Wave after wave of painful agony washed over Elissa as she struggled feebly to awaken again. Trying to move was an exercise in futility as she was firmly stretched, with her arms wrapped together stretched straight above her head, holding all the weight of her body as she danged in midair, bound from top to bottom by something rough and slimy. Groaning feebly, Elissa tried to force her eyes to open – the left was swollen completely shut and refused to obey her at all, and the right would barely crack open where it was puffy and bruised as well – for all the good it did her.

Darkness.

Pure and utter darkness was all she could see through the battered slit of her right eye, and the pain and effort to force her eye to remain open wasn’t worth it. Slowly, almost gratefully, Elissa let her eye closed and she forced herself to focus on her other senses.

She was wet and cold – chilled almost to the bone from her sudden crashing dip into the water – and her body was hypersensitive at the moment, much to her dismay. Impacting the water from the height that she’d fallen had battered and bruised her from top to bottom, and then there was the hit she got when she tried to create a light from…

‘…well, from whatever it might be,’ Elissa thought hopelessly to herself. ‘I only caught a glimpse of whatever has me down here, but whatever it is definitely isn’t human. The glimpse of the face and teeth I saw couldn’t belong to anything else other than a demon,’ Elissa shivered, before asking herself, iCould it?’

She couldn’t be certain what it was. All Elissa could be certain of, at the moment, was that she was freezing, injured, and possibly dying. ‘And helplessly trapped,’ Elissa reminded herself. ‘Can’t forget that, now can I? Helplessly trapped and strung up as a meal for a demon to feast on whenever it wants later.’

Tears slowly trickled down her cheeks as dark hopelessness began to fill her heart, just as pitch black as the darkness which engulfed her all around.

“No!” Stubbornly shaking his head from side to side, Stone picked up the large log laying at his feed and tossed it end of end crashing into the forest. “Not need help! Go away!” Balling up his fist, he shook it moodily at a nearby bush.

“Stone get wood by self! Not need more wood! No need help,” he ranted, to no one in particular, in his deep, gruff voice. If an observer would’ve been watching him, they would’ve been convinced that he must’ve eaten some bad mushrooms and was out of his mind.

Spinning suddenly to his left, Stone stared directly towards a small cherry sapling, and then tilted his head as if he was listening to it for several moments. “Later,” he promised the tree, looking slightly annoyed.

“Later,” he repeated, a moment later, turning his back on the tree.

“Stone say later!!” Shouting, Stone stomped several steps into the forest, then stopped and looked all around left and right.

Shaking his fist at a small thorn bush, Stone growled and demanded, “Give it back! Not yours,” he insisted, firmly. “Mine!”

The bush simply swayed gently in the wind and completely ignored him.

“Stubbbborn jaccckkasss!” A soft silky voice echoed from all around Elissa, echoing several times in the deep chamber where she was trapped. “Eaaaats him I shhhhould. Shhhhould I not, chhhiild?” Dragging out each syllable, the voice whispered softly around Elissa’s ears, causing her to cringe even more helplessly inside.

What felt like wet, rough tendrils, slowly wrapped themselves around Elissa’s ankles and then twisted and coiled, squirming themselves up her legs, one slow and violating inch at a time. “Issss thhhisss whaaat he wantsss? I can do thissss…”, the voice whispered softly, as the tentacles finally released Elissa after exploring all the way to her head.

Hanging limply, Elissa tensed at the sound of water splashing behind her. Wet footsteps echoed dully on the ground beneath her, and her heart cringed with each wet plop, plop, plop as they steadily approached closer. After several moments, the footsteps stopped directly beneath her, and Elissa found herself being lowered down into someone’s cold, wet arms.

“WEAK FLESHLING!!” A thunderous female voice boomed directly in Elissa’s ears, causing her to scream and kick feebly as she pushed herself away from whoever – whatever – was holding her. Struggling to try and feel her magics in her battered state, Elissa forced a small globe of fire to appear again off slightly to her side, as she scurried backwards on hands and knees away from…

..HERSELF??

Thinking she was seeing wrong, with her one good eye, Elissa stopped and used her fingers of her left hand to pry open the lids of her right eye a fraction further. Tears trickled from the edges, but what she saw could only be described utterly as herself.

A perfect, wooden statue, shaped completely in her image, was standing there, arms stretched out as if it’d been holding someone, unmoving before her.

And then, it put its arms down and leaned closer to stare back at her, as Elissa stared feebly back up at it.

“DOES THE PATHETIC FLESHLING BELIEVE HER FIRE FRIGHTENS ME?!” The wooden Elissa-statue’s voice boomed out as it leaned forward and stared directly at her. “I FEAR NO FIRE,” it assured her, releasing a peel of laughter which echoed around the chamber like booming thunder.

“Wha… What are you?” Barely able to whisper, Elissa wrapped her arms around herself and trembled as the flame she was creating flickered and went out. Too dazed, too hurt to concentrate properly, she couldn’t maintain the necessary focus to keep the flame for more than a moment.

“STUPID FLESHLING CRAWLS INTO MY WOMB. BURIES ITSELF IN MY INNERMOST PARTS, AS A MAN BURIES HIS SEED INTO HIS MATE. THEN CLAIMS IT DOES NOT KNOW ME?” The wooden Elissa-statue’s voice echoed all around, sounding almost amused, before demanding to know, “WHY DOES THE FLESHLING COME HERE? DOES IT SEEK TO DIE?”

“I don’t want to die,” Elissa squeaked, pitifully. “I was just exploring the caverns. I don’t even know where here is, honestly!”

“THEN FLESHLING HAS FAILED,” the booming voice told her, sounding almost sad. “FLESHLING NOT IN WORLD OF LIVING MUCH LONGER. ALREADY, BLACKWINGS APPROACH. END OF FLESHING, SOON WILL BE.”

“You can’t kill me,” Elissa pleaded, shivering uncontrollably from both the numbing cold and her own fear. “I’m still marked by Chaos. I’m participating in one of his rituals. Not even a demon would face the wrath of a God,” she sputtered, hoping she was right.

“STUPID FLESHLING,” the booming Elissa-statue laughed. “I NOT KILL YOU. YOU KILL YOU,” the voice pointed out, sounding rather amused by the whole situation. “BREAK INSIDE WHEN HIT WATER. DIE SOON,” it assured her.

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Elissa was afraid the demon beast was correct. Each breath brought new waves of burning pain to her chest and lungs. Her heart was beating erratically in her chest, and the chill had settled so deeply into her bones that she could no longer even feel it anymore. “Help me,” Elissa called out feebly, into the darkness. “Save me,” she pleaded, ashamed of her own weakness. Her father would tell her that it was better to die than seek aid from a demon, but she wasn’t yet ready to give up on life.

“SAVE YOU, FLESHLING?” The voice echoed and boomed thunderous laughter once again, causing Elissa to wince up and cringe inside.

“I suppose I can do that,” the voice continued, this time almost so quiet that it was but a whisper that Elissa had to strain her ears to hear. “Though,” the whispering Elissa-stature warned, “there will be a price to pay later.”

“There’s always a price to pay,” the voice continued, incredibly loud now, but not with the same booming thunder which was echoing throughout the chamber earlier.

“I understand,” Elissa groaned -- this time from the pain she felt in her pride as she begged a demon to save her, rather than from any physical pain. The numbing cold had already penetrated her flesh to the bone and she couldn’t feel anything anymore. Not her fingers, nor her toes. Not the cold ground she was lying upon, nor was the pain of her battered body a concern anymore. The cold had removed all that. The pain she was feeling now was to her virtue as a Silverstar.

‘Very well,” the Elissa-statue whispered. “So be it.”

The chill too great to resist any longer, Elissa never felt the cold damp tendrils as they wrapped around her body, hosted her high into the air, and carried her off even deeper into the darkness.