“So that’s your boss? I’m honestly not surprised.” Sally shrugged.

“Yeah, more or less. It sure was lucky that literally every part of my plan came out perfectly, assuming the syringe thing we have will work for what I’m trying to do anyways.”

“I do wonder about that syringe, though; what do you intend to use it for?”

“Uh, remember that song you sang after we found it? It’s that, pretty much.”

“Oh, that’s… something. Is that why you had that demon round up the women?”

“Yep.” I ended the conversation there and, after yet another trip to the village, found the residents locked into either of two cages, one for men and the other for women.

The healer that had helped us during our initial visit began shouting. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?! Did our hospitality mean nothing?!”

She had a fair point, but she was still being a bitch about it. I mean, I’m literally saving the world here, be patient.

“You guys are the ones that chose to help us. Also, you’re gonna be used to save humanity, so keep that in mind.” The assertion was met with an intense outcry, but they were in cages, so I didn’t care. Plus, everything that I said was true.

I noticed the demon, who had been watching from the well on the opposite side of town, and began to approach him.

“Nice job over there. I’m surprised that you managed to get it done so quickly. Well, we’re going to need to take them to the volcano now, for reasons that are completely unrelated to anything we’ve talked about in the past.”

“I understand. These tasks are beginning to seem quite suspicious, but I will oblige nonetheless.” Damn, is he on to me?

The demon hoisted both cages onto his back and, with Sally and I riding on top, began darting through the air toward the Marude Volcano.

After several hours of lounging on the cold metal, the villagers screaming in a manner analogous to a tune on the radio during a family road trip, the mountain came into view. Its slope almost quadratic, the smoke nearly blinding, the sound of perpetual eruption all but deafening; sight, sound, scent, each sense engulfed in fire and ash.

The demon landed on a patch of flat basalt not far from the crater, his tailored suit seemingly melted from the heat. He set the cages onto the rock, while Sally and I climbed down ourselves.

I brushed off my robe. “You know, now that we’re close, I don’t think it was really ash that I was smelling. Like, maybe this is just me, but this place seems pretty, I don’t know, wet? It almost feels like a sauna here.”

“There might be something to that. In my experience, volcanic smog causes some pretty violent coughing. I wonder what’s up with that,” said Sally.

We made our way to the rim of the crater and began to attempt our descent, Sally careful with each step, myself jumping directly into the mouth of the volcano and hoping that I’d end up somewhere safe. To the shock of everyone in ear’s distance, I landed with a loud splash into the crater’s depths, finding not lava but rather a large body of water that had been concealed through the smoke - or, steam, I suppose.

Apparently, the volcano had somehow become a hot spring, though the water was not nearly as hot as it should have been given the surroundings. It actually felt quite comfortable, or at least as comfortable as I could get myself to be in this situation.

In the same moment that I stepped out of the water, a hand snatched my leg. My entire body jolted and I snapped to see who it was.

Olivia Goldgetter.