The Necklace: The Trial Realm

Chapter Twenty Two: What The Hell

So much happens in that short span of one split second.

Oliver whispers he's sorry, the look in his eyes one of pure anguish just before they glaze over, his face hardening as his strong arms flex and shoot out from his body. I can't react it's so unexpected. The person I trusted, is trying to kill me.

The morbid thought strikes me as his force slams my backwards towards to bubbling pond of liquid fire that he isn't even trying to kill me. He's succeeding. I've got nothing I can do as my body flies backwards towards the end. I'm powerless to do anything but stare back at him, wondering how I had been such a fool.

So many people had tried to warn me about him, and I'd dumbly ignored it all. Not that anyone warned me he would try to kill me. I thought we'd been friends. But the look on his face as my feet slip off of the edge and he and I both know I'm done for, tells me everything had been an act with him. He'd never cared about me. He'd never trusted me or even liked me. You don't kill people you like.

As I fell, I thought of all of the people in my life. Wondering if any of those relationships were true or if I'd been just as blind in them as I'd obviously been in this one with him.

The only one I could really be sure of was Tawny. And I was letting her down by dying here in hell. Pushed by a friend.

I'm sorry, Tawny.

As the heat at my back becomes unbearable, I close my eyes. Not fighting anymore for the first time in my life. It's all over.

"What the hell?" I barely register Oliver's shocked words as a gust of burning hot air blast at me from behind, propelling my body away from the lava pond and towards the other side of the cramped cave.

I fall to my knees, gasping for breath and trying to figure out how I'm still alive.

I turn to Oliver, still in disbelief at his betrayal, but he's not looking at me. He's looking at the lava. The center of the pong gurgles and swirls in circles, hot air blowing away from it and causing my hair to fly back around my shoulders. My whole body is shaking as a head emerges from the fiery lake, followed by a neck, then shoulders, then torso, until the boy is nearly entirely visible.

The lava runs down his skin like water, and he's completely unaffected by its heat. His eyes burn into mine and my whole body stills. He brings up a clenched fist at his side where he now levitates over the lava, and in his hand dangles my necklace. The brilliant blue stone shines so brightly I almost have to look away, but I can't seem to do it.

The boy's head turns slowly towards Oliver and his eyes burn red.

"I'm sorry! So sorry!" Oliver shouts at me as he turns and runs from the cave, leaving me alone with this...demon.

I push up to my feet, flattening my sore back against the back wall of the cave. I watch in unfiltered amazement as the boy seems to walk right over the top of the liquid lava until he is standing on the rock ledge just a few feet from me.

A few beads of lava still track down his bare chest, but his starkly white marble skin is unmarred or burnt, not even a bit red. Looking down his body I realize how...beautiful he is? He's build like a mix between Oliver and Maxum. He's tall and broad in the shoulders and his arms are firmly muscled, but his torso is lean and tapered. His head slowly turns to me again and the red in his eyes fades out to leave dark questioning eyes set deep in a broad face with a sharp jaw.

"Who are you?" His voice is deep, rumbling the numbness inside me to wake up.

I swallow back, trying to speak, but the lump in my throat is hard to get around. "I-I..."