5 Fic Day Writing Challenge

Round Two

2

FOR THOSE CONFUSED:

This series has been on going. Started way back in 2017 as part of the 'Reader's Contest'. I was asked by the winner to write a story with a character named Alia as their prize for winning the contest. It's taken a really long time to do so but this is the 6th instalment of that prize. This particular chapter is also now part of the '5 Fic a Day challenge' where I'm trying to write 5 fanfics in one day. This is day two of that attempt and thus this is the second fic of the day.

Hope this helps a little…

Enjoy!

Echoes Of The Past

(Part Six)

Darkness was like no other in the land of Hell's Haven, it appeared without warning, it changed and deepened. It was darker than all other nights in any other realm. There was no sun to set in this land so it simply turned dark.

It sprang upon the lost travellers like a light being turned off in a room. Thick, sudden and it robbed the sight of the normal.

The paranormal however could see like cats in the night. Clear and horrifying, for it wasn't the only thing to spring upon them.

"Hiccup! Look out!"

Alia cried out in warning, dismayed by the sight of the dust-like man that rose up from the ground, like sand demons made of ash, its eyes blazing with fire, hollow and blinding to Alia. Hiccup couldn't see in the dark as Alia could, for a moment he felt sure that was for the best, but how did one fight something they couldn't see?

Changewings were like this, however all the dragons in the Archipelago could not be as threating or terrifying as the demon that lashed out at Hiccup from behind.

In the final heartbeat Hiccup stopped trying to see and began to feel. This dark presence, the tingling of the hairs on the back of his neck. Instinct told him he was in grave danger.

Hiccup swallowed the fear that galled at his insides and turned around.

Confuted with the glowing eyes of the demon he felt his own eyes widen in disbelief and horror. He quickly hated that his eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to see the demon looming over him. Its piercing red eyes beckoning out of the shadows like death itself.

"Back off!" Alia cried stepping in to slice at the demon with her sword, defending a stunned Hiccup as he tried to come to terms with the truly inhuman beasts that was attacking them.

For how was a Viking , a known superstitious clan, meant to come to grips with actual demons of hell?

Hiccup had stared down the darkest of dragons, he had, after all, defeated the Red Death, been nearly swallowed in its monstrous jaws, crushed between its vicious and mountainous teeth. Blades so thick and huge, sharp beyond belief, its breath putrid from its cannibalistic diet and the dark dwellings it had resided in beneath the ground.

This was nothing like a Red Death battle.

It was worse.

"Snap out of it Hiccup or you are going to die!"

Alia cried as she deflected a furious thrust of the demons sword. Its banshee-like scream deafening Hiccup. He hunched over and covered his ears to ward off the ear piercing sound but couldn't do so, for it seemed to reach down into his soul not just his ears. It didn't even seem to come from the creature it came from nowhere, just like the voices he'd first heard when he arrived in this nightmare place.

"This…is..not….good!" Alia grunted out venomously as she was forced backwards her sword sharply grating against that of the demon's. Its face within inches of hers, its breath no doubt as gagging as a Red Deaths.

"I can't fight. these. guys. on. my. own. you know!" Alia struggled to bite out as the full demonic force of the beast pushed her further and further backwards, her heels gliding backwards in the sand at her feet. Only Hiccup realised it wasn't sand. It was ash, it was the demon itself. His lower half didn't exist it was nothing but a furious independently moving mist of black, coal black, ash. Pooling around Alia's feet and trying to trip her up so as to overpower her and throw her to the ground.

Hiccup clambered from his horror and shock to defend her. His instincts taking over. It was inherently in him to protect, to defend, to react not freeze. He'd changed a lot from that thirteen year old boy he'd once been, terrified into submission.

Not anymore, not now.

Igniting the Inferno sword Hiccup lunged at the creature. In a moment of both daring heroinism and utter stupidity. How could a mere human Viking be a match for a demon of hell, or top the efforts of a vampire!

It didn't matter he took what he had and he used it. Preying to Odin that he'd live to escape this place, find Astrid and get back home. He missed his dragons, Berk, knowing and understanding the world around him.

He missed the sun.

This place was such a fluid changing cesspit of oddities he couldn't think straight. This place…it was like nothing he'd ever seen, nothing he'd ever thought to see, like nothing he ever imagined to exist.

Hiccup advanced on the demon taking it by surprise and forcing it to release Alia and defend itself from Hiccup's brazen attack.

Alia stumbled under the sudden loss in pressure against her but didn't fall. She ducked around Hiccup like a dancer spinning around the dance floor, gracefully, highly trained but so fast that she merely appeared abruptly on the other side of him.

Right there at the best advantage point to cut at the demon's arm, giving Hiccup the chance to block an oncoming blow from the beast. He ducked and Alia came in swinging over his head and dug her knife deep into the demons chest. It brushed off the attack and continued to fight like a wild cat who'd had its tail cut off. Severed by the vicious demon.

Hiccup screamed as a the point of the demons sword grazed his right shoulder, but still he too fought on. Using all that he'd ever learnt to keep on his feet. Alia helped. He wasn't battling this demon alone. They were strong and precise working together like they'd been fighting alongside each other for years.

Alia, however, was soon lured away by many other demons closing in on them and yet Hiccup was still fighting strong. He was both surprised and thankful to find he could hold his own against a seething swam of demons ever emerging from the ground like a plague of massive flesh eating spiders. Swarming over them both.

They were outnumbered by millions and it soon seemed that night wasn't the only darkness around them. The wall of half man half ash demon bodies rose up so high as to completely blanket the world around them. They were going to be swallowed alive in its thick dark depths. All around him all Hiccup could see was ash black, like the bush fires to overtake the village back on Berk. Each blending with the other till he couldn't see anything but ash and fiery eyes.

Still determined to fight on he slashed through the lower chest of the demon closet to him, confident that would take care of at least one of them but the creature just stopped for a moment looked at its body severed in two then calmly looked up at Hiccup unfazed. It gave an evil grin that spread across its ash built face, fangs seeming to shine bright against his dark mist of flesh.

Hiccup gapped as the beast rose up in the air still moving, still attacking them despite having lost half his body.

The beast lashed out a hand knocking the Inferno effortlessly from Hiccup's hands and curled a long sharp nailed hand around Hiccup's throat lifting him up off his feet.

It was then he learnt something new about these beasts.

As if propelled by a set of ash built stairs the demon sored effortlessly up into the air squeezing tighter with his hold on Hiccup. Its ink-like nails beginning to cut into the soft flesh of Hiccup's throat.

Gasping, franticly tugging at the beasts arm to be free Hiccup felt his world grow foggy.

Feeling for sure that this would be the end of him.

Astrid.

Realising his efforts to escape the beast's grasp were futile as the life was straggled from him he could only think of her. Of all the things he'd not be able to tell her. How he'd never be able to save her from this place.

Smothered by the force of this beasts hold, Hiccup began to die.

His last thoughts caught up in his home, his family. His true love.

Death could steal his life, but they could never steal his heart. Never. Not in this world or any other. Love was stronger than the beasts that pierced his flesh with its sharp nails. Digging into his throat like pointed daggers. Cutting deep as it squeezed harsher.

This was it.

Hiccup thought. He was sure to die. He could no longer fight, could no longer see through the fog behind his eyes.

He could only feel the blood dripping from his throat, slowly trailing down to seep through the collar of his clothes. A light headed sensation of being carried away on a dream soon overtook him. Like falling asleep when you'd gone far beyond your body's limits. Caught in the sensation of time when you felt like you were between two worlds.

Alia was below them fighting an inordinate level of demons on her own, her paranormal speed and strength equipping her with the ability to out manurer them mostly but they were growing by the thousands and there was nothing she could do to prevent the inevitable nor save him.

Astrid…

Now a new type of darkness stole over Hiccup and all he could see was Astrid's face in his mind. Her shining sea blue eyes, her golden hair blowing in the wind, he could almost believe he could hear her sweet laughter.

This was the dream. Clinging to the image of a loved as your very life was being torn from you. A fantasy of a life unlived, regrets, tears unshed, longing for the one person who could make it all go away, that seemed to hold the definitive power. The one you loved above all else, that held your heart as you held theirs. The one you longed to hold one more time in your arms…

This was the dream of a dead man.

END

Eliana Robinson

6/6/19

CREATION DATE – 31/10/17

PUBLISH DATE – 6/6/18

Echoes Of The Past Disclaimer

ECHOES OF THE PAST - is a Fanfiction of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON I do not own the characters or original plotline, with the exemption of anything in relation to new characters, the kingdom of Alexyarna and Hell's Haven which are original creations of my own from my own original works. The character of Alia is of my own creation with the name being created by a contest winner VenomousFantum, as their winning prize. The character herself is of my own invention.

PLOTLINE:

Awake in the new land with Hiccup and see the difference in all ….where can this Viking chief be?

Is it heaven or hell….

…. or someplace worse than either above or below.

Enjoy the sixth instalment of the mysterious Special "Echoes Of The Past"

Dedicated to VenomousFantum for winning the Reader's contest 2017

Thank you for your choice in the name of this fiery heroine. I hope you enjoy this story and that it's all you hoped for, regards. Ms Robinson.

This story is NOTfor official publication or profit.

ECHOES OF THE PAST is a tale in an unofficially link series between all my HTTYD fanfics and is purely meant as entertainment.

CREATION DATE – 31/10/17

PUBLISH DATE – 6/6/19

Part of the "Dragon Adventures" Series By Eliana Robinson

Actually a Crossover between HTYYD and my own Original novel series, "The Ring Dynasty" – a fantasy collection of novels based in the magical kingdom of Alexyarna.