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“Even in death you won’t shut up,” I said.
“I will not,” said Medrion. “And we are both here, together forever, until the end of all things.”
I heard a shuffling sound, like bones rattling. I thought I saw Medrion’s wing twitch. It had to have been a trick of the dim light, though. He couldn’t have moved; he was dead, and there was no Light at the bottom of this mass angelic grave for him to heal himself with. And yet, in the dark, it seemed like he was starting to rise. I swore I saw his shoulder roll, the Light from my hand bouncing on his golden armor.
I shook my head again. “No, no, no,” I said, getting onto my feet. “No, you can’t get up. You’re dead!”
“Watch me, Sarakiel,” he said, “Watch me rise so that we may pick up where we left off. Just you and me. In here. Forever.”
“No!” I screamed, and I shone my Light at him, intensifying the glow in the palm of my hand so that I could see him clearly.
He hadn’t moved.
Medrion lay on his side, his back to me, his neck twisted and facing the ground. Had he actually spoken, it would’ve been through a mouthful of dirt and bits of bone. He wasn’t talking to me, he wasn’t going to talk to anyone ever again… but I had just expended another bit of my power.
It was this place.
This tomb I had been thrown into.
Who or what ever had just talked to me, whether it had been Medrion or something else, had been right. The Pit was going to drain me of my Light. It was only a matter of time. And when my Light was gone, what would be left of me?
Nothing.
Just bones and ash.
CHAPTER TWO
Time meant nothing in the Pit. The darkness and silence pressed in on all sides as if to suffocate me, to choke me, to rob me of my breath and my senses until I submitted to it. I hadn’t snuffed out the dim ball of Light in my hand because otherwise I feared I would fall away and there would truly be nothing left of me.
It could have been hours since I fell.
It could have been days.
Maybe even years… I had no way of knowing. I was hungry, thirsty, and tired, but there was nothing to eat or drink, and I hadn’t yet tried to sleep. Stuck somewhere between Heaven and Hell, was I still mortal? Did I need food, and water, and sleep, or was the point of the Pit to make you feel like you were forever in need of those things and unable to satisfy them?
As exhausted as I felt, the idea of sleeping next to Medrion’s corpse on a bed of deceased angel bones didn’t exactly appeal; if I was going to die, I preferred to face it with as much dignity as I could, and that meant I had to try to get out of here.
No matter the cost.
That was when I heard it. A sound, somewhere in the silence. Weak. Faint. Barely audible, but there nonetheless. In the deadening, purposeful quiet of the Pit, even the faintest noise could mean something; no matter what it was. This sounded like a voice. It was barely a syllable, a deep murmur heard almost as if through water.
I looked across at Medrion—no, it hadn’t been his voice.
Another trick? I thought to myself.
But then I heard it again.
Unlike Medrion’s voice, this one seemed to be coming from… outside. Outside? Looking around, using my dwindling Light to pierce the gloom, I saw only solid rock walls all around me. Walls, bones, and Medrion’s corpse. But there was a voice, somewhere out there—or, at least, there had been.
I waited, listened. I could hear my own pulse pounding against my eardrums getting louder, and louder. Then I heard it again, but closer this time. Someone was talking; I knew I couldn’t be imagining it. I scrambled toward where I thought it was coming from, only to find myself face to face with the same stone walls.
I wasn’t sure why I had expected anything different, but I felt around the wall desperately, hoping to find a hole or an opening, anything. There had to be something. That was the only way I could have been hearing anything at all coming from the other side. But the wall was stubbornly intact, not even a crack.
I heard the voice again, only this time it seemed weaker and more distant than the previous two times I had heard it.
It’s going away.
I placed my hand against the stone wall and screamed. “Help! Is anybody out there?!”
