A metallic sound of rapid and successive blows, which after that burst it stopped for a moment and started again.
Soon the echo was so loud that it was easy to guess that the origin of the noise was a few meters away, and the tension that Tristessa accumulated in her shoulders was reaching the point of pain.
"Another…demon?"
Out of the shadows, what the girl saw next was a new humanoid entity but that retained little or no trace of humanity in its person, beyond its feminine appearance. Its legs were covered by a skirt of a dark material that moved perpetually, as if it were made of water from the depths of the abyss. Her torso, like that of Tristessa's escort, was also almost completely reconstructed with abundant clockwork machinery, although it was partially covered by a layer made of thin, bloody red muscle fabric that emerged from behind her right shoulder, passed over it and down to her waist. There was also another similar fleshy layer but it emerged from behind the other shoulder and was in free fall.
Two shattered wings, boneless and reduced to nothing more than rotting skin and muscle.
CLING…CLING…CLING…
More gears and miasma suction points protruded from that other demoness' arms, and with hands that looked like claws due to the sharp and long nails she had, she pulled a thick, golden chain inside the wall, generating that loud metallic noise.
What that chain moved was a complex and intricate network of bars that blocked the passage through the following section of the hallway. Made of obsidian and carved with hundreds of thousands of runes, the bars prevented the access of even the tiniest insect.
Nothing that carried a soul was allowed to pass... Or at least, that's what the guardian of that place dictated; that mechanical angel with broken wings.
"Mmm... Ah..."
Two erotic sounds came from inside the succubus's mouth, filling Tristessa with that confusing feeling of heat inside her that even overwrote the fear of the unknown. In response, the new entity stopped the movement of her arms and turned her head, giving her attention to both of them: it was adorned with a black metal crown with points that bent and formed a vertical circle, and it reached up to cover her eyes with a black iron plate with strange red-hot symbols engraved on it. Two slits took the place of her nose, and her mouth was the most human thing she had, reduced to two dark blue lips paralyzed in a disturbing smile that showed teeth stained with blood.
"Huh? W-wait!" The succubus released Tristessa, who despaired at the absence of that cold hand and fingers that had intertwined with hers. With the charm broken, she noticed the unconscious tears and a superfluously broken heart as a result of that separation, incomprehensible to the poor and confused human. "F-fuck… Enough of manipulating my emotions…!"
As Tristessa recovered from the artificial sadness caused by her broken heart, the succubus closed the gap with the other entity and leaned against her chest, still sighing with pleasure. The gears of both creatures engaged and synchronized, made for each other, and the angel enclosed her lover in an embrace, covering her with her putrid wing that she used as a cape.
Both of them took the golden chains from the wall with their free hands and began to pull, causing the bars to move in different directions this time and, slowly, to begin to show openings towards the darkness. Tristessa saw that there were no lights in the continuation of the hallway, and when the bars finally ended up retreating into the walls, she had a black void front of her. Pure darkness; miasma that had been locked away on the other side for a long time.
Tristessa swallowed non-existent saliva at that heavy feeling of uneasiness on her shoulders. She looked at the inhuman couple in search of silent support, but both of them limited themselves to looking at her with those macabre smiles. They were not willing to guide her; having opened the gate had been more than enough.
She let out a sigh of defeat, and slowly turned her gaze towards the darkness.
"What do they expect me to find in there?" she asked herself, then took a brave step towards the unknown. "Will this be the end of my nightmare, or the beginning? Or am I really dead and doom awaits me? Perhaps the runes on the bars prayed that I lose all hope upon entering…"
Any thinking being would have thought the same thing. Entering the unknown, the absolute darkness, was intrinsically linked to a primordial fear. A defense mechanism that screamed don't go there, watching over the survival of its host.
But Tristessa, feeling that malignant miasma embracing her body with more fervor, devouring every particle of light that came from the endless corridor, the last thing she felt was fear: each step she took filled her with anxiety, with expectation, with a hope of finding the light at the end of the tunnel that was not compatible with that circumstance.
Discord, the metaphysical manifestation of darkness, became heavier and heavier, to the point that navigating it required a significant effort on the part of the girl. Like fighting against the flow of a river that reached up to her neck, she pushed her body forward, gritting her teeth and with both hands outstretched, pressing against nothing. Without saying a word, her concentration totally dedicated to moving forward, as if the continuity of her spirit depended on it.
She pushed, she pressed, she forced forward. More force, more violence, more momentum to keep going. With her nails digging into what had become a layer of solid darkness, Tristessa scratched and pressed. Breathing became harder, more demanding, but she couldn't give up. Not after having advanced so much. She felt like she was close to achieving a result, she knew it. She knew she had to keep going. More, much more, more force, until her muscles burn from the effort, until her bones ache from the pressure, until her nails break from cutting and her knuckles crack from hitting.
"AHHHHH!"
A scream of fury, a scream of seeking release, echoed through the dark dimension. With her mind dominated by her survival instinct, Tristessa cut off her yell to bite into the miasma and tear, not swallowing, only intending to cause damage and break through.
Nails and teeth, working together, until they tore through that layer of darkness and got out at once. One more war cry, one more.
"AHHHH!" With that scream, with all the strength she could summon in her hands, Tristessa managed to tear open the darkness and instantly her vision turned red. Her ears filled with the sounds of slimy things spilling everywhere. A deep, salty, ferrous smell filled her nose, as she coughed and spat out liquid she had swallowed when her scream ceased. "Ah…uff…"
Cold air filled her lungs, although her body was considerably warm due to the liquid she was soaked in from head to toe. Her limbs were numb, so tired from so much effort that she was forced to crawl on that surface covered in wet, slippery things.
"Uh…fuck…" she whined, her voice sounding rough and weak. She coughed a little more and her dejected body only allowed her to kneel at the cost of feeling the equivalent of thousands of red-hot needles pricking every muscle fiber. "Am I doomed to feel pain forever?"
As she thought, Tristessa wiped her eyes with the back of her hands as best she could, as they were just as dirty as her face. As her vision cleared a little better, she realized that the light of the Twin Moons fell upon her, so beautifully and brightly that she could see clearly in the darkness.
"T-the Forest…!" she wanted to scream but her throat wasn't ready for that. The giant trees rose around her and the leaves fell in the darkness, being gently pushed by the night breeze. "I-I…am…!"
The word alive never came out of her lips, as she realized something terrible when she looked down: she was naked, and almost all of her body was covered in blood. And it wasn't her own blood, nor was it the guts that were spilling across the stone surface and that she was crushing with her knees.
Turning her body slightly and looking over her shoulder, Tristessa saw a giant dead wolf with its belly split open irregularly. Muscles torn, organs expelled to the outside and blood that kept flowing.
Panic took hold of the girl, who, breathing rapidly, with bulging eyes and clenching her teeth to resist crying, looked at her hands, trembling and with pieces of flesh lodged under her nails.
A third scream broke the stillness of the night. The scream of a newborn. A scream of despair.