H E L L ' S H E A R T

———

"MY, I WASN'T expecting you to give up so easily." A familiar voice came from behind Dimitri. "After all, you followed rather diligently for a few hours already."

When Dimitri looked up, Lucifer was there, leaned against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. He had a smug grin decorating his lips, eyes sparkling brighter than the moonlight outside before he finally pushed himself back onto his feet. With steps agonizingly slow, he strolled towards Dimitri, nodding towards the dark abyss that was behind him.

"Are you ready to go? I'm on a strict time schedule here."

"Time is relative, a figment of imagination for minds," Dimitri grumbled, shoving past Lucifer as he soldiered into the darkness.

He hadn't considered the possibility that Lucifer would catch him tailing so soon and that fact alone made him a little disappointed in his own skills. Then again, it wouldn't be that hard to miss the sudden wave of bright luminous green that swept through the otherwise pitch black cave. Of course Lucifer would be able to pinpoint him easily.

Behind him, Dimitri could hear Lucifer chuckle at his words, his laughter echoing through the cave they were in. The noise bounced off the walls, causing it to ring like a choir of bells even long after Lucifer's lips were shut.

"Why are you in such a hurry, Dimitri?" Lucifer yelled after him, "After all, we seem to have a guest with us."

That was enough to make Dimitri stop dead in his tracks. With his feet glued to the floor, he spun around, eyes wide with surprise as he tried to look for Lucifer's figure in the shadows. The light that surrounded him was not enough to light up that much of a distance that was between them. Thus, he waited, rooted to the ground as he narrowed his eyes to slits. A pair of footsteps soon grew into two and before long, someone that Dimitri had not expected walked into view.

Met with pale skin and contrastingly dark hair, Dimitri's eyebrows shot upward, gaping in surprise as Fabian walked towards him with a scowl, most likely having originated from being caught. Lucifer's arm was around Fabian's shoulder, pulling him along like a parent would a child. As usual, his smile was ever-present.

"Since the both of you are here, I guess it wouldn't hurt to share a little bit more information about my beautiful realm, yes?" Clapping Fabian's back twice as if showing support, Lucifer stretched. "Time to get this show on the road."

With a skip in his step and hands tucked into the pockets of his pants, Lucifer leisurely breezed past Dimitri, brushing his shoulder ever so lightly against the spirit of death before continuing on his merry way. All the while, he kept to the left lane, never looking twice no matter how many choices they were offered in regards to different paths.

However, it wasn't too long before his steps halted right in front of a giant slab of stone. The path had ended all too soon and they were at a dead end.

"Nothing too interesting to be visiting in the middle of the night, it seems," Fabian commented under his breath, careful to only let Dimitri hear his words.

"He could've just gone the wrong way," Dimitri replied, "since there were so many paths offered our whole way here."

"Oh, I made no mistake, Dimitri. This is where I intended to go from the very beginning. And Fabian," Lucifer turned around with a maniacal sparkle in his eye, "there's always more than what meets the eye."

With that said, Lucifer wiped a hand across the rough stone. Dimitri's eyes trailed after the exaggerated movement, only just noticing the carvings that were written on the stone. In Biblical Hebrew, Lucifer began to read the words out loud. As he spoke, the ground began to tremble, dust blown into the air as the edges of the stone started to crumble.

Instinctively, Dimitri took a step back, eyes wide with both horror and amazement as the stone wall before them crumbled into dust and debris. They settled on the ground as a pile of rocks, ones that could easily be crossed over just by raising one's legs a little higher than normal.

Just like that, the path continued into yet another cave, a secret entrance with its own passcode.

"After you," Lucifer grinned, gesturing towards the dark opening.

As if in a trance, Fabian was the first to walk through, his eyes never wavering away from the cave. He had no hesitance in his steps, courage filling his veins as he disappeared into the darkness. Behind him, Dimitri soon followed, allowing his own green light to brighten the new room they were in.

When Lucifer stepped in as well, the stones started to rise by its own, slotting themselves back into the positions they originally were in. Just as quickly as it had fallen, the stone wall was once against back, not even a crack to prove that it had once been broken. Only Lucifer was powerful enough to conjure such nonsensical and impractical magic.

"It wards the rest of the demons away," Lucifer explained, as if reading Dimitri's mind. "Where we're about to go is home to great magic. It powers this very realm. Demons are unruly and though fervently loyal, they are attracted to power. I cannot take such a risk."

"Ah."

"Now that you understand, this way. There is still a little while before we reach our destination."

The soil crunched beneath their feet, the air getting increasingly stale around them. Dimitri was starting to notice the heat, beads of perspiration rolling down the sides of his head as he wiped them away with his sleeve. Beside him, Fabian did the same, occasionally exhaling heavily.

When a sudden breeze of cool air brushed across their cheeks, they stilled in surprise. That meant that there was an opening somewhere, probably an air vent to allow the air to flow. All three of them increased their paces, some for delight and others due to impatience.

Finally, they were met with a golden glow, the light that emitted from a burning fire. Just like that, the glow that emitted from Dimitri's skin was rivaled and it no longer glowed as brightly. Seeing no use to keep it there, he concentrated, breathing in deeply and attempting to calm his mind and heart so that the light would cease completely. It did.

The room they had emerged in was the very center of the cave, the deepest part right beneath the castle of Hell. In it, Dimitri recognized a few documents hung across the walls of the cave. A large table was set to a side, along with a fireplace that burned and crackled. Bookcases lined the walls, filled with seemingly endless scrolls.

The place mirrored that of Lucifer's study and it proved more so that it most likely served as Lucifer's second base. Dimitri concluded that this must have been where Lucifer spent his time when he hadn't shown up for practice.

In a corner, Dimitri spotted a familiar looking trunk that he had opened just a few days before. The lid of the box was wide open and that meant that Lucifer had definitely found out about the loss of its contents. Immediately, Dimitri subconsciously raised a hand to his chest in an attempt to ease his heart rate that had been steadily growing in speed once more.

Lucifer threw out his hands, smiling broadly at his two companions. When his noticed Fabian's awe and Dimitri's horrified paling face, that smile widened even further.

"Welcome, boys, to the heart of Hell."

————

social media:

instagram: twelvewonderingstars (personal: aurorayeo)

twitter: aurorayeo (personal: aurorayyq)

facebook: twelvewonderingstars