(TAYLOR’S DEMONIC ADVENTURE) CHAPTER THIRTEEN

One moment Taylor stood in the Wards common room with shadows writhing at her feet and terror pouring off everyone around her in suffocating waves, and the next the floor beneath her vanished so completely that she could not even feel herself fall. There was no impact, no rush of wind, or even a sickening lurch in her stomach. Reality simply peeled away, and all at once she found herself somewhere else entirely.

Taylor gasped and stumbled forward onto solid ground.

Only there should not have been ground.

She stood upon an endless black mirror that stretched in every direction, smooth and reflective as polished obsidian, broken only by pale cracks that spiderwebbed outward from where her feet touched it. Above her hung a sky that was no sky at all, but a vast, swirling expanse of crimson clouds speckled with violet lightning. The air felt thick and feverishly warm, vibrating with distant pressure, and somewhere far beyond what her eyes could perceive there came the low, endless sound of something breathing.

Taylor spun in place, heart hammering.

“What the hell?”

Her voice resounded strangely, carrying farther than it should have before vanishing into the impossible-looking horizon.

“Wonderful first question, if a little lacking in creativity.”

Taylor whipped around.

A girl stood several feet away, leaning casually against empty air as if an invisible piece of furniture held her upright. She looked like Taylor, sort of. Her face was the same, and so was her build, but everything else felt different in ways Taylor could not properly articulate. Her hair was neater, darker somehow, almost glossy in the strange red light overhead, and her stance held a confidence Taylor had never possessed in her life. Most striking of all was the fact that she wore rectangular glasses and had an expression so dryly unimpressed it reminded Taylor painfully of her mother.

Taylor stared.

The other her raised an eyebrow.

“Well, come on,” she said. “You are taking this surprisingly well, all things considered, but I imagine the staring is going to get rude soon.”

Taylor pointed at her. “Why do you look like me?”

“Because I am you, obviously.”

“That explains nothing!”

“It explains quite a lot, actually.”

Taylor’s breathing quickened. “What is happening? Where am I? Why do you exist?”

The other Taylor sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I truly forgot how exhausting we are when panicking,” she muttered before straightening. “Fine. Brief version, because time is unfortunately a factor. You are currently inside your own mind, or rather the metaphysical representation of it constructed by powers far beyond your current understanding, and I am one of several compartmentalized aspects of your psyche.”

Taylor blinked.

There was silence.

Then, flatly, “What.”

“Yes, that is the expected response.”

Before Taylor could demand clarification, more shapes began to emerge from the crimson haze around them.

One stepped forward with hunched shoulders, her hoodie pulled so far over her face that only her mouth and chin remained visible, and hands tucked deep into her sleeves. She flinched at every sound, eyes darting wildly beneath the fabric.

Another walked with a rigid gait and arms folded across her chest. Her face was set in a permanent frown, though the bitterness in her expression seemed aimed inward as much as outward.

A third lingered behind them, younger and smaller, wearing clothes Taylor had not worn in years. She looked perhaps twelve, maybe thirteen, with wide uncertain eyes and a softness to her features that made Taylor’s chest ache unexpectedly.

And then Taylor saw the last one.

Her breath caught.

She floated several feet above the black glass, cloaked in writhing ebony energy that curled around her body like a living flame. Her eyes glowed blood-red, and above them hovered the second set Taylor had manifested in the real world. Her smile spread slowly across her face, too wide and too knowing and deeply wrong to belong on Taylor’s features.

Every instinct Taylor had screamed at her to run.

The glasses-wearing Taylor groaned.

“And there she is,” she muttered. “Right on schedule.”

Taylor swallowed. “What is that?” she whispered.

The floating girl smiled wider.

“That,” said Glasses, her tone suddenly grim, “is our anger. Or more specifically, the fragment of us influenced by the darker aspects of our power. We call her Red.”

“Do not call me that like I am a pet,” Red said, her voice layered strangely, like several people were speaking in perfect sync beneath her words. “It diminishes me.”

Taylor backed away instinctively. “Why does she look like that?”

“Because,” said the rigid one, her tone clipped, “she is what happens when rage, trauma, eldritch corruption, and emotional instability are put into a blender.”

“That is incredibly reductive,” Red snapped.

“It is still incredibly accurate,” muttered Glasses Taylor.

Taylor looked between all of them, feeling increasingly like she was losing her mind.

“No,” she said faintly. “No, absolutely not. I refuse. I refuse all of this. This is insane. This is actual insanity.”

The hooded one gave a shaky laugh. “Insanity is just a state of mind.”

Taylor turned back toward the girl in glasses. “Why am I here? Why now?”

All traces of amusement left the girl’s face.

“Because,” she said quietly, “Red is taking over.”

Taylor froze. “What?”

“She is using your anger to hijack control of the body,” said the rigid one. “Your emotional state destabilizes the barriers between us, and she is stronger than usual because of what Dean told you.”

Red laughed, delighted and utterly unconcerned.

“They deserve it,” she said, and Taylor’s stomach twisted. “All of them standing there acting righteous while one of their own tortured us for months. They stood beside her, trained beside her, and laughed beside her. They knew what she was.”

“They did not know,” Glasses snapped.

“They should have known.”

“They are children!”

“They are heroes!”

Her voice cracked like thunder across the sky, shaking the air itself, and suddenly the crimson clouds above churned violently.

Taylor flinched as the ground trembled beneath her as a result.

“They were supposed to protect us!” Red screamed, her aura flaring brighter. “They were supposed to be better, and instead they stood beside her while she made us suffer, while she ruined us, while she laughed and laughed and laughed and no one helped!”

The black glass splintered even more beneath Taylor’s feet.

“She is trying to kill them,” the hooded girl whimpered, nearly sobbing now. “She is trying really really hard to kill them.”

Taylor’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“She has partial control already,” Glasses said urgently. “Your actual body is still standing in the common room right now, and unless you stop her soon, she is going to attack the Wards.”

Taylor spun toward Red. “You cannot do that!”

Red looked at her almost sadly.

“I can,” she whispered. “And I will.”

Then her expression twisted.

“They deserve to hurt the way we hurt!”

“No!” Taylor shouted, lunging forward.

Red moved with casual ease, lashing out with a wave of her hand. Ebony force erupted from her in a blast that sent Taylor flying backwards, striking the black glass hard and skidding painfully across its surface.

“You weak thing,” Red hissed, descending toward her. “Always crying. Always hiding. Always waiting for someone else to save us.”

Taylor scrambled backward.

“You think I am the problem?” Red demanded. “I am the only reason we survived! I am the part of us that fought back when the world crushed us into the dirt! I am the rage that finally made them afraid!”

“You killed them!” Taylor screamed.

Red froze, and silence swallowed the world.

When she spoke again, her voice was low.

“And part of you was glad.”

Taylor’s blood ran cold.

“No.”

“Yes,” Red drifted closer until she was inches from her face. “Say it. Say you felt nothing when it ended. Say you were not relieved when they stopped hurting us forever.”

Taylor opened her mouth, but nothing came out. The horrible truth was there, buried beneath guilt and horror and grief.

A part of her had felt relief.

A part of her had been glad it was over.

Red smiled her first true smile.

“There you are.”

Taylor trembled.

“I am you,” Red whispered. “I am every hateful thought you bury. Every scream you swallow. Every moment you wanted to break them and sighed instead because you were too afraid to admit what you felt.”

She rose higher, darkness swelling around her.

“And I will continue to do what you never could.”

Taylor stared upward in horror.

“No!”

“You are too weak to do what must be done.”

Thunder split the heavens.

“They hurt us,” Red roared. “They betrayed us. And now they fear us, exactly as they should.”

She turned, beginning to rise toward the heavens.

Panic seized Taylor completely.

If Red escaped, if she fully took over, people were going to die.

Again.

And this time it would be intentional.

“No!” Taylor screamed, forcing herself upright. “I will not let you!”

Red paused and glanced over her shoulder.

Then she smiled. It wasn't a good expression. 

“You cannot stop me.”

Red’s eyes burned brighter.

“Because you agree with me.”

And the world split apart.