1 Chapter 1

~Isabella Wint~

This couldn't be true. I could not have been chosen. This was all a joke. It had to be. But I knew that wasn't the case. The letter in my hand looked pretty official to me, especially with the huge golden circle stamped on the right-hand corner.

For over a century, the Demon King has been getting his demons to come to Earth to kidnap humans and bring them down to the Demon Realm, Rovana. There, the Demon King tortures and brutally kills all these humans and no one really knows the reason behind it. Because of this, humans live in constant fear and none of us can be too safe anywhere we go.

A prophecy was found thirty years ago that states that the Demon King can be stopped by one human and one human alone. An eighteen year old teenage girl. The rest of the prophecy has been burned by the Demon King himself but the government was able to save the first little bit of it.

The government has come up with a system that randomly picks twenty, 18 year old girls every year from all over the world to be sent down to the Demon King hoping one of them will be able to succeed in killing him. But every year, all the girls have ended up dying instead. Not one girl has ever made it home safe.

And right now, I am holding a letter in my hand stating that I will be one of the twenty girls who will go down to Rovana try to stop this Demon King. I couldn't believe I was selected. I never thought it possible for me to be one of the girls. I just didn't think this would happen to me and I wasn't mentally prepared for this at all.

I personally think the prophecy's a fake. How are we supposed to go and stop the Demon King? The government sends us down with no protection or weapons at all either. They just hand us over to the King as a 'peace offering' and I bet the King thinks us humans stupid for thinking a peace offering can stop him.

Now I'll be sent down next week with nineteen other girls from all around the world, with no preparation or instruction at all as to how we're supposed to kill him. I don't think I could do it anyways. The thought of killing anyone makes me absolutely sick. Even if it is someone as horrible as the Demon King. It's a complete waste sending me down because I know I am definitely not the girl from the prophecy. The girl from the prophecy has to be someone brave and intelligent which is the complete opposite of me.

And I don't believe killing the King is the right thing to do. By killing him, won't we be stooping down to his level? I don't know what else we'd do but if we think about it, we could come up with something that could stop the King without having to kill him. There has to be a reason he kills humans. Shouldn't there be? The King before him had never killed any humans in his lifetime. So why does the one now like to kill? There had to be a reason.

I crashed down onto the sofa, staring at the letter in my hand. I couldn't understand how I could have been picked to stop the King. There were many girls who had a better chance of survival than me that could have been picked but no, it was I who got chosen.

I checked the time and noticed it was 11 pm. My parents would be coming home soon from their date. I didn't want to ruin their night by basically telling them I was going to die. But I had to tell them.

I was really proud of myself for not having broken down in tears yet at the thought of leaving and being killed. But I knew I'd start crying as soon as I told my parents and my little brother and sister about the news.

I angrily chucked the letter down on the ground not wanting to look at it any longer and grabbed a blanket from my bedroom before going back to the couch. I sat down, wrapping the blanket around me and switched the tv, hoping this was all just a nightmare.

The news was on and the news lady was talking about more human deaths caused by the Demon King. I quickly switched the channel to something else and an old black and white movie was playing. I decided to watch that until my parents came home. I didn't care if I liked it or not, I just wanted to keep myself distracted because I knew if I started crying I wouldn't be able to stop.

After half an hour my parents came home and as I had predicted, my eyes started welling up in tears.

"Isa, we're home!" My mom called causing me to start sobbing at hearing her voice.

"Mom." I quietly called back, my voice shaking hard as I sniffed.

"Isa, are you okay?" My dad asked concerned as he walked into the living room to find me crying, tears freely falling down my face. I grabbed a tissue out of the tissue box and blew my nose before shaking my head no at my dad.

My mom hurried into the living room as well and both my parents came and sat down beside me. "What happened, honey?" My mom asked in her calm, soothing voice as she gently stroked my hair. All I did was point at the letter on the ground. My dad leaned over and picked it up, reading it, when a look of horror came across his face.

* * * * * * * *

~ A week later ~

I felt so scared and nervous. I was standing in a room with the nineteen other girls I'm supposed to go down to Rovana with and I could already tell we know we had no chance of survival.

A lot of girl's eyes were puffy and red from all the crying they must have done before coming here, just like mine probably looked. Most girls looked really scared while others just didn't care or looked way too overconfident.

There was a particularly annoying girl standing beside me who just wouldn't shut up with her stupid remarks. From what I heard from the conversations, her name was Shauna. She had brown hair and green eyes. She was pretty overall but really stupid. And I didn't understand why she felt the need to be wearing clothes that were so revealing. Like girl, we're supposed to be killing the Demon King, not seducing him. Although, now that I think about it, seducing him would be a great way to trick him and then kill him. But I doubt she was smart enough for that.

"I heard the King is really hot." She randomly stated and I mentally face-palmed myself. How would she even know that since there hasn't been anyone who was able to live on to tell stories about the King? "Do you think he'll think me hot? Or should I remove my shirt? Maybe he'll want to stare at my-"

"Just shut up! Please! You really shouldn't be thinking about how 'hot' the King is. He's a monster who likes to kill innocent humans. And you looking hot won't stop him from ripping you to shreds. To be honest, I want to rip you to shreds at the moment! So who's to say he wouldn't want to either? And are you seriously asking about removing your shirt? I mean, can you even call that a shirt? Pleass don't remove anything because I frankly do not want my eyeballs to burn and fall out of their sockets!" I exclaimed out in annoyance not wanting to listen to her stupid remarks anymore, while everyone turned to look at me. I noticed some girls snickering, while others didn't really care as they were still crying.

"I guess somebody is on her period." Shauna mocked, snickering lightly. "Everyone knows you're just jealous that I'm way prettier than you'll ever be."

Was this girl serious? I honestly felt like breaking her face and I'm not usually an aggressive person. I very rarely get angry but she was really starting to get on my nerves.

"Actually, I think I'm gorgeous and I would never want to change a thing about myself." I said as I gave her the most dirtiest look ever. What I just said may have been a lie because I would love to change a lot of things about myself but she doesn't need to know that.

"You think you're gorgeous? You? Have you ever even seen yourself? I mean look at your hair, it's so frizzy from the ends and those baby hairs sticking out in weird curls. Your nose is really big too." She sneered and she would have went on and on if I hadn't have interrupted her.

"Shut up! Just shut up! Honestly, you're so dumb I wouldn't be surprised if the Demon King, whatever the hell his name is, decides to kill you. Who cares about looks when we're all going to get killed anyway? So please shut up." And just as I finished saying that, a lady walked to the front to start announcing what will be happening.

"Good afternoon, girls. As you all know, you are the twenty girls that have been selected to go down to Rovana and stop the Demon King. You will all be expected to try your very best to kill the Demon King and end his vicious ways forever. We will be sending you over as a so called peace offering, pretending we're asking him to stop killing everyone else and just kill you girls instead." As she said the last part, the girls started panicking but then the lady continued on saying the stupidest thing ever. "Don't worry girls, you'll be fine if you are able to kill him." How stupid is she? Nobody has ever been able to kill him. How can she expect us to be able to kill him? I mean we're not really the most promising group. And it annoyed me how casually she said it too.

After her little announcement, we had to get ready to get sent down to Rovana. I felt fear grip my shoulders sharply. I had no idea what to expect and I did not feel ready at all. I couldn't do this. I know I couldn't. I am so sure that I'm going to be one of the very first girls to die.

We all got pushed into a line and to my luck, I was the first person standing in line, right in front of the portal to Rovana. I pushed my dark hair out of my face and stared down at my tanned feet in my pink flip flops as I waited for the portal door to open. I felt a cold swoosh of wind across my face as the portal door opened.

I heard girls behind me gasp in fright but I was too scared to look up and see what they were gasping at. I then felt cold cruel hands grab my shoulders aggressively and push me through the portal.

I was consumed by the cruel darkness for a few seconds before I landed with a thud on a cold hard floor. My head hit the ground and I winced in pain as I slowly got up into a sitting position.

I then started looking around me and noticed I was in a large, low-ceilinged jail cell. It was very dark so I had no idea what else was in this cell until I heard a little whimper. It was very quiet but prominent enough for my ears to pick it up.

I looked around before I spotted a little boy who looked to be about five years of age. He was sitting in a corner sobbing quietly. I was about to say something but got interrupted when the other girls started coming through the portal. After a few minutes, all nineteen of the girls had crossed over.

The little boy looked at all of us with wide eyes. I decided to go and assure him that we weren't going to hurt him. I pushed passed all the girls and came up to him. I knelt down in front of him. "Hi." I said waiting for him to reply.

"Hi." He said, staring back at me with bright baby blue eyes. I couldn't help but smile at how adorable this kid looked as he stared back at me.

"I'm Isabella. What's your name?" I asked with a smile.

"That's my mom's name too!" He exclaims with a cute little laugh.

"Hey, leave the poor kid alone. He probably hates you. Come over here kid. Isabella is really mean and you don't want to be near her." Shauna said, opening her arms wide for him. I smiled smugly when the little boy wrapped his arms around my neck and backed away from Shauna.

"Guess he likes me." I said causing her to huff and turn away. Once she started to talk to the other girls, I turned back to the little boy.

"What's your name?" I asked wrapping my arms around him.

"Thomas." He said as he started playing with my hair.

"Thomas, can you explain to me why you are here?" I asked, dreading his answer.

"The Demons took me and my family here. They said they were gonna kill us. That's why I was crying. I want my mommy and my daddy and my sissy. But the Demons said that the Demon King killed them. And that he'll kill me too." He said before he started sobbing again.

"Aww Thomas." I said as I hugged him tightly. I felt so bad for him. How could anyone want to kill an adorable little boy like Thomas?

"I'll protect you Thomas. I'll make sure the King doesn't hurt you. I promise." I said as I wiped Thomas's tears away. My heart went out to this poor child who had just lost his entire family.

"Oh don't give the boy false hope. Because let's be real here, none of you will survive. The Demon King will kill everyone. Except for me of course." Shauna spoke up in her annoying snarky voice.

"And why won't he kill you?" I shot back.

"Yeah, why won't he?" Another girl who's name I'm pretty sure was Pam, replied also. She was a pretty Japanese girl with straight black hair and big brown eyes. I liked this girl because she was against Shauna just like me.

"Because he'll want to make me his mistress. After a busy day of him performing his Demon Kingly duties, he'll come back to his bedroom to find me gracing his bed, ready for him, whenever he needs me to take care of his special manly needs." She haughtily said causing many of the girls including Pam and I, to snicker at how stupid she sounded.

"Yeah totally. And can you please not talk about stuff like that in front of Thomas? It'd be greatly appreciated." I said, hoping she'd shut up because everything that seemed to come out of her mouth was just plain stupid and unnecessary.