Juliana had to consciously close her gaping mouth and force her eyebrows back down to their regular position.
That the indigo demon was slowly yet surely making its way towards the crystal–Juliana assumed that was her goal–had her somewhat worried. It couldn’t be anything good.
Juliana kept the crystal only in the corner of her eye. She had glanced over it for a brief moment and almost got stuck, drawn in like some sort of hypnosis.
Neither of the demons so much as glanced in her direction throughout any of their fight. That was a small miracle in and of itself.
One thing was certain. This was definitely not Prax’s cell.
“Shalise,” Juliana hissed.
She couldn’t have–she
Juliana scanned over all of the body parts littering the floor. There were surprisingly few considering that the sword-master kept flashing over to the hole in the wall and dispatching any that approached. Most of the parts likely vanished into the portals that appeared wherever a demon died.
There must have been a whole horde outside, clamoring to get in. Probably fighting one another to fit through the small hole. That none bothered to widen it was somewhat surprising. The silver-haired woman was fast and powerful, true, but anyone could be overwhelmed.
A messy set of wavy brown hair stood out against the background noise of body parts.
But the thing attached to the hair…
“Shalise?”
Juliana twisted up to her hands and knees. She cracked her neck from side to side. There was an absolutely awful kink like she’d been sleeping half off the bed again.
Right as she laid her hand on the muscled-over shoulder, ‘Shalise’ stirred. She pushed herself up onto her on knees with a groan, bringing a hand up to her forehead as she moved.
“Wha-what?” Shalise flipped back on her butt and started clawing at her arms, digging in and drawing blood. “No! This–this is not right.”
“Shalise, you have to calm down!” Juliana gripped Shalise’s arms and tried to pull her off of herself. Whatever had happened to her gave her enough muscles to overpower Juliana’s efforts. “Shalise!”
Shalise blinked and stopped struggling. Her eyes focused on Juliana.
Recognition took a moment. She pulled back and blinked again. “You! You mo–”
Shalise blinked again. “Juliana?”
“It’s me, Shalise. Are you… What happened to you?”
“I–” She looked down at herself.
For a moment, Juliana thought she was about to start clawing at herself again.
She didn’t. She almost snarled at herself. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Shalise jumped to her feet, narrowing her eyes at the naked demon and the sword. “This place is dangerous.”
“Yeah.” Juliana followed Shalise to her feet.
Strong, iron-like fingers gripped her arm, holding her steady.
“Thanks.” Juliana glanced down at the fingers. “You’re going to have to tell me what happened.”
“Later.”
Shalise released Juliana’s arms, walking towards the red barrier and away from the fighting demons.
Her walk was unsteady. Stumbling almost.
Juliana wasn’t unsympathetic. A few steps of her own had her legs feeling like jelly. At least she knew why she wasn’t walking properly. Her dizziness and the lost time between Prax’s cell and this crystal room… it was obvious that she had been unconscious.
But the way Shalise was walking, something about it unnerved Juliana. Whatever was causing her movements to be unsteady was slowly getting better.
Or
Signs of a battle lay strewn about outside of the crystal room’s barrier. The remains were far messier than inside. Half-machine humanoids lay in pieces. White blood was splattered around each corpse, so they weren’t demons. Or not demons that she had ever heard of.
Most of the actually fighting moved on to gather around the hole in the crystal room’s wall.
Shalise strode on, uncaring and oblivious to the fighting.
Juliana narrowed her eyes.
She could keep Shalise in sight. She
— — —
Nightmares were just dreams that had gone wrong. Instead of a normal day at school, it was a day without pants. Or instead of a normal haunted house, it was a haunted house with a serial killer actively in pursuit.
In fact, Shalise was quite certain that she had had this nightmare before. The feeling of being trapped in her own body while it walked around was oddly familiar. She could see through her eyes and hear through her ears, but she couldn’t move her eyes or turn her head.
Except this time, it wasn’t a nightmare. Or perhaps it was, and it was just a really long and terrible nightmare. One thing after another kept going wrong. If it wasn’t being stuck in a prison full of demons, it was Juliana getting sick.
Or her body getting stolen.
At least Juliana had woken up on her own. Shalise very much doubted that Prax would have continued to carry her had she stayed unconscious.
She should have listened to that doll.
