Author's Note: Remember the Elite Stygian in the game? Imagine Gemma as that, but half of her face is still her face. To see an illustration of Gemma, go to DeviantART and search "Gemma BrittBailey." If you don't have a DeviantART account, not all the drawings I've done will show because I have them on private from the public. I'm avoiding copyright and theft is why it's like that. Also, this story's picture has her in the thumbnail, so I hope that helps. You're welcome.

Chapter 10: Start

Traffic woke her. Her head ached as she sat up; succumbing to reality, she looked around for her little redheaded child. All she saw was the trademark giant bridge in the middle of Limbo City over her head. The ground beneath her was cold concrete, sludge, and trash had littered the lot. Within the debris, she panicked. Her daughter or anyone wasn't to be found. It was quiet and lonely with the traffic humming in the wind. She was sure the void would have sent her to the same place as Braith, but it was clear that they didn't come together. Gemma's heart ached. This was the first time she had ever been apart from her flesh-and-blood for this long.

Her stress formed into tears dripping down her face. As she lifted her hands to wipe her tears, her hands held no flesh against her. She stared in horror of the porcelain skin. Her fingers were dirty from the dirt she landed on and her palms were stained. She looked like any other Stygian now. She frantically touched her head and shoulders. Half of her head held her long, black hair in place, but the other half was gone. Her fingertips felt the cold, hard texture of her scalp. Her hands caressed her cheeks and found both tears and her ooze seeping from her face. It was unnerving to feel like this. She whimpered and rubbed her eyes. Her daughter was nowhere to be found, her human skin was mostly gone, and she was near Limbo's prison asylum.

This forsaken place brought chills down her spine. This is where she first spawned into the living realm. When Limbo and the human world collided, this was where she first came. It was from this starting point that she went to find her daughter for the first time when the worlds combined. And it was the same place she was going to look for her again. She wanted to bash her head into the ground. This was too much. She didn't want to repeat her steps again. She slammed her hands down and readied her frontal lobe against the concrete. She couldn't stop crying.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. You would just wake up here again instead of Hell like the rest of them." An old voice called out. Gemma freaked and looked in the direction of the commentator. It was a blue-skinned demon wearing heavy rags and a mechanical eye. He appeared from behind a scrapped truck. She rubbed her eye roughly.

"What do you mean? Will I stay in this perpetual circle even if I call for eternal death?" Gemma asked, "I no longer can call myself human or demon. Life has no meaning without my pride and joy."

"Well, yes, but only because you're a demon, Gemma. Humans would arrive here and sent forth to the Forest of Suicides because of jumping from this suspension, but for us demons, the pain is eternal and will always bring us back to our birthplace." He looked her in the eyes and can see her curiosity," And, before you ask how I know your name, my eye sees you in a different perspective, my dear Stygian. I am Phineas, a scholar of sorts."

Gemma nodded, agreeing immediately to his word. She didn't want to babble onward about it. She wanted to know where Braith is and why she ended up here. She thought coming through the void like Braith did, she would have followed, but that wasn't true. Gemma cried.

"Have you seen a little girl come around here?" She asked meekly. She whimpered and he saw her trouble through her words. Considering her words, Phineas understood them as motherly and genuine to this female demon's relief.

"No. I'm sorry. I've seen Stygian and Bathas, one after another, but no child around the prison. Do you want to find her?"

"Yes!"

"Then loitering around here won't help." He guided her indirectly with his hand to leave this place, but when she stood up, she had to ask him. He mentioned birthplace.

"Earlier, you said demons arrive back at their birthplace. What do you mean by that?"

"Ah. Yes, I thought you would ask," He cleared his throat, "Demons are born from Limbo, but not all of them were demon-born. Some who used to be human will respawn here as a demon for the troubles they've abused while existing in their world. Some will even respawn here because there's unfinished business left for them. Is there something that brought you back here?" Gemma remembered the void the Dante-look-alike created to send her here.

"I came through a portal by a doppelganger of some sort. He threw my daughter in first and I hoped to go after here. He looked like him... he looked like Dante... but it wasn't. He had a much more sinister aura about him." Gemma rubbed the back of her head; noticing the name, Phineas raised a brow. It was common for a demon to know of Dante, but hearing Gemma, a demon, talk about a Nephilim the way she did. It was unclear to him what connection the two had, but many mysterious things surrounded Dante.

"You mean the Nephilim? How do you... never mind. What's important is for you to find what you are missing, yes?" Phineas asked, "If you're looking for answers, you should start in the prison."

"Why there? I loathe this place. This isn't where I killed my first human..." Gemma stopped talking.

Her memory served her. Humans who died are sent to either Heaven, Limbo, or Hell; after realizing the woman she killed would arrive here, she remembered her clearly now. She was a terrible woman. Drugs poisoned her lungs and liver. Her body was tainted. She spoke of unnerving things about humanity and others' well-being. This human woman was also the surrogate mother of Braith. This was why Gemma took her life. This was why Gemma took her skin. She had to save Braith from further destruction because she was the woman who brought Braith into this world. But the woman was linked to her in a way she couldn't explain it out loud. The contract Gemma held from her previous contractor cursed this woman as a link to her humanity. Gemma cried again and looked at the long road leading to the prison. She had to find her.