The Maze of the Netherworld pt.2

Crawling out of the abyss, the changeling found himself in a fantastic new world. One that was ripe for the taking. After being trapped in the netherworld for so long he was ready to feast. He wandered through the town at night finding unlucky victims to suck the life out of. This went on for weeks without any of us knowing this thing was out there killing. Until one day I get a call from a doctor, saying they identified a dead body as my brother Danny. I was confused because I had just seen Danny last night after we made plans to revisit the maze.

With hands shaking, and my heart racing, I walked into the morgue to see my brother lying lifeless on the slab. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and I asked if I could have some time alone with the body. The doctor agreed and left the room for me to mourn my brother. However, the more I looked at his body the more concerned I became. Where there should be scars, there were none. In fact, other than the wounds that killed him, there were no markings on my brother's body. I shook my head and told myself this can't possibly be him so then who could it be? I called my brother's phone because I had to be sure and when he answered I was relieved.

I was also horrified as I told him “I'm looking at your dead body in the morgue right now Danny”. He said “how is that even possible” and I had no answers for him. I questioned him “Did you leave the door open even for a moment, be honest”. He pondered and responded “you know what I may have”. There it was he had let something through from the netherworld that had copied his face. Now it was dead and on the slab in front of me, but how much damage had it caused before that.

I rebuked him the moment I got to his house. “You were so careless and now people are dead because of it” “you knew what would happen if the door was left open”. All he could do was apologize but I wasn’t having any of it. I made him promise that he wouldn’t enter the maze unless we were all present. He swore to me that would be the case. After that day we became more careful with how we approached the netherworld.

On our next trip inside, I made Bune guide us through the maze. This time we were approached by lesser demons trying to trick us, but Bune cut them down with ease. Bune told us about the demon who controlled the netherworld and how he used our mother as a conduit for power. As long as she was alive, the netherworld would exist. My father may not have been the brightest warlock, but he was cunning. In his final moments he bound Mantus to the netherworld and Mantus has been trapped here ever since. He needed a human to escape and had planned on using our mother, but the way was shut for him.

In this maze were many demons, and other netherworld creatures. All looking for one thing, to escape to our world. They wanted to kill, to feast and destroy, but we were not going to allow them that. I asked Bune how we would reach my father's study, the real study. He replied “There is no pattern to the maze, you have to play Mantus’s game and follow through to the end”. Whenever I found myself in another giant warehouse I was always amazed. All of these things existed out of time, out of our world and yet here they were. Boxes upon boxes stacked as far and wide as you could see. I often wondered what was in those boxes and fancied finding treasure in one of them.

In my curiosity I opened up a box, and there were items that a child would have. I didn’t recognize any of them and kept digging through them and asked Bune “What are these?” He laughed and said “Those are the boxes of humans who succumbed to the netherworld and its creatures”.

His response pained my heart. All of these boxes were the dead and the demons here put them on display to revisit whenever they wanted. What sick, and twisted creatures I thought to myself. Nevertheless, I had strengthened my resolve to put an end to this netherworld once and for all. Bune reminded us that we were almost at our limit before the poison would start affecting us. I told him to take my sister and brother out and that I would continue. Bune did what I asked regardless of my siblings pleads for me to join them. I said “we’ve come this far already, I'm going to see this through one way or another, after all Bune is bonded to me”.

With my siblings back in the safety of the real world, I continued on with Bune. Out of the warehouse we were teleported into the kitchen. It was there I heard a voice and it sounded like my mother. She was crying out for help and I heard another voice. A much darker and maniacal voice that I knew to be Mantus. Once again, my heart started racing as I neared the end. I didn’t know if I was ready to face Mantus, but I was going to anyway.