If reading comic books had taught me one thing, it was that supervillains were not to be trusted—they sucked, and my gods, it was a miracle the world was still standing. I know you probably rolled your eyes at that, because duh, everyone knows not to trust them, but sometimes it’s easier to just find yourself in these fun little situations that make you want to believe that they’re telling the truth or ocne. A lot of superheroes have this thing about honor, glory, trust, and so on and so forth and whatever. Villains, some of them, at least, didn’t give a damn what they did. They almost treaded the thin line of being heroes with no rules, anti-heroes, if you will, but did shit that made it very clear that they weren’t doing things for any kind of morally justified reason at all.

And sending a superhero straight to hell was right up there on the list of those bad things. I’ll admit, this was a first for me, jerking awake on a cold, grimy floor, breathing in noxious fumes that made me throw up just inches away from my face. The world was a deep, dark crimson color. Not blood, no, but diluted rose petals, as if wherever this place was, was mocking me for thinking it would smell like anything else except burning flesh and singed hair and old decaying corpses.

I describe it like that, but in reality, the smells were clashing, fighting it out to see which would dominate the smoky air, but none were winning. All it did was create a stench. The stench.

I gagged getting up off the floor, my hair loosely hanging around my face. I shook my head and held my temples as I got onto one knee and looked around myself. Feeling like a truck had smashed into my skull made it painfully hard to concentrate on the world surrounding me. I made out a dingy hallway behind me that seemingly just spiraled on and on into the dark, a tunnel, more like, with no end in sight that bellowed this baritone so low and silent it shook the floor. I squinted, trying to see if there was a door buried somewhere in those shadows, but it was dark, too dark even for my eyes. I turned, but the hallway in front of me was the same, only illuminated by that hellish red that hung in the air like smoke. I was alone in this hallway, kneeling on broken bits of ceramic tiles, underneath a ceiling covered in flourishing black moss and light fixtures hanging awkwardly from exposed wires. I felt watched getting onto my feet, as if I wasn’t supposed to.

Witchling and Knuckles weren’t anywhere to be seen, which was nice of them.

But what did I expect after the month I’d had?

Where the hell am I? I walked two steps forward, and the echo of my boots against the floor almost felt insulting, like I was shouting to the darkness, I’m here, look at me! I paused to listen, to feel the air and the wetness of sweat on my brow. I dragged my arm across my face, the heat in these hallways becoming ridiculous. I decided to hover my way down the corridor, or I would have if I had lifted off the ground instead of stumbling back onto it seconds later. Not by my doing. It felt like someone had made me do it. Flying was second nature, like breaking into a sprint or breathing: you just did it. But now I had to will myself off the ground, trying to picture myself inches off the tiles, but I couldn’t even do that. My feet remained planted to the floor, right here.

I almost checked underneath my boots to see if there was something keeping me stuck in place. The air was a lot heavier here, but I’d flown in denser, pushed against forces several times stronger than gravity, but I was still stuck to the floor, to the tiles that crunched underneath my feet.

I swallowed the lump of panic building in my throat, feeling it get lodged in my chest as I tried again and again, jumping, even, just to get my powers to work. Nothing. Nothing. I couldn’t even fly! And all too quickly, my surroundings, the smoke in the air, the wetness in the air, that lingering sense that something was watching from the darkness hanging in the air felt so much more real. Closer. Prepared to pick me apart. I pressed my fingers against my forearm, pinched it, and the pain wasn’t as dulled as it usually was, either. Fuck. Fuck! My heartbeat ticked over rapidly in my chest, thumping against my ribs as my head swiveled down each side of the hallway. If this was some nightmare I’d slipped into, I needed to wake up. Had to. My freaking powers were gone and all I could do was stand there, breathing hard, sweating under my gear, wondering what I was supposed to do in a place like this with nothing to defend myself from gods knew what.

The ground shuddered underneath me. I stumbled a step forward, looked around. The walls were shifting, moving, not forward or backward, but bulging underneath the thin flowery wallpaper peeling off of it. Something was moving between the walls, just past them. I took a few steps, then a few steps more to put distance between me and the squirming lumps just about as big as my arm burrowing around the wood and cement. It grimly reminded me of the shopping center on 12th Avenue, but those had been maggots festering inside of humans, not inside of a morgue. Then again, worms and maggots did always find their way into dead human bodies all the time, so what was any different about an entire building filled with corpses? Fantastic, I know. Just great.

As I hurried down the corridor, now at a jog, I figured it made at least a bit of sense. The smells were only getting worse, but also more familiar. Smells I had sworn that I would never ever want to inhale again after the city-wide Kaiju attack. Before I knew it, though, my nose was in the crook of my elbow and my eyes were blurred with tears. Gods, it reeks here. Wherever here was. It almost made me miss how the normal morgue had smelt as I plunged deeper down the corridor, glancing over my shoulder, still wary of the walls and the shadows leaping after me as I ran.

I continued jogging, continued hoping that I would find some kind of exit, or a turn, but the corridor simply went on and on and didn’t stop, the darkness behind me still licking at my heels. I used a piece of broken tile I leaned against the wall as a marker to make sure I wasn’t getting into my own head, but I’d just passed it for the fourth time in a dozen minutes. I was going in circles without making a single turn. Running faster, faster, faster wasn’t doing anything except tiring me out. I was still in the same spot, lost. Without my powers. Witchling put me here with a pat on the shoulder without a single explanation. The only words that had come from her mouth were a warning. She had answers for what Cadaver was, for what the symbols on his body had meant.

The only way she knew I had those questions was if she also knew about Tempest.

And the thought of Witchling knowing about Rylee put a ball of ice firmly in my gut as I knelt to catch my breath. I pushed my hair back, tensing my jaw as I thought and tried not to inhale too much foul-smelling air. Panic was nibbling at my ears. Thoughts and voices telling me that she was going after mom and Bianca and Em, Dennie and Grant and Michael because that was what Ava probably wanted, wasn’t it? Yeah, that was right. I’d fucked off without her permission, and she was making it very clear who was in charge. My gut felt heavier. My heart beat faster, almost painfully against my chest. I had to get out of this place somehow, but Witchling’s powers didn’t even make sense to the people who cataloged them, let alone to me. Was this place even real?

Thinking it was real only made it worse to stomach my racing thoughts. If it was some kind of illusion, then I could get out of this, there had to be a way out of this. If it wasn’t, though…

Then I didn’t know how long I would be stuck here for until I got out.

How much time did I have until Witchling found everyone? She was smart, powerful, deadly, so about three, maybe four hours. It would be my friends first, then Bianca, then Ava would dangle mom out in front of me, a carrot on a stick, taunting me, telling me, no, showing me what happens when I bite the hand that had a grip on my leash. Like some errant dog that needed to be disciplined by their owner. Like an idiot who kept playing Ava’s games and feeding the ego that told Ava she could keep demanding more of me. Fuck, Ry, what were you thinking? But I had done everything right. I wanted information. I was patient, willing to listen, something the old me from a few weeks ago would have scoffed at, but even now, that part of me was scoffing back.

I had dropped my guard because I felt comfortable in the new powers I had. I had figured coming back would be at least a little bit easier physically, and yet here I was, sweating in the dark.

Witchling had murdered in front of my eyes before without a blink of hesitation, what would stop her from doing the same to my friends, to my mom? As far as I was concerned, I was going to keep assuming that she knew Tempest and Olympia were the same girl living in Lower Olympus. I wasn’t ruling anything out yet. Putting me here was to show me how easy, despite my powers, it was to lock me away. Picking off the people I cared about would be a statement. I don’t care whose blood runs through your veins, you bleed just like the rest of us, was what it would say. It was what Ava would be saying without even uttering a single word of it. I was paranoid, all right? And could you really blame me after every single hoop she’d made me jump through lately?

If you’re gonna panic, at least do something whilst you panic, I thought to myself, nodding, trying to loosen my jaw. I got up and decided to double back into the darkness that had seemingly been following me around, give it a shot to see if there were any other options for me in this godsforsaken place. Or… Wait, if I hadn’t really moved, then had the darkness just been sitting there behind me? Was I just running in the same spot this whole time? I pressed my fingers against my temples, trying to come up with some kind of logical reasoning, but this was always the weakest part of my game. I didn’t know, just didn’t know and couldn’t figure it out even if I tried.

I forced myself to breathe, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Slowly, steadily, my mind cleared up enough for me to get my head somewhat together. I bit my tongue hard enough to taste hot iron, swallowed it, grounded myself. All right, I could do this. I just had to figure out what exactly it is I had to do and how I would do it. My powers weren’t willing to play ball right now. No electricity. No super strength, super speed, invulnerability and all the rest of it. I was human for now, just as soft and pudgy as I had been when I was a kid. I hated that thought so deeply that it made me itch, hated it a lot more than I ever expected. The costume didn’t even fit right anymore. It was a little baggier around my waist, chest, arms and thighs. I grew a little when I used my powers, but not fitting in my gear meant that they were off, well and truly gone for now.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I hoped and hoped dearly to the gods that it was just for now and not permanently.

Because even for Ava that would be a step too far.

Okay, I just had to use what I had, which was pretty much just myself, broken light fixtures shattered on the floor, and floor tiles scattered around in grimy bits and pieces. The dark was a no go now, because I wouldn’t know where I would be going, and dying here wasn’t happening. I could just keep running and running until the looping corridor finally gave way into something that wasn’t foul, fuzzy black mold, wilting wallpaper, and a smell of bodily rot that was beginning to churn my gut. On the other hand, I could always force my way through the walls beside me.

I had no other options, really, unless driving myself insane running down these corridors for who knew how long was an alternative. Maybe there was more behind the towering walls.

Well, I knew there was more behind the walls because, standing right in front of them, something was still squirming around behind the wallpaper. It was this slew of meaty little fingers worming their way up and down, across and sideways. I raised my hand to the wall, placing my fingers on it first, then the rest of my palm. Gods, it felt gross having them press against my skin. They congealed around my fingers, circling them, pressing against them. I shifted my hand and so did they, following it across the wall. I pulled back, shaking my hand out to get the strange feeling off of me. The wall was soft, that much I knew. There was supposed to be concrete underneath it.

All it felt like was an overstuffed—almost bloated—slightly soggy and sagging mattress.

I swallowed a little, stepping backward to watch whatever it was that was moving around behind the walls gather in spots and then dart to others. My handprint remained there, slightly dark, and even now as I clenched and unclenched my hand, my fingers were wet, slimy, sticky with something that squelched as I relaxed my fingers. I couldn’t tell what color it was under the red haze. Too sticky to be blood. Too lightly colored to be anything else. Wasn’t there anywhere else I could go down the hallways? Trying my luck with the dark was starting to become tantalizing. Put that down to the smell of bodies coming from the wall, or the stickiness of my hand. Rot was in the air and the heat mingling with it was making it worse, almost sickeningly unbearable to deal with.

The Daughter of Zeus, however, wasn’t a coward, powers or not. If there wasn’t at least a way through or a way into somewhere else through the wall, then so be it—I’d go into the dark.

Until then, though, I crouched and picked up a shard of tile.

I weighed it in my hand, feeling the edges bite into my palm as I gripped onto it. I held it out in front of me, pressed the tip against the wallpaper until it broke through. Liquid trickled down the wall and dripped onto my boots, black, watery, reeking of blood. I pushed the shard in further, making the wallpaper give way like skin. The stench coming from the gash I tore open poured out, suffocating me, flooding the hallway. I gagged and stepped backward, then forced the shard even deeper. Seconds later, they came out—those thin, meaty little worms burrowing and squirming and oozing out like a lumpy black liquid. They splattered onto the floor, giving me a better look at them. They kind of looked like fat little maggots with gnawing mouths filled with tiny razor teeth.

I stared at them for a silent beat, my hand still clutching onto the tile. Then I backed up, sick, a little scared, watching as they began chewing at my rubber soles. They were pouring out of the wall now, faster, like I’d twisted the faucet open. I swallowed my tongue, ripping my eyes off the floor and looking into the gash sliced across the wall. Squinting, daring to get closer, crushing the maggots but at the same time being light on my toes, avoiding their teeth, I stared into the hole, trying to figure out what exactly it was that I was freaking looking at. It looked wet, stringy, like…

Like…

I prodded the meaty surface with the tile, pressing against a bulge in the wall. Dozens of lumps in front of me, each of them like puffy, fat pink zits about the side of my fist. No, hundreds.

Nothing happened. I could have stopped. Dropped the shard and left the lumps alone.

But a part of me wanted to find out what was behind them. There was no point in being a superhero if you never learnt anything because you were frightened by everything in front of you.

It was easy to say that when my mouth was bone dry, and the only thing stopping my hand from shaking was the fact that the shard was already getting deeper and deeper into the large lump.

Then the floor shuddered. The wet wall contracted, shook, paused for several seconds, several very long seconds, before the lumps hissed and burst open with a soft, hissing squelch as the meat—it was all I could really describe the wall as—covering each lump suddenly ripped apart.

Then they blinked at me—blinked at me—and stared at me with singular bloodshot eyes.

Still, perfectly still. The tile slipped out of my hands as I stepped back. The angry red veins spiraling from their irises pulsed. They followed me as I backed away, then more bulged, right through the wallpaper, opening up, one after the other, rapid, back-to-back as the thin layer of muscle covering them tore open and spat blood onto the floor as they all blinked and stared directly at me. Some of the maggots crawling around burrowed into the eyes, chewing through the visceral white goo. I swallowed bitter bile, tried not to puke, but the walls were shuddering now, both of them, behind and in front of me. The low, arduous sound echoing down the hallway only got louder and louder, so deep that I felt it in my core. It sounded like screaming, like hundreds of mouths had suddenly just opened and were harmonizing in a pained baritone that shook my core.

Those mouths appeared just beneath the wall of pulsating red eyes. Just like the bloodshot orbs, the wallpaper tore away like brittle flesh, and the wet muscle underneath it like damp paper, revealing rows upon rows of open jowls so filled with teeth they could hardly freaking close. Each of them was wide open, regurgitating waves of fat little black and gray maggots that vomited out of their deep black gullets. My stomach turned, trying to leap into my throat. I continued backing away, continued down the hall, but the mouths continued opening up along the wall, every one of them groaning louder and louder the further away I got until it became a terrible shrieking mess.

The sound hurt. Felt like blazing white hot pokers were burrowing into my ears. I planted my hands onto either side of my head, gritted my teeth, and ran down the corridor, trying to put a bit of distance between myself and the mouths. But the corridor wouldn’t let up. The further I ran, the harder I ran, the more mouths tore through the yellowish wallpaper. The eyes followed me, watched me, as if there were dozens of humans trapped in that godsforsaken meaty molasses, impaled by those same toothy mouths that snapped and bellowed and shrieked down the hall.

The hollering was only getting louder, more painful. My skin crawled. My brain ached between my ears. Fuck, for once I was happy my powers were acting up. With them I would have been crippled, splayed out on the floor, left to deal with the maggots and what they might do to my skin, to my entire body. But the sound was aggravating them, too. Making them thrash around in the hollow eye sockets they devoured and in the mouths they spilled out of. Then, a searing pain caught my breath. I stumbled, slapped my calf on reflex. A maggot had chewed its way right through my gear. Panic spiked through me, hot and cold, I didn’t know, as I stumbled more, swore, grabbed its stub little body and yanked it off my skin. It came away with bits of my skin in its maw, being grounded up by teeth that didn’t stop moving until I crushed it between my two hands.

But the smell of my blood must have got their attention. The tiniest trickle down my leg, soaking into my costume. The first droplet landed on one chewing at my thick soles, getting its attention, and like a hive, they turned, stopped fighting in eye sockets and mouths and wriggling around on the floor, searching for food, for meat, and turned their attention to me. The nose grew louder. The fear in my chest grew brighter, hotter. I swatted them off my legs, my thighs, but they were quick, ruthless, biting and nibbling and picking at my skin like barbed needles. Shit, shit! Get off of me, get off, get off, get off! All I could do was run. Run and swipe my hands around me.

All too suddenly, a turn in the corridor appeared through the crimson haze.

I took it, barely registering it.

The quietness was sudden, like running into a wall. The mouths stopped shrieking. I couldn’t see any eyes down this part of the hallway. No different from the one behind me, but I couldn’t focus on that, not as I plucked and pulled and yanked the tiny little things off my body. One was so deep into my calf that I was forced to dig my fingers into the hole it made to grab its tiny body and twist it out. I had to be on the floor for that, swearing and cursing, definitely not letting tears of pain sear my eyes. I threw the fucking thing—the last one on my body—onto the floor, then slammed my knuckle against it, smashing it into gristly body parts and a splatter of blood. I ground my fist against the tiles, making sure the thing stopped moving no matter what.

I didn’t like the silence that followed. Didn’t enjoy sitting on my ass, breathing hard through my mouth, trying not to pass out, knowing there were eyes and mouths and carnivorous little monsters hiding just behind the wallpaper. I hated this place. Hated thinking that the wall would have been a good idea. Thinking about it now, it was stupid, foolish, but also distant, as if I hadn’t come up with the idea myself. Even now, a distant part of me wanted to take on the wall again, clear out the maggots and the mouths and stop them all from screaming so harshly. I felt that urge deep in my gut, and heard it whisper in my ears. I thumped my temple with my palm. No.

Something was in my head, other than me, making me want to do something stupid.

The urge, though, and that silent, poisonous, lingering voice was distant, getting further away; getting less demanding.

Less able to control me.

And the scraping, bumping, thumping sound echoing through the scarlet mist in front of me was only getting closer. It had been far away at first, but it was here now closer, getting closer the longer I knelt on the floor. The sound appeared when my breathing had slowed and sweat had began stinging my eyes a moment ago, and now it sounded as if whatever it was would get here at any second. Just a minute of peace would be nice, you know. Already onto my feet, but not before I rested on one knee, tried to get back up, winced and collapsed hard back onto the floor. My calf was shot, spasming with pain every time I tried to stand, aching like hell. I bit down on my tongue, clenched my jaw as the sound of labored breathing, as the smell of sweaty skin and the putrid, almost offensive stench of something sickly sweet seeped through the air. Something was coming my way. Something very big. Something that had been attracted by the noise and the screaming, and maybe, just maybe, by the smell of blood no human on earth had that was seeping into my costume like sweat on a hot summer day.

I remained on one knee, feeling the tiles shudder with each footstep. Don’t have powers, so what’re you gonna do now, Ry? Can’t stand up, so what’re you gonna do now, Ry? Can't form a fist without your hands hurting, so what're you gonna do now, Ry? “Gods,” I said, trying to swallow the groan that sprung into my mouth when I stood, and forced myself to keep standing, to stay awake and not pass out. I wobbled, deciding to put weight on one leg. My head was woozy from exhaustion, from all that running, from pain emanating from the tiny cuts and shallows all over my body. A deep swallowing gash on my calf. Not a single inkling of golden electricity sparking in my hair. The thing from the haze getting closer, breathing harder, sweating more, smelling my blood and my sweat and the spit I launched from my mouth and the saliva I knuckled off the corner of my lips. I wasn’t ready. Wasn’t ready.

But I had to be ready, had to at least not die right here in hell.

I wasn’t ready, though, for Cherry to appear from the haze, towering over me.