by Anthology
Dodging through their obstacle of attacks, Bailey was about to call out for instructions on the way he should head when his eyes caught something moving in the distance. Blue eyes sparkled in the gloom, and like a magpie drawn to a treasure glistening in the sunlight, Bailey advanced toward it.
“Greyson,” he called, breathlessly.
A young boy stepped from the grey and Bailey knew it was a younger version of his lover. The boy was the image of Greyson’s ten-year-old self he’d seen in school photographs. The child grinned at Bailey; then he turned away from him and ran down the corridor, waving for Bailey to follow.
Without question, Bailey followed in strong pursuit, hoping to catch Greyson as the gathering children followed, but this version of Greyson was too far ahead, much too fast for Bailey to reach, and all around him more children appeared in the darkness, eager to claim him for Purgatory. Each one relished in the obscenities they directed toward Bailey, yet not one had managed to reach out and hold him long enough to keep him from chasing the blue-eyed boy.
Not wanting to focus his energies on the creepy, faceless children, Bailey called out to Greyson as he attempted to run faster. “Wait... please,” he begged.
Greyson seemed to ignore his pleading, stopping once or twice only to turn around and smile at Bailey with his crooked little grin. Each time, the young boy waved Bailey forward encouragingly.
Although his chest seemed tight from the exertion of running, Bailey was thankful he didn’t appear to need to stop and catch a breath. Perhaps it was the adrenaline or the growing number of children advancing toward him. Whatever it was, he carried on trying to bridge the gap between him and Greyson.
With each piece of the corridor Bailey left behind, he thought the number of shadow children was increasing. They came from all angles of the darkness, some from small cracks in open doors, others floating down from above or rising through the floor. It was becoming harder to dodge them, and more than a few times one had caught hold of him. Panic ran through him as the children tried to engulf him, latching on in a bid to drag him below the surface of the corridor’s floor.
This is it... they’ve got me. Oh dear god, help me, Greyson!
Each time, Bailey somehow managed to break free at the last second and run after the still smiling Greyson.
The corridor seemed never-ending.
“Please... wait,” he gasped, hoping Greyson would stop and help him keep the children at bay.
Never once were his pleas answered, but Bailey soldiered on through the corridor in hopes of finally catching up to the child and being near the real Greyson again, even if it would be for just a few, short seconds.
Greyson turned a corner in the corridor and disappeared from view. Bailey never relented and followed the distant sound of his footsteps, turning the same corner. He’d always been a slow runner, and even now, with the terrifying children chasing him, it was no different. He could no longer see traces of Grayson ahead. All he could hear was a distant tap, tap, tapping of feet meeting tiled ground.
Following another bend in the corridor, Bailey collided with a hard wall and was knocked to the ground.
“Shit,” he cursed, falling silent when he heard soft laughter to his side. “G-Greyson?”
The darkness had again become all-consuming, and he struggled to see more than a few inches in front of him. Behind him, he could hear the ever-approaching steps of a thousand children, and dread had him calling out to Greyson again. “Is anyone there?”
Hearing the same, soft chuckle again, Bailey jumped when a hand caressed his cheek. Knowing he should back away from it and call out for help seemed to be at the back of his mind as he settled into the touch, ghosting his own hand over it. There was a familiarity to the exchange, and when his free hand was clasped, he allowed himself to be lifted to his feet by an unseen force.
“Greyson,” he whispered.
It was like he’d found the magic word, and the sound of his own voice opened a door in the darkness he hadn’t seen. A bright light cascaded over his body, and when his eyes adjusted to the change he saw a hazy image of his lover near him. He tried to reach out and hold onto him again, but he was frozen into place.
As more light washed over him, Bailey felt a soft kiss against his cheek seconds before he was forced through the door.
Door Three
I’M FLOATING. Am I finally dying? Is this the end I wanted? I’m coming Greyson.
His body felt light, like a balloon filled with air, and he seemed to be floating through the surrounding white space. Higher and higher he rose. Or was he falling? He wasn’t sure, everything seemed against the norm in the realm between heaven and hell.
After all, how normal was it for someone to end up in a place like Purgatory? Was he so intoxicated from the copious amounts of drugs he’d taken that he was hallucinating? Would he wake with nothing more than an aching head and still-shattering heart?
These questions were plaguing Bailey, taunting him as he floated in the bright nothing until his ass finally kissed a hard surface and he found himself seated on a chair. He was still in the blinding light though, seated as if on a stage with the blaze of a spotlight trained on him. Through the glare, he tried to make out the shapes the objects close to him were taking.
Inches from where he sat, a table came into view, one he thought looked to be made of oak. Smaller shapes of rectangles and squares also came into focus—calendars and notepads, along with a small desktop computer. It wasn’t a place Bailey was familiar with, and when he heard a woman’s voice, he couldn’t recall its owner’s face.
“I’m very sorry.” Her voice was soft, laced with sympathy.
Bailey wasn’t sure who the woman was speaking to, but as she spoke from behind the desk, he saw she was a young doctor, with long, red curls falling to her shoulders in crimson swirls. The woman wasn’t looking his way, but at someone seated to his side. “The cancer you have has gone too far, but there is hope.”
Bailey shuddered when the person beside him replied, and a whimper was pulled from his shocked lips. This voice he did know. He’d had the pleasure of hearing it whisper sweet nothings since they day they met. “There is always hope, Dr. Lance.”
It was Greyson seated to his left, and Bailey turned to look at his lover.
“Greyson! Greyson, it’s me, Bailey.”
Although he spoke, Bailey’s voice didn’t permeate the air. “Greyson! Greyson, it’s me, Bailey.” He repeated the words again, to no avail. It was as though a remote control had been pointed his way and the mute button clicked. He felt violated, his sense of control no longer his.
In a bid to get the attention of his husband, or even just to feel his skin once again, Bailey sought to entwine his fingers with Greyson’s. They passed right through, like a ghost in a movie.
Unaware of his presence, Greyson and the doctor carried on speaking, resulting in Bailey feeling withdrawn from life. It was how he’d spent most of his youth. Living, but not existing within society.
Dr. Lance smiled at Greyson, twirling a pen through her fingers with grace. Bailey noticed how pretty the young woman was, her face painted with a soft brush of make-up, and he assumed she didn’t feel the need to hide behind a layer of foundation like so many women did. “I’ve seen people live long, happy lives with cancer. And we’re finding new treatments all the time. We can fight this.”
Her words seeped into him, and he found he could feed off her confidence. She was wrong though.
Looking back at Greyson, Bailey noted his somber expression and thought he seemed neither confident nor dismissive of her encouraging words. No tears lingered in his eyes, wishing to break free from his restraint and give in to emotions. Shock or alarm weren’t apparent on his face either. He just seemed so accepting.
Initially, Bailey assumed this was a memory of one of Greyson’s meetings about the liver cancer he had, but then he remembered how he’d been present at each and every consultation, held Greyson’s hand and tried to offer
strength, for both of them. He looked back at the desk and saw the date on the calendar. May 17, 2011.
Wrong!
The day Greyson came home and sat next to him on the sofa, held his hand within and told him he was dying, was branded into Bailey’s heart. May 28, 2011. Bailey recalled how he’d been chopping vegetables for dinner and had opened a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to let it breathe, ready for when they ate. His stomach had hurt as they sat beside one another, the walls of the room seeming to close in on them.
“I don’t understand,” he said, again his words never leaving his lips.
Why had he waited eleven days to tell me this?
This time his thoughts had been heard, because Greyson spoke.
“I don’t know how to tell him.” He was looking at his hands, no longer battling with the restraint of his tears. They glided down his cheek with sorrowful grace, painting tracks of pain where they fell on his face. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to... to leave him. Not yet.”
Bailey swallowed, and his throat felt like sandpaper, cutting him. He wanted to collect Greyson’s tears, but his fingers kept passing through them.
“He will start to notice if you don’t say something. And you need to support each other,” Dr. Lance urged.
Greyson nodded, and when Bailey looked at his hands again he noticed a small photograph he was holding. It was from their wedding day, when they’d sneaked away from the celebrations and sat in a photo booth together taking silly pictures.
Our moment away. That’s what Greyson had called it. Fifteen minutes of just us. Jennifer had distracted everyone for them, so they sneaked off to the local pharmacy all suited and booted and paid six pounds for the four pictures.
“What if he leaves me?”
Greyson’s words cut Bailey with the power of a thousand daggers, all eating into him at once like a plague.
How could he think that? He ghosted his hand over Greyson’s in hopes the man might feel his touch.
The doctor sat patiently and listened as Greyson continued. “I know he loves me... I do.” He began, seeming to speak to the photograph. “He’s already lived through so much though, how can I ask this of him too... to support me? I promised things would get better.”
Bailey hung on his every word, remembering the promise Greyson spoke of.
“If you marry me, I will never let anyone hurt you again.”
It was so unlike the conventional proposal of marriage you could get. Greyson had done the expected, by getting down on one knee regardless of the pouring rain, as if ‘will you marry me’ wasn’t powerful enough. Bailey said yes without hesitation.
“I was supposed to protect him, keep him safe.”
“You did. You did,” Bailey cried, so loud the room around him was greeted by the sound of his voice. It vibrated off the walls.
He watched as Greyson spoke to the doctor, but no longer did he hear their words as their lips moved. The only sound he could hear was the whistle of the wind as it passed through small cracks appearing on the walls. The dark shadows began sucking the light from the room, and he could feel its pull. He tried to move but was stuck in the seat as Greyson and the doctor dissolved into the returning black fog.
“No!” he screamed.
He wanted to break free and follow his lover, tell him he’d been stupid ever to hold off telling him. Apologise for not staying strong for the both of them. It was a part of the past the angel had told him would be revealed. Bailey never knew this moment, when Greyson seemed at his weakest. And it was all because he thought Bailey would leave him. As if he ever would.
Greyson was gone though, and Bailey was left in the nothing, alone as he once was. The darkness was swallowing him, engulfing him like quicksand. Fighting against it, he tried to yell out to Greyson, or to the angel, before granting the grey permission to claim him. He didn’t have enough fight in him, and he allowed the darkness to begin to turn him to dust.
Door Four
HE DIDN’T want to open his eyes, tried to ignore the sound of feet moving near him. He wondered if this was a new soul come to be claimed by Purgatory as he had.
The engulfing darkness had won, kept its hold on him and whittled him down to the nothing he now was. That was it, wasn’t it? Purgatory had won, and here he was, one of the countless pieces of grain that made up the wasteland. He didn’t want to fight it any longer, had nothing left in him to fuel the fire to keep battling for his life.
He saw no door, none appeared for him to pass through. So Purgatory had been victorious after all.
I’m sorry, Greyson. Sorry we won’t meet again.
He tried to block the sound of moving feet out and focus on something else to distract him, but he couldn’t chase away the need to move. How could he though, when he’d given up and allowed the darkness to be his master?
It felt strange being a part of the rubble he’d once run his fingers through. He didn’t feel like a particle, a grain of sand. He couldn’t explain it, but he still felt whole—lost, but whole.
If he thought about it, he could still wiggle his fingers and toes, tense the muscles in his legs. This sensation had him dragging his body to a sitting position. As he moved, the rubble fell from him and landed back on the ground.
His eyes seemed to have adjusted to the bleakness of the place because he could see around him. He watched as he moved his fingers in front of his face, watched them dance with the dark color palette.
“I thought... how can this be?” he exclaimed.
“You mustn’t give up, Bailey.” He knew it was the angel in his head.
Bailey looked around him, but he was still alone. “Shouldn’t this be over now? Shouldn’t I be rubble?”
“This isn’t Purgatory. This is something far worse.” Bailey thought the angel sounded hesitant. “This is Greyson’s future afterlife.”
The final door.
How had he missed it? He wanted to sit and ponder, but something told him to look around, see the afterlife Greyson should be enjoying. It felt wrong, so unlike he’d imagined. No fields of yellow flowers or rolling hills of green grass. What Bailey saw was similar to the place he sat within before the vortex tried to steal him away. A wasteland covered in grains of grey and black.
A few feet from him, he saw a figure standing in the far corner, and he recognized his lover. Getting to his feet, he ran to him and held tight to his husband.
Turning his lover toward him, Bailey’s eyes met with a version of Greyson he didn’t like. One whose face was covered in cracks like an old Renaissance painting hanging in a gallery—one with hollow, empty eyes.
“What happened to you, Greyson?”
The man didn’t respond, just looked at Bailey with vacant eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
Bewildered, Bailey looked to the ground, and where his shadow might have been if he was still alive, was a soft glow. The angel. He wasn’t sure at first, but when he heard Greyson’s voice, he knew it to be him.
“This is what will come of Greyson, when he doesn’t have you to watch over.”
He wasn’t sure what the angel meant. All he wanted to do was relish in the fact he finally held his lover’s hand. What he held in his palms was different to the familiar touch he knew, it felt brittle, like it would crumble at any given second the way an autumn leaf would after days lying discarded on the ground.
Eyes wide in shock, Bailey shook his head. “How... how did this happen?”
“Greyson’s wasting away. He’s given in,” the angel told him, matter-of-factly. “When a person dies, they spend their time looking down on those they left behind until they’re reunited again.” He hesitated for a moment. “When you took your life, Greyson had nobody to look down on. Nobody came to take his hand and guide him to his eternal heaven. He had no reason to go on.”
Bailey let go of Greyson’s hand, crying out when it crumbled into nothing and floated away on the breeze.
“N-No!” Like a thread pulled on a woolen jump
er, Greyson seemed to unravel and dissolve into nothing. In no time at all, he was reduced to particles drifting away in the distance.
“If I don’t make it back, this is what will happen to him.” It wasn’t a question, at least not one Bailey wanted an answer to.
Pausing, he looking around him, lost in his own thoughts before finding his voice again. “I-I have to go back! But how do I live without him?”
Torn between not wanting his lover to waste away to nothing and living a life alone on earth, Bailey wrapped his arms around his own body for comfort.
“Strength,” the angel said as it began to take on the form of his lover again and stood smiling at him with Greyson’s bright, blue eyes. “You have to hold onto whatever amount of strength you have left. Use that to live the life I want for you.”
Bailey allowed the angel to hold him for a few moments. Then something occurred to him and he chuckled into the angel’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure where the laugh came from—nerves maybe?
“You mean the one Greyson wants for me.”
The angel shifted in his arms, saying nothing. Bailey inhaled the scent of lavender and rose. His heart began to flutter the way it would when Greyson walked into the room. He gasped, still holding tight to the man, and moved his head so he could gaze into those beautiful eyes once more.
“G-Greyson?”
His lover was already caressing his cheek and smiling. “I don’t have much time,” he said, never breaking the contact their eyes made.
Bailey tried to apologize, to tell him he loved him, but Greyson silenced his words with a gentle kiss.
“I know, B. I’ve always known, but you have to go back.”
Hearing a creak, Bailey knew a door had opened near him, and he allowed Greyson to walk him toward it, yet never looked away from the man’s sweet face.
“I’m scared,” he confessed.
Greyson smiled back at him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Remember, I will always be watching you. Love doesn’t end simply because a heart stops beating.”