Tartarus Thief | ONC 2021 [ROUND 2 WINNER]

Chapter 7

Vita shot through Tartarus like an arrow from a bow, the smell of sulphur and smoke wrinkling her nose. Her legs felt light, as if her feet were carried by the wind. Her hair cascaded behind her, hot wind rushing against her cheeks.

Leo's blessing, she thought with a thrill. It must've worked!

The speed of Hermes himself. She could hardly believe it. Hopefully it'll last long enough to finish what I came here for.

When she reached the first corner, Vita almost tripped in her attempt to turn. She held herself up on the wall, but hissed in pain when it burned her fingers. Heat oozed from the walls, as if to warn people to stay away.

Glancing up, her eyes widened. That door, at the end of the corridor, falling shut behind an Erinye, could it be what she was –

Crack!

Vita jumped back when a flail whipped at the corner, missing her hand by an inch.

"Get back here!"

The Erinye still chased her, her weapon in hand and a murderous look on her face. With her heart in her throat, Vita dashed in the opposite direction. Perhaps if she could lose the guard in Tartarus, she could make her way back to that door.

It wasn't long before the corridors flowed into a much larger area. A moor, a wasteland that someone seemed to have built a town of sorts on. As Vita ran towards the run-down and crumbling houses, the word slum came to mind. The buildings were so ravaged and ruined, if she didn't know any better she'd have thought the place had been struck by an earthquake.

As she raced closer, hoping to lose the guard among the ruins, the smell of something burning was confirmed by a crackling, sizzling stream of lava flowing like a river through the slum. It split into streams of boiling, scorching lava like a deadly decor. Even worse, however, were the sounds. Screams and wails assaulted her eardrums as she sped past the caving buildings, muffled by the crumbling walls.

There are people inside.

When the sound of a whip cracking behind her broke her out of her contemplation, Vita sped up once again. But it wasn't easy to drown out the terrible noises of terrorised souls. Though she couldn't see them hidden behind their prison-like walls, she could feel their suffering through their tortured cries for help.

Her heart constricted as she caught her breath behind one of the buildings, her back against the red-bricked wall. So many souls in so much pain. Was she really going to leave them to their fates? But what else could she do?

"Don't think I won't find you, you sneaky little worm," the Erinye shouted. "You can't hide forever!"

She's right, Vita knew. I have to keep going, if I'm ever going to get out of this place. Besides, these people are here because they deserve to be here.

With a nod as if to confirm herself, but a still-heavy heart, she pushed off from the wall and ran, zigzagging between the broken-down houses. She pushed Leo's blessing to maximum capacity, all the while doing her best to stay out of sight. Once the sound of a slashing whip faded away, Vita took a right and looped around the slum, back towards the entrance.

As soon as the doors were in sight once more, she hid behind a crumbling wall, her hands over her ears to drown out the horrid wails coming from inside the ruins.

"Come on," she muttered. "Come on, where are you?"

A few minutes of agonised waiting ticked by as she glanced over her shoulder every few seconds to make sure the guard still hadn't found her. Unblinking, she stared at the charred-black door, willing for it to open.

Until, finally, it did.

She almost gasped when another Erinye emerged, arms full of scrolls, letting the door slowly creak shut behind her. As soon as the last of the Erinye's hair-snakes had disappeared around the corner, Vita jumped up and raced towards the door. With half a millisecond to spare, she stuck her fingers in between the door and the doorpost, supressing a pained yelp.

Vita glanced around before sneaking through the gap.

A laugh bubbled up in her throat. The chamber she found herself in was huge. All around her stood stone shelves, rising so high that she couldn't even see the top. Each and every one of them was filled to the brim, almost overflowing, with ancient-looking scrolls.

She approached the nearest one and picked up one of the scrolls. It was made of thick, leathery, beige paper. Parchment perhaps? Vita couldn't be sure. The name, Amber Adelaide, and her deeds were inscribed in a colour that she had never seen before; something between pitch black and deep red.

A sudden sound at the back of the room made her jump. It was a low thud, like something falling or bumping into the stone shelves.

Placing Amber Adelaide's scroll back on the shelf, she crouched down and slipped, as silently as possible, through the shadow-filled chamber. She kept her eyes in the direction the noise came from, but heard nothing else. Every now and then she took a scroll from one of the shelves and checked the name. Bennington, Lawry, Peters.

She wasn't even sure if she should be looking for her first name or her surname. With every resurrection, a little note with her first name was placed with her, wherever she was left behind. She'd never been able to find out who did that. Charon, perhaps. Or maybe her mother. Because of the note, her first name was the same in every life, but she always took on the surname of her adoptive parents. What name would Hades place on her records? Would he change the records after every resurrection?

Vita was at the T when the door suddenly opened again. Finding the darkest place in the pathway, she pressed her back against the shelf and waited, listening to the footsteps making their way through the chamber. Fortunately, they never came towards her.

As the door fell shut once more, she continued on her way. She let her fingers glide across the shelves, feeling the cold, rough stone on her skin. At each crossing path between the shelves, she stopped and listened. But the room was silent.

Visalli, Visco, Visscher. And then, finally, Vita. There were a few scrolls with multiple names on it, but only one with just "Vita". She picked it up and rolled it out, grinning at the boldly written word just below her name.

DEMIGOD

Nothing else was on the scroll. Her deeds didn't need to be recorded, because she would never be judged. As a demigoddess, she would always simply be resurrected, no matter what she had done in her life.

A relieved sigh escaped her. She'd found it. She only just got here and she'd already found it. If only she could tell Leo how easy this had turned out to be.

Placing her fingers on one edge of the scroll, she tore it apart –

But it wouldn't budge. She tried again, but couldn't even manage a small tear in the thick paper.

"What the hell?"

Her smile long replaced by a frown, she put her teeth to the paper and ripped as hard as she could.

Still nothing.

Damn it...

Determined not to give up so easily, she sprinted back to the entrance and slipped out of the chamber. She made her way to the nearby stream and dipped the scroll into the lava. Lifting it back up, her face contorted. Still nothing.

Lava-resistant? Really?

For a second she wondered if the lava wasn't as hot as it looked, but the scorching heat burning her face as she hung over it told her otherwise.

On the other side of the stream, past a block of houses, she spotted the Erinye who had chased her. Her flail dragged over the ground, and her snake-hair hissed angrily. But she didn't seem to have spotted Vita yet.

Cursing to herself, she pushed the scroll into her robes and ran in the only direction she could go. Time was up.

With one last glance behind her, she cracked open the door and snuck back into the Hall of Judgement.