Mountain [18+] ✔️ Complete

Fifteen • Together

By the time night fell, I was exhausted and restless at the same time. We'd decided to just keep walking, since none of us felt like we were able to sleep. I was happy to do so, considering that time was kind of pressing. Or at least, it felt like time was pressing.

Really, the demon had Marius, and wasn't going to let anything happen to him. If I were looking at it from that perspective, then the longer we took to get to him, the longer he would survive. We were going to be his undoing, not the demon.

"Do you think this is really the right thing?" I asked Archer quietly, falling into stride with him behind Damien and Lyla. They were having a fairly loud dirty joke contest, each trying to gross out the other one.

"What do you mean?" Archer replied, matching my low tone.

"How is a woman like a road?" Damien asked, and without waiting for an answer, continued, "They both have manholes!"

I pursed my lips for a moment. "Getting to Marius? I mean it doesn't seem like the demon really cares about leaving the mountain, right?" I shrugged.

"What do you call an incestuous nephew?" Lyla asked. "An aunt-eater."

"Saph." Archer sighed and took my hand, slowing our pace a bit. "We already decided that it wasn't worth the risk of this thing escaping and fucking up the rest of the world."

"I know," I replied quickly. "I'm just being selfish I guess."

"What do you get when you jingle a man's balls?" Damien asked.

Lyla scoffed. "A white Christmas! Lame."

"It's okay." Archer squeezed my hand. "I know we have this kind of bond with Marius, you especially, so it's not an easy decision. And I can tell you that if it was one of you three in his place... I would be a lot more reluctant to be heading in this direction."

"But that's what I mean," I argued. "If we would find another way for any one of us, doesn't it make sense that the right thing to do would be to find another way for him?"

"Why does Miss Piggy douche with honey?" Lyla asked. "Because Kermit likes his pork sweet and sour."

Damien barked a laugh. "That's fucking gold."

"Thanks," she replied proudly.

"I don't think trying to find another way for any of us would be the right thing, that's what I mean," Archer insisted. "That would be the wrong thing, the selfish thing. I was pointing it out so that you wouldn't feel bad about having those thoughts."

I sighed. "Who the fuck decides right and wrong, anyway?"

"What's the difference between Kentucky Fried Chicken and a woman?" Damien asked. "Nothing, take away the legs and the breasts and all that's left is a greasy box to put your bone in."

"Definitely not Damien," Archer muttered, though he was smiling.

"Maybe this whole thing is karma," I suggested, taking a deep breath. "Maybe in our last life, or lives, we've always put each other over everything else and this is the universe kicking our ass about it, forcing us to make this shitty decision."

"Maybe." He shrugged, and then lightly bumped my shoulder. "But we're going to do what we always do."

I cocked my head. "What's that?"

"What do you call a discount circumcision?" Lyla asked. "A rip-off."

"Ugh!" Damien cried in horror.

"Yes!" she shrieked with glee and punched his shoulder.

Archer slid his arm around me as we caught up to them. "We get through it, together."

I snaked my arm around his waist, appreciating his warmth and comfort in that moment. I knew I had to just deal with the fact that we were in this, it was happening, and there was really no other option than the path forward. All I could do is be thankful that we'd made it this far, together. Archer was right. We were going to face this like we faced everything else.

A small part of me wished that I could go back in time, talk to my past self, ask her why the fuck she'd thought it would be a good idea to create Marius in the first place. I one hundred percent didn't regret meeting him—if anything, regardless of what was going to happen I was glad to have experienced knowing him, even for such a short time. But his whole creation and the purpose for it was beyond me. Had it been an accident? Had our past selves just been bored? Lonely? Four of us wasn't enough?

I slammed into Lyla's back as she stopped short, a small oof escaping my mouth.

She shushed me, and my heart picked up its pace in my chest. As soon as we fell silent, I heard what she heard.

Snarling.