The Darkness Cometh // Loki - Book 3 ✓

Chapter 10

Loki gasps for breath, oxygen hitting his bruised and battered lungs as they struggle to expand. Crimson blood stains his forehead, long since matted into his disheveled black hair. The wounds on his chest burn, waves of fresh agony sweeping over him second by second, and he sucks in a painful breath.

The void was proving to be as unforgiving as always, Thanos' torture all but stripping the skin from his broken body as he barely clings to consciousness.

His heart aches, the worst pain he'd yet endured, as it twisted incisive his chest whilst his soul cried out for relief. For days he's suffered like this, the internal torment greater than anything he'd ever experienced before, and he prayed that the gods might have mercy on him and end this miserable existence.

Before him, a figure cloaked in darkness appears in the shadows. A huddled mass on the barren rock, he tried in vain to make out the shape as it lies there lifeless and unmoving like everything else in this godsforsaken place.

Everything but him.

The figure shifts almost imperceptibly, a long pale arm grasping at the rock as it struggles to sit upright. Loki narrows his emerald eyes and waits warily for the creature to step out of the shadows.

He says nothing, only the chains that bind him hand and foot clanking softly in the silence, and the noise echoes through the emptiness. The figure freezes, only its shoulders shifting as it inhales slowly, before pivoting toward the God of Mischief.

Laughter bubbles from his lips, the madness within him escaping as tears pour down his face. He's endured unthinkable torture at Thanos' behest, but this...this is new.

"Tell me, demon," he rasps, his voice cracking from what felt like an eternity of disuse. "Are you friend or foe?"

The figure stares back at him, still unloving, as Loki's green eyes darken. Madness and mischief combine as one in their muted depths, no longer vivid as they'd been in the past, as he smirks. He laughs - a sickening sound - until his face contorts in agony and he releases a howl of pain. Laced with rage, his fists shake against their bonds in a thunderous cacophony that rattles the very foundation upon which they stand.

Seconds pass in silence, neither of them moving or speaking. His breath hisses through the darkness, his chest rising with every laborious inhale, as he forces his green eyes shut.

This is worse. Worse than the pain gripping his heart and soul. Worse than Thanos' torture. Worse than death.

"Loki."

The whisper cuts through the emptiness, twisting like a knife through his heart, as he prays fervently for the end to come. His eyes flash open, and the madness is their depths is terrifying as they glare through the darkness at the now-familiar face.

"Be gone, specter," Loki croaks, his ebony hair falling over his face in a dark and blood-matted sheet.

Less than three feet separate them now, a distance easily crossed in a heartbeat, but this figure stops - frozen - in front of him. The fallen Asgardian prince can barely stand, let alone move, and the extent of his injuries is horrifyingly apparent.

Burned, bloodied, and bruised, Loki's body is nigh unrecognizable. Only those eyes - once bright and filled with mischief - burn brightly in the shadows.

Instead of magic, however, only darkness dances within his eyes. Resting just below the surface, a cataclysmic blackness threatens to burst forth, causing the figure to pause.

"Oh, my son," Frigga sighs, her hand lightly brushing Loki's cheek. "I am so sorry."