Euphoria Leak: The Heaven Called Hell: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: A Tale of Malise

Malise stood on the edge of a cliff, the wind howling all around her, whipping her hair about like a flag in a hurricane, staring into an infinite dark abyss.

“Malise, it will happen in 666 hours…. 666 hours.” A very deep, warped and mesmerizing male voice rang in her ear.

“…what will happen?” She called over the sound of the wind and boiling lava. An image of a fiery pit appeared in the flagrant abyss which was now red with fiery hatred.

When the voice spoke next it was loud and extremely raspy, “The end of all things living! The apocalypse!” It roared.

‘The end of all things…?’ Malise thought to herself.

“Yes, Malise, and I will need your help,” he replied, reading her thoughts, and she bowed.

“Yes, of course, anything. What must I do?” She answered and asked obediently, yet still keeping the strength in her voice that was her signature.

The voice laughed a deep, rumbling cackle. “Very good, my humble servant. I need you to awaken my followers that are still sleeping from the reincarnation process, yes, it’s always a messy business, especially when the soul has already been condemned to one side or the other, but it was necessary and now I need you to awaken the others and also four more of my loyal beasts. You must also summon forth the strongest demon fighter ever spawned, LAN THE FIERY DEMON OF HELL!” He shouted, his voice growing stronger with every syllable until it reached enormous volume and shook the very ground beneath Malise’s feet.

Malise nodded. “What are their names, master?” She asked.

The ubiquitous voice returned to its normal measure. “They are Braeden, the pyre entity, Marie, the aqua entity, Kirra the thought entity, Aurelia the life entity, Torin the light entity, and Jeremy, the darkness entity, are the main ones that I want you to worry about. Of course, if you happen to come across anyone whom you think may be an entity, do not hesitate to take note and notify me immediately. Do not be fooled by their current status or of its coincidental nature for where they appear, for their souls will probably have chosen hosts close to each other, since souls, when reincarnated, do tend to stay close; which is most convenient for us.”

Malise could hear the smile in his voice, even though she could not see the being speaking. “Do me well my Natas, the Dream entity Malise,” The voice said as the body of Satan materialized in front of the one rightly named Malise.

“That is all I need of you,” He spoke, and the next instant Malise was awakened by the soft buzzing of her cell phone vibrating on her bedside table. She opened her sharp icy blue eyes as slowly as a casket opening.

“Master, I shall obey,” she whispered under her breath, her skin livid in the pale moonlight and her black hair blowing behind her in the breeze filtering through the open window to the left of her bed. It was either right before dawn, or just after it, and the sky was dark lavender and blue. It was a brisk April morning.

She swiped her cell phone off the table and quickly read the text message even though she knew what it read already; the same thing it did every morning; ‘WAKE UP!!!’ A smile touched her lips.

She rose like a vampire, getting dressed in her usual black and quickly running a brush through her hair. She had gotten a shower last night, as usual. She crept to the window of her third floor bedroom and just stood there waiting for Arden to cross the street and call up as usual; today she waited a full five minutes before he came. Arden always sent her wake up messages and escorted her to school, since he lived just across the street. He was wearing a black tee-shirt and black jeans. Arden had been the first person to truly understand her, and accept her and her morbid interests.

“Come on, we’re going to be late for school!” He called yet again, and she smiled yet again, secretly pleased to see her friend. But she rolled her eyes and hid her pleasure to put on a show, yet again.

“Coming,” she replied speaking normally, but her voice was still easy to hear. She ran to the steps and flew down three flights at warp speed, and then out the door with the grace of a cat, not bothering to alert her oblivious family she was leaving.

They walked leisurely to school, needing only to go one block before they arrived at school, where they stood outside for nearly 20 minutes, greeting their later arriving friends and talking, sucking in the freedom before it was time to submit to conformity and yet again become just one of the numbers of their high school. “Hey Kiara,” Arden greeted her, as one of their friends walked around the corner and into view. Again today Kiara was wearing a black tee shirt, blue jeans, a black wristband and her long hair hanging loosely around her.

When the warning bell rang they went inside and headed off to their first period; English, their favorite class of the day. The second bell rang and they took their usual seats close to the teacher but far enough away they and a few other friends could pass notes without her being able to see it, not that she’d care much, she usually just asked to read it because their notes were notorious for being creative, random, and hilarious. They were highly entertaining.

“Today we’re going to be reviewing the reading selection that I assigned before the break…and perhaps by… Friday,” she decided, “we can watch the video over it.”

The small group of friends looked at each other and grinned, a movie meant more notes.

The rest of the classes were boring as usual up until lunch for most, but Kiara enjoyed art alone. Ding! Ding! The lunch bell rang as Arden, Malise and Kiara were walking down the hall. Arden grabbed them by the elbows and pulled them into the lunch room.

Both girls protested indignantly and struggled to get free.

“I gotta eat, I’m starving,” Arden said as he dragged them into the lunch room.

They wrenched their arms free and walked through the line with him casually, grabbing a piece of school pizza before sitting down at the back table next to the windows. Kiara and Malise had to wait nearly three minutes for Arden to sit down, since he put so much food on his tray, but he still beat their other friends. About ten minutes after he sat down he had already consumed three pieces of pizza, a small can of Pringles, two chocolate milks, a Yoo-hoo and two chocolate muffins. Kiara, Malise, and their other friends were left staring at him wide-eyed, their mouths partially open.

“He must be extra hungry today,” Kiara said to Malise. “What’s the matter Arden? No dinner last night?”

Arden shook his head, his cheeks bulging with partially chewed food. “Oi’m chuss… weally… ungwy,” he said through a mouthful.

Malise cocked her eyebrow and leaned forward, lifting her head off of its resting place; her entwined fingers. “What was that?” She asked putting her hand behind one of her ears, as if to increase the amount of sound entering them.

Arden swallowed the huge amount of food in his mouth and his throat bulged out immensely as the bite slipped down. “I’m just really hungry,” he said before diving back into his fourth piece of pizza. The girls looked at each other and smiled. Despite how much Arden ate, he was relatively thin, and about normal height.

“Oh, yeah. Hey guys, I almost forgot to tell you, I had another of those weird dreams last night,” Malise said.

Arden nearly choked on his overly huge mouthful of corn. “You mean the ones abo… about him?” He stammered with a worried look on his face and pieces of slobbery corn dropping from his mouth and sticking to his chin. Malise nodded. “Well, what happened?” He asked picking off the corn and sticking it back in his mouth.

Malise nodded again, getting a distant look on her face, “I was staring into a dark abyss and Satan,” A few of the friends flinched at the name, hoping no one was eavesdropping on them, “was speaking to me, he told me I had to awaken six Entities and four beasts to be generals for his army. And there was something else too… an almighty demon… his name was…” Arden stopped chewing and looked up, his face nearly white, “I… don’t remember,” Malise said incredulously.

She suddenly fell asleep and was immediately dreaming.

She was back at the abyss, and Satan was already materialized. “Malise!” He said loudly in his deep raspy voice. “You have always been able to speak to your friends about your dreams, but not this one or the last one you had either. You must keep these dreams a secret or else you will be no more, I will have to destroy you. You never know who could be an agent for the other side, and the last thing we need is them discovering who the entities are. Even you. For they will not hesitate in torturing you or using any tactics necessary to uncover the secrets you know, and ultimately destroying you. You know far too much for us to let that happen.”

Malise nodded and bowed, her long, dark hair falling forward and covering her face as she regained consciousness and returned to reality with a bump.

Arden looked strangely at her and got up to return his now empty tray. Kiara looked questioningly at Malise too, but Malise just shrugged and stared off into space once more, now silent. Kiara wisely let it drop.

After Arden had been gone for nearly ten minutes Malise started to get worried, but she brilliantly masked it. “I wonder what’s taking him so long… where is Arden, anyway?” She asked, trying to show nothing but apathy.

“Uh… hold on.” Kiara scanned the cafeteria, craning her neck to see over everyone, and then she spotted him by the tray return, “He’s over there,” she said pointing, “and he’s… fighting with a little kid…must be a sixth grader - Oh my god…” Kiara’s face paled.

“Apologize!” Arden was screaming at the sixth grader who had tripped and splattered him with corn and chili. The sixth grader was crying. He was terrified of Arden for some reason and even at the distance they were at Malise and Kiara could see why; Arden’s normally brown- blonde hair had turned bright red, along with his eyes.

The girls exchanged worried glances and bolted to their feet, leaving the rest of their friends either oblivious or shouting questions in their wake, and then across the cafeteria to where Arden was. They both grabbed him by an elbow and dragged him through the lunch room door that was closest, the sixth grader looked on the brink of tears when they intervened, but they hadn’t done it out of sympathy.

Arden struggled a little but he had become accustomed to their intervening when something horribly wrong was about to happen and went almost willingly.

He glared at the back of the door. “What is it now?” He asked heatedly.

The girls exchanged another glance before Kiara said, “Erm, Arden… you’re hair and eyes…”

“What about ‘em?” He asked precariously.

“They’re red again.”

He quickly looked up and met their gazes, the anger on his face and in his voice dissipated instantaneously. “What? No! God damn it! Do you think anyone saw…?”

Malise stared at him. “The sixth grader saw. At least. And we saw too, from the opposite side of the room.” Arden looked at the ground again. “We were unfortunate, Arden. What we have feared has now happened. And now you really need to learn how to control you’re anger.”

Kiara and Arden nodded, and then Kiara added, “I wonder why this has been happening recently, it’s never happened before…”

Arden looked up once more. “I told you, Lan has been more active recently. He is growing stronger and more anxious for something to happen. He’s even been keeping me up at n-”

Kiara snorted, but Malise’s eyes widened as an epiphany crashed down upon her head. ‘Lan! That was the name of the demon Satan told me about!’

“Pffft! Arden, you don’t seriously expect us to believe you have been possessed by a demon, do you?” Kiara demanded. “We can tell you’re totally faking-” Kiara stopped as Malise collapsed onto the floor. This time she had fainted.

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