The Beloved Fire

  Mikayla looked down at her outfit and hoped the people dressed in white wouldn’t notice she was different. For all she knew they could be demons in a human skin suits waiting for a snack. The sun bared down harshly onto her, it was the kind of heat that would give her a sunburn in a matter of minutes, and she was confused at why the strangers walking past her looked neither, burnt nor sweaty. She took a step forward realizing she didn’t have on shoes as the ground beneath her burned her feet. How was she supposed to get out of here, the door was gone? She turned to a man with a gray beard wearing a long sleeve white shirt and pants with no shoes that had started past her.

  “Excuse me sir.” Mikayla said, putting her hand lightly on the man that had started by, he paused only for a second before walking on ignoring her hand and inquiry.

  “Shit!” Mikayla cursed out. What the hell was she supposed to do? She turned in a circle hoping the door would appear were it once was but even feeling around in the hot air, she couldn’t feel it, it was gone.

  She couldn’t give up though, the people walking around seemed harmless and better yet, they didn’t seem like demons. If anything they were just the people trapped in purgatory, this is actually what she envisioned it to be. People lost, wondering around in nowhere because of their indecision of heaven or hell. She ran forward ignoring the sting of the hard, hot ground and tried to get the attention of a couple more people, but they all seemed to be ignoring her as they walked on to their destination.

  “HELLO!” Mikayla yelled out, “IS ANYONE OUT THERE?” She wasn’t yelling to anyone in particular but couldn’t think of anything else to do, but just as she crouched down to the ground grabbing at her head in frustration a flash of black came into her vision and she stood in alert, afraid of a demon, but it wasn’t a demon.

  It was a man, dressed in all black running around the people dressed in white, clearly lost and afraid and looking for whoever called out to him. Mikayla started towards the man as he started running to her in a panic. “Help me! Help I don’t know where I’m at, where am I? What is this place? Where’s my girlfriend?” The guy breathed out quickly as he grabbed Mikayla’s shoulders squeezing them tight.

  “I, I can’t help you. I’m trying to find my way out of here as well. Why can you talk and no one else can?” Mikayla asked, thinking this guy could be her way out.

  The guy looked around in confusion at the white dressed people. “I don’t know, I just got here. My girlfriend and I were on our way to a movie and then.” The guy stopped talking and dropped his hands from Mikayla’s shoulders coming to the realization he was dead.

  “How did you get in here? Was there a door and do you remember where it was?” Mikayla asked frantically, she realized this guy had just realized he was dead, but she needed to get out of this room to escape, there wasn’t time to pity him.

  “I don’t know, I don’t remember. Am I dead?” The guy asked looking around still in confusion, until he noticed something or rather someone. “Haley?” The man called out to a blonde short haired girl that looked about his age; they both looked to be in their mid-twenties. “HALEY!” The guy yelled taking off for the girl. He embraced her in a hug, but she didn’t move or do anything other than face forward in a trance.

  The guy scurried around the front of her still holding her shoulders, excitement and relief were clear on his face. It broke Mikayla’s heart. “Haley, I was so worried. The last thing I remember is turning onto twenty-third street heading to the theatre and then I was here. I thought I was dead at first but here you are, I think we’re okay.” The guy waited for a response that never came. “Hello? Haley? What’s wrong with you?” He said holding onto one of her shoulders while he waved his other hand in front of her face, only to get no response still. When he finally stepped out of her way, she kept walking as if she’d never seen or heard him. The guy dropped to his knees crying out in frustration over his situation as Mikayla turned away walking on, she didn’t know what to tell him or what she could do for him but she had to keep moving, she had to find a way out.

  If she had the twin’s powers, how could she use them to get her out of this wondering waste land? She stopped walking around the lost souls and closed her eyes concentrating. She thought of the detailed hallway she once stood in and repeated the phrase, take me to the hallway over and over until the feeling of heat vanished around her and when she opened her eyes she was back in the regular mansion hallway. As she looked around in astonishment at how easy that worked a bright red light shone out from her and shot out of her body, forming in front of her in a shape of a cube that took off down the hallway turning the corner and leaving. It wasn’t until she closed her eyes and shook out her hands readying herself to concentrate on the door that would allow her to escape purgatory that she realized she felt normal again. The twins must have taken back their powers.

  There was nothing left for her to do but to keep running now, it wouldn’t be long before she was found. She couldn’t look in anymore doors she had to look for the exit to this mansion of horrors. As if knowing she needed help, a small brown head of hair turned the corner running straight into Mikayla, and as usual she was excited to see her.

  “Mikayla! What are you doing here?” Alexis asked. She was in a long sheer black dress and her hair pulled up in to a tiny up do. She studied Mikayla for a second before coming to a realization.

  “Why aren’t you ready yet?”

  A fear ran through Mikayla about what she was to do with the situation in front of her. Should she tell Alexis her plan, or lie to her? Well, there’s no point in trying to hide it now. “I’m…I need to find the way out. I’m sorry Alexis, I can’t marry your daddy. I have to get out of here, will you help me?” It was a big risk trusting the little girl, but it was all she had.

  Alexis looked sad but only for a second until it was replaced by determination. “I will, I’ll help you, but we have to hurry. Are you ready?”

  Mikayla shook her head up and down and took a deep breath readying herself to run again as the little girl lifted her dress and took off running in the opposite direction Mikayla was going. Alexis looked back as they raced down the hall. “My mother’s name was Ashley.” Alexis said through heavy breathes. Mikayla wasn’t sure why she told her that, so she didn’t say anything.

  “She was brought here because they are trying to make a Nephilim army that doesn’t have deformities.” Alexis said turning another corner before coming to a stop and looking around. “The stairway should be somewhere around here.”

  Mikayla was starting to think that maybe Alexis didn’t know the way from the way she was looking around in confusion. “It’s okay Alexis you get going, I will find it. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  Alexis turned looking up to Mikayla with big sad eyes. “Daddy killed mommy because I was a deformed one and wasn’t fit for the army. I don’t want him to kill you too, I will help you find the way. We just got to look at the doors.”

  “Hey, you’re not a deformity, what you are is a miracle, and don’t let anyone tell you any different. Why don’t you come with me? We can live a normal life away from all this.” Mikayla said, crouching down to Alexis. She wanted to take her, but at the rate they were moving they were going to get caught before they ever got out.

  Alexis smiled halfheartedly before turning back around and running again. When they came to a black door in the middle of a hallway that looked the same as all the other hallways, Alexis stopped and turned around. “This is it, I can feel it. I can’t go with you, but I will miss you Kayla. Thank you for everything.” Alexis said with a small smile.

  “Wait!” Mikayla yelled out as Alexis turned getting ready to leave.

  “Yeah?” Alexis asked.

  “There was a door, one with crying babies and demons and another one with people dressed in white walking around the desert. I saw some other doors the other day too, what are all these doors and why are they here?” Mikayla asked, she knew she didn’t have a lot of time but felt like
she needed to know.

  Alexis took a deep sigh out, making her seem mature for her youth. “The nursery is where the Nephilim babies are taken care of, they are guarded by demons. Each hall holds a number of rooms, and there are millions of halls, each holds a different reason or purpose. The dessert is where the souls first go before judgment of white or dark it is Elijah’s realm. It actually is called the dessert of the first. It’s neither part of hell or purgatory but is part of the underworld. The souls that are meant to stay here at the mansion don’t go in there, that’s only for people moving on. I try not to go into the rooms, there’s some pretty scary stuff in some of them.”

  Mikayla turned to the door, then back to the little girl. She hated to leave her here, but she couldn’t be the reason for hell winning anything over heaven. “Thank you, for everything. I’ll miss you. You be careful and stay out of trouble.”

  Alexis smiled before skipping away. “You too Kayla!” She shouted before turning into her cat version and sprinted off down the hall. It made Mikayla wonder if she liked to run as a cat, it seemed that was all she did when she was a cat.

  When she turned back to the ordinary black door, her nerves were piqued as she twisted the handle pushing inward. She half expected it to be locked but it gave freely, showing her a blackened room. The room lit up as she stepped into it shutting the door behind her to reveal a plain stairway corridor, only going up to another door marked Level 1.

  20

  Freedom

  Mikayla took the stairs two at a time reaching the Level 1 marked door and pushing it open before she could change her mind. There wasn’t time to be scared, the way out was sure to be a challenge so the faster she got out the better. The lights flickered on above her followed by a hum that reminded her of the lights down in her basement at home. She stood in a plain white room, white floors, and white ceiling. It was almost blinding. The room wasn’t very big but big enough to hold five doors in front of her, four that were open and the middle one closed. She recognized the middle door right away, it was her bedroom door, light wood and a small silver handle on the left side that hung loose for as long as she could remember.

  A cold, howling wind broke through the door at the far left of the room accompanied by flakes of snow that floated out onto the floor dancing and swirling as the wind pushed them across the white tile. Looking through the door, a blizzard world of some sort that was gray and full of ice and snow was what laid on the other side. Just looking at it made her feel cold. The door between the ice world and her bedroom door looked like the inside of a dark cave, from the ceiling hung sleeping bats as water dripped down below them making rings on an underground pond of some sort. The dripping water made a plop sound that echoed, the sound tumbling out to where she stood.

  Mikayla was just getting ready to get a look at the other doors when a voice broke through her observations. “You are neither dead nor alive. What business do you hold here?” A male’s voice asked.

  Mikayla turned around to see a man in a light gray suit with a yellow tie sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. She backed up immediately upon seeing that his eye sockets laid empty showing endless black pits. A loud chirping of a bird sounded in Mikayla’s right ear making her pause in her retreat to see the door to the right of the middle one was a meadow of wildflowers. She didn’t stare long before she turned her attention back to the man that had a leathery tan face and salt and pepper hair.

  “I’m not sure what you mean, I’m alive and I need to get out of here. I was told this was the way.” The guy looked soulless like an empty shell, making her nerves stand on end; it felt like talking to a corpse.

  The man put his hands together in his lap as if he were bored or just getting serious, she couldn’t tell without being able to judge his eyes. “This is the way for souls that are ready to move on, you are not ready to move anywhere. I can see your soul burns for another back in the mansion. This is not what you desire.”

  This guy was probably a mind reader like the rest of the people here, but even if he wasn’t, it wasn’t like what he said wasn’t true. Thinking back to Blake and Ander somewhere back there in a dungeon at the mercy of Anock and James made her heart hurt. She should have gotten them out first, what was she thinking.

  “Where are they? Where is the dungeon?”

  “One cannot reach the mansion from this room; you only move on from here.” The man said.

  Mikayla moved to the wall opposite of the man so she could get both the doors and the man in her sight. “Then which door do I use?” She said looking back to the last door on the far right that looked like the inside of a volcano. Molten lava dripped down from the doorway in front of an endless stream of bubbling lava that popped randomly, releasing steam.

  “Only the one that knows where their soul belongs, will know the way.” More cryptic codes. Mikayla breathed out a frustrated sigh, this guy was not helping.

  “I have angel blood; I belong in heaven, but not right now. I belong back on earth. Which door leads me home? The door in the middle…that’s my bedroom door, so is that where I need to go?”

  The man cleared his throat and looked towards the middle door she had talked about which confused her to how he could see anything. “That makes no difference. You were never meant to pass through any of these doors but because you are here, you must now advance and decide your fate.”

  Mikayla was seriously confused. “So what do the doors mean?”

  “Only you can answer that. Everyone see’s different things for their trails.”

  Mikayla decided arguing with him wouldn’t help and it was time to use her angelic powers. They had to produce something. She sat down up against the wall and shut her eyes reluctantly, she was nervous to not have a watchful eye on this guy but figured since he hadn’t done anything yet that he might be safe. As she breathed in taking deep, calming breathes she concentrated on clearing her mind and being happy.

  After several minutes she sensed a light in front of her face and slowly flickered her eyes open. Still in the room with the five doors and old man with the grey suit, everything was the same, expect for the bloody angel in the middle of the room. Ander.

  “Hello Kayla.” He said with a small smile. He had more bruises and blood on his face than the last time she saw him.

  Mikayla got to her feet heading over to embrace him. “Ander, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” Just as she neared him, he backed up holding out his hands to stop her.

  “Kayla, it’s not really me. Just your minds projection of me. I mean I’m here, but you can’t touch me, or you’ll go right through. You summoned me and since I am physically trapped, only my essence will appear to you.” Ander said, wincing with every other word, and his breathing heavy, telling her it hurt him to talk.

  Mikayla stopped her advancing at his words and instead wrapped her arms around herself and bit down on her lip to keep from crying, but it didn’t help; the tears came and fell down her face anyway. She couldn’t stand to see him in this condition because of her. He was so good, and she’d always known that but now seeing him as an angel and all the danger she’d put upon him made everything so much worst. Ander’s face twisted in pain and she could tell that it wasn’t just from his injuries, it made her feel even worse.

  “Listen none of this is your fault. Don’t cry Kayla, everything will be alright. I’m the one that’s sorry, I should have told you about some of this stuff, tried to prepare you for what could come instead of hiding you away from it all. I thought I was protecting you, but I see now it was all in vain.”

  “Ander where are you? Is Blake, are you with Blake?” Mikayla asked, feeling a small slab of guilt for asking about him. Did Ander know Blake was a demon, would he be mad at her if he found out what happened?

  “Blake is fine, he is right next to me and where we are is not important. This room that you are in, is called the room of doorways. Kayla you don’t have a lot of time, Anock and James have been alerted about your escape. It
doesn’t matter what door you choose. Each doorway will have its own inner demon you will have to face. Hurry through the door and make it to the next level as soon as you can. These rooms are just tricks, I have no doubt that you can make it through and escape. Now listen we only have about a minute before you need to get through one of those doors.”

  Mikayla shifted herself, mentally preparing to run through her bedroom door after Ander vanished. “Once you make it out of purgatory you will arrive back into the place you went before you were here, the rooftop in KC. Your parents are gone, so don’t go home, but they are protected. My car is outside the hotel. Take it to the church in our hometown and don’t stop running until you are up on the altar, you’ll be safe until Father Andrew arrives. Tell him Ander said, “The relic is to be sought.” He’ll know what to do. Now go.” Ander said stepping his projection out of the way.

  Mikayla moved to the door, stopping right before she touched the handle to get one last look at her best friend. The smell of the flowers assaulted her nose at the same time the water dripping down was loud. “I will come back for you Ander. I love you and tell Blake…”

  Ander nodded his head up and down telling her he understood before vanishing back into his trapped body.

  Before any more time was wasted, she twisted the door handle and turned away from the grey suited man and stepped through into another black room. The room lit up to another empty stairway, identical to the first, leading up to a door labeled, Level 2. She ran up the stairs like she’d done the first time thinking the whole time of her best friend and how much she wanted to see him. He had told her he wouldn’t ever let her face things alone again. It felt like a sick joke now.