Zoe’s headache throbbed as the sandwraiths dug into the sand. Zoe cast out her chains, but hadn’t she just done that? The sandwraiths sensed her strategy and moved to avoid her attack before she could even make it. What kind of power was that?

They struck the sand, but only dug in a foot. The worms sank beneath the surface, and the ground shook as they went deeper. There were no convenient ridges on the surface now. Which could only mean one thing…

“Scatter!” Oriz shouted. “They’re coming from beneath.”

They moved apart, but Zoe’s chains restricted them. With reluctance, she released her hold on her friends. They distanced themselves from each other.

After a moment of dread silence, as the sourceless light baked the ever-shifting sand, the sandwraiths erupted.

The three beasts shot into the air like dolphins breaking from a wave. Their leathery, sinuous bodies propelled them as they slithered through the sky, and plunged toward Zoe and her friends.

One fell toward Anton, one toward Skidmark, and one toward Zoe.

As though they could taste which ones had the lowest levels of the group.

Zoe flushed her skin with Mirror and leaped up to meet the sandwraith coming toward her. Its mouth split apart revealing hooked fangs, but she didn’t care. Her mirrored fist of chains slammed into its face and the force reflected by [Self Reflects the World] carved a shaft of pain and blood into the creature's flesh. It shrieked, and golden eyes flashed open.

Light like liquid sun.

Zoe fell backward through the air.

Her feet touched down on the sand. Springing lightly as her fist relaxed. The sandwraith, spinning away, resolved itself in the air until it returned to its previous arc. It fell toward Zoe, a leathery missile of devouring hatred, but now the golden eyes were merely jaundiced with malice, as opposed to burning molten metal.

So, it was rewinding time.

A fine strategy.

But Zoe’s Willpower moved her like a freight train. Step after step she moved forward, disturbing the unbroken sand exactly where she did before, three steps, and then a leap. She shot upward. Chains wrapped into a Mirror-coated bludgeon. The sandwraith spun in the air this time, trying to connect its tail with Zoe instead of its face.

Trying to avoid injury.

Futile.

Zoe released her hands and feet. Twenty chains wrapped around the sandwraith. It thrashed, but she gripped tighter, and tighter. The power of friendship filled her chains, and they weighed down until they sank into the sand.

ding!

Kill it, Zoe!

The sandwraith kicked and thrashed. It opened its eyes, a burning glow beginning, but Zoe pulled free a single chain and lashed it down across the monster’s face.

The mirror-coated whip struck twice, and the duel slap of chain and reflected force caused a wave of blood to spill into the air. Leathery skin split and bone cracked as the stunned creature went limp beneath her.

Zoe stood atop its body and slithered a chain into the brain. Eyes flashed, but before it could rewind time, Zoe’s chain spun like a whisk and reduced the insides to slime. With primal satisfaction, she pulled her chain free and flicked it clean across the sand.

The eyes were dull as discarded pennies.

She let herself sigh and turned to see how her friends fared.

###

A sandwraith danced around Anton, and Bella rushed to help him. Back to back, they fought against the sinuous demonling.

It lashed at them, teeth snapping, tail lashing. Sand flicked up with every movement and hung high in the air as it slowly rained down.

Bella moved with surety. A mouth opened along the dark metal of her blade and screamed as she chopped at the charging monster. Heat rippled like the open door of a kiln. Her every swing sliced through the very air, leaving behind a dark scar that sucked itself closed. Through these brief gashes, stars glinted, like the skin of a Mubilashi. The sandwraith twisted away from Bella’s attacks. If an attack landed, the beast flashed its eyes and reclaimed a second with which to squirm away.

The sandwraith dashed past her, but Anton was there with an outstretched palm. Every time he slapped the leathery hide, gore blossomed, and forced the creature to spend its ability.

They were relentless.

Eventually, its glowing eyes dimmed, and Bella’s sword sunk into its brain just as Anton’s hands slapped upon its face. Gore exploded over both of them, drenching them completely as they both shouted out.

“That’s my kill!”

The dead sandwraiths bubbled and hissed, their skin blackening as they melted into stains upon the sand. However, Skidmark and the third sandwraith were missing.

Oriz ran over.

“Zoe!” she said. “It grabbed a hold of her and dug into the sand. There was nothing I could do.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“What do you mean ‘nothing’?” Zoe’s voice rose. “You’re the strongest one of all of us!”

Oriz’s hands clenched and unclenched.

“I grabbed it, but it skipped time and got away… If I had my Skein,” and her voice was a poisonous mix of hope and helplessness as she looked at Zoe and then away at the distant swirling vortex at the center of the Hourglass.

Bella and Anton approached, their bickering dying as they sensed the mood.

“Where’s Skidmark?” Bella said.

“Worm got her,” Anton said. “Same one that grabbed the demon.”

“What!” Zoe said as she looked around. “How did that happen?”

“Did you release it?”

Zoe frowned.

“I didn’t think I did, but…” she frowned, trying to recall overlapping memories. “Damn it!”

She kicked at the sand, but it didn’t help. Without the demon, they were trapped. Even if they walked toward the center and fell into the sand, they wouldn’t know when to open the portal without the demon’s instructions.

“Anton, were you watching?”

“Of course.”

“How did the demon vanish?”

“It was swallowed by the sandwraith that grabbed Skidmark. It swallowed the demon, then swallowed her, then vanished into the ground.”

“How long ago?”

“Like a minute, why? Oh…”

Zoe reached for her title.

[Fools Rush In]

And a stabbing pain filled her mind as though she fell eye-first onto a rusty icepick. The Crimson Armada’s voice rushed to fill the space in her brain.

[Due to administrator absence, some rewards may be offline]

“What!?”

The message pulsed inside her, riding the throbbing waves of pain, echoing, flashing, refusing to leave.

“Boss?”

“What is it, Zoe?”

The voices of her friends came as though from far away.

“Check your title,” she said faintly. “If it works, make sure we keep the demon with us.”

“If it works…?”

Her friends took on the vacant gaze of someone accessing the system. Zoe waited with grim anticipation for the all-devouring flames.

Nothing came.

Of course, nothing came.

They were in Hell, after all.

“What do we do then?” Bella asked. “If we can’t rewind time, and we need the demon, what can we do?”

Oriz gripped Bella’s hand, pulled her into a hug, and calmed the increasingly hysterical blonde woman. After a harsh sob, Bella seemed to calm, her cheek leaning against Oriz’s shoulder.

“Damn,” said Anton as his eyes focused on reality. “I only got to use it once.”

“Can you see… anything?” Zoe asked.

His eyes skimmed out across the sand. Fast. Silent. Chrome. They vanished across the miles of light-blistered desert, and Anton shook his head slowly.

“The sand moves slowly toward the center, spiraling, but I see nothing else. You know, if I were to write a book I would like to capture this place. Maybe a poem.”

“Not the time,” Zoe gritted out.

“I know, but… what do we have to lose? We are in a limbo place, time isn’t flowing, and yeah, we’re lost, but… so what? We won’t get hungry, or tired, and we can spend as long trying to escape as we want. You two,” he pointed at Bella and Oriz. “You two lived in Hell and you didn’t go crazy.”

The look Bella gave him cast doubt upon that statement.

“We hated each other,” Bella said. “And the pressure of the place made me realize how much I needed someone like her. If it wasn’t for Oriz, I don’t want to know what I would be like now. I don’t think I would be me, anymore…”

Zoe and Anton glanced at each other. Eye contact. Soul contact. Could they keep each other sane in the same way as Bella and Oriz?

“We need to get out of here,” they said at the same time, and they chuckled, for the timing was funny, but the laughter masked an ugly fear.

Bella was the best of them. She was the one with the heart wide open and full of sweetness like a vat of syrup.

Zoe… Anton… they were the ones with darkened souls and rusted edges, if it came down to an eternity, would they find something to fix in each other, or would they break?

“Without the demon, we’re stuck wandering Hell. We know we have to go down into the Chamber of Spent Time, and from there we take a portal to the Polar Caverns. Then it’s onward to the Sweet Tear Marsh.”

“You think we can wander our way through a labyrinth?” Oriz asked.

“We have enough time.”

“The demons had time but they could not escape their cages. I believe you are underestimating hell.”

“I’m trying to find a solution.”

“The directions are useless without the Four-hearted Wasp.”

Bella stroked her blade.

“Unless we just keep cutting. Open portals and step through. It’s like we’re stuck in the bush. We know that if we keep going straight we’ll reach civilization, but we might go deeper before we find our way out again.”

“At least we won’t die of exposure,” said Anton.

“But if we run into the wrong demon, we’ll wish we had,” Oriz said.

“I just don’t see any other option,” said Bella.

“I have another plan,” Zoe said. “Though it might be horrific…”

Her friends stared at her.

“Do we want to know what it will be?” Bella asked. “Or if you tell us will we be forced to pin you down until you swear to never do it?”

Zoe grinned.

“Don’t pin me down, I need my hands.”

[Mind’s Eye Incision]

Ding!

Zoe… are you sure?

Zoe paused. She was so ready to do this fast and messy, like everything else she had been forced to do… but why not take the time to do it properly?

“I’m going to remove the title [Fools Rush In],” she said as she sat down cross-legged on the sand. “I’ve had it disabled — painfully — enough times that I can identify where it’s located in my soul. Once it’s separated, I’m going to access it.”

“How will you do that?”

Zoe produced the [Amberstuck Grenade] she had hidden away since her time in the Lower Treasury with Rue and Lorrilla. Even after all the chaos, she still had it.

Would it have been useful?

Possibly.

She couldn’t imagine the effect something like this would have on someone like Rue. Probably less than nothing. After all, for all that Rue talked about worthy opponents, she couldn’t imagine him just handing her the weapon she would need to kill him.

No.

Nothing could ever be so easy.

But she hadn’t taken the grenade because of its usefulness as a weapon, but because it offered a clear mechanical way to manipulate time essence.

“What are you doing with that?” Bella asked.

“Back up and give me some space. If this doesn’t work, then… well, I don’t know, but you won’t want to get caught up in it.”

“Zoe,” Bella said as she stepped forward. “Without you, we can’t stabilize portals.”

Zoe’s scarred lips peeled back to reveal a flash of perfect teeth.

“Is that the only thing you’re worried about?”

“Of course it isn’t!”

“Don’t worry,” Zoe said. “Everything will be fine, but just in case…”

Bella placed her hand on Zoe’s shoulder.

“I trust you, mate,” she leaned down and kissed Zoe’s forehead before walking away with Oriz.

Zoe glanced over to Anton.

“Get out of here.”

“Yeah, sure,” Anton said as he sat down cross-legged across from Zoe. “Give me the grenade.”

“I’m being serious, Anton.”

“Cool,” he held out his hand. “I’ll hold the grenade, you cut it apart. I assume you want to hook the mechanism from this up to the time essence from [Fools Rush In]?”

“Anton,” Zoe gritted her teeth. “Stop helping.”

His heartbeat remained steady despite her Willpower crushing the air between them.

“You forget you made me memorize the [Mirrorbell] blueprints. I’ve had that rattling around my head for weeks now,” he summoned his technique and two dozen chrome orbs floated around them. “I can watch better than you for anything that might go wrong. The [Mirrorbell] isn’t a one-to-one for what you’re trying to do, but I’ve built bombs before, and I’ve taken them apart. This isn’t surgery, Zoe.”

“You’re not a rocket scientist.”

“Then we’re on the same page,” his poker face fell away into a childlike grin. “So let’s do this.