Chapter 5__The Cilios Realm
1530 Words
The doorway to the Cilios Realm throbbed with a nauseating red glow, the kind that made my eyes sting.
Even before I crossed the threshold, I sensed it. A pervasive wrongness, as if it were saturating my very being, causing my skin to prickle and my stomach to twist.
“Are you ready?” Gia asked.
“No,” I said honestly. “But let’s go anyway.”
She took my hand, and we stepped through together.
The difference was immediate and visceral. Where the Liminal Realm was all peace and light, this place was the total opposite.
The sky—if it even counted as one, looked like a mess of black clouds ripped through with red lightning.
The ground beneath me was treacherous, as though it could collapse at any instant.
And the sounds. My God, the sounds.
Screaming. Crying. Moaning. Thousands of voices layered on top of each other, creating a symphony of suffering that made me want to clap my hands over my ears.
“What is this place?” I whispered.
“This is the Cilios Realm,” Gia said. “Xarath’s creation. His feeding ground.”
I looked around, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Figures moved in the distance, hunched and broken. Some crawled. Some remained motionless, their mouths forming wordless cries.
The very ground appeared crafted to inflict suffering, featuring sharp stones and dark, bubbling puddles that emitted a hissing sound.
“Who are they?”
“Souls. Some are dead, pulled here instead of passing to the Liminal Realm like they should.”
“Others are still alive in the Mortal World, but their souls have been partially torn away and trapped here.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “For the living ones?”
“It means they suffer without knowing why,” Gia said, her voice tight.
“They feel pain, depression, anxiety, despair. Their bodies are in the Mortal World going about their lives, but their souls are here being tortured.”
“Eventually, most of them kill themselves to escape the agony. Then their whole soul comes here, and Xarath devours them.”
“That’s sick.”
“Yes. That’s why this has to stop.”
We walked deeper into the realm, and I tried not to look too closely at the suffering around me.
But it was impossible to ignore.
A woman sat rocking back and forth, clutching her knees and sobbing.
A man stood perfectly still, his eyes wide and unseeing, locked in some internal nightmare.
Children huddled together, their faces hollow and afraid.
“How many?” I asked.
“Thousands. Maybe more. Every mysterious death in your city over the past year, every suicide that seemed to come from nowhere, every person who went missing without explanation. Most of them ended up here.”
Bile rose in my throat. “And this Xarath just feeds on them?”
“Their suffering makes him stronger. Their souls eventually become part of this realm, adding to its power.”
“The more souls he claims, the more powerful he becomes.”
“It’s a cycle.”
“A cycle that won’t stop unless someone breaks it.”
We stopped at the edge of a chasm that seemed to drop into infinite darkness.
I could hear more screaming coming from below, echoing up from depths I couldn’t see.
“Your parents,” Gia said suddenly. “The accident that killed them. That wasn’t chance.”
I turned to look at her. “What?”
“Xarath orchestrated it. He knew about the Kaelix bloodline, knew your father was one of the last remaining guardians.”
“He tried to eliminate all of you at once. Your parents died. You survived.”
The words took a moment to sink in. When they did, it felt like the ground dropped out from under me.
“You’re saying my parents were murdered?” I asked. “That someone deliberately killed them?”
“Not someone. Something. Xarath saw your family as a threat to his plans.”
“He caused the accident. Your parents were targeted because of what they were. Because of what you are.”
“And I survived.”
“You survived. The fact that you’re alive is the only reason there’s any hope left at all.”
My hands curled into fists.
My parents hadn’t died in some random accident.
They’d been killed. Murdered by some cosmic entity because they were guardians. Because they stood in the way of something I still didn’t fully understand.
“The only reason your parents aren’t trapped in this nightmare is because they’re from the Kaelix bloodline,” Gia continued.
“Your father’s blood and your mother became part of that bloodline when she carried you.”
“Their souls are protected. They made it to the Liminal Realm. But everyone else Xarath has touched ends up here.”
“What about my Aunt Andrea?” I asked, a cold fear settling in my chest. “Is she safe?”
“No one in the Mortal World is safe. Not while Xarath grows stronger. He could take her tomorrow. Next week. Any time.”
My chest tightened. Andrea was all I had left.
The thought of her suffering like these souls trapped and tormented.
“I need to stop him,” I said. “Whatever it takes.”
“You will. But first, you need to see something else,” Gia said. “Someone else.”
She led me through the twisted landscape, past more suffering souls whose faces blurred together in my mind.
I couldn’t process all of it. Couldn’t hold the weight of so much pain.
Finally, we stopped in front of a figure hunched on the ground.
It was a girl, maybe my age, with long dark hair that hung in tangled strands around her face.
She was rocking slowly, arms wrapped around herself, making small keening sounds of distress.
I took a step closer. There was something familiar about her.
Then she looked up, and recognition hit me like a physical blow.
“Raya.”
Raya Mitchell. The girl I loved back in high school who’d made me nervous and excited all at once.
Who’d smiled at me across classrooms and made my heart race.
She’d moved away after graduation, and I’d heard she died in a car accident six months ago.
But she wasn’t at peace.
She was here. Trapped in this nightmare.
“Raya?” I whispered.
She didn’t respond. Didn’t seem to see me at all. Her eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing, and her whole body trembled.
“She can’t hear you,” Gia said quietly. “She’s too deep in the torment.”
“This is what happens to souls trapped here. They lose themselves piece by piece until there’s nothing left but suffering.”
“How long has she been like this?” I asked.
“Six months in the Mortal World. For her, it’s been much longer.”
Something cracked inside my chest.
This girl who’d been kind to me, who’d deserved a full life, was stuck here in endless agony.
“Can she be saved?”
“Yes,” Gia said. “But only if you act.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have the power to save her, Kaiden. To pull her soul free and send it where it belongs. To the Liminal Realm, where she can finally have peace.”
“Then let’s do it,” I said. “Let’s save her right now.”
Gia shook her head slowly. “It’s not that simple. You’re not ready yet.”
“You haven’t learned how to use your powers. But you could try. You could reach for that power inside you and attempt to free her.”
I looked at Raya, at her broken form. “Then what’s stopping me?”
“The risk. Using your power before you’re ready will alert Xarath to your presence.”
“He’ll know you’re alive. He’ll come for you. And right now, you’re not strong enough to face him.”
“But I could save her.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’d fail and die trying. Then everyone here stays trapped forever.”
I stared at Raya, my hands shaking. “So what do I do?”
“That’s your choice to make,” Gia said. “Save her now and risk everything.”
“Or walk away, train, get stronger, and come back when you can save everyone.”
The weight of that decision pressed down on me like a physical thing.
“How much time does she have?”
Gia’s expression was sad. “There is no time here. Only suffering.”
“She’ll exist like this until someone frees her or until Xarath consumes her completely.”
I looked at Raya one more time, memorizing her face, and felt something harden inside me.
“I’ll come back for you,” I said, even though she couldn’t hear me. “I promise. I’ll save you. I’ll save everyone even if it's the last thing I do.”
- Writer
