City of Sinners

Chapter 40

I gasped. Hard.

The burning sensation inside my chest is hard to remove. The longer I breath, the more painful this unexplainable burning is reaping off my chest. It was hard to recover my normal pace of breathing. The way I gasp was short and forced. Tears was coming off of my eyes, but my eyes were numb. I can’t feel the sensation of the tears flowing out of my eyes, and rolling on to my cheeks. I just … know it.

“Sitri, are you okay?” Gaston asked. His face was in pure state of panic. He does not know what to do to me. If I was at his situation, I would have been panicking as well. the way I clinched through my forced breathing in order to survive was surely bothering.

“Bullshit, Sitri! Why do you always put yourself at risk?!”

Eyes are widely opened in order to remain awake, I looked at Valour who has just arived. Just like Gaston, he was worrying for me.

“H—Help …” I said in between of my gasps.

“H—Hey, Sitri? Come on, don’t do this.”

My breathing became shorter than earlier. My lungs felt more pained. Burning. As I continued trying to breath in order to remain alive, I noticed that it requires a lot of energy, of strength. Until I suddenly felt tired. My strength to continue my forced breathing were now all used. I’m out of it. Gone of it.

My widely opened eyes, slowly, moved into closing.

******

Headache brought me into awake. My head was throbbing painfully, causing me to open my eyes along with a grunt coming from my throat. The moment that I woke up, I noticed that the surrounding is familiarly unfamiliar. I am groggy and confused, but I am sure that we’re on a familiar place I have been visiting many times since the—the Upperhill village, but at the same time, it is not the Upperhill Village anymore. My mind finally realized back that this place is not normal because this is the den of the demons-this is the hell.

I recalled what has happened to me as well earlier before falling asleep. I remembered the exact same pain that burnt and pained my chest to the point that I almost want to die. I remembered my desperate gasps. And, my body let me remember the extreme pain creeping all through my bones and tissues. It was an experience only hell could bring.

Remembering that we’re inside this realm of demons, I also remembered that the whole surrounding should be in the surroundings of red. However, my forehead scrunched when I noticed that the light coming from the sky is not red anymore but of a stormy mixes of blue and gray—like the color of the sky before the dawn, before the glimmering of the sun above.

“Sitri?” Below me, I heard Valour calling my name.

I wanted to answer him, but I couldn’t because it felt like my throat were wounded and has shrunk into a tiny piece.

“Sitri, are you awake?” he asked.

I could not talk, nor even moved my body into motion—as if I was paralyzed. In order to answer his question, what I did was release a weak moan, hinting him that my I am now awake.

“Gaston,” Valour called. Valour was behind Gaston, and I noticed him immediately because of his familiar back.

“Yeah?” he asked, then turned around.

I am sure that Valour would ask Gaston to confirm if I am finally awake or not. However, he does need to ask it anymore. The moment he turned to Valour to respond to his call, his stare swept at my part. For a moment, he stared at me confusingly, checking if what he was seeing was real.

“Bullshit! Yah now awake, Sitri!” he shouted, pointing at me as if an exited child who have seen a balloon or a toy he mostly wanted to have. The whole surrounding suddenly had a commotion after Gaston’s screaming. He had caught the attention of almost everyone, but most especially of the Vultures.

I wanted to tell something like they don’t have to worry about me because I’m more of a demon than a real one, and I would not just easily die with just those pesky accident. However, my current state would not allow me to do so. I could not speak nor move my body. Only my eyes. Barely.

There is a lot of noises that is happening, but I think I am still tired to listen to all of those.

“Hey,” suddenly, Valour has called the whole gang, “allow Sitri to rest first. She needs to gain her energy first before talking nonsensical things back again.”

I wanted to slap Valour because of what he had said, but, yes, I know, I could not move my body. I will just retaliate to him when I gain back my strength. But thanks to him, those annoying noises trying to talk to me were now all gone, and the whole place went back into silence.

Valour adjusted my weight on his back, so that he could carry me more comfortably. That is right. I am being carried by Valour on his back. He must have been tired right now because I know that I am not that kind of girls who weighs a feather. However, knowing Valour he would not show that he’s having a hard time long as he was helping someone.

“I bet you’re now wondering why the whole place turned a dead color,” out of nowhere, Valour asked. To answer him, I made a guttural moan from my throat.

Valour laughed. “That’s a weird sound,” he said. Then he went explaining me further what had happened. “Truth is, we don’t know what this place was into, so we don’t know the reason why from the bloody red sky, it turned dead. All we just know is that after defeating every Sinners, and after passing the first house inside this village, the whole place becomes this weird. It was just a read-dead place. Every house turned looking like haunted. There maybe no flames that is burning the whole surrounding, but the plants and the whole area was already dead. Even the air seemed one. The way how haunted places became.”

“Crap.”

I was busy listening to Valour, when Gaston interrupted us with a bothered cursing. He was looking into something. If I am just as fine as them, I would have cursed more than what they are doing.

Ghosts were real. No, those were not just ghosts, those were … tortured spirits. Above us, in the dead sky, I saw cluster of spirits swirling chaotically. Just like a storm, or a tremendous cyclone, the spirits were as if being endlessly dragged by unorganized wind. Similar to that, the sound of the storm, unlime the usual one, was made up of the ghosts’ weeps and cries. And now, they were coming to us. To the whole group of survivors. The panic has started once again.

What could those spirits do? Are we going to be tortured once again?

“Well, well, it seemed that the survivors has finally reached the second circle of hell.”

A cluster of spirit suddenly exploded in front of the group, and from that, another creature—again, a giant one—has appeared. It was a serpent. No, half a human and half a Serpent. The tail is of a snake, the upper body is of a scaly man, with slitted eyes, and a snake-like tongue. At the top of its head is a crown—a symbol of being a ruler, a king.

He scratched his neck irritatingly. “Welcome to the second circle of hell,” he said, then scratched the other part of his neck. “I am Minos. Once a king of Crete, in Greece, now the king of the circle of lust.” His tail moved, and then wrapped on his own body seven times. Then, he smiled.