Young Writers Society

Raiden stayed silent as they conversed, while his eyes moved towards the room Leo was inside. He noticed the pentacles on the floor, and the weird skulls on the walls. His eyebrows furrowed, as he inspected them best he could from where he stood.
"Why are there pentacles on the floor?" he blurted out, turning to Leo. He felt awkward asking it of Leo, someone he just met, but he felt like he needed to. And in any case, maybe now he'd figure out what pentacles are actually for.

Their eyes briefly met, only for Maahes to turn around and stare at the pentacles in question. This was his room. With the lotus on the door, it wasn't something he could easily deny. The rooms held some significance to their owner. That ruled out pretending that he never seen this place before. Amnesia was a stupid excuse, too. He hadn't mentioned having trouble remembering things before, so his lie would be incredibly obvious.

Which meant he would have to improvise.

Joy.

"Demons," he suddenly said, once again meeting Raiden's gaze. The word came out too hurriedly. He had to keep things calm, or his lie would be even more obvious than he felt it was. "This is my summoning chamber."

He walked over to the pentacle closest to the door and stepped inside it. It felt strange viewing the room from this angle. Gesturing at the lines surrounding him, he elaborated, "I stand here and say the summoning words. The demon appears in the pentacle across from me. I give it its charge, and then it goes out and does it. When it comes back, I dismiss it."

He looked back at Raiden and the others. Uttering those words had made him feel thoroughly disgusted with himself, but he had pretended to be a Goa'uld for the past few years. Surely being an oppressive "god" was worse than being a summoner of demons.

Edwin started, his eyes wide. Adamina grabbed Edwin's arm, pulling him out of the room immediately. No wonder it was so foreboding.

"That's it," she said to him, alarm in her eyes. "We're done here. We never should have had an inch of trust for these people."

Edwin gave an almost imperceptible nod, still reeling from the realization.

Auryon actually laughs, slapping her thigh. "Demons, huh? Charming." Her red gaze falls on Edwin and Mina. "Flee, then, but you two can only open so many doors - run, little rats, run through the maze!" she chuckles.

He stared at Auryon. She had laughed at the mention of demons. Her knowledge of demons was unsurprising, given her earlier comment. But the laughter left him with a deeply unsettled feeling, and the combination of that with her comment to Edwin and Mina made a chill run through his essence. Auryon appeared human on every plane. He was certain of this, but he was also certain that there was something else going on.

"They can leave if they want to," he said, his voice cold. He was scared. There wasn't much that could truly scare him after everything he had seen, but Auryon suddenly filled him with an overwhelming fear. He couldn't let her realize that. His inner voice of reason was telling him that she would ruthlessly abuse that knowledge, and he was prone to trust it.

And something about what she had said inspired a surge of surprising anger.

"If they're uncomfortable with demons, fine. It's their decision. Peter's somewhere else, too. I'm not going to pretend that going our separate ways will help us in the slightest. I doubt it will." He took a step towards her and looked into her eyes. "But don't you dare talk down to them."

It was a shame that he was so caught up in his emotions. If he had been paying attention to the words he had just thrown about, he would have realized that he had just revealed something that conflicted with his supposed explanation for the room. A summoner of demons would have never cared about those considered "lower" and never given their supposed status any thought because, by nature, they bent those with less power to their will.

And Maahes, inspired by his anger, had completely forgotten what it truly meant to be that corrupted.

"How dare you--" began Adamina, at Auryon's remark, but Edwin glanced at her hand at that moment and just then noticed the songbird mark.

"What is that?" he whispered, then checked his own hand. Sure enough, there was a small, rearing horse symbol on its back. He stiffened, recognizing it immediately. He felt like such an idiot for not noticing sooner. "Who did this?"

And for once in her life, Adamina's confidence seemed to melt from her and she merely told him, "I don't know."

Raiden blinked. He had no idea how to answer. To any of the stuff that had just happened. He had just asked about pentacles. Also, who was Peter? Leo sounded cold for some reason. Though Raiden didn't notice it immediately, he did notice the continuation error he made. He brushed it off as him being a benevolent demon summoner, one that asked demons nicely to do stuff. He shuffled away from Auryon slightly, creeped out by her sudden laughter.

She meets Maahes' gaze steadily, unwavering. "Are you threatening me?" That maniacal grin has turned into a small smile. Her eyes are alight with something deeply unsettling - there is no doubt that there is something very different; nay, all together wrong about this woman.

Fire wanted to dance at his fingertips, but he reigned the urge to unleash his powers in. He hadn't initially meant to issue a threat. Yet wasn't that what it was? He was angry, and rightfully so. He couldn't let her brush people aside the way she had.

"Maybe the herbs in this room are getting to me, but I thought you were a good person. I guess I was wrong." He spat the words out with a viciousness he hadn't used in quite some time. She had unwittingly struck the most tender part of his identity. "And, no, it wasn't meant to be a threat. I just don't like people that treat others like complete scum."

She chuckles again, amused. "I was never a good person, kid, and I ain't gotten any better over the years. Did I ever mention that I kill for a living?"

Laurel stared at James for what felt like an eternity. A few times, she opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again, as if she were choosing her words carefully. James could see the rush of mixed emotions swirling in her eyes, as she went from looking at him both in love and in anger, and all of the nuanced feelings in-between.

"How..." she finally got out. "How did you get here? Here of all places?"

She grabbed his hand, which took James off guard, causing him to flinch. She looked at the crown marking on his hand.

"Why is yours a crown? Do you know how you got here? Do you know where we are?"

"I..." he started.

She looked up at him, seemingly searching his eyes for answers instead of listening as more questions poured out her mouth.

"How long have you been here? I've only been in two rooms so far. One looked like my bedroom and was connected to this one. Do you recognize this room?" He face looked hopeful for a moment, before the look in her eyes faded.

"...wait... no. You won't. You shouldn't."

James tried to say something, but couldn't.

Laurel looked away, blinking away what James could tell were tears in her eyes. She let out a weak laugh.

"I mean... sorry, I'm not letting you answer, am I?"

James nodded slowly, putting a hand on her shoulder. She looked up again, eyes still cloudy.

"It's okay, Laurel," James replied, wondering why none of his emotions were bubbling to the surface like he felt they ought to be. "It's nothing to be sorry about. I... I don't know how I got here. I don't know why I'm - why we're here. Or where we are. Or what these markings on our hands mean. But we are not alone here. Not once we leave this room. There are others..." his voice trailed off as he looked off past her, thinking of Mina, Leo, and Auryon - none of which he trusted.

Laurel nodded, noting the information but not giving it much thought. Her lips quivered into a small smile.

"James..."

He tilted his head slightly. "...What is it?"

"I missed you so much," she finally said, her voice breaking as she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his shoulder.

James, with a few seconds delay, returned the hug.

Laurel squeezed him at first, but loosened her grip on him as she tried to stifle developing sobs. James and Laurel stood hugging for a good amount of time while she cried.

It was after several minutes that Laurel asked another question, but one James was not prepared to answer.

"How could you leave us?"

"You didn't," he said, his voice quiet. He had liked her. His heart had been telling him that she was a good person, so why did he have to be so wrong?

He had to kill, too. In a galaxy where the Goa'uld ran rampant, many of its people were forced to take the lives of others. But he never gloated about it; gloating would mean forsaking the lives he had taken, and would make that the defining characteristic of who he was. How could Auryon so gladly do that?

He looked back at the pentacles. She was no better than Ra had been; it seemed fitting that they would have a confrontation like this in a room tainted by the cruel acts that Ra had committed. The ones that he had committed, too, though he didn't like to dwell on that part of his past.

"You're as bad as them," he informed her, though he didn't elaborate on who he was referring to. "Lives are meant to be treasured, and you-you don't care about them at all. How could you be so cruel? You're supposed to be human! Humans can hurt and they can kill, but they're supposed to be better than that. They're supposed to inspire hope..." He trailed off, staring down at the ground. Humans were his hope.

He had seen so much happen to them over his time on Earth, so how could he not think that? They were so different than Ra and the other Goa'uld. Even when they were beaten, they got up again. And the majority of them stuck to the morals he wanted to, too - they were exactly the type of person he wanted to become.

She scoffs, look in her eyes a mix of cold harshness and conflict and pain and hatred all at once. "I'm as bad, I'm worse even, than a lot of people. Besides, who-"

Reveal my presence and you will regret it more than losing your soul, the voice cooly informs her. She abruptly stops mid-sentence. After a moment she continues.

"I'm cruel because I am. I'm cruel because cruelty is as much a part of human nature as hope or morals or whatever else you think people are in that presumably non-human mind of yours," she says. "Not many would call me human, anyways. Monster is more commonly used."

He stood quietly by them, both confused and somewhat scared by the heated conversation.
"Should probably have stayed in that room..."

"Humans can be cruel, but not like-" He faltered, her words truly clicking as he stared at her. She had called his mind non-human, hadn't she? By extension, that meant she believed he wasn't human, right? His essence reeled at the thought. The implications of it were tremendous. His shoulders slumped.

This was the first time his lies had been noticed since he had left Kartiel, and his nonexistent heart stung at the thought of that. "I'm not human," he quietly confirmed. His guise shifted to the one that he used when pretending to be the god he had been long ago; when he looked back up at her, there was a look of defeat to his eyes. But then he realized how conflicted she had seemed when she had replied to him, and he was suddenly enticed by the idea that there was more going on than what there seemed to be on the surface.