by R. E. Vance
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 had packed into that kiss, she threw in a whole truckload 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 that battle, when he fought a bunch of Others that did their best to coordinate their attacks, he now fought dozens of creatures that shared 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 counterattacks aged him. His shaggy dark hair became shot with gray, receded back to his ears and kept pulling back farther. 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. It was like emptying air out of your lungs. After a while, there wasn’t any air left to blow out. Whatever Bella had given 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 heavily 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, 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 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. “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 slightly, but exhaustion was overwhelming me. My arms burned, 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 Grinner’s hands, bringing my good foot down 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 cube that had once contained the bridge between Bella and me, 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 to make that happen 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. “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 da
y at a time.”
I coughed and noticed that the blood that trickled from my mouth flowed slowly, which meant my heart no longer pumped hard enough for my blood to reach my head. That or I had simply run 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 grew 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.”
Angels say that your soul leaves your body like a waft of smoke floating away from a recently extinguished candle, but that is not true. Like the tearing of fabric or the sheasring of skin, your soul rips away from you. It is solid and unmistakable. There is no confusion, no questioning. When you die, you know it. And on that day, just outside my PopPop’s cabin in the woods, I died; my soul, although it did not possess eyes with which to see or ears with which to hear, ascended to Heaven and to Bella. I guess I didn’t need the box after all.
I could sense Bella drawing close to me as I was carried up in the mists and toward the Void. She was only a few feet away. Only a little farther and I would be with her. Soon, my soul screamed, soon!
But before I could be with her again, I was drawn back into my body like dust being sucked into the mouth of a vacuum. I was no longer separate, but one with my corporeal self, and the window—oh, the window—it was all but gone.
I looked at the fading portal where Bella watched, staring down at me, her smile widening until it touched her eyes. Live well, she mouthed as she touched the barrier between our worlds one last time.
And then she was gone.
“What? What did you do?” I said to Grinner, whose hand rested on my body, knowing it was him who brought me back—the scorpion’s strike taking its final revenge.
But Grinner’s eyes held no malice. No hate. With a calm voice speaking from straight lips, he said, “At the dawn of time, the gods spoke to me once, requesting only one thing from me. Do you know what it was?”
I shook my head, pain reverberating through my body.
“ ‘When it ends, keep them all together.’ I wonder if they knew the weight of the burden they bestowed upon me.”
“Oh,” I said, because I could think of nothing else to say.
“Human Jean-Luc, my brothers and sisters … they are coming, and they are far worse than I,” Grinner said. Then, with a raspy chuckle, his maniacal, now toothless grin returned. “Now it is for you to keep them all together.” His body started to shrink faster, all parts of him pulled into the core that was his center. Gravity was imploding, and like a balloon being deflated, he withered, his features flattening and contracting, becoming less human, then less alive. Then less of anything.
All that remained was a tiny effervescent sphere, no larger than a marble, on the ground next to me.
As my body convulsed and quivered, I did not have time to contemplate the meaning of his final words. Exhaustion and the weight of grief for having truly lost Bella overcame me.
“In this life and the next,” I said one last time, as my own darkness flowed over me and I faded away into an oblivion of my own.
Epilogue
True pain is so much worse than death. True pain is the destruction of all that you are and the belief that no matter how much time passes, no matter how many pills are consumed, Band-Aids applied, counseling sessions attended, nothing will make you completely you again. True pain is living without hope. And the night Bella did not save me in my dreams was the night I learned what true pain truly was.
I would have died after that. Just shut down. Refused to think, because to think would be to think of Bella. Refused to feel, because to feel would be to feel Bella. I would have died after that. A passive death that can be achieved only from not moving, not eating, not sleeping. The slow suicide of a broken heart. I would have died after that. And I would have been happy.
But I didn’t because of the damned angel who never left my side, forcing me to eat and to drink. Taking care of me every waking minute of every waking day as my mind slowly restarted. I have vague memories of strong hands gently spoon-feeding me soup, and water trickling down my throat. Of being lifted and cleaned, of being put to bed, of being woken up. Oh, how I hated the angel who would not let me die.
↔
I don’t know how long that went on for. Days, perhaps weeks. But it was some time later—much later—when the Sun shone through my cabin window and onto my face that I finally woke from my catatonic spell. My first words were an echo of what my soul demanded. My voice came out hoarse and dry, weak from lack of use.
“I want to die.”
Penemue grunted as he looked up from his book. He had been reading to me. Then, as if he hadn’t heard me, he continued reading, his voice coming out slow and deep:
“O Progeny of Heav'n, Empyreal Thrones,
With reason hath deep silence and demurr
Seis’d us, though undismaid: long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”
Milton in baritone. Looking up from the text, Penemue said in a soft tone, his voice lost in some distant memory, “Surprisingly accurate for one who has never lost as we have.”
And with those words I understood. He saw us as one and the same. I may not have fallen, but like the angel who now nursed me back to health, I had also rejected Heaven and lost everything.
Not that any of that mattered.
“I said, I want to die.” I spoke with more force now, my body slowly waking up. I knew what I was saying was filled with self-pity, but I didn’t care. I wanted to die and, by the GoneGods, I was in a sharing mood.
Penemue, having returned to the epic poem, did not look up, merely countering in a low voice, “We all want to die when the light that once warmed us is taken away. Now, do you mind?” His words lacked sympathy, while at the same time expressing a depth of empathy beyond anything I had felt before.
Penemue continued reading.
↔
On the fifth morning since my first words, I tried to stand, careful to hop on my good foot. That was when I first noticed that the ball of powdered bone that once was my right foot was again whole and filled out. But I had seen Grinner flatten it, had hopped with it, had felt the pain, even after he brought me back. I looked up at Penemue, who sat there smirking, Drambuie in one hand, book in the other.
“Did you …” I started.
“Indeed, Human Jean-Luc, I couldn’t have my charge continue the rest of his miserable life as a hobbled wretch of a man. Misery, I find, is so much better spent when you can pace.”
I put my foot down to test it and it hurt like the blue blazes of Tartarus as it touched the ground.
“I conserved some time by healing you up to the point where your own biology could do the rest. I recommend ice, elevation and rest.”
“This doesn’t change anything,” I said.
“All I do is waste time.” Penemue put down his book, leaning forward in the chair. “After the Fall, I spent all my time reading and brooding, barely a sober moment in between. Since the GrandExodus, I have spent all my time reading and brooding, barely a sober moment in between. And now, I wait for you to heal so that we can return to Paradise Lot, where I may continue to spend my time reading and brooding, with barely a sober moment in between.”
“What’s your point?”
The fallen angel rolled his eyes. “My point, dear Human Jean-Luc, is that you are wasting my time by not letting me read and brood. Now, if you don’t mind,” Penemue said, taking a long drag of his Drambuie. “Besides, you have a promise to keep.”
My promise. By the GoneGods, why did that matter anymore? Why did anything matter anymore? I would never see my Bella again. I would never dream of her or touch her, share a secret or joke. I would never see her again, and it was all my choice. My promise was made to a woman just as gone as the gods. It wasn’t like any of the Others kept their once-sacred covenants. Why should I be held to higher standards?
“I’ll never see her again,” I said, hoping the fallen angel was smart enough to connect the dots.
“Probably not,” Penemue agreed. “But then again, it has been my experience that there is rarely only one way to get to a destination. After all, one could walk, run or fly.” He gave his wings a little flap at the last word. “Bella is still there.”
I gave him a blank look, to which Penemue sighed with a false patience. “My point, dear Human Jean-Luc, is that she got there using an entirely different method than the First Law did. My point is that if there are two ways to Heaven, then perhaps there is a third. My point is that if there is a will, there is a way.”
He showed me the book he was reading: An Advanced Understanding of Quantum Physics.
“But really, my point is that if I am ever going to find a way back into Heaven before my body is old and brittle, I must have time to concentrate.”
Penemue, like everyone else, was looking for Heaven. Why? To be a god? To get his immortality back? To help me? Why? Why?
“Why?” I asked him.
“Why what?” he said, looking at me from his book.
“Why are you searching for Heaven?”
He must have sensed my cynicism. Dismissing it with a gesture, he said, “We’re all going to die. Might as well die doing something worthwhile.”