"I need a minute," said Avery, hurrying away from the basement's hole-like entrance, shivering. "Can I have a minute, is that allowed?"

Ada followed him, but her gaze remained focused on the hole. "One minute, and no more. We must move this along."

Move this along, she says; as if it were some random task in her list of things to do?

Was that what Avery was—a task? Something to do? Something to get over with?

Grimacing, he marched up to Jamie and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him towards the car. "We need to talk," he mouthed, not slowing down when Jamie tried to rip from his grasp. "If I'm doing this, we need to prepare."

"Prepare?" Jamie did free himself eventually, stumbling in direction of the vehicle. He proceeded onward and once arrived at the car, he leaned against it. Redness spread from his chin covered by his beard, up to his forehead. "Prepare for what? For you to talk to demons? Dude, I'm not okay with this. I get that it has to be done, but why does it always have to be you?"

"You think I fucking know?" Avery stopped a few feet away from him, boiling on the inside. Rage and fear weren't mixing well in his gut. Rage from Ada's constant twists and turns, and fear from what those twists were pointing at him to do. "I don't want to do this either, but we came to help, didn't we? And this is it. This is how we help. This is how she wants us to help, and she won't give us any other opportunities."

"Fine, this is it, as you say. So how does this work?" Jamie tipped sideways, glancing to where the basement was, and Ada pacing back and forth in the air, in front of it. "We go down, we open the door, and then what?"

"I go down and open the door." Avery jammed a thumb to his chest. "You stay up here. I have to go down, but not you. You're not even going near that door, not if I can help it."

Jamie's eyes narrowed and his lips slitted. "No. I'm coming. What if you—"

"—if I don't survive?" Avery blew out a breath. "Exactly. If I don't make it out, or if I do, but I'm in pieces, you need to be around to finish this shit in my place." He winced as he reached out and set a hand to his friend's shoulder. "I don't want those things getting into your head. With what they did to Jessamine, what they're doing to her... no. Not you, too."

"So, what," Jamie moved out of Avery's grip, "I just sit up here in the meantime, waiting? What the fuck am I supposed to do?"

Avery turned sideways, glimpsing Ada as she floated about, muttering something to herself. "You talk to her," he signaled towards the blue being, "and get as much information out of her as you can. You and I both know she hasn't told us everything she knows."

"Ha," Jamie snorted, "like she'll tell me anything else. She's a sneaky one for sure. But... yeah, fine, I'll try. If it passes the time and I'm not sitting around worrying about you."

"And if I take too long, if a few hours pass and I'm not back..." Avery pinched his lips as he looked at Jamie.

"I'm not going anywhere or doing anything until you come out of there, Avery." Jamie shook his head. "Not until I have proof that you're dead, or fighting your way out. There's no way I'm going after Jessamine on my own, not unless I'm positive you won't be able to. She's... she's your girl, and it's on you to finish what you started, not me."

Avery couldn't help but scowl at him. "But if I don't get out, then you might not have a choice. You and Ada will need to come up with a new strategy. One that doesn't involve sneaking into a demonic realm to talk to demons."

"Fine, but I'm not revising our strategy until you, your body," Jamie pressed a finger into Avery's torso, "is recovered. Alive or dead. You hear me?" He took Avery by the shoulders and shook him. "Do you hear me? I'm not letting you die in some weird world surrounded by demons, and leaving your body there to be picked apart by them. I'm willing to bet that they're carnivorous pieces of shit, and if I'm burying you, I'm burying you in one piece, do you understand me?" He sniffled; Avery couldn't believe it, but there were sparkles in his eyes. Tears. Not that Jamie was the type of man to hide his feelings, but he rarely cried so openly. "Amy, then Jessamine, then you? Don't put that all on me to handle, man. Don't. Go down there and do everything you fucking can to come back."

Avery wanted to smile at his best friend's concern, at his growing anxiety at losing yet another person he cared about. But all he felt was a jolt in his stomach and an ominous sensation that someone would be buried sooner or later—he just wasn't positive who.

"I'll do my best to stay alive, I promise. But..." Avery spun towards the wreckage, the cloudy skies, the basement. "I have no idea what awaits me."

"I have an idea," said Ada, zooming over out of nowhere. She hadn't been where Avery had last seen her, and her abrupt reappearance gave him a start, so he fumbled backwards and landed into Jamie. "And that idea reminds me that we need to get this over with, quickly. It's getting close to noon." She motioned up towards the clouds covering the sun. "Which means the sun will be getting higher in the sky, and it'll give the demons more energy, covered up or not. There's no full roof over the basement now, no ceilings. I fear that means those creatures will be able to absorb more sunlight than ever, even through their door. That might make them," she gulped, "more difficult to approach in their realm."

Jamie took Avery's upper arms and twisted him around, drawing him into a hug. "Don't fucking die."

Avery chortled and pulled out of the hug. "Yeah, I'll try not to. I still have shit to do. Don't you die, either."

Ada steered Avery back to the basement, and gently ushered him down the steps. They were narrower than he'd anticipated, and he had to hold the railing to get to the bottom without slipping. Every step was a step closer to his doom, closer to confronting creatures he'd never in his life imagined existed. Sure, he'd talked to ghosts, he'd been possessed by malicious-leaning things in the past. But demons, real demons, with real malevolent intent... that was another story.

A story he might not live to tell the world about.

Three quarters down the way, the stairs twisted to the left, leading deeper into the belly of the beast. A beast that was stale and stuffy, and smelled like blood. Fresh, coppery blood; that prompted Avery to scour the floor-boards in search of a body, body parts, or a puddle of the reddish liquid. But his eyes were drawn elsewhere—a door.

The door. It was there, it wasn't an illusion, though it was blurry like a mirage, at first. Not red as he'd expected, but glowing red, with a scarlet hue blaring from behind it. The door itself was a plain, dark wood shade, scratched in places, dented in others, but mostly standing.

It whispered to him the instant his gaze connected with it.

"Welcome," it hissed, directly into his ear, swirling from one eardrum to the other, pounding. "Welcome, friend."

He smacked his hands to his ears and frowned, sensing a searing pain developing in the back of his neck, right where it joined with his skull. "Fuck, that hurts."

Ada, who'd followed him down, swirled around him, slowly, yet enough to make him dizzy. "What is it?" Her voice was distorted, overshadowed by the door—he assumed it was the door—still whispering at him.

"It's... talking to me." He gestured at the door. "I think."

"The door?" Ada stopped swirling, then looked from the door to Avery, eyebrows arching up. "Or the demons?"

"Both, maybe?" Avery tried to shrug, but the motion worsened the agony in his upper spine. "It's not like they're introducing themselves. They're saying... welcome, friend. Friend? They think I'm a friend?"

Ada cringed, but nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. And it's a good sign—it means the door judges you to be an ally. You're not a threat. It's accepted you... and it'll let you through."

Avery's teeth clattered as several shivers shot down his spine. "Fuck." He shook, but tightened his fists, anchoring himself to the ground, doing his best not to fall over. The pain was growing unbearable, burning his skin, stabbing into his muscles. Why was it so painful? Why were the whispers so intolerable, and how could a door be causing this?

"Also..." Ada's lips bunched as she averted her gaze to the cracked concrete floor. "A warning; you're human, which means you're not supposed to go through that door. I don't know how long it'll let you stay in the realm before spitting you out, if it does. Humans... living humans technically never go through any sort of portal. It's unclear what'll happen to you once it figures out what you are and what you're doing."

Avery glowered at her, managing to put aside his pain to fill himself up with anger, instead. "Um, you think you could have mentioned that part sooner?" He rubbed the back of his neck, wondering if the agony would get worse the closer he got to the door. Would he even be conscious to enter the realm? Was this a test of some sort, a means for the door and its demons to be sure he was worthy of entering their dwelling?

Ada used her energy to shove him forward a few feet. "Yeah, well, too late now."

Another jolt of pain flashed through him, and he gritted his teeth. "Fuck."

"If I'd said something before, you'd have changed your mind, right?" Ada nudged him again, and though he dug his heels in, he still inched towards the door. "You'd have decided otherwise, and we'd be back at square one, and I'd be forced to ask you both to leave, because you'd be useless to me. Do you want to be useless?"

Useless.

The word rang in Avery's head, triggering more pain to flare up in his brain.

"No," he seethed, "I came to be useful. I'll..." he glared at the door, "I'll see this through."

"Good." Ada poked at his middle spine with an icy fingertip; so she could touch him, then? "You're going to take hold of the knob, turn it, and see what happens. Once you're in... I'll stay down here for a bit, to make sure nothing squeezes out after you enter. To ensure that door remains closed."

"Cool, thanks." Avery craned his neck to get a better view of her—but also so she saw him snickering at her. "Super reassuring that you'll make sure the door seals me in, that's great. But how the fuck do I get out?" The pain was making him moody now, affecting his senses. His eyesight turned fuzzy, and all he could smell was that coppery stench of blood, infesting his nostrils.

"I..." Ada offered him an apologetic look while continuing to prod him forward. "I'm not sure, I'm sorry. As soon as you're on the other side... you're on your own."

"Another thing you might have told me beforehand, dammit." The door's red glow was close now, so close Avery felt it scorching the skin of his face, basking him in a blinding light. "Shouldn't we have brainstormed this better before you threw me right into the end of my days?"

Another shove, and the tips of his shoes were inches away from the door-frame. The pain suddenly stopped, leaving him numb and unstable on his feet.

"If it reassures you in the slightest, I don't think you're going to die today, Avery." Ada backed away from the door, cringing. Surely it hurt her, too, as she was a being the door would consider an enemy. "I don't think this'll be what kills you. Not yet. I can't say with certainty, but something tells me you're meant for more. And my prophecy," she placed a hand to where her heart would have been were she alive, "it implies you're not to die until you've done what you were born to do. Which is to stop Jessamine, to stop the demons, one way or another."

It did reassure Avery, if only slightly. Enough for him to suck in a deep breath of the blood-tinged air, and to puff it out all over the door. "Fine. Fine."

He extended his arm, and as soon as his palm came into contact with the doorknob, a whoosh of hot energy shot into him, almost knocking him back. He gripped the knob tightly, holding on to not fall backwards; and to his surprise, Ada was behind him, pushing into him to keep him upright.

"Turn it!" she yelled, as wisps of powerful wind whipped out from under the door, blasting into Avery and by default, her. "Turn the knob, open the damn thing! Hurry!"

He squinted through the intense light and the onrush of wind, and twisted the knob. Fire raced up his knuckles and settled in his wrist, but he wouldn't be deterred, not so close to the goal. He pulled—and the door swung away from the threshold with such power he was knocked back, this time. Ada was sent swerving to the rear, darker part of the room, and had she been made of flesh and bone, she'd have smacked hard into the wall.

Instead, she floated there shaking herself off, then gesturing wildly at the door Avery had opened. "Get in there! Now!" Her voice was a screech, her energy hurling towards Avery like a race-car.

Avery scrambled forward, nurturing his still burning hand to his chest. Closing his eyes and bracing for death, he traversed the threshold, grabbing the doorknob on his way to slam the door shut behind him.

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