Heaven Forbid: Instance

A vast vacuous darkness as far as the eye could see. That was all there was. Dee led the way with her scythe held down at her side. Her head searched the entire space for any signs of life, movement or anything.

Nothing lay there except a void. She sighed and continued to walk. From behind her she could hear the footsteps of the others as they followed her. The three of them were walking in a skewed line. It seemed that in this place, the only thing that existed was them.

Madeleine was walking with her phone out, “Of course there’s no signal here,” she muttered, “and whatever we’re walking on isn’t dirt because my powers won’t work.”

“I’m guessing that we can’t teleport, either,” Dee said. “I’m even willing to bet I couldn’t send my scythe away if I wanted.”

Brandon remained silent, holding his gun down at his side. Madeleine slipped her phone back into the pocket of her small white sweater. She moved closer to Brandon and reached around the side of his duster to pull out a long silvery saber, “Mind sharing a weapon friend?”

He glanced at her and shook his head.

Dee glanced back, her voice shaking as she said, “Brandon,” she started, “You need to stick close to me—its not safe here.”

“I’ve been to one of these places before,” Brandon said. Dee stared at him in shock now, “Back when I trained with the Order, we were made to fight a demon in this type of environment as a final exam. At the seminary we called these Instances.”

“Fancy name,” Madeleine said, “I just prefer to say we’re in a little part of Hell.”

There drought of speech and Dee turned back towards them, “Wait, what part of Hell?” she asked.

Madeleine sighed, “Hell’s rather large and I’ve not traveled around most of it.”

Brandon shook his head, “There’s no use arguing about it, we can’t even see to identify what’s around us.”

Dee peered off into the distance, past Brandon and Madeleine as if she were staring through the darkness itself, “There’s something back there—“

Her two companions glanced back. Up in the sky there were large red dots in a row, glowing like lights. Madeleine stepped back closer to Dee, “Something’s not right about this.”

The air was shaken with a thunderous screech. Each member of the group brandished their weapon as the darkness seemed to give way to a giant dark form. Parts of the void itself seemed to move and came alive in a monstrous arachnid shape.

Dee lowered her weapon and widened her stance, “Aw man,” she edged back placing a curled hand on her bottom lip. “It had to be a giant spider.”

The huge red orbs were the eyes of the creature. It lurched forward through the darkness emitting a gurgling sound. Its movements were sluggish and smooth, but the creature itself was of a massive size.

Brandon moved back some bringing his gun up and firing at the creature. He fired six times towards the thing’s face and the creature howled.

Dee called out, “You think that’s going to hurt it?”

“They’re blessed silver—it felt something did you see the reaction,” Brandon said.

Madeleine sighed, “This sword’s going to be useless,” she jammed the weapon into the ground. The monster was nearing them, its pincher like jaws wide feeding into the hole of its mouth. “Good thing I carry these,” Madeleine reached into the top of her dress and pulled out a pair of grenades.

“I thought your boobs looked funny,” Dee said as she stared in amazement.

“Ladies!” Brandon shouted as threw his fedora to the ground in the between all of them. A large circle with Hebrew characters appeared on the ground closing them in. The demonic spider fired a huge glob of green gunk at them.

As it hit the edge of Brandon’s protective circle it fizzled out.

“Eww, what the fuck!” Dee whined.

Madeleine flicked the pins out of the grenades with her thumbs and hurled them up towards the beast’s face. As they detonated the thing roared in pain, its face covered by the power of the blast. The fire spread and lit a small area of the void.

Now the creature had become a walking conflagration. A cascade of fire poured down off its face. Part of the torso was blasted open. In a fit of wrenching pain the spider lunged at them its cries imbued with torment.

Brandon and Madeleine dove out of the way as the thing stumbled towards them. Dee sprung straight up into the colorless void her glorious white wings spreading from her back. They beat against the air as she tried to keep her flight pattern right.

One hand covered her heart and the other held tightly to her trusted scythe. From this high up she could barely see Brandon and Madeleine lying on the ground where they had landed.

“Dee, coward—you’re going to have to stop it!” Madeleine screamed from the ground.

“I can’t—I hate spiders!”

“Stop being a baby!” Madeleine replied.

Dee took a deep breath, the spider didn’t seem to see her or any of the others. The grenade more than likely had blinded it. So that put her at a slight advantage. In the back of her mind though she knew she didn’t want to take on a demon this size head on.

That was when she knew what she was going to use.

“Madeleine, wrap your wings around Brandon!” she yelled.

Madeleine fluffed her wings out, their span stretched out to their length and then she rushed over and enclosed herself and Brandon. Dee tossed her free hand back behind herself as she treaded air. She snapped her fingers and a ball of intimidating looking fire grew and formed up high behind her.

The ball grew to size comparable to that of the monster and then Dee flew up from it letting the ball rain down and smash into the spider’s back. The creature was crushed in a loud screech and its parts were flung out from the blast area.

Here and there debris from its scorched carcass littered the void. Dee fell to the ground on all fours with her winds sagging onto the ground around her. She took hungry deep breaths at the air. She put her forehead flat on the ground, pieces of the creature rained down around her.

Brandon ran to her side and grabbed her around the shoulders, “You did well, Dee.”

The void seemed to lighten now, and then it became transparent. Madeleine was standing over Dee and Brandon looking off into what had been the blackness. Now they were back in Brandon’s living room.

Every sign of the struggle vanished. Brandon’s sword was stuck in the wooden floor of the kitchen. Brandon’s fedora sat on the floor just inside of the door. Madeleine glared down at Dee, “Oh suck it up, Dee, you’re fine.”

Madeleine flipped her bangs out of her hair and started out of the room, “We’re going to need to dig deeper for this information,” she said, “But where we’re going they don’t allow Demon Hunters…”