She stormed up to Landon and shook him; he'd been standing there, caught in a trance, pupils dilated. He'd watched—or ignored—as barbed wires snaked up around her and threatened to choke her, to pierce her to death. "Hey, did you not hear me? We need to talk!"

Landon winced at her touch and gently removed her hands from his arms. "I heard you, yeah. Sorry, I was... what happened?"

Jessamine's eyebrows bunched as she glared at him. "You weren't watching? You didn't see any of it? None of the wires, my feet planting into the ground, me not being able to move?"

"I saw you struggling, yes." He tousled his hair with a frown. "But not what you were struggling with. The door... was it there? I couldn't tell. At one point, it seemed like you were yelling at something, and I was ready to interfere but... well, you looked like you were in a lot of pain—"

"—I was, dammit!" She panted, recalling how the barbed wire had been about to squeeze the life out of her.

He threw out a hand to slow her down. "I'm sorry, but I can't fight what I can't see, so I... left you be. I hoped you'd figure it out."

"Can't fight what..." She blinked at him. "Figure it out? Figure out what? What are you talking about?"

"Whatever was bothering you, hurting you... it was invisible to me." Landon kept squinting at something behind Jessamine, but she was too distraught to turn and piece together what. "I'm assuming it was some kind of test, some means to determine if you were worthy of returning to your realm?"

"You didn't see anything?" She peered down at her arms, expecting scrapes and scars, deep gashes from the things that had slipped around her, trying to squirt the blood out of her. Her rib-cage still ached, and her lungs still grappled to fully take in the oxygen she needed to breathe. But her skin... was bare. Nothing was there. Not a trace of her suffering on her arms, legs, anywhere. "The vines? Barbed wires? Needles? Chains? You saw none of that wrapping around me?"

Her forehead overheated; had she made all this up? The vines were real, she'd seen them, felt them, watched them coiling up her body one inch at a time. But the needles, she never actually noticed, only sensing them poking into her. And the chains... she'd sensed cold on her skin, like the metal of a chain gliding over her, about to yank her against a wall to keep her prisoner.

Landon shook his head. "This place can make you hallucinate pretty bad, doll. And it doesn't want you to leave, so of course it produced freakish visions and sensations when you were close to the door. It'll do what it can to keep you from going anywhere. Makes sense."

"Nothing makes sense down here." Jessamine scoffed, massaging her shoulders, easing all the tension. What she really needed was an hour-long session with a masseuse, incense in a smoky room, and a plunge in a steamy hot tub. But she'd likely never get access to any of those again.

"Look, to tell you the truth..." Landon peeked behind her again. "I was a bit busy myself while all this was happening to you. I was, uh..." He jutted his chin at whatever he'd been fixated on. "I was talking to a demon."

Jessamine swung around in time to see a red being pop up, seemingly out of nowhere—and Landon wasn't toppled over in pain or overcome with nausea with its presence.

"What the—" Jessamine backed away, glancing between the two. The red glob of a demon with its enormous black eyes, and Landon, her friend, her ally, the one who'd been lying to her? She hadn't even noticed a red blob floating there, while she'd been busy trying not to die.

"It's not what you think." Landon shook out his hands in front of him, frantic. "I'm not affiliated with them, I didn't betray you."

"That's—" Jessamine hiccuped, unable to tear her gaze from Landon's stomach, from his unusually steady posture. "That's not it."

"Sorry to interrupt what I'm sure will be a phenomenal argument, but... I know what's making her panic," said the demon, its raspy voice ringing a bell in Jessamine's mind. "I was inside her, I recognize her reactions. It's because you," it gestured with a blurry arm at Landon, "aren't sick in my presence."

"Oh." Landon paused, narrowed his gaze on the demon, then returned to Jessamine. "Why am I not sick right now? I didn't even think of that."

The demon's glow brightened, its eyes turning somehow darker. "I can decide who I want to make sickened by my presence," it said, its timbre trembling through Jessamine, freezing her in place.

Oh, yes, she knew that creature, its sinister voice—because it had been one of the dominant demons within her, using her for its dark deeds, ordering her to kill.

She grabbed at the sides of her head and backed away. "No, no... get away from me."

"I can't." Through foggy eyes, Jessamine spotted the demon daring to come closer. Its voice was distorted, its aura bubbling up liquid in Jessamine's stomach. It could control who it made sick—so why was it making her sick now?

"Tell her what you told me, quickly," said Landon, authority in his tone. He'd straightened up, and began to slide between the demon and Jessamine, blocking the monster's path to its former vessel.

The demon shrank in size, as if it were shrugging. "You've been told of the portals. Well, we need to close them, and get those... things... where they belong."

Jessamine stared straight into her captor's eyes, unflinching. "What things? We haven't seen anything yet, only been informed of these so-called portals."

The demon's eyes twitched. "You'll see them soon, this I swear. They're here, they're creeping around, they're infesting our world."

"What are they?" Jessamine thought back to her conversation with Avery, and wondered if it linked with what the demon said. If she should share it with the creature, or wait for it to leave to give the information privately, to Landon only.

The mass of red smoke shivered. "They don't even have names, none that we know of. They're ancient. Some are mystical fire beings that are incredibly powerful. From what I understand, they're setting fires to the doors to the outside world. Your world. They've not yet reached this area, the west coast... but they're coming, I can feel them."

"Some," Jessamine gulped, "so what are the others? How many beings are we facing here?"

The demon appeared to gulp, as well, its figure bobbing up then down with a sort of swallowing sound. "The faceless, zombie-like creatures. Those are... ghosts of demons past, some of my fellow demons have claimed."

"Whoa." Jessamine pressed a hand to her heated forehead. "Ghosts of demons? Demons who were once ghosts, who were once human? I think I'm going to faint. What the fuck?"

"There's no way to explain it, Jessamine." To hear the monster who'd possessed her say her name, out loud, in its disembodied, harsh tone, set fire to her extremities and created ice that lashed down her spine. "But we have to find a means to force these things back into the gates they were contained behind. And for that... we need humans."

"You need humans?" Jessamine wrinkled her nostrils. "To do... what? Because you're referring to us," she pointed at Landon, then herself, "aren't you? We're the only two humans in here."

Landon folded his arms. "Yeah, you didn't quite get to that part in your explanations to me, so can we get some details?"

"We need human touch to seal those portals." The demon's timbre lowered, growl-like and grating. "They're physical gates, you see. Our powers can't do anything to activate or deactivate them."

Jessamine's jaw nearly dropped, but she recomposed herself fast—if the demon saw a weakness, it'd take advantage, she knew.

Physical gates that were human-activated—did that mean a human was in this demonic dimension at some point in history, responsible for creating, then closing these portals? Saving demons? Thus, more or less, saving the world?

She side-glanced at Landon, who'd been stroking his chin, considering the demon's words.

"No." Jessamine arched up and swiped a hand through the air as she stepped backwards. "No, absolutely not. Find another way."

She had no doubt what the demon meant by human touch. He needed her, needed Landon, needed their bodies.

"He wants to possess us," she said, glowering at the red-bodied being floating before her. "He wants to use our bodies for whatever the hell this situation is. No, we're not involved. This isn't our world. You can't make us help you."

"It's not your world," the demon's breath came out in a puff of gray smoke, "but you're still living in it. You're here, whether or not you like it. Both of you are alive right now, though you," its eyes slitted at Landon, "barely. If those beasts get near you, if they detect human presence before we have a chance to stop them... you'll both die. You'll become demons. And I know for a fact neither of you want that."

Jessamine groaned as she spun away. She kicked at the dirt, and her attention was drawn to the door in the distance, still sitting there like a mirage in a scorching desert. Calling her. Teasing her.

"Avery was at the door," she said, keeping her voice low, soft. Speaking of him did something to her heart, soothed her internally, despite the frightful news he'd given her. "It's happening up there, too. Portals opening, things coming through. And in Limbo. It's chaos out in our realm."

The demon buzzed over, hovering beside her. She recoiled away, but it didn't budge. "It's happening everywhere, Jessamine."

She snarled at it. "Don't say my name. It's bad enough that I let you get close to me; I don't want to hear you getting so damn intimate with me."

"Well," it chuckled, "I was inside you—"

Landon zoomed over in time to stop Jessamine from lashing out, from throwing punches at a smoke-like being she'd never be able to touch.

"Chill, chill, would you?" He shooed the demon further away, to give Jessamine room to breathe. "No one said anything about possession yet. And if this shit is happening in our world, and in Limbo, and everywhere, shouldn't we be considering helping? They're sealing off doors, Jess."

Jessamine's nails dug into her palms. "And? I wasn't going to get out, anyway. I'm stuck in here, we both know it."

Landon seized her shoulders, squeezing, forcing her to look at him. "I vow to you you're getting out of here, okay? You don't belong here, no matter what the stupid prophecy says. And I don't belong here either, in reality. But if we want any shot at leaving, we can't let ancient beings break all our exits. We... need to help the demons."

Jessamine broke free from his grip and spat on the ground. "No. I can't. There's just... they possessed me, Landon. They," she peeped at her hands, picturing the blood that once stained her skin, the talons they'd made grow out of her nails, "made me do unspeakable things. Things they might have forgotten, but I never will. I murdered people for food. I killed someone I cared about, and I was inside my own head screaming, but they didn't care. Now you're asking me to help them? No. Not even if it means sacrificing my own survival. I'd rather die than ever be in their debt. I'd rather rot in this place than give them any sort of help. Dimensions are opening within dimensions? Who the heck decided humans could do anything about that, huh? I have no powers. You have no powers, Landon. No."

She was breathless, bending over to let out puffs of air from her mouth. Winded, she let herself fall to the ground, bringing her knees up to her torso.

She couldn't, she wouldn't let a demon inside her body, ever again. No matter that the world around them was on fire, ripping to shreds. No, she'd go down with it.

Landon kneeled beside her, rubbing her back. "Jess, I understand, I do. I can't even imagine what you went through... and I'd never try. But," he flinched, turning to the demon staring at them, "we don't have many options."

"We have no options," added the demon, its eyes rising to the darkened sky. Lightning still streaked across the clouds, filling the desert-like space with flashes of eerie light.

"I do." Jessamine hopped back to her feet and twisted in the direction of the door, its battered surface calling her to it, still. "I have Avery. And I'm not doing anything, not making any decisions, without talking to him first."

Before Landon could grab her wrist, she bolted towards the door.

She was feet away when the heaviness came. The sensation of being stuck in the dirt. The barbed vines curled around her legs and prevented her from moving—but it was all illusion, right? It wasn't real. Landon said this was all a hallucination to convince her against leaving.

Well, she wasn't leaving, not yet. She gritted her teeth, she moaned through the pain coursing up from her ankles, and glared at the door.

"Avery! Avery, are you there? Come back! Come back, hurry!"

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