Ifrit sits close to Thomas, healing magic ready to go.  She doesn’t need it, the clawing, the horribly graphic scene, it’s as if it never happened.  It was almost as if Thomas was made to tear open his chest, as if magic was using Thomas to rebuild him, change him from within.

I look up at ifrit, she’s close, really, really, close.  “Hey Ifrit?” I pause.  “What’s up? You’re practically laying on me.”

“Dude! You just ripped yourself apart! Don’t give me ******* attitude.” “Forget that, look at your chest stupid, look at the symbol!”

In the center of my chest, that strange symbol.  It seemed to have formed from my own skin, and fire.  I still can’t make it out, but for some reason it reminds me of Ifrit. 

“What is it, what happened.  The same thing happened to you too, right?” I ask.

“Yeah, it happened to me, I just didn’t go crazy and rip my chest open.” She says with attitude.  “I couldn’t do anything to stop it, we were surrounded by razor-wind, but I had magic ready just in case.” She says, expectantly.

“Yes, yes, of course, thankyou Ifrit.”

Her face lights up at the praise, as if she didn’t just murder that huge beast thing earlier, I can’t figure her out, at all. 

“So?” “What is it?” I ask exasperated. 

“Dude, we bonded! Like for real, we bonded!” She yells in excitement. 

“Bonded? What the hell is that?”

“You see that symbol?” “Yeah” “That’s me!” She says excited, “That’s my magic symbol!”

“What does it mean?” I asked hesitantly.

“Well, to be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about it, but! Its super, super rare, like insanely rare!” “I only ever hear of this from story books!” She continues in excitement.

“There are stories for this?”

“Sure! It hasn’t happened in my lifetime, I’ve never seen it before, but books depict stuff like this happening in the past.” She takes a minute to herself in thought.  Maybe it was back when the humans lived here too? She thought. 

“So, what do we do?” I ask. 

Ifrit sits there on the ground thinking of their next move, while an evil voice, not heard by Ifrit or Thomas, cracks through the darkness of a distant land thousands of miles away.  The evil presence begins to speak to its cohorts. 

A loud kackle breaks the deafening silence.  “Yes! Yes! Finally!” It says, as another begins it’s horrible kackle; “The bond is complete!” “The bond the bond the bond is complete, sisters!” “Be careful sisters, the fairy is a dangerous one.” It says menacingly. 

“For now, let’s get the hell out of here, agreed?” She asks.  “Oh yeah, no question here.” I say as I glance over to the giant flowers in the distance.  I never did get to see the damn things eat anything; ******* things didn’t even try.  “Let’s get the **** out of here.” I say.

“So, where’s the exit?” “Don’t tell me it’s another ***hole.”

“No, this should just be a cave, stop being a *****.” She says. 

“Let’s go this way, its opposite the ***hole, and I can see some faint light from around the corner, it should be our best bet.” She says with utter confidence in her voice. She really is a natural leader; I can see why she was a frontliner in the war with the god. 

“We just need to distract the Grani with something to root them out.” She says.

“What the hell is a Grani?” I asked, perplexed.  “The flower thing, there! In the corner, remember?”  She says mockingly.  “Oh, yeah no, right, you never told me the name of the thing.” I retort in defense of myself.  “Oh, yeah.” She says.  “I’m going to throw you to them then slingshot you backward, ok?” “Sound good?”

“Huh?! Are you ******* serious?!” “What the hell did you think I would say? Yes?” “Sweet.” She says with a smile.  “What? No, I didn’t agree?! I was being facetious!”

“Hostem vinci, sacra energia vinci, ut sub mea potestate teneantur”

Before I could say anything more in my defense, Ifrit had started her incantation.  I have a strong feeling, in fact, I’m willing to bet money on it, she knew I wasn’t being serious, I know it.  That little.  Before I can finish my thought a light “rope” wraps itself around my midsection tying my arms down in the process.

My face says everything, I’m going to die, how dare you tie me up.  I can’t hide it.  This is just unbelievable, wait, no, no it’s not, is it? She’s crazy, she’s hurt me and used magic on me, since we ******* met! 

“Now, now.  Just relax! Seriously stop being such a *****, are you dead? Did you die? No, so, shut-up, I got you dude!” She yells at me.  Determination in her eyes, and an air of confidence, I can’t help but go along with it.

“Let’s go!”  Throwing me forward.  “You wanted to see them, right?! Here you go!” She yells, laughing.

As my velocity brings me closer and closer to the Grani, I can hear the ground cracking.  It’s coming.  In an explosion of sand and stone the flowers open, long thin tendrils protrude out of its mouth, as the large muscular monster erupts from the ground, it really looks awful, like a roid-head on the verge of heart attack.  Shooting its massive arms towards me to turn me into human paste, it comes so ****** close.  Too close.  “Too close!” I scream from the top of my lounges, practically swallowing my throat as I’m jolted backward. 

My neck cracking from the whiplash, the beast continued in its pursuit, grabbing the air in front of me wildly.  Frothing out of the mouth underneath the flowers, gnashing its teeth, wanting a bite of me.  The ground cracks underneath the beasts’ feet as it pounds the ground. 

I am propelled further backward towards the end of the cave, close to the goliaths ***, hurdling towards it with no sign of stopping.  This fairy really likes messing with me, is she going to slam me into the wall as a joke?

Just as my back was going to meet the solid cave wall, I was pulled away to the right of the cave with a strong jerk of the rope by Ifrit.  My head and neck being violently whipped around.  It’s certainly not a kid friendly game we are playing.  The beast, mindless from hunger, and enraged by his fleeting prey, slammed its head right into the cave wall.  It worked in our favor that it wasn’t as bright as that bunny.

I got roped around in a semi-circle coming back over to Ifrit, who, as she was tugging me all around the cave, took the opportunity to almost clear the long corridor.  “Hey! Have fun?” she says, laughing at me.  She knows I didn’t, well it was kind of fun, that ******* thing tried and tried so hard to get me, it was kind of funny.

“I guess I did, but! I don’t ever want to be bait again; my neck is killing me!” I say as I grab the back of my neck.  “That was some aggressive pulling, Ifrit.”

“Would you rather I was soft? Would you have rather been monster chow?” She says sarcastically.  “No.” I say defeated.

“You had fun, stop complaining, you want me to heal you?” “No” I quickly respond, I’d rather deal with the pain, that “healing” magic hurts so bad.

“No, it’s fine.  Considering everything I did enjoy it, it was fun watching that thing try to grab me, in a sort of insane way.”

She lets out a loud laugh as we run further down the corridor and around the corner. 

I can feel myself beginning to trust Ifrit a little more.  She kept me safe this entire time, and we even bonded, I must trust her deep down. Also, this world is so violent, I can’t hold it against her, she’s trying her hardest to keep me alive, I know this. 

She was right, that light she saw, I can see sunlight from the cracks in the wall.  As we continue running, the closer we get to the supposed wall it begins to shift and creak.  The wall splits open, like some kind of automatic door from my world.  As it shifts sand and other debris begins to fall from the surrounding walls, like the whole cave is moving. 

“Hey! How is it opening on its own Ifrit?” I yell.  “Do you really need to ask? It’s magic.  This whole Chasm is flowing with magic.”

As we exit, I move my body to look at the exit, I’m curious as to how it knows when to open and when to close.  Why would a cave even need to open and close? Is it a dungeon from my books?

“No!” she yells as she grabs me.  “Look, ok? Don’t turn around when leaving places like that, caves, floors, anything!”

I look at her with curiosity, is it like the rules we have for haunted churches? Like don’t pick up anything you drop, or don’t look back at the entrance? Things like that?  “Why not?” I ask. 

“I don’t know if its actually true or not, but there’s a legend that if you do, you’ll get torn to shreds, like your body just kind of explodes, or you turn into a monster, I don’t know, I’ve never experienced it.”

Wait, I could turn into a monster? That can’t be true, can it? Not that I’m going to try it out, that’s way to risky and I sort of still want to live.   

“Wow. Thankyou Ifrit.  Seriously I’d be dead hundreds of times over if you weren’t here.  I’m still so ignorant of your world.”  “Seriously, thank you.”

Still looking at me, she blushes bright red, and quickly looks away from me.  I seemed to have embarrassed her, she’s been trying so hard for my sake, trust her or not I’m completely indebted to her. 

Having left the cave, I can feel the sun on my skin for the first time in a while.  How long were we even in there? Wait, how the hell is there sun in here aren’t we inside a Chasm? The area around us too its beautiful, lush green everywhere you look, like a summertime field.  How is this here, underground?

 I can’t help but stare with my mouth open in awe, this is incredible.  Like a beautiful picture, a scenic painting, unmoving.  However, the more I look around the more I realize, nothing’s moving, nothing at all. 

I look over to Ifrit to ask her what the hell is going on.  She’s just standing there.

My whole body went cold.

As if frozen in time, she is just standing there, unmoving, no reactions, nothing.  I wave close to her face.  No reaction, I even poked her forehead, nothing!  ****, I’m in a new room of the Great Chasm, and I don’t have the one person who has been keeping me alive this whole time!  I’m going to die! ****, I’m going to die!  Wait, stop, now is not the time to panic. 

As I try to collect myself, my panic grows, although, it doesn’t feel like my normal panic attacks, this is different.  My head feels so heavy.

What’s, going, on.

As I try and collect myself, unaware of my surroundings, a sudden shock shoots up my spine as my body forces a sharp exhale of air from my lungs.  Something sharp has just penetrated my back. 

I hesitantly turn around, to see what the hell is going on.  Sweat dripping from my brow.  It’s a ****** goblin! What the **** it’s a goblin! Like the ones from my books! This ******* thing just stabbed me. It looks exactly like what I thought they would.  Short, green, and ****** ugly. 

That tell-tale wort covered face, the long nose.  It’s a goblin for sure, it ****** stinks too, the loincloth its wearing is nasty, like it’s been dragged in ****, oh man, its ugly.  Something a mother couldn’t even love, if this nasty thing even has a mother.  I just know those nasty jagged teeth are going to hurt if it bites me.     

“You’re a ******* goblin, aren’t you!?” I yell pointing at it. 

Seeming having acknowledged my words, it let out an ugly kackling laugh, grinning at me.  “You little ****, can you understand me?”

It shrugs its shoulders as it pulls the knife from my back.  It feels like removing a giant splinter covered in thorns.  My blood begins to flow out from the fresh wound, it stinks like iron. 

I let out a curdling shout from the pain.  ****, you ugly piece of ****, I’m going to rip your insides out through your eyes.  A bluff, but I will try anything at this point.  The knife wound is gaping, I can feel the air hitting it, and my whole leg is hot, this isn’t looking good, it’s a lot of blood, I don’t want to pass out like this, I can’t.

“Why?” I ask as I look into its disgusting eyes.  Not that a goblin would have the intellect to even know.   It again shrugs its shoulders and readies its knife as he begins to lunge at me again.  I can’t do anything but hold my hands up.  How pathetic, I came all this way only to die by a weak starter monster. 

As the creature closes in on Thomas, his mind goes blank and his consciousness fades, and everything goes black for him.  His last thought was his death. 

I wake to a massacre; I’m covered in blood, the field around me is splattered with it, and the injury, the knife wound, it’s gone! What the ****? I can feel bits of flesh in my teeth and under my fingernails.

What the ****? Did that hidden power from before finally come back? How am I uninjured? Theres no way I can heal myself, is there?

I look around the field, there are limbs and organs thrown all over the place.  This, this is way too many legs, there must be sixteen of them.  That ugly little ****** had backup waiting didn’t it.  What the hell is happening?

Suddenly, something very close to me clears its throat.  I should bluff agian, if they want trouble the corpses around me should act as a deterrent. “Who’s there! Show yourself! Lest you become like the goblins!” I shouted.

“Woh, woh, woh, you better calm the **** down little ****.” 

It’s behind me!

I turn.  Nothing.  “Show yourself, coward!” I shouted, clearly anxious.  

The voice lets out a terrifying cackling as it laughs at my taunt.  It had zero effect on whoever I’m trying to scare.  This isn’t good, I need Ifrit, but she’s still frozen!

“You try and scare me? What a clear bluff.  You cannot hide your true self from me, I know you’re weak, relying on a ******* fairy to survive.  Clinging to her as if you were some kind of princess.  You make me want to throw-up!”

“Kekekekekekekeke”

As my eyes widen, I can feel the blood vessels in my eyes pop, pop, one after another.  I feel as if my very soul has been grabbed and pulled from me, it’s the only way I can describe this feeling.  I slump over standing upright, but I have no energy, I feel like a doll on a shelf, my eyes still and vacant.  As my head trembles with such gravity my vision is disturbed, I look up, to see a figure, a gapping blackness, as if a void is staring back at me, not a single feature except for its white hollow eyes.

I feel cold, very cold.  I shake violently as I try and raise my head to look up at this figure.  The dark figure’s vacant eyes peering into the depths of my soul.  I feel the blood hit my veins the same way water flows when you release the kink.  My heart lets out a heavy thump that can be audibly heard, and I am locked in eye contact for what feels like eternity. 

“You say I’m the coward, yet look at yourself, I can see the tears streaking through the goblin blood.  Your no man, your hardly a boy.” It says.