Chapter Text
The Underworld was nothing like Sora had imagined. It wasn’t hot at all, she thought maybe it would be since the way Ras described it made it seem like it was Hell adjacent. But no, it wasn’t hot at all. In fact, it was cold. Not the kind of cold like the winters in Imperium where it was blistering and made the skin on her nose peel. No, this was the kind of cold where it seeped under Sora’s skin and made her arms erupt in goosebumps despite there being no wind at all. The kind of unpleasant cold that would slowly drive you insane as you clutched your waist for warmth.
Ras had charged along in front of them, Arin quickly following in suit, asking questions about Sources’ knew what. Sora stayed back a little further, taking in their surroundings. The Underworld seemed to be a huge cavern with tall, twisting spires of stone holding up the roof. There were small houses dotted on the spires and along the walls of the cavern, the only sign of life (well, not exactly life, everyone here was dead except for them) there was. The weirdest thing about the whole place to Sora was that the Underworld was silent. The only sounds were the occasional echoey whooshes coming from the distance, past a large mountain. Sora shuddered. This place gave her the goddamn creeps.
Up ahead, Ras and Arin had stopped abruptly. Sora jogged to catch up with them, wincing as her soft footsteps disturbed the silence around her. She put her hand on Arin’s shoulder, coming to stand beside him. Ras was talking to a pair of skeletons. Literally, they were talking skeletons. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised at anything they encountered in their adventures anymore, I mean they did climb out of quicksand with the help of magical levitating fish. But still, she was a bit taken aback by these pair of skeleton dudes wearing some ancient looking armour giving Ras directions to something called the Forge of Forgotten which was apparently just past the Skull Tree, whatever that was.
Ras left the skeleton dudes thoroughly spooked with whatever threat he used to make them spill the directions and the three of them walked on.
The ups and downs of the hills in the Underworld took more effort to climb than Sora had the will for. But Ras pushed on, not slowing for even a second despite the fact that he was supposedly on the brink of death not two weeks ago. So Sora and Arin hung back a little. The two were panting with each step, the Underworld’s air was thin and made it hard to take a deep breath.
“This place is so creepy, isn’t it?” Arin said, letting out a breathless chuckle and turning to Sora with a light smile.
“Yeah, it really is. It’s so quiet too, I can’t help but feel like we need to whisper.” Sora murmured while glancing over her shoulder.
“Yeah, I wanna keep quiet too but Ras seems to just be talking normally so it must be okay.” Arin shrugged casually though Sora could tell that he was on edge based on the way his eyes darted back and forth.
“And it’s weirdly cold. I thought Hell was supposed to be hot.” Sora whispered back, rubbing her arms up and down to try to get rid of the goosebumps rising up under her sleeves.
Arin stopped to stare at her for a second, wearing a face of amused confusion that Sora knew so well. “They taught you about Heaven and Hell in Imperium?”
Sora scoffed slightly, “Yeah, they used to tell us that if we were good Imperians then we’d go to Heaven and if we weren’t then we’d go to Hell. My parents loved to remind me of that.” She almost laughed at how ridiculous the whole thing was, especially since you’d be considered a bad Imperian if you wore Monday shoulder pads on a Tuesday. Or if you tried to stop the torture of innocent dragons as Sora so found out.
Arin shook his head with a smile. “Well, back in Ninjago, they told us about the Departed Realm which nobody knew anything about so it wasn’t good or bad really. Lloyd did tell me once that Master Wu went there and he said it was cold. So yeah, I guess Hell is cold.”
“Arin, hurry up! We are almost at the Forge.” Ras barked from somewhere up ahead.
Arin looked back at Sora with his familiar soft smile that never seemed to make an appearance around Ras and offered his hand out to her. “Come on, let’s go.”
~
The Forge of Forgotten was one of the most intimidating things Sora had ever seen. It was huge, towering over her with long metal pipes billowing smoke, making that eerie whooshing sound she had heard in the distance. And right at the base of it was a dauntingly large fireplace about three times her height, the metal grate barely caging back the angry flames dancing in the fireplace. Just in front of that was what looked like a metal trapdoor, about the size of a human.
Sora outstretched her arms in front of her, hands glowing pink as she checked for any sort of tech within the Forge but she couldn’t grasp onto anything. “What is it? It’s not tech, my powers aren’t responding to it.”
“It is beyond technology.” Ras’s gravelly voice answered her.
Sora turned to look at him, brow furrowing as he glared back at her. Ras had sent Arin to keep watch for any of the undead warriors since no living beings were allowed to use the Forge. Sora was seriously not keen about the idea of being left alone with Ras. He was as much of a fan of her as she was of him which was technically speaking not at all. Sure, he was a raging asshole but he wouldn’t hurt her, not while he still needed Arin. Right?
The sides of the trapdoor started to gleam with life as a sort of lava powered it, making its doors creak open. Sora stood next to Ras, peering inside it. “What is this thing?”
“It’s called the Casket of Bones. It’s what powers the Forge.” Ras answered, hands (paws, whatever) clenched tightly at his sides.
“It’s big enough to crawl into.” She muttered, squinting her eyes at what was inside. She couldn’t see the bottom of the casket, the walls were lined with a fire unlike she’d ever seen before. It was purple and seemed to leap to lick the lip of the trapdoor, hungry for something. “How does it work?”
“The Forge is powered when someone goes into the Casket of Bones.” Ras turned to look at her.
Sora was still entranced by the purple flames that danced just beneath her feet. “Creepy. How do they get back out?”
“They don’t.”
Sora snapped up. Eyes flicking to see Ras staring at her menacingly. She turned to run, but Ras grabbed her shirt. She tried to Spinjitzu her way out of his grip but he was too strong. Sora tried to kick his kegs out from under him but he didn’t budge. She tried to thrash free but Ras now had her in a headlock.
“ARIN!” Sora cried desperately as she felt Ras shake with a laugh. She saw Arin come running up the hill and meet her eyes.
“NO!” Arin screamed, “LET HER GO!”
The last thing Sora saw of the surface was Arin’s desperate attempt to get to her before she let out one last blood-curdling scream as she was tossed into the casket.
~
Sora awoke on a bed of soft sand. No, not sand. It was too fine to be sand. It was also white from what she could tell. She let the tiny grains slip between her fingers as she tried to raise her head. There was blood seeping down the side of her temple. And there was something hard buried underneath her. Sora dug weakly through the ‘sand’ until she uncovered a human skull. Sora let out a scream. She was sitting in powdered bones.
Sora was so distracted by the bone sand that she barely noticed the purple flames inching closer to her. Sweat stung the cut on the side of her head as the casket got hotter and hotter, chasing away any of the chill she felt before.
She looked up towards where she fell, it was so high up she couldn’t see the entrance. Ras was right, there was no way out. Sora curled up her knees to her chest, like she did when she was a little kid.
This was it.
The purple flames got closer to her until they began to lick her skin. Sora thought it would hurt like regular fire but it didn’t. It was so much worse. The flames didn’t burn her skin like regular fire, it instead ate away at her flesh slowly.
People always say that your life flashes before your eyes as you’re about to die. But Sora’s life had been too short for her to reminisce on much. The last thing she thought of as the flames consumed her was that Arin was wrong. Hell was hot. There Sora stayed until the flames devoured everything she ever was. Until she was nothing but bones and a pair of cat-eared headphones.