Chapter 4

(Ryan)

After taking on that ogre the night before he was exhausted. Fortunately, ogres were as stupid as they were strong, and he was able to trap it without too much trouble.

Hope had insisted that he rest before they continued moving and he had reluctantly taken her up on her offer. He had fallen into a fitful sleep against a tree while she kept watch. The next morning, they began walking again without a word between them. Their shared moment of camaraderie had been short lived.

Surprisingly, she had been less pushy with her questions—But if she thought he was going to just start chatting about Father, she was sadly mistaken.

He had yet to come up with a plan of his own and it was making him tense—and distracted. At least, that's how he liked to explain the quicksand taking them by surprise.

Hope reacted first, letting out a startled yelp when the ground beneath her began to give way.

"What the hell?" she cried, trying in vain to free her foot from the muck below.

The color of the substance should have been his first clue; the terrain beneath them had been endless shades of charcoal, dull like the scenery around them. Yet, this patch of ground was somehow blacker than black, darker than dark…Dark like Malivore.

"Stop struggling!" he tried to warn her—too late. Hope was already up to her knees. She grunted in frustration; honestly, he should just turn around and leave her. He'd find his own way out of here.

But before he could act on his impulse, he felt the earth begin to sink beneath his own feet.

Shit.

He knew panicking would only make it worse, but the desire to struggle against the sand's pull was strong. He looked for something to grab onto, but every branch was already hopelessly out of reach.

"Clarke!" Hope yelled, searching for him over her shoulder, clearly gripped by panic. Her large eyes were frantic, and a slick sheen of sweat had broken out across her forehead. "Something's wrong, I can't access my magic!"

"I'm stuck too," he replied, not knowing what else to say.

Suddenly, the pace of his sinking began to accelerate, and he found himself quickly up to his neck in the wet, dark sand.

"Hope—" he tried to call out, but his words were cut off by his total immersion. He gasped for air on instinct and strangely found himself able to breathe. He opened his eyes to find that he was suspended in a dark abyss, with no discernable features in sight.

"Hello?" he ventured, straining his eyes in the total darkness. The sense of weightlessness was unnerving. The sense of powerlessness was worse.

He was suddenly reliving his last experience here—the darkness, the isolation, the misery. It was frequently the landscape of his nightmares, but this was all too real.

Please, not again.

His panic began building to a crescendo; his heart felt like a hammer in his chest pounding out a desperate and uneven rhythm.

"It's been a long time, my creation," came a voice out of the void. Father.

"I'm here," he managed to reply, trying to keep his tone neutral. If he played this right, he would find himself on the right side of control again soon.

"You have opened the locks to my prison, yet you come here before I am able to fully reform," he paused.

"What is your purpose?" The voice rebounded around him in thundering echoes.

"I'm here to bring you news; I have located your perfect creation, the child you sired while in this dimension," he replied. He hoped his voice conveyed confidence despite his panic.

"The girl?" he asked.

He paused, momentarily confused. He meant Hope.

"No, she is not your creation; you have a son. His name is Landon, on the other side," he answered.

"Yet, her energy is strangely familiar…" he mused. "Who is she?"

"Her name is Hope Mikaelson. She is a tribrid, the only one of her kind to be born of wolf, vampire, and witch blood."

"Another creation of three…Interesting," the voice replied. "What is your plan for bringing her here?"

His heart lurched in his chest; he couldn't let his father find out that Hope was the one who had forced him here. He had to think of something—and quickly.

Best to go with something close to the truth.

"I manipulated her into coming," he lied swiftly. "She wants to destroy you; she believes that with her abilities she can—she considers herself a loophole to your power."

He heard the voice scoff in the darkness.

"I let her believe she has taken me prisoner," he continued. "But here in your realm, you can strike her down first; there will be no one left to stand in our way," he finished.

Whether or not he believed him, he was uncertain. It had been a long time since he had directly communicated with his father. He had allowed him some freedom to search for the keys to atone for his actions, but the memory of his betrayal still hung heavy between them. He was unsure how much he would ever trust him again.

"If what you say is true," he finally answered, "Bring this Hope Mikaelson to me…alive."

This was the opportunity he had been waiting for. If he was able to regain control of this situation, he may just escape this hell dimension after all. "Yes, Father," he replied.

"Do not disappoint me," came the answer, loud enough that he felt the words vibrating in his chest.

In the blink of an eye, he was back at the surface—and on solid ground. He was covered from head to toe in muck, but otherwise unharmed. The reunion with his father had gone much better than expected. Of course, he would have preferred to meet him under his own volition, when he had a chance to strategize beforehand.

Details could be worked out later.

He looked for Hope finding her up to her chin in the sand, pure fire burning in her eyes. It appeared that she had progressed from fear to anger.

The juxtaposition of her expression with her predicament was amusing. He found himself smiling at the sight, holding back a laugh.

Suddenly, her eyes met his— "What the living hell, Clarke?" she demanded, only to lose a few more inches.

She thrashed and sputtered, but a heartbeat later she had vanished completely beneath the sand; a few bubbles at the surface were the only sign that she'd ever been there at all.

He swore under his breath.

Well, his suit was already ruined.

(Hope)

If she was going to be taken out by a puddle of mud, she would have much preferred it to be the one she jumped into heroically, not the one she stumbled into like an idiot.

Agent Clarke had disappeared just moments ago, leaving her alone in her plight. How a six-foot something man had slipped beneath the surface before her, she couldn't fathom.

Maybe it was his heart of stone.

She reached out again for her magic, beseeching her ancestors to help her reach it, but it was no use. There was something about this sand that acted as an insulator, keeping her power contained. She could feel it deep inside her, hot, pulsing, and yearning to help—but trapped. The pressure of it building was bordering on painful; it felt as if she may explode at any moment.

She wished she could.

She was so angry; this was not supposed to be how it ended. Even if she had no one to come home to, she still had a world to save. Everyone was counting on her, even if they didn't remember that they were.

She had finally found her purpose. She wasn't just some cosmic mistake…the reason her parents were dead—she could do something for the world. She could do something good.

She let out a scream of frustration, but the woods paid no mind. She couldn't hold out much longer. She had no idea what would happen to Clarke if he resurrected—would he eventually be able to pull himself from the sand? Or suffer a fate worse than death? She had no idea.

The weight of having potentially caused another death was already weighing heavy on her heart. Asshole that he was, she made him her responsibility by dragging him here.

Suddenly, she sensed movement over her shoulder. She strained her neck only to find Agent Clarke watching her. He was standing on solid ground, covered head to toe in black sludge, and— smiling.

"What the living hell, Clarke?" she shouted at him. How could he have possibly gotten free so easily? The bastard even had the nerve to smile about it.

Before she could process anything further, she felt herself sinking again. For the briefest of moments, she saw his smile slip, but an instant later she was completely engulfed in darkness.