Page 71 of Descent

To perdition.

There’s fire everywhere. Blood, crackling skin mingled with screams. Faces in despair. Agony. All drawn from my past.

I descend into the abyss. My soul is reeling, reaching, scrambling like I’m deep underwater, clawing for the surface with no indication of which direction to go. I just need out. Now.

I cry for Ciro, my guardian angel. He’s nowhere to be found.

Smothering anxiety assaults me, tearing my flesh from my bones.

“Fiero, Fiero!” A voice calls into the void. From a person whose name I should know.

My hands scrape against jagged stone, trying to find my way in the dark.

The sound multiplies, growing into a cacophony.

Through the onslaught of wails and the wretched music of dead and dying, three voices cut through. Three men shouting my name, calling for me, blaming me.

A roar tears from my throat, desperation driving me up, up. Out.

But I don’t awaken. The pain intensifies, freezing. Blistering cold.

I break the surface of the water. Drag frozen limbs onto the ice, moonlight bathing the scene in a silvern glow. Shivering against the frigid, intractable glacier beneath me, I try to catch my breath, but my lungs are still full of water.

The shredding frost of arctic air sucked into my lungs feels so real, visceral. As does the water spewed from my lips.

Arms pull me up. Set me on my feet.

But when I look, there’s no one there, not near me, only a silhouette off in the distance, backlit by the moon. I turn and there’s another to my left, one more to my right.

“Fiero, you must remember.”

“R-remember what?”

“Everything.”

“Find your way back to us. We need you.”

“You can’t need anything. You’re all gone.”

“Brother,” Alessandro’s tone commands my attention. “Embrace the pain.”

“Accept the fear,” Ciro adds.

“Become the division,” Adriano finishes.

“We’re waiting for you. Come home,” they say as one.

But as I look down at my hands, I see them covered in my brother’s blood. I reach for them, but they drift farther away. I miss their faces. Their voices.

A single tear falls from my eye.

Ripples as it hits the glass surface at my feet. Bubbles explode across the surface under me, churning. And I see Circe, hammering her palms against the ice. My fist slams down, cracking, chipping away at the barrier between us.

No matter how hard I hit, I cannot break through. She’s dying, and there’s not a thing I can do.

Except watch as her face goes slack.

Watch as her features transform into a hideous, skeletal creature. The harpy comes to life, screaming, bursting through the ice, clawing at my legs.

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