can not get rid of them without destroying the memory.

The apparition is an younger form of the girl, a child by anyone's standard. How long has she been holding this pain? The apparition's hands are bloodied, and it has many fresh burn marks.

It hold's one of the eye's of the devil it killed. This was probably a bad place to take her.

The Mare has more influence in this village square than before, the sky is getting darker. But the good memories of her childhood here can fuel enough power for protection, at least for now.

I can feel the real girl's breath quicken on my feathers, the vibrations of her pulsing heart pounding though this small form. Should I change it again? Is it ok to keep running until I find some peaceful spot in her memory?

No... No. If she is to see the hope she needs to acknowledge the despair.

I will let it play out, at least until her condition worsens.

The apparition, a frail young girl with burned brown hair, is approaching the village with a purpose. Her eyes are determined yet more red then even the real girl's are. Maybe it's from the smoke of the forest, but probably of something else. Probably from her thoughts.

It is odd to try and justify a deed before it happens, yet this apparition thinks exactly what the girl was thinking in that moment. To have to steel oneself to commit such an act as a child, what does that does to one's mind?

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I was never a child, not really. There was a time I was new to the world, but I was never raised by the world. Seeing her past, maybe I was lucky for my unique existence. Or maybe she was just particularly unlucky.

The apparition is approaching a building, an abandoned cottage, the crux of the problem. She enters, then... then she eats the eye that was in her grip.

In most worlds supernatural creatures are poisonous to humans, seeing the apparition's veins grow purple, I know that it is true here too. But now she can see what she could not before, now she can do what she has too do.

The entire building, inside and out, is covered in infernal writing, alchemical circles, and the emblems of various devils. A normal infernal rite would be the size of a door at most, this is far beyond the ordinary. The apparition trembles for a moment, but she must have expected something like this. She tries to erase the symbols or destroy the walls of the house, but it is pointless. A powerless, magicless girl would not be able to interfere with the formulas for such a powerful ritual.

The real girl, Diana I suppose, seems to be on the verge of fainting over me. She has to get though this. I chirp a few times. It helps a little but that doesn't seem to be enough any more. I fly up and settle on her shoulder. my claws rest on her skin, jolting her out of her state.

She looks to me for an instant, a sad look, but then continues to stare at her younger self. "Please don't" she whispers to the wind.

The apparition has given up on destroying the framework now, she never believed it would work. It was a unjustified hope.

Diana's thoughts reveal more on this ritual, the severity of it's intent. The devil told her its purpose, it seems he too thought of her as a friend once.

'It's the only way to open a true portal to hell, a connection between the worlds'

A horrifying concept, and an unfounded one. Most portals to other worlds are temporary, maybe one or two demons can make it through before they close. The demon king of this world's afterlife, Apollyon by the looks of the writings, must have been upset with that limit. Probably wanted a bigger invasion. Wanted to end the human's world. He seems to be a fool, the atmospheres of both worlds would differ too much. All the worldly creatures would surely die of the changes in oxygen levels, and no young demons would be able to grow past infancy due to the lack of cardinal sin.

The intelligence of the perpetrator of this scheme is not of great significance. What is of significance is how one magicless child is meant to stop such a thing. Only holy light could destroy that ritual now, but destroying the framework is not the only method. If the fuel is taken away then the portal will not stabilize, it will not form.

Problem is, that the fuel is souls, every soul that has been marked by the devil that lived here for months. Every tree, every animal of the woods, every villager.

The apparition has already burned the forest, and the eye would let her see everyone who has the mark. But I can already see it, Diana's mana infused eyes can see it too. There is not a person, nor goat, nor pet in this village that does not hold an infernal mark.

Time is running out, and we watch as the apparition leaves the ritual building. The eye of a devil, a potent poison for humans due to it's high concentration of infernal energy. But I don't think Diana planned to live this, I think she didn't consider what it would do to her. I doubt she even knew.

The apparition's veins change from purple, turning deep dark red.

Some villagers see her, they know part of what it means. They know the smell of the infernal, they know that red veins are the sign of hell. Some scream out... some charge at her... some hide their children. Then, a fire starts above her head, floating in place. It is still, no flames flicker, no shadows were formed.

The real Diana's chest expands and contracts rapidly below me. Her breathing once again is frantic.

I choose not to snap her out of it this time, she can't look away if she doesn't have the mental power to. She needs to see this.

The small fire starts to expand rapidly in all directions, the apparition is quickly consumed. The villagers nearby are next, screams exit all around the expanding orb. After that is the central square, then it encompasses even the outskirts of town. It keeps going for a while, it evaporates part of the river, burns right up to the cave where a dead devil lies. It is hot, it would be considered hot even for hell's standards.

Just as suddenly as it started, It stopped expanding, Diana and I are now within the orb. It passed our physical locations, but we don't feel the pain of the fireball. We aren't participating in this scenario, we don't exist in her memories. Well, even if Diana felt the fire I doubt she would have noticed. After all, her cries have started again. They are from a much deeper pain than the flames.

It takes time, but the fireball eventually disperses. All we can see now is a crater, molten dirt and rock lines the bottom, the river has been diverted to fill the new gap in the ground.

Diana's eyes are closed, she is muttering something under her breath. I could hear her words if I wanted to, but it hardly matters. She saw it, she relived it.

Now I can try and do my task. Try to win this bout.

But before that, I have to acknowledge that curiosity is somewhat of a weakness of mine.

I wonder, how did this girl survive that blast?

I give a few chirps, then leave Diana's shoulder. Flying around the massive crater, I see the body of the apparition. It is burnt to a crisp, it is not breathing, it is hard to recognize this shape of char as the young girl I saw before.

Her soul, it is going down. But right as it is about to breach into the space between realms, it gets sent back to her body by some dark force. When it reenters the mortal vessel, the body is healed ever so slightly. The soul starts heading down again, only to be turned back again. And once again the body is healed and the cycle repeats.

I think I understand now. It makes some form of sense. It is a drastic misuse of administrative power, but this girl has been banned from hell.

I knew Apollyon was a right bastard, but I never thought he'd throw this much of a tantrum for his little plan going awry. As one of the first cosmic entities, it is disgusting to see what my inferiors are getting up to. Very unprofessional.

At any rate, Diana can never enter her world's hell. She will always be sent back to the mortal realm. Which means she is in fact still alive. Which means she is meant to be here.

Diana and I watch as her body heals, I don't think she can see souls. She must think she has been blessed by the gods or something.

Diana's eyes take in the scene around her. The burnt remains of her homeland. The river slowly covering her charred younger body that lays in the crater. Her body, rejuvenating from the doors of death.

She isn't crying any more, maybe she ran out of tears. Maybe she is disassociating due to all the memories hitting her at once. Either way, I can see the sky now.

In her memory there was a moon this night, but here, now, just a clear dark night.

It's now or never.