I awake in a daze. I feel like I’ve been hit over the head with a tire iron. As my vision grows clearer I see a faint outline of a person, dare I say person? Creature sounds about right actually. Spiders crawl out of the cracks in the creature’s charred but oddly still skin colored flesh. It had some kind of fluid dripping out of its empty eye sockets. I’m pretty sure it’s blood. The rest of its body is covered in a long black cloak.

“Jude and Layla Kemyss,” the creature spoke. “How long it’s been, now I finally have you both together.”

“You make me sick!” Layla shouted while spitting in the demon’s face.

“Oh, my dearest Layla, you’re making the same arrogant mistakes your parents made. Why don’t you lie silently and meet your fate like your brother.”

I lie silently to meet my fate, I question to myself. I decide there will be none of that. I try to pull myself up and realize I’m trapped. Trying to examine myself in the dim light lire of the demon, I realize I’m coated in some sort of spider web. I can hear my sister arguing with the demon, even though I can’t lift my head enough to actually see what’s happening.
“If you’re going to take me, leave my brother and Zane alone. They haven’t done a thing to you,” Layla pleads.

“Your pleading does not phase me. Do you think your parents didn’t plead with me for their lives? Do you honestly think they didn’t ask me to spare their little boy, who sat innocently in the play pen in the other room?”

“Well, something must have worked, you did spare him. He’s here isn’t he?” Layla retorts to the demon’s remarks.

“I never claimed I would spare the boy, at that point he seemed like a waste of my time, and actually up until now he was. You invoked him to use the power within him my sweet Layla. You signed his death certificate,” the demon laughs.

“Let’s strike a deal?” Layla inquires.

“What sort of deal?” the demon retorts.

“Well, Genocide, you love playing games. Let’s play a game for our lives. If you win you can have us, but if we win you leave us alone and never bother our family again.”

“Sounds like a deal, let me retire to the other room to think of the terms of this game,” Genocide chuckles as he leaves the room.

We hear a big slam behind him as he leaves. I try to observe the room around me. I’ve come to the conclusion I am on the floor because, whatever that slimy liquid is on the ceiling it keeps dripping onto my face. It’s making observation that much more difficult.

“Layla,” I speak softly.

“Yes Jude?”

“We’re going to die aren’t we?”

“Only if you have that attitude little brother, only if you have that attitude.”

“Layla, why’d you bring me here? I just want to go home.”

“Jude listen to me, we’ll never defeat him if we don’t stay focused. We need to muster up all our abilities to win this game he’s planned for us. Alright?”

“Okay, Layla, whatever you say.”

“Zane, Zane are you here? Can you hear me?” Layla shouts.

“Yes, I’m here. I’m afraid I can’t move, so I can’t exactly heal myself. I must have somehow gotten injured on the way over here; I’m in a lot of pain dearest.”

“You will have to heal yourself in the game then, if we have time,” Layla replied to Zane’s tearful remarks.

As soon as he left, it seemed like Genocide was reentering from the large squeaky metallic doors.

“You see this?” Genocide asked while he held up a large snow globe looking object. “This is a little something I like to call the murder realm. Would any of you like to know why I like to call it that?”

“Why?” I ask dumbly.

“Because no one that enters has ever come out alive my child. Not a single being has set foot inside and survived. Now, for our game you senseless products of the mortal world. Inside the Murder Realm there is a rope. If you pull this rope, you will be released and win the game. If you are unable to pull the rope, I win the game.”

“Ha, pull a rope! That’s easy ,” Zane laughed.

“For a demon you are very foolish boy, you should know by now nothing comes that easily. You will be placed on the completely opposite side of the murder realm from the rope. Inside the realm you will be faced with the most terrifying creatures the Demon World can provide. If you make it to the rope ALIVE, then you win,” Genocide laughs diabolically.

“Fine, it can’t be that hard. We accept your challenge,” Zane conceitedly replies.

“You’ve damned yourselves young ones,” and with a sharp motion of his hand we were inside the Murder Realm. It was much brighter than the dimly lit room that we were in before. It looked like a fantasy jungle with twisted and gnarled trees, smoke rising from the ground, water as black as the night sky, and animals like nothing I’ve ever seen.

“If we’re going to make it to the other side, we’ll have to plan accordingly,” Layla directs us. “We have to watch our backs, and if one of us doesn’t make it we can mourn when we’re out. Got it?”

“Yes,” Zane and I reply simultaneously. There’s something about those two, no matter how cocky he is, he always listens to her. I know I’m not the most affectionate person in the world, but I have a feeling they’re in love.

Layla and I continue to make our plans, while Zane heals himself from previous injury he sustained. Sadly, before we know it hundreds of weak, yet numerous demons bombard us in massive waves. They come upon me and I crumple to the ground. I have no idea what to do at this point.

“Jude!” Layla shouts ripping apart demons one by one. “Use you magic. It’s in you Jude, I know it is.” I stand to my feet, not exactly sure what to do. Ignoring the demons biting and tearing at me I raise my hands high in the air, then touch them to the ground. All the demons that were attacking us blast into the air and explode before I am even able to bring my hands back up.

“Jude that was amazing,” Layla compliments me.