The heart's voice (Chapter 2)

Chapter 2

“I… I can’t die yet… I have to… stay… awake…” Flo mumbled in her sleep.

“I say we kill her. She’s probably seen everything,” Crayz said.

“No, do you know how hard it is to get a sweeper these days? Most of them are unstable and the rest of them just commit suicide. We’ll just have to keep her away from the room at all cost. She can’t do anything reckless. I mean, she is human after all,” Melda said, defending Flo.

“Melda, you’re nuts!”

“But she’s got a point,” Jon interrupted.

“Thank you,” Melda said to him and then turned to Crayz, “And don’t you forget that I was the one who went there and saved the room from exploding. You two, by the way, were too much of cowards to do it yourselves. I mean, you’re demons. You’re trained to handle situations like these. Use your skills, boneheads.”

“Hey, don’t call us that. We have brain skills. We invent. That’s why we’re called scientists. Your skills are different. You can repair anything at all. From a simple wooden chair to complicated machines to even cuts like the one Crayz got.” Jon argued.

“I also happen to be the one to repair the child and send the red vapor back. Our soldiers have collected ample amounts of souls that are, at the moment, being injected into the boy.”

Flo’s head had never felt lighter. A variety of colors merged with each other in front of her eyes and strange figures circulated around her… round and round and round…

“Wake up, kid! We need you to answer some questions. Were you the one who locked me in the bathroom? And what did you see in that room? Who asked you to go there? Answer at once!” Crayz demanded, looking at her furiously.

Flo blinked and sat up immediately. Her pulse raced and stress wore on her face. “What?” she asked, gasping hard. She looked from one demon to another whom she was surrounded by; it only made her tenser. She recognized Crayz with his crazy spiked hairstyle and glasses that rested on his nose now. Jon, who had looked sane back in the dusty room, looked like a creepy villain to her now. His golden hair was as shiny as ever and light green eyes sparkling with interest. The third one was a lady with mahogany hair and hazel eyes. She was beautiful, putting aside the fact that she was a demon who also fed on souls.

Flo did what she always did when she was scared. She curled up in a ball, gripping her knees tightly and buried her face into them. “Please, don’t hurt me…” she cried. Her hair was a mess by now; some falling over her head while some still resting on her back.

“She’s crying which means she is obviously feeling guilty,” Jon added thoughtfully.

“Shut up you idiots! You have no heart. Get out of this room, right now!” Melda snarled at them and they

obeyed, rushing for the door and closing it behind them. Crayz popped his head through the window, “If she’s guilty, can we eat her soul?”

Melda scowled at him so bad that he ran away like a chicken. It wasn’t their fault, Melda looked as scary as a wild bear when she was mad; or even scarier. She was beauty and the beast altogether. She turned and smiled almost too pleasantly at Flo.

“You must be so sick of people bossing you around and saying whatever they think is right… but this is our world and you gotta live in it so you’re going to have to bare it.” Melda flipped her long wavy hair to one side and stood up from beside Flo. She offered her a hand and Flo hesitatingly took it. Melda didn’t let go of her hand, even after she’d stood up. She leaned closer to her and eyed her questioningly,

“Did you, or did you not, go to that room on purpose?” Her voice was stern and Flo was afraid she was going to stammer.

“I-I… please don’t get mad… I was looking for someone to fix me dinner and I saw that the door was wide open so I went inside b-but then something exploded and then I-I don’t remember… everything’s a blur…” Flo might have been the worst liar in the dimension but Melda had no choice but to buy that story. She didn’t have any proof that Flo had gone inside for a completely different purpose. She frowned at her for a second before backing off.

“Go now. You will find your breakfast in your room. And don’t go around sneaking into places you’re not familiar with. They could be dangerous.”

“But, my leg–” Flo started when Melda cut her off in a soft voice.

“Your leg’s fine. It was covered with red moss. Now, don’t give me that look. It wasn’t your wound. When I washed that leg of yours, it was fine. Just healed scars. Although the slab of stone we lifted from your leg had been smeared with your blood. It was human blood and you’re the only human in this quarter so we knew it was yours. I don’t know what really happened in there but I doubt you did either. So go, you need energy. You lost a lot of blood.”

Flo nodded and left the room; half walking, half limping. The pain in her leg was gone but for some reason, she just didn’t have the energy to walk properly; just like Melda said. But she didn’t dare to look at the wound until she was back in her room with the tray of food in front of her. Gulping everything thing down one by one, she slowly moved her injured leg close to her, only to find it bandaged. “I can’t take that off because once I do, I won’t be able to wrap it as neatly as it is now. I better leave it alone and put my trust in the demon medicines.

They must’ve put something on my wounds so that they don’t hurt. I know they work faster than human medicines do… or maybe it’s the demons that heal faster… whichever the case is, I don’t care. I am not going into that room again. There might be some other way to get out of this dimension.”

Even after swearing to herself that she would never go back, her thoughts kept revolving around what had happened in there. Something had gone wrong; something had awoken the boy. And the red moss that had been on Flo’s leg was another mystery. She closed her eyes after eating and rested her head on her arm on the cold stone floor. She could feel the ground vibrate gently beneath her skin. Flo knew it was the heart’s thumps. Very soon, she managed to enter another one of her vivid dreams.

This time, it seemed too real from the beginning to be a mere dream. Flo knew that she was asleep but also awake at the same time. She was clouded by darkness and could only hear the hearts silent thumps. “You again… I’m not going to do that silly job of yours. You almost got me killed and now you have the nerve to stand in front of me again.” Flo said, irritated. She was standing on dead soil; she could feel the cold, hard cracks beneath her feet but she couldn’t see it. A thin, silvery ray of light emerged from somewhere above. Flo glanced up, backing away immediately as the light missed her by an inch. Then she slowly reached for it with her hand, palm side up. A red rose petal, floating in the emptiness, landed on it.

“What’s this?” Flo inched closer to the light to see. “A petal? This is how you make it up to me, dragon?” She looked up at the ray of light, expecting the heart to apologize when suddenly, she felt something wet on her hand. Flo looked down at it,

“What happened to the… blood?” She almost screamed in terror at the sight of blood on her hands. The ray of light stretched across the place and Flo realized that she was surrounded by an ocean of blood. She yelled and thrashed around, trying to find a way out but something grabbed her ankle, pulling her back into the depths of the ocean. She resisted, struggled, tried to run away when the dead soil vanished from beneath her feet and Flo fell face down, straight into the blood.

“Someone get me OUT!!” Flo shouted and sat up straight, breaking from her nightmare, panting. She could feel the stone floor of her room as she struggled to catch her breath. Her hands whipped the air, searching for her lantern which had gone out while she’d been sleeping. Flo’s heart didn’t feel at ease until she’d lit the lantern and placed it near her. Its heat seemed to calm her down a little. She looked down at her bandaged leg; it looked the same as before. Then her eyes lingered towards the other leg and she let out a gasp.

“No… this can’t be real… it’s… they’re… finger marks… MADE OUT OF BLOOD!” It was true. She stared at the red finger marks on her ankle. The blood looked fresh, as if everything she’d dreamt had actually happened. Flo traced her fingers around her ankle, imagining an arm wrapped around it, and shivered.

“What in the world was it? I think… there’s only one organ that can answer that question… the heart.”

She stood up instantly, grabbing the lantern and scampering out of the room. Her injured leg did not ache this time and she was running fine. She went down the steps and into the room where the heart rested. Flo frowned at it angrily,

“What was that?” she demanded, “Why were you trying to scare me in my dreams? And who made these stupid finger marks?” Flo could feel her anger raging inside as if it would explode anytime.

“What are you talking about? What dream? And you know that I can’t move from here. I’m sealed,” the heart replied in astonishment.

Flo told him about the dream she’d just had and how she’d woke up to find the finger prints made out of blood around her ankle. “I don’t know if it was you or some other organ because I could hear feeble thumps in there.”

The heart thought for a while until finally he sighed. “I don’t know anything. I’m sorry I can’t help you with this,” he said hastily.

“Are you sure?” Flo asked warily.

“What have I gotten the poor girl into? She has no idea that she’s being hunted by a demon with tremendous power. And all my suspicions go towards Keegan, the sealed demon…” the heart whispered when suddenly, there was another set of heartbeats. This one was faster and it seemed to be coming from all around the room at once. “What is going on… Who’s there!” the heart demanded in a deeper voice than ever.

… There was a short laughter after which all sounds tapped off. Only the heart’s slow and regular thumps could be heard in the entire room. “Keegan! It’s you isn’t it… isn’t it?”

Just as the dragon said that, sparks occurred at the ends of its veins; sparks which did not belong to the dragon. “What is going on? What are you planning to do to me? Answer me when I’m talking to you!” The heart’s fury had reached its limits and it started pounding frantically. The walls shook but the sparks did not cease; instead, more sparks started to form from the wall until all the walls in the room were flashing like lightening.

The veins conducted the sparks quite easily and the dragon heart cried out in agony. Being electrified was one thing but not being able to lift a finger to stop it was even worse. “What is it that you want from meeee!” The heart could literally feel itself being ripped apart from every point. Blood didn’t take long to spurt out of some veins. “STOP! WHAT DO YOU WANT!” it shouted at the peak of its lungs which were now aching somewhere in a giant cave far away.

The sparks disappeared and again the room was left in silence.

“I’ll let you live if you promise to keep this little secret about me,” a voice answered. It belonged to the same person who was laughing just now. The person sounded like a teenager. “I know that you’re far too clever than what the demons gave you credit for centuries ago. I know that you’ve probably figured out my motive right now. I don’t want you to get in my way so I’ll make you a simple deal. You stay shut and let me do my work while in return, I’ll spare your life,” he spoke in a careless tone.

“Keegan… I never thought you would be the one to cause trouble. All the while I’d been thinking that you were a wise demon who’d sacrificed his life to seal me in this undefined realm but…”

“But you were wrong– no, you ARE wrong. You don’t remember anything, do you? You’ve just heard rumors about the demon Keegan and yourself. I’m the only one alive who knows the real story and probably your brain does too. Fortunately your brain is not here. It is the one and only source of all your memories.”

“So what is the real story?”

Later on that day…

Flo entertained herself by singing her favorite songs over and over again. She made sure to wipe every bit of dirt away and make the organs shine brighter than usual.

“Aren’t we working too much for one day?” Flo jerked her head sideways to see Melda standing in the middle of the cave. She was as quiet as an ant when it came to sneaking in. Flo might have never even noticed her if she hadn’t spoken

“Yes, I’m supposed to be doing the lungs today. They’re quite big so it takes a lot of effort,” she replied, turning towards her broom again. She dipped it into a bucket full of water and started sweeping. Melda tiptoed towards Flo and stood beside her, observing her carefully. Flo felt her nerves tighten and was unable to focus on anything but the living and breathing demon standing beside her; one that could change her moods in a blink of an eye.

Finally, she gave up pretending and straight away asked her, “Do you have some more work for me? Or something…?”

“Huh, Oh. No, no. Actually I wanted to give you a day off. It’s so that you can rest your leg. I mean, you’re still recovering from the accident yesterday. You shouldn’t over-burden yourself with work.”

“I’m fine, really. I don’t need to rest anymore. My leg doesn’t hurt,” she tried to object but Melda gave her a stern look. “Are you disobeying a direct order?”

Flo flinched. Then quickly grabbed her bucket and started walking away as quick as possible. “I’m leaving right away, Ma’am!” she spoke worriedly and exited the room. When she was out of hearing range from the cave of lungs, she stopped and sat down on the rough floor. It was a rocky terrain.

“I wonder what’s going on… they never let me go that easily.” Flo looked down at the two thin streams of blood flowing beside her. It reminded her of her dream and she bent her head over it, staring cautiously into the red, meandering liquid. A tiny drop of sweat trickled down her cheeks and into the stream… she froze. Then suddenly, Flo threw herself back towards the wall. She was afraid of something coming out of the stream but nothing happened. With a heavy, jumping heart, she breathed, grasping for her broom and bucket. She was about to stand up and leave when she saw a gang of demon teens coming her way. They were bunking class, she could tell by the look on a boy's face. He was dark skinned and kept glancing back as if her were being followed.

Flo panicked inside. She knew from experience that adult demons were scary but teen demons were even worse…

She remembered the time when she was new here and a bunch of teenagers surrounded her. They bullied her by taking away her broom and playing catch with it. In the end, it had fallen down the stairs leading to who knows where. It was pitch black down there but the demons pushed her hard and she fell all the way down, right into a small puddle. She’d woken up in the hospital and the doctors had told her that the puddle was actually made of blood and that they’d thought she was dead. No one believed her story of teenager demons pushing her. They all thought she’d tried to suicide.

Flo snapped out of her thoughts as she heard their footsteps approaching. The lights in the tunnel of blood were very dim. Most of the lanterns had gone out while some were still trying their best to light the ways.

Flo backed up behind a wall, her eyes anxiously searching for a quick escape route. The footsteps became louder and she could hear what the teens were conversing about,

“Do you think it’ll happen, Dro? You know, the teachers have been talking a lot about the sleeping demon lately. They’re saying that it’s possible that the demon is finally waking up from his slumber,” the dark skinned boy said, while hesitating a bit.

“So what if it gets out. I’ll make him my friend. He is, after all, our age, Ambrose,” Dro answered as if there wasn’t a single worry in the world for him. Flo was peering from behind the wall. She frowned at the two boys. They were both twins, as far as she could tell, dark features.

She turned her head away when her eyes spotted a metal ladder leading up towards a thin line of metal plate. Flo hurried over to it and started climbing. By the time the teens reached the turning, she was standing, as still as a rock, on the metal plate. Her back was literally scrubbing the stone wall. She knew that a single wrong move could make her lose her balance and fall.

“Sky, what do you think is going to happen?”Ambrose asked worriedly, ignoring Dro. Sky thought about it, rubbing his chin like an elderly man, “I’m not so sure about anything at the moment. I believe that the dragon will regain his true form if the demon breaks free.”

Flo watched them walk over to where she was standing. They stopped to chat again when they were just below her. Flo had to breathe very cautiously because even the sound of her breathing could be heard by the demons, although, from above they just seemed like ordinary teenagers; so human. There were three boys and two girls. She knew that two of them were Dro and Ambrose.

“I don’t believe in anything like that. I don’t even know how a sealing of a dragon so huge is possible by only the power of a single demon. Don’t you guys think that something’s odd?” Terra said, feeling skeptical. She had midnight blue hair and red eyes. ‘Only strong demons are able to achieve that eye-color… where have I seen it before?’ All of a sudden, an image of the sealed demon boy flashed inside Flo’s mind. It was when their eyes had met for the first and hopefully the last time, they had been a very dark, blood red color with dark orange circles in the middle. Flo shivered again and let out gasped.

Thankfully, the demons were too busy arguing that they didn’t pay any heed to the sudden sound. But Flo could only hear four voices. She frowned and tilted her head downwards a little to see that the fifth demon hadn’t spoken a word. The girl just stood there, staring into space. Her head was turned towards the metal ladder. Then, the most unexpected thing happened. It was almost as if the she had known that Flo was there all along. She looked up straight into Flo’s frightened eyes with an expressionless face. That’s when Flo noticed that her eyes weren’t brown, they were lavender; a strange color for eyes, even for a demon.

“Hey, Glore. Lost in your thoughts again? What’re you looking at?” Sky asked, without looking up. Glore quickly lowered her gaze and shook her head. She seemed too small to fit the crew; even younger than Flo. When the teens were busy talking again, Glore looked up at Flo. She raised her finger towards a small hole at the end of the plate line. Flo silently obeyed her orders, trusting the quiet and thoughtful looking demon, and inched towards the hole.

Sky and the gang noticed Glore staring upwards again. “What’s up there? Why do you keep on looking in that direction,” Ambrose asked. Flo’s eyes searched Glore’s for some sign or hint that would help her get out of this situation. If the rest of the demons found out that she was hiding here, they might turn her in to the Keep. The Keep was like a police station in human language. ‘This is it…’ Flo thought. That’s when Glore again did the unexpected. Her eyes darkened to a violet color and that instant, Flo felt a strong force pushing her down towards the plate. She crammed her eyes shut, just before the impact but it never happened.

“There’s nothing there. Just a two feet wide metal. Really, Glore, stop spacing out like that. We’re all sneaking out so we’re a little jumpy right now. We’ll get into big trouble if someone caught us here,” Terra explained.

Then, for the first time, Glore spoke and Flo could hear her clearly, “I sense the presence of an adult demon in that cave over there.” Her voice was so soft that had she been singing, Flo might have actually fallen asleep. Glore pointed towards the cave of lungs while the rest of the gang looked at her warily.

Sky sighed, “Alright. Let’s get out of here then.”

Flo heard their footsteps fade while still levitating above the metal plate. Very carefully, another force lifted her up into standing position. “Glore… I don’t know why you helped a human like me but thank you. I know you won’t be able to hear me… I hope I see you again, someday,” she whispered and crawled into the tiny hole. She was thin enough to fit through easily.

It was dark inside and smelled of saltwater. Flo could feel the dampness of the rocks underneath her palms as she continued forward blindly. She could feel mud get smeared onto her clothes. She did have a day off today and could clean them later. So first, she had to hope that this small tunnel was going to get her to a safe spot.

“It’s breathing is unsteady, see?” Flo paused. She could’ve sworn that was Melda’s voice echoing through the tunnel. Then she remembered that Melda was in the cave of lungs. The tunnel might have an opening there, that must be how she could hear her voice.

“You called me here for this?” It was Crayz for sure. Flo could recognize his grumpy voice anywhere.

“Patience, genius. Why would the lungs behave so strangely all of a sudden?” Melda asked.

“If the person had been running or something.”

“No, you idiot!” Melda snapped at Crayz.

“I think that the dragon had been shouting and became short of breath due to that,” Jon said, always thoughtfully.

“Correct.” Melda seemed pleased, “And therefore I came to the conclusion that the dragon has finally awoken after so many years. And if the dragon is awake then so is the demon… there is no use trying to feed him souls since he’s been rejecting them all. I believe we should try to talk to the demon so that we can devise a plan to destroy the dragon once and for all. The poor human girl won’t need to wipe its organs clean anymore. Her work will lessen as well.”

There were claps of approval. “But why on Earth would the Dragon need to shout? I didn’t hear anything. Where’s the source of its voice?” Jon asked.

“That is a very good question,” Melda remarked, “The only one who should know more about all the organs than us is that girl. We’ll have to ask her, of course.”

“I don’t trust her. She seems unstable to me.”

“Oh, quit it, Crayz. The only unstable person right now, is you.” Then to Jon, “So it’s settled then. I’ve given her a day off for today since I needed to do the lungs inspection. We’ll ask her first thing in the morning tomorrow.” Melda declared and then the two scientists started arguing whether to go with Melda’s plans. Crayz, obviously objected but stopped at once. ‘Melda must’ve given him one of her looks,’ Flo thought while still crawling.

Bruises had formed on her kneecaps and palms that were starting to sting. Flo paused to catch her breath and then looked up to see how far she had to go. She could see a white light from the other end of the tunnel. She only had a little more to go. Flo pursed her lips and balled her hands to fists to stop them from hurting. Then, taking a deep breath she edged towards the opening.

It was still too dark to see anything clearly and Flo didn’t even imagine that there would be a hole between her and the opening. It happened so fast that she couldn’t help herself in anyway. When Flo tried to rush towards the opening, the hole came first and she fell down a sloping tunnel. A scream escaped her lips and she shielded her eyes with her hands immediately. Her arms and legs got scratched by being rubbed against the hard rocks.

Light approached her and she was blinded for a split second before splashing into water. Flo thrashed around, flapping her arms and legs to get to the surface. She took a deep breath once her head was out of water and looked around, wiping the water from her eyes. “Water? A stream full of water? And the entire place is lighted well with bright lanterns. This must be a common visiting area for demons otherwise it wouldn’t have been so brightly lit.” Flo felt her arms and legs sting again. She raised one hand in front of her eyes. It was swollen with dark pink and purple marks everywhere. Her thumb was even bleeding. “Oh, another cut,” Flo said, wiping the blood to reveal nothing. “No cut? Then where did––?”

She glanced at the changing water. Tiny drops of blood appeared in it and started spreading like a poisonous gas. “What’s happening? Why’s it changing color so rapidly? Whoa!” Something grabbed her ankle and hauled her into the depths of the red liquid. Flo had experienced the exact same thing in her dream; one that had never left her thoughts since she’d woken up from it. She yelled but her voice was drowned by the water. She knew it was water because it tasted like pure water. Flo’s heart was thundering inside her chest. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to hold her breath for long; still she struggled, kicking the hand that had grabbed her ankle. She kicked hard and heard someone groan in pain from somewhere. Flo took the chance to break free from the not so tight grip now and swam upwards with her arms flapping up and down.

She popped her head out of the water, gasping and coughing at the same time. “Glore!” Flo didn’t know why she shouted out the demon’s name but she had no other choice. Glore might be nearby and was the only one who would not threaten her after saving her life. “Glore, help mee–” This time, there were two hands and they grabbed both her ankles. They pulled her so suddenly, roughly into the water again. Flo opened her eyes in irritation and anger but she saw no one. There was no hand or person whom the hand might belong to. Then, all of a sudden, the hands retreated while she was still thrashing around. In only a tiny instant, the hand grabbed hold of Flo’s neck and pushed her towards the rocks. Her head hit one of the rocks and all the leftover air escaped from her mouth along with a moan.

The water had gone into her nostrils, ears and mouth. Her senses were starting to go numb. There was heaviness in her chest which kept her from moving. Slowly, with her mind drifting away, Flo closed her eyes, surrendering to whatever lay inside the dark, red liquid; not being able to feel a thing…

“Your soul is mine to devour now…” said a soft whisper.