Sonope

Chapter 16

It's been almost 4 actual years, sorry about that. Looked through my old drawings, reread my plot, wanted to actually write some more. Bit of a disclaimer, the people in this story are all based on real people, one of them (Q) who actually reads this. Also uh I'm in it. Teens are notoriously fond of self-insert stories so they can feel powerful. I don't know how much more of this I'm going to write, but thanks for sticking around :)

Darby woke with a throbbing headache and the sound of screams all around.  Some were distant and some were shockingly close.  She was in a rock enclosure and there was an orange glow above her, illuminating the rock ceiling that arched far above her.

She stumbled to her feet and her hand flew out to the wall to support her.  It was slick with condensation and she suddenly felt how hot and humid it was.  She imagined it was actually cooler in her pit than it would be outside.

She inspected her meager surroundings.  She wasn't tied down to anything, but the opening several feet above her had a metal grate over it.  She debated trying to escape, but with her shoddy flying skills combined with her lack of muscular arm strength dissuaded her soundly.

Her vision went bright for a moment and her ears rang, but as it cleared, her headache was gone and the scrapes on her hands and knees had faded completely.

"Great, the healing magic still works," she muttered.

She wracked her brain for what had happened.  She had been flying after getting Taylor's note, going to Heaven, when...

That's right.  Imps.  Which meant she was in Hell.

She tried to swallow but her throat was too dry.  She began to pace around the small enclosure, mind working at a mile a minute to try and come up with an escape plan.  After a moment, she made a wing-assisted leap and latched onto the bars, feet bracing against the wall, to try and see the situation outside.

She could barely see a portal mirroring the one in Heaven on the ceiling several hundred yards away.  Imps and demons loitered around, and she saw some imps poking sticks into pits similar to her own.

Demons looked like angels but dark, to put it in the simplest terms.  Their wings were anywhere from ashen grey to brown to black as opposed to the white of their Good counterparts, and their hair was generally darker as well.

Imps were a bit different.  They had no hair and their ears were pointed, extending a few inches back.  Their noses reminded Darby of a bat and their eyes were all iris with a slit for a pupil.  She could see a few grinning, grey skin curling back to reveal pointed teeth.

One noticed her and nudged his buddies.  The quickly abandoned their weeping target and bounded over to her pit, causing her to flinch back and fall to the ground.

"The little birdy is awake!"

"Quick!  Go get Victor!  He always wants to see prisoners!"

One of them fluttered off, bat wings lifting him off the ground as he went to go find this 'Victor' the others had mentioned while the others used their long sticks to poke at her.

"Come back to the surface, birdy!  You're easier to poke that way!"

She flinched away from every sharp jab as they chortled and sneered before a flap of wings announced the presence the imp's return.

"You idiots, my brother is still being punished.  What do you want?"

Darby watched them stammer as the female demon pushed them away to look into the pit.  She glared up in defiance as a smile broke over the demon's face.