by R. E. Vance
I felt that if I stayed in this place too long I would die, not out of hunger or thirst, but because my body would eventually be absorbed by the nothing, my heart’s vibrations syncing with my new surroundings, joining the perfect harmony of the Void. I could feel that already happening, my mind losing so many memories.
This was not like the Void I had been in with Bella in my dreams. There, I suspected, I was just a visitor. Like being in a movie, except I could walk around the set, watch what was going on, but not actually be able to touch anything. Certainly this was true every time I tried to embrace Bella, draw her in close. We were together, but not. And although she wasn’t a hallucination, she was a hologram of herself. Where I was with Bella had felt like a dream.
This place felt real.
And I was suddenly gripped with a suffocating terror that I was dead and this was all that was left. Lonely, empty, lost—these words don’t even come close to how I felt. It was as if there was absolutely nothing in the Universe but my consciousness, and it felt awful. Already I could feel the utter lack of anything pierce my mind, crushing me under its overwhelming absence.
But then … well, remember how this all started. Me running from the darkness and her saving me. Perhaps we had come full circle, because from the emptiness of nothing, she came. And without doing or saying anything, by the simple act of being there, she saved me from a broken mind and lost soul.
Some things never change.
From out of the darkness Bella appeared. Not in my dreams, not a hallucination, but Bella made of flesh and blood. Bella, my wife, my best friend, my lover. My soul mate.
Bella, oh how I would have died a thousand times for you.
The joy of seeing her there and being overwhelmed by the nothingness of this place made me forget everything. Grinner, Earth, the Others, the GoneGods. But no emptiness could ever make me forget Bella. “Oh my love,” I said, “I am so happy to see you.”
↔
“You have to go back,” she said, denying me as I approached her.
I was so desperate to be in her arms. “I don’t want to go back,” I said. “I want to be here with you.”
She shook her head. “That is this place talking. It was how I felt when I first arrived. But you are not dead. Not like me.” Her voice was soothing, calm.
“No,” I said, “but this time I don’t have to wake up. We can be together forever here.”
Bella gave me her You-know-that’s-not-true look and said, “Jean, don’t you remember what’s happening?”
“Remember?” I said, the word slapping me as I spoke it. Remember what? What else was there to remember? But like the opposite of waking up from a dream and it slowly fading away into oblivion, her words brought it back. Vague images, until all I saw were Joseph and Penemue, Tink and CaCa, the destruction of the One Spire Hotel and the devastation of Paradise Lot. All of it was slowly trickling back into my consciousness. It was terrifying. I was seeking the embrace of the one who had soothed my nightmares a thousand times before, but with each new memory, a chasm grew between us.
“Am I dead?” I asked.
“No,” Bella said, “not yet. But the longer you stay here, the harder it will be for your soul to find its way back.”
“Would that be so bad?” I reached out my hand, determined to hold her before the divide grew too far. “We’d be together.”
Bella didn’t reach out for me. She did not take my hand in hers, instead rejecting me with a look of pain in her eyes. A single tear running down her cheek. She shook her head and said, “Look, the darkness is already changing. You have to go back.”
“I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“Remember the beach, the mountainside, your toys that I brought to life?”
I nodded.
“I’m not alone. They’re memories, but they are also real. I will learn to make those constructs more permanent. I’m getting better at filling the Void. And as I get better, I’m going to fill this place with things that remind me of you. Of us. Jean-Luc, I may be alone, but I am not lonely. This world is my canvas and already I have made so many wondrous paintings.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“You’re not leaving me,” she said, giving me her I-love-you-forever look. “You can’t.” She looked down through the portal and at Grinner, who continued to hold onto Heaven. “He’s weaker than he has ever been. He needs to build the bridge and enter this realm before he can be whole again. If there was ever a chance, now is it.”
“Maybe … but he’s so strong and I’ve run out of tricks.”
“You have. But I haven’t.”
She pulled off the silver ring that she had made in our dream and threw it to me. I caught it—and unlike all the times before, I actually felt the hard, cool metal in my hand.
“Remember your promise, Jean-Luc. And remember how much I love you.”
And from beyond the chasm, she blew me a kiss that hit me like a physical force, jarring me to life in the world beyond the Void. With a gasp, I was back at the cabin, on Earth and without Bella.
↔
Bella’s kiss blew me back into the world. I looked up and saw the window from where Bella threw me out of Heaven. It was a shimmering, black glossy hole that looked like someone had ripped open the sky. Bella’s face appeared at the threshold and her hand slammed against the inside of the portal, her palms flush against its barrier as if she were pressing against glass. She could not cross over. Like Michael said, “Death is the only one-way valve from which there is no return.” Well, Bella had made that journey already and the path to Heaven was closed. Even death would not reunite us. Not anymore.
Still, there was one hope. We knew that Joseph’s box was powerful enough to hold the connection. Hell, it had already drawn it out of us. With it, I could get back to Bella. So, new plan. Get Joseph’s box and kill Grinner, and not necessarily in that order.
Simple. I mean, how hard could it be to kill a god?
↔
“Oath-Breaker!” Grinner screamed, drawing my attention away from Heaven’s window. I looked behind me to see Penemue flapping directly above Grinner, exactly thirty feet away.
The cavalry had arrived and from the way he flopped about in the sky, I was pretty sure the cavalry was drunk.
“Hellelujah!” I cried out.
“Tell me, Fallen,” Grinner said, “have you come to repent for your sins, or are you here to witness the ascension of your new god?”
The angel grinned, removing those rimless glasses of his and tucking them into the small pocket in his tweed vest. “In Hell, I was a hero,” he said. “For my sin gave humans the capacity to sin from eternity to eternity. Why corrupt a single soul when you can damn them all? Perfect strategy, don’t you think?
“In Hell, Belial built me a vast library and Mulciber a palace. They showered me with gifts and riches, praise and accolades. Even the Morning Star consulted me when contemplating the more subtle aspects of sin. All the while I nodded and imparted my knowledge, because if any of them were to suspect that I taught humans wisdom not out of malice but out of admiration, and, dare I say it, love, they would cast me out—and then where would I go? Better to survive in Hell than wither elsewhere, I thought. Well, I am tired of surviving.”
Penemue cast a glance at me. “What was it you said? ‘We’re all going to die. Might as well die for something worthwhile.’ Very well then.”
From out of nowhere two daggers appeared, their hilts attached to a chain that bubbled out of his skin and wrapped around his forearms. He threw them down at Grinner, both piercing his back as the fallen angel yanked on the chains and pulled upward. Grinner lifted up, wriggling like a fish caught on a hook. All this time I thought of Penemue as a celestial librarian, never once imagining that he had a few tricks literally up his sleeve. GoneGodDamn! Penemue was a badass!
Penemue took to the sky and I noted that his chains were over thirty feet long. He was keeping his distance. The angel pulled up, but Gri
nner quickly anchored himself to the ground. Penemue’s arms and wings struggled to get enough power to pull him up.
He yanked again, rope-thick veins straining to provide enough blood to his massive muscles, but the huge Grinner did not move. I doubt he even burned time to hold himself to the ground, his newly-made massive body enough to anchor him down. But he was in pain. I could tell from the way his smile faltered.
Grinner reached for the blades, but Penemue had planned his shot well. There was no way a body of human design could reach those meat hooks stuck in its own back.
“I see that a leopard does not change its spots, just as a Fallen cannot do anything but fall!”
With this last word, Grinner spread apart his hands and tried to force Penemue down. The angel was outside of Grinner’s thirty-foot sphere of influence and Grinner couldn’t get a hold on him. But Grinner wasn’t trying to pull down the fallen angel—he was focusing his powers on the chains from which he hung. Penemue must have anticipated this because he was flapping his wings for all his worth, the air beneath him stirring up the earth and ground below. Leaves and loose twigs were to be expected, but the torrent of his wings was pulling up the roots of full grown trees, their tendril roots popping up from beneath the ground. Man, oh man, I’d seen jet engines throw less air around.
Penemue fought Grinner, his strength slowly failing him. But he wasn’t the only one who suffered from exhaustion. Grinner was also sweating, his face straining, skin thickening as he struggled to hold the Void while fighting the angel. He was burning too much time dealing with Penemue while trying to maintain his grip on Heaven.
The monster was aging, which meant that he could be killed, too.
But just when I thought we had a chance, Grinner pulled down Penemue. The angel hit the ground with a splat, his wings still sprawled out before him. Crap.
I stood, expecting to feel like Hell, but instead I felt whole, strong. My foot was still a sack of powdered bone, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t feel it. I was … young. No—that wasn’t the right word for it. I was more. I felt like I was going to live, if not forever, damn near close to it. Thousands upon thousands of years pulsed through my body and I knew that whatever Bella packed into that kiss, she threw in a whole truck load of time with it, too. I was—for this moment, at least—like an Other.
Bella’s words ran through my mind: Imagine playing with these! Well, that’s exactly what I did.
Summoning the well of time that was within me, I conjured Optimus, Star Scream and every Dinobot ever made. I brought forth Voltron, G.I. Joe and an army of Smurfs. And each one of my creations was three stories high and just as heavy. I summoned a squadron of Robotech’s Veritech fighters. They were all at least thirty feet tall, and the ground shook as each one took a step.
And then, my army of giant 1980s toys opened up a can of whoop-ass on Grinner.
Grinner fought them off just as he had done with the Others in Paradise Lot, but unlike before when he fought a bunch of Others that did their best to coordinate their attacks, he now fought dozens of creatures that were one mind. When he swatted down Megatron, Snakes Eyes was right there to slash him with his sword. When he tossed away He-Man, WilyKat scratched him with his claws. I even threw in a Care Bear Stare for good measure.
And each of his counter attacks aged him. His shaggy dark hair was shot with gray, had receded back to his ears and kept pulling back. He simply could not fight so many while holding on to Heaven. And what was worse—for him at least—was every time he destroyed one of my toys, I made two more.
I had never burned time before so I really wasn’t prepared for what it felt like. All I can say is that it was like emptying air out of your lungs. After a while, there wasn’t any air left to blow out. Whatever Bella gave me was temporary. But it was enough.
When the last second of the extra time given to me burned out, I looked over at a Grinner who now panted heavy with exertion, sweat dripping from his brow. He dropped to one knee and I knew he was nearly beat. All that was needed was to push him over the edge.
I hopped over to Penemue, who slowly rose from the crater his body had made from his fall. “Those hooks,” I said, “do they detach?”
Penemue nodded, threaded out one of his chains and handed it to me. I pulled out my hunting sword and, taking his grappling hook, I hopped closer to Grinner. He tried to turn, but before he could I threw the hook into him, its jagged edge connecting with his back. Then I pulled with all my worth. It had the desired effect—I was on him. Let him remove or increase gravity, I was attached now.
I pulled back my sword arm and stabbed, piercing my sword’s three-foot blade into where Grinner’s heart would be. He whimpered, but as soon as I withdrew my sword, he healed his wound. I had fought a lot of Others and, unlike the legends, you didn’t need a silver bullet to kill a werewolf or garlic to end a vampire. Sure, those things helped, but at the end of the day, they were made of flesh and blood. Sometimes all you need to kill a monster is brute force. I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, and with each chunk I carved out of him, Grinner healed, burning a bit of time as he did. He countered by crushing me with gravity. It felt like my chest was being constricted under the force of a powerful python, but I didn’t care. I just wanted this guy dead. I fought through the pain, striking him again and again with my blade.
What was healing a slash worth? A minute? What about cutting off a finger, or slitting a throat? An hour? Maybe a day? What was my plan, anyway? To force him to burn through a hundred million years one stab wound at a time? This was the very definition of insanity, but if I stopped, he would heal himself and we would be right back where we started, a First Law with a god-complex seeking to oppress the world. I couldn’t let that happen.
But he was burning more than an hour of life. He was going through thousands of years in the blink of an eye, such was the energy required to hold the Void. Even so, this would take hours and I was so very tired and my body so constricted. My muscles would fail me long before his time burned out.
“You fool!” he cried out. “I give you the chance to be reunited with her! Your one true love!”
“No,” I said, continuing to press my advantage. “Not like this!”
Already I was failing. I wanted desperately to see Grinner falter even just the slightest, but exhaustion was overwhelming me. My arms were burning, each swing weaker than the last. I couldn’t win.
Then I saw her, staring from the window, her hand on the glass that separated us. She gave me that same smile she did the day she died. The one that said It will all be OK.
No, it won’t. I can’t.
She smiled, her lips curled into an uneven line of both joy and fear. Do it, she mouthed. Please.
“No,” I said. Then, summoning six years of frustration and anger, loss and anguish, I screamed it. “NO!”
But I had made a promise. To protect them and to love her. In this life and the next.
I knew what I had to do.
I spun around and grabbed at the box that still rested in his hands, bringing down my good foot in an arching swoop. As I did so, I took a moment to look up one last time at the Void, saw Bella’s distant soul smile with pride.
I smashed down the box that once contained the bridge between Bella and I, and with more ease than should have been possible, I destroyed Pandora’s Box.
↔
The little plain wooden cube splintered into a thousand pieces, tearing apart far too easily for something that would change my life forever. But then again, what did I expect? Sometimes it is the simplest acts that have the most profound effects.
With Joseph’s box destroyed, I let go, a new kind of darkness coming over me. It was neither the Void nor one of Grinner’s tricks, nor was it my dreams.
I was dying.
I looked up and saw Bella there, the window from where she watched slowly fading away.
“The Void, it is closing. Without the box, I can no longer hold on to it,” Grinner said, now white-haired and
grizzled. He was still burning time, but what he was doing I was not sure. Truth be told, I did not care. Heaven was closed and no amount of time or power could get it back. Bella was gone. If he used his time to crush me, so be it. I was alone and it hurt me to know that I would never see her again. Death sounded pretty good.
“I …” he muttered, wrinkling and stooping more with every syllable he uttered. “I … was created to speak to the gods. I gave them permission to exist, I opened their realms. I am the reason why all that is, is. And they left me here to die at Time’s hand.”
“Join the club,” I said, my vision blurring all the more.
He looked at me as tributaries of wrinkles poured from the sides of his eyes like dry tears, the eyes themselves bursting red with capillaries. “Mortality—how do you bear it?”
How do I bear it? How does one bear the march of time, knowing that each moment spent will never return? How do you accept that the breath just breathed takes you one step closer to the Void? How do you accept that an end is coming and no amount of power or wealth or talent will ever save you from it? How do you live knowing you are going to die?
I had no idea, and my ignorance suddenly felt very funny to me. A laugh escaped me and my sides split in agonizing pain at the effort. “One day at a time,” I said. “One day at a time.”
I coughed and noticed that the blood that trickled from my mouth flowed slowly, which meant that my heart no longer pumped hard enough for my blood to reach my head. That or I simply ran out of blood. I guess that’s what you get when someone cracks your ribs. I was getting cold. As my vision faded I knew that my last breath quickly approached.
I looked up one last time and said in a weak voice, “In this life and the next.” I think I stretched out my arm, my hand reaching for her, but I can’t be sure. The world was fast disappearing.
Grinner nodded at my words and said, “One day at a time,” his nose and stubbled chin growing prominent, his body withering as he spoke. I noticed that he was getting smaller, too. “One hour at a time,” he said, his eyes widening as if he finally got the punchline to the esoteric joke that was life. “One minute at a time.”