Welcome to Gaia! ::

I woke to voices. Very recognizable voices. I found Iris and Jade standing above me, talking. They both glanced down at me before turning away as if my presence wasn’t important. I tried to stand up, only to realize heavy chains ran from my wrists to the floor, not letting me rise any further than my knees. I stab of terror shot through me.

“Don’t look so afraid, my dear Carson.”

I looked up. Iris was watching me with a satisfied smirk on her lips that did nothing to calm my fears.

“Once you open the Gate for me, I will make sure that your death is painless.”

I shook my head in horror.

“I can’t let you live, not after having opposed me. You’re a threat, and I can’t let any threat remain.”

I pushed myself back against the wall. “Please. Just let me go.”

She just smiled at me for a moment then turned to Jade. “You have permission to do whatever’s necessary to get him to open the Gate.”

Jade nodded, and when Iris had gone, she turned to me. “You should have accepted, Carson.” She shook her head, looking truly sorry. “Open the Gate.”

“I…I can’t.”

Her eyes narrowed. “This will be a lot easier on you if you just cooperate.”

“N-no…I can’t. I have no idea how. I…I don’t know how to do it.”

“You’ve done it before. You can’t lie to me.”

How could I get her to understand this? The other two times I’d used the Gate, I’d had no idea what I was doing. I hadn’t even known there was such a thing; I’d only just found out , and they expected me to know exactly how it worked.

She knelt down in front of me, grabbing one of my shackled wrists. I tried to pull away, but couldn’t whether it was because she was actually stronger than me or because the blow to my head still had been dizzy and sick to my stomach.

Jade bit down on my arm, and I cried out.

“Stop it!”

She drew her face away and took a small vial from one of her pockets.

“Wh-what’s that?”

She popped it open. “It’s a special strain of the Valr virus. Since you’re immune, it obviously won’t change you, but…” Her lips twisted into a sneer. “It will hurt like hell.”

She dumped the contents onto the bite wound, and I flinched, expecting my skin to smoke and sizzle or something, but nothing happened. I was about to heave a sigh of relief, but suddenly it did hurt. No, it was beyond hurting. Something that I couldn’t describe. My mouth opened and I screamed, twisting around in agony.

“I can make it stop. Just open the Gate.”

Why couldn’t she understand? I had no idea how to open the Gate. I had never consciously done so; only when my life had been threatened had it ever worked, and even then I’d had no idea that I was using some sort of supernatural power that only I possessed. I hadn’t had a clue as to what was going on, and no one had bothered to explain it to me; they all assumed that I already knew.

I continued to scream.

The world seemed to slow down for a moment, and then the whole room lurched and shuddered. No, wait. That wasn’t right. The room was still; it was me that was shaking. I seemed to have lost all control of my body, and I thrashed and threw myself against the wall, tugging on the chains, wishing desperately for this to just stop.

Jade grabbed my wrist again, and the pain abated and then disappeared completely.

“Very good, Carson.”

I blinked in confusion, but turning my head to the side, I saw that I had opened the Gate after all. It stood to my left. Tall, dark, with a slight glow around the edges. I felt sick looking at it. I looked up at Jade.

“Please,” I said.

“What?”

“I don’t want to die.”

She pressed a hand to my cheek. “It’s Iris’s will.”

I closed my eyes. Of course. Had I really expected anything different? The moment I had talked to Anne on the beach so many days ago, I had subconsciously known that I was approaching my death, hadn’t I? The only thing that had been unsure of was who would kill me. Anne or Iris. Now, that had been answered, and the only thing that I could wish for was that Iris would do as she had promised and make it quick.

***

By the time Iris returned, I was beyond distraught. I had imagined hundreds of ways that she could kill me, most of them not pleasant at all; some of them outright disturbing. And looking at her, I knew that she was capable of doing any of them.

“Don’t worry, Carson. I will be true to my word. You won’t feel a thing.”

I glanced away from her and towards the Gate. “What are you going to do now that it’s open?”

“I will destroy the Hlif.”

“And after that?”

“I will govern your world as I do Mictlan.”

I shuddered at that thought, remembering the empty streets, the glitches and sort of afterimages that filled this alternate universe, this sick parody of earth. Realizing that the world I lived in would become like Mictlan made me sick, but what made it even worse was that I had made it possible. I had opened the Gate for Iris, albeit unconsciously. If only I knew how to close it, but I didn’t. I knew nothing of my newfound powers, except that I was only ever able to use them in times of need.

Iris knelt down in front of me, and she stroked my cheek tenderly.

I shivered at her touch. “Please, I don’t--”

She pressed a finger to my lips, silencing me. “There’s no way out of this. Just accept it.”

I swallowed hard.

“Close your eyes, my darling, and you won’t even realize when it happens.”

I did as she said, my body stiff as she continued caressing. I waited, breath held, for my life to end. My skin began to tingle, and then it began to burn. Agony flared along every nerve and I cried out in surprise, hating myself for having believed Iris. She wasn’t making this painless. This was just more torture.

My eyes flew open. Iris was turned away from me; she was looking towards the Gate. I followed her gaze to find that the Gate was spitting white hot flames that nearly blinded me. The burning sensation increased, and I screamed.

Iris looked back at me, and there was fury in her eyes. She reached for me, but before she could touch me, I was engulfed by the same flames that were coming from the Gate. I could feel the manacles being burned from my wrists, and then there was a strong tug on my body. My vision darkened, the flames being reduced to flickering silhouettes, and then they disappeared completely.

When I came to, I was back on earth, lying in my neighbor’s yard. Safe. I was safe.