Chapter 5.3

A moment later, I fell from the air, landing on soft ground. I opened my eyes to find a desolate wasteland, a dark red sky over unending dunes of violet-red sand. It stretched into the distance for an eternity, the sort of mesmerizing site you could spend days staring at in wonder.

A bolt of lightning shot past me from behind, and I turned to find several writhing tentacles near my feet. I backed away from them and looked at the creature they came from. My eyes felt as though they were going to bleed. It was a massive and very long monstrosity, with countless tentacles that stretched out tens of meters long. It squirmed and writhed, seeming to be almost devouring itself as parts of it were consumed into the creature as others formed and stretched outward. Numerous eyes appeared and disappeared along its body, staring both at me and elsewhere.

Was this the creature I’d been trying to summon, or had it simply taken advantage of the thinned veil between realms? Another bolt of lightning lit up the area as it slammed into it, making the thing cower away in pain.

“Stop gawking and get over here, you dumb succubus.”

Yulia stood several meters away from me and the creature, apparently having managed to get out of its clutches as well. I gave her a brief glare before moving closer to her. I eyed the strange monstrosity once more, carefully stepping over the tentacles that still sat along the ground as I moved.

Several tentacles reached out toward me as the creature began to move toward us once more. Before I could manage to pull away from them, Yulia hit the body of the Abovespawn with another lighting strike. It squirmed and recoiled once again, but thankfully did nothing else in retaliation. Perhaps the tentacles were its only real form of attack. The monster was big but didn’t seem very strong or intelligent.

Looking up, I could see the black inky portal back to our realm high above us. “How are we going to get out of here?” I glanced over to Yulia. She had a hardened and determined look on her face.

“I have no idea. But I’m going to be out of magic soon. At that point… we’ll have to run.”

My eyes widened as I stared at her and then back up to the portal. “You can’t fly us out or something?” I demanded in a panic.

She looked over at me with a glare. “Flight magic involves delicate maneuvering of the air. Of course I can’t fly us out of here. Even if I had the time and mana, I don’t have the skill for it. Have you paid attention to anything in this school?”

Ignoring her jab at my lack of studiousness, I scrambled to come up with some kind of solution. My eyes scanned around us, finding nothing but the endless sand. Surely we weren’t going to be stuck here?

Another bolt of lightning was cast from her wand, and Yulia stumbled, nearly falling to her knee. “I’m nearly at my limits. I’ll make the next one powerful, hopefully enough to stun the thing long enough for us to get away. Get ready.”

I nodded and she began chanting a long drawn-out version of her lightning spell. A metallic taste met my tongue, and I backed away several steps from Yulia as the feel of the air around us changed. My eyes widened as the loose sand behind her began to shift. With all her focus on the spell, Yulia didn’t notice as a stray tentacle somehow came up from the ground behind her and wrapped its way around her legs.

“Yulia!” I shouted uselessly.

She spun around, almost managing to get out of its grasp, but falling into the sand. I took a step toward her, unsure of what to do, or if there was anything I could do. Several other tentacles came up and Yulia finally cast her spell. A massive bright streak of light shot out of her wand, blowing her out of the creature’s grasp. It met one of the tentacles, making it twitch and curl up like steaming calamari. Unfortunately, Yulia also fell closer to the main body of the large monstrosity. Despite writhing in pain, it ceased upon the opportunity and grasped Yulia in a writhing mass of tentacles, all of its eyes focused in on her as it finally grabbed hold its prey.

As she was pulled toward the creature, I shook my head. “No, no,” I muttered as tears made their way down my face. Yulia was a jerk sure, but she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve to be eaten by some creature of the Above. I took a step forward and then back. But what could I do? I was useless. My magic didn’t work, I couldn’t fight the thing. I was a useless succubus that only caused problems for people. My tears stained the ground below me.

Yulia’s arm reached out, clutching the sand uselessly as she was pulled forward, her wand discarded several feet away. She screamed as she was dragged closer, nearly touching the monster, yet having no chance at escape.

I took a step forward and another. As Yulia was slowly pulled into the side of the beast, my feet propelled me into a run toward her. I had no plan, nothing that could solve this. Yet an instinct I didn’t recognize began to kindle inside of me. I gripped my hand into a tight fist and punched forward at the creature. Knuckles met slimy tentacle and slid off uselessly as my other hand punched forth as well. A tentacle circled around my belly as I beat at the thing, yet doing nothing to it.

“No!” I screeched, and the fiery warmth inside me rose up like a torrent. Red flames erupted from my skin. The creature let out a grating hiss as the tentacles around me caught fire and burned. A massive tentacle slammed into my side, tossing me through the air. My back slid through sand, almost burying me and putting out my flames. I stood, and what little was left of my burning dress fell to the ground in flaming scraps.

My eyes tracked over to where Yulia was still caught. Slowly, she was being sucked further into the monster, most of her body already within it. Uncountable tiny tentacles wrapped themselves around her while the larger ones still held her in place. I ran forward again, the flames around me burning anew. I ducked and ran around the many tentacles in my path, burning those which got too close to me. As I made my way to Yulia, she was almost entirely sunken into to beast, but an arm still reached out. Without hesitation, I grabbed her hand and pulled. I panicked at the cold feel of her skin against my own, pulling harder. It did little good. Instead of pulling her out, she was merely sucked in further.

With only a moment’s hesitation, I stuck both of my arms into the monstrosity. Its tentacles pulled away from me as the flames around me burned it. As it sizzled and steam rose off, all I could smell was the stench of burning rotten flesh. The inside of it felt cold and sticky, but I squirmed my arms deeper until I was up to nearly my elbows. As the creature began to try and wrap its tentacles around me once more, I stoked the flames in my heart, and they answered, pouring out of me in continually hotter streams of fire. Unlike before, I could truly feel the heat of it now. My skin felt as though it was about to boil and melt off, yet the creature screeched in pain and began to thrash about, pulling me off my feet with it. I was nearly crushed as I finally circled my arms around Yulia. Whereas before the creature had seemed intent on still devouring me, now its body loosened until it expelled me. With one final thrash to the side, I was flung out, my arms clutched around Yulia.

We hit the ground and separated, my body tumbling through the sand as my flames sizzled out. I took several deep breaths and gripped my pained shoulder. Several feet away, Yulia laid unconscious. I crawled over to her and was relieved to see her chest rising and falling as heavy breaths came out through her mouth. She was alive, but I couldn’t help but be concerned. She’d been inside that monster.

“Yulia.” My hand went to her shoulder and lightly shook it. She didn’t respond, and so I moved it to her cheek instead. Just when I thought she wasn’t going to wake, she jolted into a series of coughs, turning to her side before sitting up.

“Fuck,” she said through several deep breaths.

From the corner of my eye, I saw several tentacles sliding their way along the ground nearby. I stood, my flames once more igniting. The nearest one shied away, yet the others kept coming, as though trying to circle around me.

“We’ve gotta get out of here,” I muttered.

“And how do you expect us to do that?” Yulia retorted, having apparently heard me.

My eyes looked up into the black pool floating in the red sky above, our only possible escape. Guided by instincts I’d never felt before, I grabbed Yulia in my arms and jumped into the air as my flames went out once more. She sucked in a hissed breath as I picked her up. Almost immediately I nearly crashed back to the ground, yet my wings flapped, and somehow we haphazardly flew upward. As I held her in my arms I noticed just how cold her skin was and worried once more for her health. People weren’t supposed to feel that cold.

“You’re freezing,” I said as we continued up, getting close to the portal.

“You’re fucking hot!” she practically screamed into my ear.

Glancing at my skin, I could see the heat rising off it like steam. Oh. I did what I could to cool the flames within me, but it was only a moment later that we shot up into the inky black of the portal once more.

My eyes closed and I held my breath as we entered. For a moment, I worried that we’d be stuck, forever drifting in whatever sludgy in-between existed between realms. Then with one final push of my wings, we fell through the ceiling and back into our room, gravity twisting back around. Yulia fell from my arms and tumbled onto the floor, followed by myself landing partially on top of her, my forehead bumping the floor. Looking over to her, I found Yulia spluttering out several mouth fulls of black slime.

My eyes moved back to the ceiling as I laid out along the floor. The portal was slowly closing, becoming smaller by the second. Had we made it through just in time? I sighed, my hand brushing along the smooth and cool wood below. We did it. We made it out. A smile spread across my lips as my eyes closed.