Prologue
Jinn stared wonderingly at the portal. It was a big crude archway made of rock and inside was a swirling, red, vortex. A mysterious mist poured from the portal and once in a while there was a pop and a hiss from the static it created. This was her chance to escape her living hell. She turned around to scan the landscape that she called home. It was full of black jagged ridges and mountains that covered the bloody red sky. The volcano rumbled in the distance and another big cloud of smoke erupted from it, covering the bloody sun that gave them light. Countless canyons zigzagged across the ash covered terrain and she could see where her and her people painstakingly carved shallow caves to live in. Could you even call what they have been doing living? It was more like clinging to the little life they had left. They survived off very little, eating the gray plants that struggled through the cracks and bugs that they found scurrying around the rocks. If they were lucky, they were able to catch some rats that were too sickly to run. They only had one water source and that was an underground lake that could be reached by going through a tunnel that slanted into the earth. The trick was that there were geysers that shot out boiling hot water and if you weren’t careful enough you could leave with some nasty burns. The only way to see was by the small holes that reached the surface and let some light filter through and that made avoiding the geysers much harder. Jinn kicked up a bit of ash as she inched closer to the portal. This is where she and her people have been for the past couple millennia. They were demons, each one having a pair of horns coming from their heads and a long tail with long fur at the end. Each one’s hair was a dark black and their skin ranged from the lightest to darkest shades of gray. Jinn herself had knotted hair that fell to her waist and she tried her best to untangle it but after a few years she just gave up. Her skin was a dark ash gray, but like everyone else was bruised and cut from living in this horrible land. Jinn looked at a small child that stood nearby clutching their mothers hand as they stared mesmerized by the portal. His horns were just barely peeking through the rats nest of hair he had and his tail swished back and forth in excitement. He barely wore anything, just little strips of cloth that were used over and over and it just made it easier to see how tight his skin was against his bones. All of a sudden a racking cough hit him and he doubled over, trying to gain his breath and Jinn’s heart broke a little. The smoke was horrible, it clouded their lungs and made it almost impossible to breathe. Her own tail swished back and forth, but in anger. Her and her people were sent here to die but they were able to hold on just barely, just enough time so they could figure out how to open the portal. She gritted her teeth and looked towards the crowd of her people that stood all around the portal. All their eyes were filled with hope and desperation and a hollowness that came from living the way they did. All of them with burns, scars, cuts, scratches and barely wearing anything on their shrunken bodies. I will make them pay! Jinn thought angrily, I will make them pay for doing this to us!! They never deserved to be sent to a place like this.
Also I can't think of a title for my story. Over time if any of you guys have ideas I would love to hear them