Magnus

“Magnus. Magnus, wake up.”

The persistent voice gradually penetrated the thick fog of sleep clinging to me. My head felt like a leporcháin demon battered it for hours with their caultin and a dull ringing resonated in my ears.

“Magnus! Wake up!”

The incessant voice was female I realized, and desperate.

“Amalia?” I murmured.

“Come on, Magnus, open your eyes.”

I did as the woman commanded, only because I had to see Amalia again. Light burned my retinas, and I closed them against the searing pain it created. A groan issued from me before I silenced it.

“Stay with me, Magnus,” the woman pleaded.

Not Amalia. The voice was familiar, but it wasn’t Amalia’s. Who then? What happened? Where is Amalia?

Memories surged back into my mind. The stairs, the jinn, Lust!

My newfound fangs lengthened at the memory of being frozen before that hideous thing and the sickening feeling of her hands on me; all while Amalia was forced to look on helplessly. I bolted upright as I worried the woman speaking to me might be that bitch!

I’d kill her this time. I wouldn’t let my temper get the best of me and only beat her. No, this time, I’d tear Lust’s head from her shoulders and force her blood down the throats of Pride and Sloth. I would make them choke while they feasted on her.

My teeth clenched when I recalled watching Amalia fly through the air after the horse kicked her. The sight of it finally pierced through Lust’s hold over me, and I would never allow that bitch to get her hooks into me again.

Slowly, I took in my surroundings as I tried to get my bearings. I sat with my back propped against a wall, and when I glanced at it, I saw it was made of solid sandstone, as was the ground beneath me. They’d taken me to the runes after Sloth knocked me out. There were bars in front of me, bars to the right, to my left were more bars, and… Wren!

She stood, staring down at me from her cell. A sad, crooked smile curved her lips when her blue eyes, flecked with green, met mine. Her pale blonde hair, pulled into a disheveled knot, hung against her nape. Always slender and athletic in build, she’d lost weight while here as her cheekbones were sharper.

“Hello, sleeping beauty, or bruised beauty might be the better description,” she greeted.

“Wren?” I asked.

“That’s my name.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m guessing the same thing as you. Where’s Corson?”

Her imprisonment had worn her down, but it hadn’t dimmed her willful nature. I couldn’t stop myself from scowling at her. “You’re probably not doing the same thing here as me, as I’m physically here while you’re only mentally present. And Corson isn’t in this place; he was never trapped.”

“He’s free,” she breathed, and tears shimmered in her eyes. “Oh, thank you.” Then she lunged at the bars and encircled her hands around them. “Is he okay?”

“He’s holding up,” I assured her.

“Good. Good.” She inhaled a jerky breath as she took a minute to compose herself. “Mentally here,” she murmured. “That makes sense.”

“Why does that make sense?”

“I’ve tried everything to get out of this place without success. However, I’m assuming it would be more difficult to break out of a mental prison than a physical one. You can physically flee your surroundings, but you can never escape your mind.”

“True,” I agreed.

I sat and waited for her to vanish now that she’d learned the truth, but she remained where she was.

“What?” she asked and rubbed her face. “Do I have a booger or something on me?”

“When the others fully realized they didn’t belong here, or it was all in their minds, they disappeared.”

“Where did they go?”

“The jinn’s spell on them broke, and they returned to their bodies. Those who returned are fine.”

“The jinn,” she spat the word like she’d tasted something sour. “I should have realized those assholes had a hand in this.”

“And so do some of the horsemen.”

“Of course they do.”

“Did they bring a woman in here with me? Have you seen someone named Amalia?”

“No, some guys brought you in, dumped you in the cell, and left. There are some more cells down the hall, but there’s no one in them. Who is Amalia?” Her gaze fell to the marks on my neck. “Is she your Chosen?”

“Yes, and I have to find her.”

“Good luck getting out of here. I’ve tried everything.”

“Then we’ll try everything again, plus some.”

She stared at me for a minute before grinning. “Yes, we will.” Then her smile slid away. “Wait… you said those who returned are fine. What about those who didn’t return, and how many were affected by this, and where are we?”

I explained to her everything that happened while she was in here. By the time I finished, she’d settled on the floor with her shoulder against the bars and her head leaning on them.

“So many lives,” she murmured. “But why am I still here? I knew this place wasn’t right before the bars appeared.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “And what do you mean before the bars appeared?”

“When I first got here, there were no bars, and I was a part of the show. However, though I was a part of it, it didn’t feel right, and I don’t think I ever left the vicinity of this cell.”

“What show?”

Placing her hands on the floor, she pushed herself up. “Come here.”

She walked to the front bars and turned expectantly back to me. Every muscle in my body felt like they’d been run over by a truck, but I gritted my teeth and rose. Shuffling forward, I drew on the strength of the Chosen bond as I willed myself to heal faster with every pain-filled step.

Amalia was still alive, I would know if she were dead, but where was she and what were they doing to her? While I remained a walking bruise, I would never be able to get out of here and to her.

Stopping at the bars, I slid my arms through them and craned my head to look for the other cells Wren mentioned. The movement made me wince, but I spotted the cells diagonally across from Wren’s. Their doors were open, and no one was inside as Wren had said.

A solid wall was ten feet across the hallway from me, and judging by the near perfect condition of everything, I suspected we were in the third-story section of the ruins.

“It’s starting again,” Wren murmured.

I turned my attention forward as the sandstone walls of the hallway faded to white ones. The sudden beep of a machine sounded in the distance and chairs materialized against the wall as blue swinging doors replaced the bars of the other cells.

It took me a minute to realize the hallway had been replaced with one of the humans’ hospitals. People in white lab coats, carrying charts or pushing wheelchairs, rushed back and forth. They scurried around as they barked orders at each other while shouting for medical supplies.

Other people walked around as if in a daze, their hands to their heads or with bandages swathed around their arms. The details were vivid enough that the fluorescent lights above gleamed off the white floor and sneakers squeaked on the tile.

The set of blue swinging doors burst open, and a gurney wheeled into the hall. A man pushed the gurney while a woman straddled the patient lying on it. She used her hands to pump his chest up and down; when they got closer, I realized the woman was Wren. Sweat dripped from her forehead, and her pretty face was scrunched with determination as she worked on the man.

“Originally, I felt the man’s chest beneath my hands and was a part of it, but once I realized it wasn’t real, I was relegated to the cell,” Wren explained.

“Yet you continue to be in the scene,” I murmured.

“I think part of the fun for them is making me watch over and over again.”

“Watch what?”

“You’ll see.”

The scene shifted to reveal Wren standing outside a door marked operating room. Another young woman and two men about her age stood with her. Wren’s blue scrubs were replaced with a pair of jeans and a blue sweater.

When the door swung open, a doctor emerged to let Wren know the patient would live. She smiled and politely thanked him, but when the doctor went back through the doors, she let out a cry of joy. One of the men enveloped her in a hug, lifted her off her feet, and swung her around. Then, they kissed.

In the cell beside me, Wren cringed and bowed her head.

“Who is he?” I inquired.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but apparently in that world, he’s my boyfriend or something.”

The man set her down and kissed her again. “We have to go out and celebrate!” he declared.

“I can’t,” Wren replied. “I have to meet my parents for dinner.”

“After dinner?”

“After dinner,” she promised.

Then, the scene shifted again to reveal Wren sitting in a restaurant with her napkin on her lap. She had a forkful of food lifted halfway to her mouth, but she ignored it as she eagerly regaled the couple sitting across from her with the details of her day.

Gray tinged the couple’s hair and wrinkles lined their eyes and mouths. Judging by their similar features to Wren and the love in their eyes, these were the parents she’d told her boyfriend about. Parents who, in this world, had been killed when the gateway opened.

“And then the doctor came out and said he’s going to live!” Wren gushed before shoving her spaghetti into her mouth.

“That’s fantastic,” her mother said.

Her father rested his hand on Wren’s. “We’re so proud of you.”

Beside me, I scented Wren’s tears, but I didn’t look at her. She would hate it if I saw her cry.

They exchanged more stories about their lives, and I came to realize this was a weekly dinner date for them. It was a time for them to catch up with their daughter, who was a resident in a hospital an hour away from their home.

When the meal came to an end, they exchanged hugs, and her parents promised to let her know they’d arrived home safely before saying their goodbyes.

“I miss them so much,” Wren whispered beside me. “This… this is what they would look like now if they’d lived. I know it is. They would have come to visit me weekly, and I would have looked forward to every one of their visits.”

I glanced at her as she wiped the tears from her eyes and straightened her shoulders. Then, the scene shifted again to reveal Wren sitting in her car. She dialed her phone, and I realized she was speaking with her boyfriend when she told him she’d meet him in twenty minutes.

Wren hung up before pulling out of the parking lot and driving through a green light. She was halfway through the intersection when a truck barreled through a red light and toward her car. Brakes squealed but not in time to stop the truck from crashing into the driver’s side door of her car and spinning it around into another vehicle. The screeching of metal reverberated outside the cell before Wren’s car skidded to stop a hundred feet away from where it was initially hit.

Within the car, Wren’s head lulled at an awkward angle on her broken neck.

Then, the scene vanished.