NIVIAN
THE SHADOW OF a mountain rose up from the ground behind her and she ran as if it chased her. Nivian pumped her arms, forcing her legs to take longer strides.
A fissure appeared through the haze of dirt. She hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings. There was no where else to go but over.
Nivian sped up and pushed off the ground, leaping into the air and landing with a roll on the other side. The impact forced the air from her lungs with a violent kick. She coughed and sputtered on the dirt cloud surrounding her as she forced her body to remember how to breathe again. Nivian hopped back to her feet, swerving to the foot of the nearest silent volcano. She skidded on loose gravel as she ducked behind a large outcropping of rock.
Her legs shook as she crouched within its shadow, pressing her back to the hard surface. Trying to become part of the rock itself, Nivian’s fingers clung to the uneven stone. She waited for her breathing to quiet and slow.
The rumbling stopped and Nivian turned her head to peek around her shelter. The haze of dirt still swirled, obscuring the landscape, turning it into a valley of shadow and fire and ash.
Nothing moved, but she waited for another long moment.
Then another.
And another.
Still, nothing. It had only been her imagination.
She never saw anything give chase, it was only the constant rumble of the ring of volcanoes as they prepared to erupt. But she couldn’t shake the crawling feeling, which lingered even now, of being watched by something dark and venomous.
Nivian leaned her head back against the rock and chastised herself for letting her imagination run away like that.
Eventually, she pushed to her feet and laughed quietly to herself. The sound came out a little strained, belying the lightness she tried to impart, her nervousness not entirely gone. She swiped strands of hair from her face, feeling the grit of dust smear across the back of her hand.
Nivian studied her surroundings and looked to the distance where the valley ended in a gap of shadow. Save for a few streams of lava that would cause her to detour, she could walk relatively close along the base of the volcanoes to get to the far side where the rivers met the lake.
Nivian started walking again, placing her feet carefully to make as little sound as possible and sticking close to whatever shelter she could find.
The feeling of being watched increased with every step. A shiver ran down her spine and she moved a little closer to the edges of rocks jutting out.
The rumbling started again.
Her eyes darted around, scanning the valley, but saw nothing different. She scoffed, brushing it off as her overactive imagination. It was probably nothing more than another eruption about to happen.
A rank, hot breeze stroked against the back of her neck, rustling the loose strands of her hair. Again. And again. Slow and rhythmic.
Loose pebbles rolled and danced at her feet from the vibration surrounding her. Nivian swallowed, her heartbeat thumped rapid and uneven in her throat. Slowly, she turned her head to glance over her shoulder.
The thick mantle of dust thickened all around her. A mountainous shadow grew out of the ground, hidden by the cloud just as it had the first time. But before she could dismiss it again, the shape shifted in place; a hill come to life.
It wasn’t her imagination after all.
Two bright orbs glowed from within the billowing murk, red as liquid gold. Then the shadow took form. Massive shoulders, with lines of cracked rock, flickered with fire.
A single bead of sweat dripped down her temple. She swallowed hard and, in response, swirls of sweltering breath pulsed within the clouds, rancid and vile.
Nivian didn’t wait for it to move, to advance, to zero in on her. She threw herself into a run, as hard and as fast as she could, feet pounding the baked, hardened dirt. Each step hammered through her, jarring her bones.
Faster… she had to move faster.
Louder and louder the thunder grew as the beast gained, nearly on her heels. The stench of its breath and the reek of rotting flesh coated her skin. She could feel the searing and greasy heat radiate from its molten body.
Nivian darted forward, running as fast as her legs would move. Sweat dripped down her face in rivulets, mixed with the steam created from her once dripping clothes. She struggled to breathe as she pushed and pushed herself to keep going. She couldn’t stop.
The rivers of magma and ravines gave way to a minefield of rounded vents and pools of liquid earth. Popping lava surrounded her on every side and the sound of thunder followed close behind.
Her eyes darted around, looking for the beast. But it remained just out of her line of sight.
Sparks showered around her as she swerved and darted. The dust storm grew stronger, changing direction with no rhyme or reason, whipping her hair around her face.
A wall of flame shot up inches in front of her. Nivian screamed raising up her arms to shield her face. The heat singed her hands, her hair, her clothes. She threw herself to the ground to avoid falling into the fire and landed hard on her side, rolling to her back.
The quaking quieted and the only sound was her labored breathing and the popping of lava.
The beast had vanished.
She whimpered as small shards of black lava rock dug into the cut on her tender palm, making her eyes water. She sucked in a hiss through her teeth and took a second to examine the raw flesh of her hands. More abrasions had opened up, the existing one made worse by the volcanic glass.
Nivian looked to where she’d been running. Somehow she had veered away from the shelter of the foothills and was now exposed in the middle of the valley, surrounded by fiery pits.
The end of the valley was nothing more than shadow framed on either side by a long line of volcanoes. Nivian rose to her feet and the ground shuddered once in response. She was almost there, though her energy was quickly leaving her.
Behind her, just within the corner of her sight, slow, steady waves of dirt rolled toward her. The sharp jagged hill reappeared. She turned her chin just enough to take in the creature as the dust settled around it.
A Cherufe, standing at least fifteen feet tall, stomped one massive hoof making her teeth rattle and sending another cloud of dust in her direction. Even nearly half a mile away, she could feel its heat, smell the decaying flesh of its breath.
She had heard of this beast but seeing it with her own two eyes, standing in the same realm, it was far more terrifying than she thought possible.
The body resembled that of a bull, if it were made of broken rock glowing with molten cracks.
But the head—the head was large and humanoid, made of bone with two thick horns jutting out at the top, curving up and back. Two fiery coals in the dark hollows of its skull-like head blinked out at her through vertical slits of black down the center, holding pure rage. And hunger. Insatiable, endless hunger.
“Gaia, help me.” The words escaped her lips in a breathless plea.
The beast took one step forward. Then another. Then let out a roar unlike anything she’d ever heard, deep and screeching as if the monsters of nightmares had been made into a single, horrid creature.
As slowly as she could, Nivian backed away, but with each movement, the creature came closer.
Run, run! Her mind screamed.
Forgetting caution, she forced herself to move through the fear and spun on her heel, running for the end of the valley. It was still so far. Too far. And the Cherufe was too fast. She would never make it out of the valley alive if she tried to outrun it.
The ash from the eruptions made the sky dark, as if the false day of the Underworld was fading into night. Her only light was the constant pits of fire pocking the floor of the vale.
The Cherufe pounded behind her, each beat of its thunderous hooves hammering like the beat of a heart, fast and faster as it gained on her.
Nivian looked around desperately for a place it couldn’t go. She could feel its heat getting closer.
It let out a roar so powerful it nearly knocked her off her feet.
Nivian zagged sharply to the left. A body as large and heavy as the beast's couldn’t change its momentum as quickly as she could.
It slammed face first into the ground where she had been seconds ago, skidding to a stop and creating trenches with its massive hooves. It bellowed and aimed for her, turning in a large, rounded curve.
She ran for the nearest peak and clawed her way up the side. Nivian was thankful for the rough hewn rocks as she used them to pull herself up. The Cherufe, with its cloven hooves, would have a hard time climbing something so steep.
Or so she hoped.
Nivian climbed and climbed. The beast was running again, sights set on her. It reached the base of the peak as she hit the halfway point.
She reached up but couldn’t quite get to the next handhold. Lifting herself up on her toes, she pressed her belly flush against the rock. Almost. But still inches away.
Nivian leaped for the overhanging platform and missed, sliding back down, the rock scraping her flesh through her clothes. She tried again and whimpered when she missed.
She took one steading breath and tried a third time, barely catching the lip of the rock. It dug into her palms, but the hand of fear steeled her resolve and she pulled herself up and scurried along her makeshift path as the mountain leveled enough for her to stand and walk. Nivian continued to grab onto the rocks for leverage and to keep from sliding on the loose gravel she hadn’t counted on, which slowed her pace further.
She damned Hades for his cursed realm.
The billowing monster below waited with an open maw, as though expecting her to slip and fall into certain death.
She kept pushing forward. It grew harder to climb as she progressed in the sweltering heat. Her fingers became slick with sweat.
The beast bashed against the stone, rocking the earth and creating an avalanche of gravel to move under her feet. She fell, sliding down the side. Nivian clawed for something to stop her decent into the waiting jaws of the Cherufe below.
It pounded with both of its front hooves over and over.
Her boot hit the ledge of a rock, stopping her descent, and she held herself against the mountain’s side. The Cherufe let out a furious roar, slamming into the rock again.
She clung to the mountain then watched as two razor like talons extended from its cloven hooves and it started to climb.
Nivian flipped back around and started scrambling with everything she had, ignoring the pain in her burned and torn hands, ignoring the waning energy of her muscles.
She collapsed at the top, the heat and exertion taking its toll on her mortal body. Nivian retched violently over the edge then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
The Cherufe still gained. Its claws allowed it to follow her where it never should have been able to traverse. Sparks flew from the talons as they hit and buried themselves into the stone.
Cornered.
Behind her, only a drop off into the volcano itself, in front of her, a beast wanting nothing more than to crush her bones between its serrated teeth.
There was no where else for her to go.
Nivian narrowed her eyes and stared the Cherufe down.
“Come and get me,” she snarled through clenched teeth. She wouldn’t lose her soul to Hades, not without a fight.
Her fists tightened painfully at her sides.
The beast seemed to understand her challenge and charged, closing the distance with an impossible speed.
She crouched low.
Two hundred feet away. One hundred. Seventy. Forty. Fifteen…
Nivian threw herself to the side, preparing to roll down the mountain, but as she sailed through the air, time seemed to slow.
The Cherufe lunged for her, but it was too late to change direction as it started to skid, its massive body flailing as it slid over the edge.
The long trunk like tail of the creature whipped wildly in the air, striking her and sending her body into a mad spin, then throwing her to the ground as it smashed the lip of the cliff.
The wind was ripped from her lungs, leaving her gasping as the ground beneath her crumbled from under the weight of the tail and disappeared.
Nivian only had time to pull in a single breath before she found herself falling.