Page 55 of Let Me Win You

“Fuck off!” Invi punched it, and it retreated into a puff of smoke.

“What are these?” I hugged my arm, barely evading another clawed shadow.

“These are the souls of the damned on their way to where they belong.” Invi punched another dark spirit out of our way.

He lashed his tail from wall to wall, shaking off the souls of the sinners that tried to cling to him.

“Come, come, come with me….”The words rustled from all around us.

“Why do they want us to come along?”

“They’re frightened,” Invi explained. “It’s always scary to face the consequences of one’s actions, especially when one is completely alone.”

The wall on the right up ahead had caved in. The space beyond it was pitch dark with waves of smoke and heat blasting out of it.

“Is that…hell?” I swallowed hard.

“No. Just a passage into it,” Invi replied.

The dark spirits moaned in horror, as the gaping hole sucked them in. They rushed down the corridor from both directions, then disappeared into the open mouth of darkness.

“No! No! No!”they bemoaned their faith.

“Don’t let it take me.”

“Hold me.”

“Stop me.”

Long, gnarly fingers clawed at Invi and me, pulling us forward.

“Nic, listen to me carefully.” Invi held me with both arms, while punching and shoving the sinners away from us with his tail. “There is no way around this. We have to go past it. We’ll have to make a run for it. If we get separated?—”

“We won’t.” I shifted in his arms to hug his neck tighter, then hooked my legs around his chest. “I won’t let them separate us.”

He smiled and placed a quick kiss on my cheek.

“No matter what happens,” he said. “You run, alright? Run past the dark passage and don’t look back. The exit is close. If the corridor forks up ahead, you should be able to see the outside light at the end of at least one of the corridors. Do you hear me?”

I nodded. “We’ll be fine. We’ll stay together.”

“Nicole.” He dipped his head to see my eyes and get my full attention. “You will not survive hell. If they drag you in, you’ll becremated alive. Do you understand? No matter what happens to me, you’ll have to keep on running.”

“Come with me!”a spirit screeched, grabbing Invi’s hair.

“Come!”Another one pulled his arm, prying it away from me.

He punched the dark spirit away, then angled his head down, thrusting his horns forward.

“Let’s go.” He moved ahead.

The black smoke curled all around us. Dark shapes leaped out from it, grabbing on to Invi and pulling, pulling, pulling him toward the darkness of hell.

I wanted to close my eyes and hide my face in his chest, to pretend that none of it was happening.

A claw scraped my arm, searing my skin with pain. But it drew no blood. It hardly even left a scratch. Another thin hand with knobby knuckles grabbed for me, but its claws slipped from my skin as if it was oiled and slippery.

As the dark spirits held Invi, dragging him to the gaping mouth of the passage, their claws, teeth, and hands seemed to be unable to get a purchase on me.

---