~~
Trinity
~~
Dammit. I wasn't sure what we should do. Should we go back through the tunnel? Should we move away from the beast that was Alexio Ptolemy? Should we try to sneak around this area and get to the exit further away from him?
Who knows, maybe Alexio will get worried that he hasn't seen us in a while and will instead start searching for us. Maybe he will think that we went in the other direction when we left the tunnel and are, therefore, moving away from him instead of toward him.
Our other option, if I chose to take it, would be to exit the tunnel right here and move straight toward the door. It would be a straight-forward, no nonsense approach that left nothing up to the imagination. It would not be pretty, and it would not be creative. It would just be a race to the door with an inevitable fight.
That was a fight that I didn't want to be caught up in right now. I didn't want to upset the balance of this world more than I already have. What if I messed something up and it allowed Hekate to escape before I even got to her damn cell? What would be the point of me being here then? What would be the point of me trying to stop her?
Nothing. That's what the point would be. It would be nothing at all. And, in fact, it would actually mean that my whole reason for being here was only to help Hekate escape instead of stopping her. I would be the bad guy. I would be the cause of problems. That was definitely not something that I wanted on my conscience.
I couldn't risk fighting with Alexio, not yet anyway. But I also didn't want to take more time than I needed to. I wanted to just get out of here. Dammit. Why was this such a hard decision to make?
And to make matters worse right now, the boys were pulling on my sleeves and tugging on my arms. It was making it all really hard to think.
"Stop it you three, Mommy needs to think." I tried to silence them so that I could work things out.
"Mommy. Mommy. Mommy."
"Mommy. Mommy. Mommy."
"Mommy. Mommy. Mommy." They were all three calling out to me repeatedly. I was just trying to make sure that I got us out of here, I didn't want to ignore them, but I was lost in thought at the moment.
"Mommy. Mommy."
"Mommy. Mommy."
"Mommy. Mommy." They called out to me again, a little more frantically this time. Finally, the tones in their voices made it through my thoughts and I could hear just how upset they were.
"What is it? Is something wrong?" Those tones, the way that their tiny little voices sounded, that was not something that any mother ever wanted to hear coming from her children.
The moment that I looked down at them, I saw that there was fear in their eyes and they were trembling. They weren't even looking at me. They were instead looking down the tunnel, back in the direction that we had come from.
"Boys? What is it? What's wrong?"
I knelt down then, bringing my face closer to theirs. This would allow me to see their expressions better, but also to see things from their angle.
"Tell me what it is. Tell me what's wrong?"
"Down there, Mommy." Zachary pointed into the dark of the tunnel.
"Mommy, there is a monster." Zander was next.
"It's coming for us, Mommy. It's going to eat us." Zayden looked like he was about to cry.
"What's coming for us? What is going to eat us? What is it, baby?"
Just as I asked Zayden that question, I heard an ominous sound coming toward us through the tunnel.
The sound was something like a heavy panting and a weird chuffing. It was very animalistic and definitely not friendly. To go along with the panting and chuffing, there was snarling and growling that echoed through the chamber.
There was another sound that came through the tunnel after that one, as if this was some sort of game called guess the noise or some stupid shit like that. This newest sound was something like scraping. It was like something was pushing its way through the tunnel toward us. Something that was big. Something that I was sure I was not going to like at all.
"Rudy, what is that thing? What is it that is coming for us? And is it coming for us because of me or because of Alexio? Did he send that thing after us?"
"I don't know. I cannot answer a single one of those questions, Queen Trinity. I am so sorry, but I just do not know what that thing is. Not without seeing it first anyway."
"Well, since you haven't seen it yet, and I really don't think that I want to see it, what should we do? Should we run, or fight it?"
The moment that I asked that question, the panting grew louder and more prominent. And, on top of that, that scraping noise became louder and more incessant, like whatever that thing was, it was moving faster. A lot faster.
"Judging by the way that sounds, Queen Trinity, I would suggest that we run for it, right now." Rudy was just as against seeing that beast as I was. And I could tell that the boys definitely didn't want to see it. Good, it was a unanimous decision.
"Then let's get going."
I wanted to just leave this tunnel now. The sooner we left the better. And on a positive note, now we could just run straight toward the exit. We could have our showdown with Alexio, and I promise that I wouldn't kill him, just him up until we were gone. That was all that I needed anyway.
Well, that was what I thought I would be able to do anyway. However, that wasn't what was happening. Because no sooner had we turned around, right there, in front of us was a large, hulking beast.
This beast was at least as large as Reece's wolf form, and it was nearly as black with piercing red eyes. However, where Reece's wolf form was beautiful and elegant looking, this thing was disgusting and nauseating.
Just one look at the tangled, gnarled mess that was this thing's face told me that it was not something that was meant to be seen by the living, especially humans. If this thing got out, if it was seen by the general populace, it would literally scare millions of people to death.
And, to make it even worse, the black of this thing's fur, if you could even call it that, was oozing. It looked like it was covered in some sort of thick, pungent ink substance. It was so wrong on so many levels.
"Mommy. Mommy."
"Mommy. Mommy."
"Mommy. Mommy." The boys were clinging to me and screaming when they saw the thing.
"Rudy, what the hell is that?" I asked him with fear in my own voice.
"That is a hellhound."
