Nothing happened. For a moment, everyone could breathe a sigh of relief as The Shadows looked confused and infuriated as it waited for whatever consequence was coming. Gaines looked more and more uncomfortable with each second that ticked by. The tension in the air could be cut with a knife, as nothing happened. The Shadows grabbed Ianita by the shoulders and began to shake her as if it could cause a chemical reaction and start the process manually. Something seemed to be missing until you looked around the room.

It took a minute for everyone to notice that in the corner of the room, where Tom and Caitlin had been lying on the floor – Caitlin's body was tensing up as the pain grew in intensity. Her skin drained of all colour and her muscles began to seize up, violently shaking her agonised form in jerky, rapid and unpredictable movements. It was terrifying to watch, her eyes rolling in the back of her head as she struggled to control herself. There was no way to stop it, all they could do was observe and pray that it would be over soon. Ianita breathed shallowly, trying to cause her heart to beat faster so the poison in her system would be flushed out faster – trying to relieve Caitlin of as much pain as possible but slowly realising that their battle advantage was slipping away like the grains of sand in an hourglass.

"What the hell... Now this is interesting! You actually tried to sneak a big secret like this past me and to your credit you almost succeeded. I did suspect that Ianita had some form of magical protection that I was unable to eradicate since she was able to withstand such high levels of agony but I didn't think this was what would happen!"

Everyone immediately tried to avoid The Shadows gaze, wishing with every fibre of their being that the creature would somehow experience amnesia or come to a completely different conclusion. Depressingly the creature was not created to be stupid; it was created to be ruthless. Its face morphed from confusion to a devious grin that promised to horrible events that were surely yet to come. Cracking his knuckles, the creature moved over to where Caitlin was fitting on the ground and kicked her sharply in the ribs – his grin getting rapidly wider with each rib cracked and every howl of pain.

"This is how it is going to work. The injection I gave to Ianita is a powerful chemical taken from your original realm – called sodium pentothal. If you don't know what it can do, its other name is 'truth serum'. So. I am going to ask you all a question. You will answer me. I will then ask Ianita the question. If she does not give me the same answer as all of you, I will break a bone of one of those who dared to lie to me. This cycle will repeat until I get all the answers I need."

Silence fell across the room as they stared at the creature, waiting for it to speak again. It was in moments like these that the group really wished they could communicate without letting the creature know what they were talking about. All they could do was watch as the creature strutted around the room – occasionally kicking those who didn't flinch away in fear when it walked past. The stone floors were slowly being stained a crimson red, tainted with the blood of those unfortunate enough to face The Shadows wrath. Eventually, The Shadows came to a stop beside Sonja and stared her straight in the eyes, watching with glee at the shiver of fear that ran down her spine.

"Let's start with an easy one. How did the sky heroes come to this realm?"

Everyone's answer was the same. Even Mianite didn't bother attempting a lie.

"Through the void."

Ianita concurred with this answer. The Shadows nodded sagely as if it had expected such a unanimous response from its oh so willing subjects. Twirling its knife in its hand, it strolled around the room again – carefully selecting its next question and the victim that would have to answer first. Walking over to Martha, the creature gently stroked her hair which caused her to turn and spit into the creature's face. The response was instantaneous, the creature putting one foot on her left ankle to hold her in place and the other stomping down on her knee – breaking it with a vicious snap. Martha let out tiny whimpers of pain, not wanting to give it the satisfaction but being unable to control her response to the waves of agony that were emanating from her now broken leg.

"Next question, oh defiant child of the gods. How did you know to come here?"

Martha blinked away tears, glaring at the creature before muttering under her breath:

"Mianite and Caitlin have been here before. They knew that you had to have begun here. It will end where it all started. That's the clue Tom gave to us. We found Gaines and everything seemed to make sense..."

Everyone agreed with Martha, except for Ianita and Caitlin – who both said:

"It was foreseen."

The Shadows' face twisted in confusion, trying to decipher whether someone was lying or if they were actually just two completely different truths. They weren't mutually exclusive. Striding across the room and grabbing Ianita by her jaw, the creature stared into her eyes and continued to speak – projecting its voice across the room to ensure that everybody heard what was said.

"So you saw all of this in advance, did you? Just how far in advance have you seen? Did you predict me breaking your Aunt's leg? Did you predict the injection? Did you predict... this?"

With that, the creature turned away from Ianita and grabbed its knife from its pocket. Pushing the tip of the blade into its thumb, it smiled as pitch black blood oozed out slowly. Staring Jordan straight in the eye, The Shadows opened its mouth and licked its thumb, eyes glinting with sadistic glee. It shrugged at the lack of reaction from the group, instead strolling across the room and pulling a lever on the wall that nobody seemed to notice before which caused everyone's chains to rise into the air and begin to pull – deliberately stretching our heroes out so their muscles and bones were slowly being pulled out of place with each second that ticked by.

"Why are you interrogating us? Didn't you get all the information that you wanted to?"

Gaines was the one to respond to that question, stepping from his little hiding place and walking towards Tucker – who had dared to voice a question. He smiled gently, something that would usually be comforting if you didn't know the true nature of that individual. The kind smile hid something sadistic and cruel.

"The main problem with you heroes is that you are terrible at communication. We have a massive amount of information at our disposal that we extracted from the weak minds of your friends. However, it all contradicts with one another. Both Ianite and Mianite had visions but not all of them came true, meaning that large quantities of information are false. We decided that since you all came to us instead of us having to pick you all off one by one, we'd use the opportunity to confirm all our information before the next stage of the plan is initiated."

The Shadows nodded at this remark and then pinched the bridge of its nose as if it was experiencing stress. Everyone watched cautiously, wondering what was going to happen next.

"Last question. How did you plan to defeat me?"

Nobody had an answer for that question, not even Ianita. Mianite avoided the creature's gaze when it moved onto him, refusing to take responsibility for the fact that he had led them into an unwinnable situation. They had come here with no real game plan, no idea of weaknesses or even an escape plan. It was merely a shot in the dark that was going to get them all killed. The only person who spoke was Caitlin, who managed to whisper something so quietly that The Shadows strained to hear.

"To defeat you we must cut off all connections with you. All of those tainted by you must be purged and cleansed."

The cogs began to turn in everyone's heads, the pieces slowly fitting together. In the old world, the only way to defeat The Shadows was to destroy the host – Mianite was lucky enough to be a god with enough power to regenerate himself once the malicious entity had been flushed from his body. Tom, Jordan and Mianite were the three that had been infected and controlled by The Shadows; therefore something was going to have to happen to them in order to save them all. Hopefully, they didn't need to go to such drastic measures this time around.

The Shadows growled as it looked around the room, seeing the light of hope and realisation returning into our heroes' eyes, the defeat and hopelessness that was there before slowly trickling away. Their spirits weren't broken; in fact, they were stronger than ever. Now they only had to find a way to purge the taint that the creature had left behind from their bodies. Without any trace of itself left, there would be no way for The Shadows to reassemble and they would finally be free. The main problem with this plan was the fact that they were all either chained on the floor or lying in a near death state. There was no prophecy, no godly guidance and no backup plan. All their secrets had been laid bare and all they had to rely on was their wits.

"Tainted by me? Oh, you think you are so clever, don't you? Are you willing to murder two of your friends and a god, in order to rid the world of me? You think just because you had your secret blood pact going on, that I wouldn't know what to do in this situation? This isn't the first time that you have stood by me but it will be the last."

Moving swiftly across the room, The Shadows was on a warpath. It gripped the handle of the knife so tightly that you could hear the bone that made up the handle slowly cracking under the immense pressure. Soon, The Shadows stopped in once place and grabbed Caitlin from the floor – pulling her head upright and slitting her throat in one vicious cut. As the light faded from her eyes and the blood poured onto the floor, all hell broke loose.

A/N

Sorry not sorry.

The vote continues at the moment so if you want to help with deciding the ending go here:

  https://goo.gl/kDjlbF 

That death was set in stone. Sorry guys :P

Much love,

Caitlin <3