Chapter 3

The sky was a vast sea of darkness illuminating the kingdom of Liore. Thick clouds were scattered and even thicker ones gathered around the moon which could barely illuminate the world with its faint, serene glow. Everything was ruled by the dark and the lightning strikes drawn on the sky seconds after seconds brought terror instead of the hope of light. Thunder roared like an aggravated demon of the sky, sending shivers to the lowest of the low creatures underneath and on earth, waking up the devils in hibernation underground. It was a fateful night in which the rules of darkness would change; the ultimate collision of natural evil and an immortal hatred.

A young lady wearing a white satin dress was bounded on the stone altar in the middle of the woods. She was barefooted and her feet were filled with callouses and cuts she got from walking a distance to get to the unfamiliar place. Her vision was the same as usual, dark though she could see some flashing lights blending with black. Layla couldn’t see anything with the cloth tightly wrapped to cover her eyes.

She was conscious but had little idea where exactly she was brought as she could smell the rich scent of leaves in the forest. Having been forced to drink a bottle of poison she had tried before after she attempted to escape, she lost track of the signs she thought would help her figure out where she was headed to. The drink she had made her head heavy and her thoughts were muddled, especially when it was more potent than the previous one she had. The only thing she was certain about was she was no longer in the dungeon where she was locked up for years. Layla was alone and death was waiting for her if she didn’t start doing something to save her pitiable life.

The chilly breeze softly caressed her skin, making her gasp in pain when it brushed on her cuts. At the very least, she was grateful that she could still cry in pain since she got her mouth free from any muzzle she usually had on as her everyday routine. She needed to feel more pain to lose her senses and wouldn’t feel the agony she was enduring since she woke up.

The wind kept blowing and the thin piece of cloth she wore wasn’t enough to protect her from cold. But that wasn’t the problem, she was already used to the cold floor and would sometimes spend days without wearing anything after getting beat up and starved to death. What made her worry was the deafening roars from above and the occasional flashes of lights she saw even with her blindfold. Layla didn’t remember what ‘light’ was like. And having the feeling of seeing it again could almost scare her to death.

Layla was still alive and wasn’t playing dead at all but her cold body and her pale skin made her look lifeless. Her chapped lips and darkening nails only proved how hard she must have gone through. If she wasn’t breathing heavily in anxiousness, even she would think she was a goner. She was thinking of recovering her strength and find a way to get rid of the rope tightly tied to her. That was her plan, and she was determined to do it just to survive for another day. Her thoughts were interrupted when a loud howling voice could be heard. The sound was so fearsome, and she was terrified that she wet her pants. The poor young lady hadn’t heard such doleful cry, and she knew whichever was causing it was there… watching her as she struggled to escape.

“Awoooooo!”

The howling stopped and the thunder continued breaking the silence in the background. The wind seemed to change its course and the lightning slowly vanished in the sky until it finally stopped showing off its electric sketches. The sudden changes alerted her senses. She felt that something was moving towards her. She could tell… her time was almost up.

“NO! G-get away from me!” A cry escaped her mouth when she felt something hovering above her. It was an instinct! When Layla felt the powerful presence, she knew… she was a step closer to her end. Her mouth ran instinctively and uttered nonsense hoping it would work. “I… I was p-poisoned! Y-you’ll die if you just even touch or get near me,” she stuttered with her quivering lips as she desperately wished that she wouldn’t get killed yet.

“Oh? Are you begging for your life? How courageous you are.” It was a deep, cold, man’s voice that responded to her and his overbearing tone belittled her desperate warning. The way he said those words didn’t give her any guarantee that she would be spared. He didn’t sound like someone whom she could bargain with. Especially when she had nothing to bargain, to begin with… other than her humble life.

“I… I just don’t want someone to die because of me. My life is worthless, if you came to kill me, you’d only waste your precious life and might cross the other world with me instead.” Layla sounded more and more desperate. She didn’t know why someone came to find her. If she was intended to get sold just like before, she would have been brought to a noble house and was probably on the bed, not on a hard surface where she was lying helplessly as of the moment.

“Poison? Not a bad excuse, but it won’t kill me.” The man said in a mocking tone.

She bit her lip and clenched her fists. ‘If only I wasn’t tied up. I could have made a run for it,’ Layla thought.

“Do you know in what position you are in right now? Running away won’t work. Fighting back is also useless,” he whispered to her ear. “All you have to do is stay still and let me devour you. Your life is only worth my food tonight. You’re nothing but a flesh of meat offered by lowlife creatures you called humans.”

His words enticed her range. The anger she kept for years and tried to bury in the depths of her shattered heart was awakening. Its intensity was something she couldn’t control. Her existence was a living madness… and she was glad she was still alive. When she was weak and small, the grudges she collected for years would give her strength. She smirked. “So you’re a demon. I thought demons don’t exist. I was wrong,” she said. The uneasiness on her voice was gone and in fact, she felt quite fearless.

“Stop playing tough,” he said and laughed so hard. He was amused on conversing with her. “No matter what you say, you’ll be dead by midnight.”

“Ah, you would settle with a piece of rotten meat as long as it could still talk. I never knew that demons would be pleased with any kind of offer, overlooking the quality… that’s just so… cheap,” she muttered. Layla didn’t know how long she could be so confident but if she was going to die anyway, she preferred to die without holding back what’s in her mind. “Have you ever wonder why they would send someone like me to you? They fed me poison for four years and when they failed to kill me with it, they dispatched me as an offering for the infamous demon. Your legend in this land was so known that even those crappy pants nobles are scared by your mere existence.”

“Poison? Was it like a seasoning that enhances your prey’s flavor? I have known dozens of captives who were sent to be the demon’s meal before. They haven’t been poisoned though,” she continued and maintained the smirk on her lips. “Did they taste good? How did you devour them? Ripped their flesh into pieces and what? Tell me,” she smiled wider. “Did you eat them alive? Screaming?”

“Grrr!”

Layla flinched when she heard him growl on her face. His breath smelled like mint with a strong metallic scent combined. ‘Blood,’ she whispered to herself when she remembered the disgusting smell she had whenever she was beaten to a pulp. The pungent smell of blood became her perfume. She bathed with it almost every day.

“Nice. You know how to use your mouth,” the man said after a while. “Do you want to know how I devoured those who came before you? I gnawed their flesh as they cry for help. I slurped down their fresh blood as their eyes were filled with tears. They screamed for mercy and it sounded nice. I love how they tasted,” he added.

“Will you do the same to me?” Her question made the other wonder why she wanted to know how he’d disposed of her. She hadn’t seen a demon before, and she was wondering how the villainous creature in front of her looked like. If only her eyes weren’t covered, she could at least see her predator for the last second of her life. “I give up,” Layla whispered.

“Already? That was unexpected,” he responded.

“You sounded so strong and whatever way I think of, I wouldn’t be so sure to be able to get away from your grasp. But… can you do me a favor?” Her voice was soft and no signs of resistance, enough for the other to listen to what she would say.

“A favor? That’s new. Go ahead,” he ordered which made her smile. A real one.

After struggling for more than a decade, she was still going to have a bitter end. For her, life was a dream she could never have achieved. Not in a world,d she was living in.

“My eye was hurt and it was scarred thus I had to cover it with a piece of cloth. I couldn’t and was never given a chance to see this damn world. I was hoping before you take my life… before my last breath, I wanted to see how it looks like,” she told him.

“You sounded like you hate this world. Why waste your time to see it instead of asking something else like sparing your life?” She was surprised by what he said. The man got a point, if she begged for her life, she could see the world anytime she wanted. She laughed. Her voice echoed throughout the woods.

“Would you spare my life if I start begging you for it again? Demons are ruthless and you are not any different. If you aren’t a demon, you wouldn’t wait for someone to beg and would just give what you have that she needed. I want freedom and it's now in your hands. You know that I want it and I know you won’t give it to me,” she mumbled. “Just a second before you kill me. Please, let me open my eyes again.”

“You don’t like this world. I could tell by just listening to your words, then why?”