This chapter is about to undergo serious editing, the most noticeable of this being that my insanely long authors notes have been discarded.

Authors Notes at bottom of page.

Disclaimer: I do not, nor have ever claimed to own any book in the Demonata series or any characters or plotlines associated with it, so unless Darren Shan gets high one night and hands all rights to his books over to me, you may continue to correctly assume that I own none but the fic.

Warnings: the pairing featured in this fic is Bec x Bran, so if you dislike the coupling, please refrain from reading and dirtying my comment column with flames, lest I be forced to shove a branding iron up your butt hole. This fic is also AU due to the events in the 6th book in the Demonata series. I will give no more information on that, as I realize that currently only we Brits are fortunate enough to have progressed to the 6th book, and you Americans have only just read Bec.

Contains spoilers for BEC.

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The Otherworld Reject

Pain. Burning, searing, all encompassing pain.

My limbs were on fire, every shred of my being in writhing, tormenting, ceaseless agony as I was subjected to every one of the thousand tortures available in this nightmarish realm. My eyes bulged in their sockets, blinded by the rivers of blood that turned my sight crimson, staining my skin and tattered clothing scarlet. My body spasmed wildly, losing all control of its functions as the pain played my nerves like violins, sending waves of agony throughout my battered and broken body.

Limbs were cut off, only to regrow again during the next few hours, adding to the mountains of torment I was already forced to endure as I felt the shattered bones click themselves back into place and elongate, oozing flesh slithering along in their wake.

The worst was the eyes. They were gouged out several times a day, filling the air once more with my screams, the only sound which met my ears nowadays.

I yelped in pain as I felt a large jagged spike jab into the flesh on my left side, tendrils exploding from its tip, entwining with the nerves in my body. Then, fire.

I wailed in sheer agony as waves of fiery pain throbbed throughout my whole body, more painful then anything I had felt before it. All of a sudden I felt a small spark in me ignite, pushing its way towards the spike, dodging the tendrils that filled my body with flames, reaching out towards the tip of the spike. Closer… closer…

"Aaaaaaggggggghh!" I screamed as the spike was blown from me, tearing a generous chunk from my side and shattering into a thousand fragmented pieces. The thin spidery veins securing me to the wall snapped and I fell forwards, landing in a bloody heap on the gore-encrusted ground.

I lay there for countless hours as I felt my lost limbs regrow and the hole in my side refill, leaving me with nothing but a few more scars.

Wheezing and aching all over, but no longer in unendurable agony, I stood, examining my surroundings.

The sky was a deep crimson colour and rained blood, the droplets carving their way down my cheeks, mixing with my own dried blood. The floor was rocky and stained a permanent rusty crimson, its surface slick from the guts of other tormented souls. The walls were of the same rocky texture as the ground only it was covered in the same thin spidery veins that had been used to keep me suspended. As I looked around I noticed that there were others hung upon the walls, though the identities of these tortured creatures shocked me.

Upon the walls hung thousands, millions of demons, each more gruesome in appearance than the last. The air was filled with the sound of their screams, thick with the stench of their rotting flesh, suffocating me as I watched them be maimed, disemboweled, ripped to shreds, listening as they moaned in pain, pleading for the end that they knew would never come. This was their end.

After considering the sights around me, I finally remembered what had happened, recalling the darkness, the terror as the demons inched their way towards me, the sound of my flesh tearing, Bran's face, my scream.

I'd died, I knew that. But then why was I here in demon hell, why wasn't I in Otherworld with my now dead comrades? These thoughts raced through my head as recognition of my situation set in. I was alone, in demon hell, for all eternity, with no way of escape…

But I was no longer being tortured, I escaped somehow. That spark, I recognized it, it was my magic. I still had my magic! Maybe I could escape…

But that spark that released me, it was fairly weak, where had all my magic gone, my power, the one that Lord Loss gave me…

Of course. That was why I was in demon hell, I was a being of magic, and most of my magic was the demon magic granted to me by Lord Loss. His magic had made up most of my being, and if most of me was demon magic, where else could I expect to end up?

But that didn't matter right now, what mattered was finding a way out of this horrifying place, and now that I was lacking a large amount of my magic that was going to be very difficult indeed. Deciding that I wasn't going to accomplish anything by just standing here, I forced my broken body forwards, my bare feet sliding along the blood drenched ground as I lumbered onwards.

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After many hours of travel, I felt the need to rest my weary limbs. Truth be told, now I was dead I didn't need to rest, eat, breathe or take part in any other common daily ritual, but apparently this didn't stop me from feeling the need to do these things. Even now, my stomach was growling dangerously, as if I was enforcing doom upon myself by refusing its angry requests for nourishment.

Ignoring the protests of my stomach, I allowed myself to slump down upon the filthy ground, my back leaning against the side of a relatively large boulder. As I waited for my body to recover, I considered the ways I could utilize my remaining magic to escape this realm.

The only way I could come up with as a means to transport me to the human world was to create a passage between the demon and human worlds, only a small, temporary one, capable of transporting just one being before closing off completely… a teleport of sorts.

As soon as the hope of the thought struck me, it left me. True this was perhaps the only definite method for me to return home unharmed, but I knew that I was unable to do a spell this difficult.

Before I… died… I would have been able to accomplish a task such as this, but to do so required great magic, and I was now drained to less than half of my power, enough only to free me and possibly protect me from whatever monsters may patrol this realm. I sighed. What would be the point in going back anyways? Even if I did make it back, all of my friends were dead; I'd lost the two people I considered my adopted parents, Goll and Banba, the only man from my clan I would have agreed to marry was gone and for all I knew the night I returned I would be struck by the lycanthropy.

I groaned. If I went back there was nothing for me to live for. If the clan still existed, I would be too devoid of magic to be of any help as their priestess and I lacked the skills needed for most other jobs. My life would be pointless; I would be of no help to anyone. I might as well just curl up into a ball right here and fall asleep for the rest of eternity. Who would even care if I was gone?

I sat bolt upright, heart pumping a mile a minute. Someone would care. Someone who'd saved my life, stayed with me through the dangers I'd faced in my travels, refused to leave me even when it ensured his own death, screamed in sadness when I forced him to save himself, loved me even though he was unable to say the words that expressed it.

"Bran…" I mumbled, tears obscuring my vision.

Bran would miss me. Bran, the simple boy we'd always assumed to be idiotic, though I knew differently. True, he was childish for his age and often ignorant of his surroundings but he was more intelligent than anyone gave him credit for. He just, wasn't quite able to express it yet.

I felt the tears trickle down my cheeks as I reminisced. Bran's childish grin, his dark scruffy hair, his brown eyes…

I shook my head, scattering the thoughts from my brain for the moment. Right now I needed to think. Bran was all alone out there, no friends, no family, what would happen to him if I left him on his own too long? Would he suffer a similar fate to my own? Just how long had I been gone; days, weeks?

Realizing I had once again allowed my mind to wonder, I snapped myself back into reality. Now was not the time to mope, now was the time to plan. I began to rack my brain for a ways to increase my magic so I could create the link between worlds, but how?

Suddenly a thought occurred to me. The only way to increase ones power enough to create a passage between worlds was to offer a sacrifice at a lodestone and have a powerful being of magic chant the words to open the passage. However, a much smaller, temporary passage intended for the use of just one being would require much less magic and should be able to be performed without the use of a sacrifice. The creation of such a passage would leave me weakened and I would never fully regain the small amount of magical energy I currently possessed, but it would definitely be worth it.

But now the problem arose as to how I would find a lodestone. They had not been destroyed here as they had in my world, the demons needed them if they ever hoped to leave this accursed place, but I was unsure as how to go about locating one of the lodestones occupying the demon world. It did not matter which one I chose as any one of them would transport me to the lodestone in the cave in my world as it was the last one actually left standing there.

I doubted any were allowed to exist in demon hell, as this was a place for the tormenting of souls, not a place for escape to the human world. This would mean that they all existed in the demon realm, where the living demons itching to cross dwelt, consumed by the anger of being deprived of the taste of human flesh.

Unfortunately for me, this meant that to escape I would have to enter the demon world, chased by the hordes of demons lurking there as I attempted to find a lodestone. Even if I managed to make it to a lodestone, I would either be unable to cast the spell before a demon ate me or I would be too magic deprived from keeping the demons at bay that I would have to rest for several days to build up enough magic to cast the spell, during which time I would no doubt be killed again and forced back to my starting point on the wall in demon hell. And there was no guarantee that my magic would free me a second time.

My chances of succeeding looked bleak whichever way I viewed it, but I knew I had to try, it was my only hope.

Standing shakily, I stretched my aching limbs, ignoring their groans of protest, and made my way onwards.

The only way from here to the demon world was to find one of the crossing points used by the still living demons that crossed over to here to punish the dead. As I blundered onwards, I searched the walls alive with pulsing veins for a gap, which could be a possible passage from this world.

For hours I walked, analyzing every gap in the walls for a passage, but finding none. After what I considered to be about another day of searching, I finally got my lucky break.

A circular hole about 1.5 meters in diameter was carved into the wall, clearly a tunnel meant for smaller demons to enter the realm, but to me, an escape from it.

Ducking ever so slightly upon entering the tunnel, I began making my way through it, feet slipping slightly on the rocky ground coated in a mixture of slime, bile, organs and blood. In an attempt to keep myself from vomiting at the knowledge of what I was walking over, I kept my gaze angled forward into the depths of the dimming tunnel, eyes peeled for any sight of an approaching demon. Eventually, the tunnel became too dark for me to see even the outline of my hand before my face, and I decided that a little spell to aid me wouldn't diminish my magic so much that I would be left defenseless in the event of a demon attack.

Mumbling words of magic under my breath, I watched as a small spark of light illuminated the area before me, not enough to alarm an approaching demon, but enough to allow me to see a few feet in front of where I stood. With renewed vigor, I marched onwards, my spark of magic like a beacon of hope to me in this dismal place.

After several hours of continuous walking, I spied a small light ahead of me, growing in size as I continued onwards. Realizing that this must be the exit, I extinguished my light and quickened my pace, eager to escape the claustrophobia inducing confinement of the small tunnel.

Grasping the edges of the tunnel entrance I stuck my head out and took a long, deep breath. Then, opening my eyes, I prepared myself for the sight which awaited me.

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Terribly sorry that I haven't updated as of yet, despite the fact that this fic has now already seen the coming of its first birthday. I am making a renewed effort to finish the second chapter though, so for anyone who was patient enough to stick with me thus far, expect to see that in the near future. I promise to make a bigger attempt to finish newer chapters of this fic in future.

Sorry I didn't get as much editing done as I hoped either. I'm not very patient when it comes to things like that.

Again, big thanks to all who are still interested in reading this fic. Your loyalty is what keeps the sketchy relationship between my fingers and the keyboard from falling apart completely.

Flash /\/\

xxx