by R. E. Vance
“And it’s not just lights. I can make things, too. Imagine playing with these!”
Optimus Prime, Voltron and an army of Smurfs manifested before me. Each was life-size and looked so real that I thought they were standing in front of me. And it wasn’t some 3D animation like what we got in the movies. These beings had a realism to them that made those renditions seem like a child’s drawing. Whatever she was doing, she wasn’t drawing or sculpting these creatures. She was creating them. All that was left was to breathe life into their husks.
“This is what the Others must do when they burn time. Except here—time is infinite,” she said and as the words left her lips, her creations faded away. I looked over at my Bella, who breathed heavily from the exertion of creating. “I’m still learning to hold the creations. Right now I can form them, but I can’t keep them. Perhaps in time I will be able to keep them around longer—or forever. But for now, the only things I seem to be able to manifest with any permanence are the constructs that I make from memories. The easiest ones to build are the memories that mattered most. The times I was most happy and in love,” she took me to the PopPop’s cabin, “or happiest.” Suddenly we were in our first apartment, standing in front of the couch we used to cuddle on while watching TV.
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? I thought you hated that couch.”
She laughed, her eyes brightening. “I know, I know! But I loved being near you. And it was our love that allowed me to be tethered enough to the mortal realm to find you. It was our love that allowed me to eventually find you in your dreams. And perhaps it will be our love that will find a way for us to be together again.”
“So, am I here?” I asked. She had stopped the memories outside Jim’s Diner and I bent down to touch the ground, expecting concrete from the road, but my hand went through the ground, touching nothing.
“No,” she said.
“Are you here?” I asked, trying to comprehend what this place was. She no longer wore her sundress—the one with lilies—but wore jeans and the V-neck sweater I bought her for her birthday.
“Yes, this place is as real as anywhere I’ve ever been. You are as real to me as ever before,” she said.
My tears welled up within me. All these years believing she was not real, believing that it was my guilt and pain that caused my nightly dream of her. So much wasted time. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” I asked, knowing I should be angry, but unable to. I was so happy. Bella still existed.
“Oh Jean, I am so sorry for not telling you about any of this. I thought I was doing what was best for you. You were doing so well, you even seemed happy at times. I thought this was my role—to be your guardian angel, helping you through all the hardships you faced. Telling you would have only caused you more pain and it would have stopped you from doing all the good you have done. I didn’t want you to spend years looking for a way to me, when you could have spent that time doing good that matters.”
“But this matters,” I said.
She shot me her best You-know-what-I-mean look and said with a smile, “I did what I thought was right, just like you’ve done so many times in the past. And I am sorry that my decisions have caused you pain. Cause you pain, still. I love you, Jean, in this life and the next.”
I did know what she meant. I really did. After all, it was our love that got us through the really hard times, it was our love that allowed us to find each other even when we were worlds apart and it was our love that Grinner wished to capture in order to reopen Heaven. “In this life and the next,” I said, “I love you, too.”
She smiled, closing her eyes, the pressure from the closed lids causing a single tear to escape and fall on my outstretched hand. I could have sworn I felt it.
“Jean, we don’t have much time. He is coming and whatever happens next, you cannot let him find me.”
“But we could be together.”
“In a world that would be in flames.”
“And would that be so bad?”
“Yes,” she said, her face drained of all joy. “Yes, it would be.”
“So what do we do?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice flat. “What do we do every time we have a fight?”
I shrugged. “We go for a walk. Cool off … but it’s not like there’s anywhere we can go here.”
“Oh,” Bella said as her lips curled up, “but that’s where you are wrong.”
↔
Bella snapped her fingers and the world transformed around us. We were in the cabin, then in her childhood bedroom. Next my house, followed by the downtown bakery where we’d go and get ice cream after school. Over the next couple of hours, we visited a past filled by us. I could not begin to understand the emotions that stirred within me. Joy, anger, hate, elation, contentment, chaos—they all swirled around as she took me on a tour of her personal Heaven. A heaven that was only filled with memories of us. The one emotion that tempered all that I felt, that kept them from boiling over and wasting the little time we had left, was love.
Still, there was one memory we did not visit. One that held more pain in it than I have ever known before. I knew that if I were to win against Grinner, I needed to know as much as I could. I had to understand what happened the night she died. I wanted to visit that place as much as I wanted a threesome with Judith and the Devil, but I had to know everything if I was going to live through the night.
“What happened that day?” I asked.
“Do you really want to know?”
Her intangible hand on my cheek.
“I have to,” I said.
Withdrawing her wraith hand from my face, Bella gave me her You-asked-for-it look. With downcast eyes, she took us to the room where it all happened. The room where Bella was killed.
↔
What she showed me next happened too fast to be natural—like watching a movie in fast-forward. But more than being too fast, she was showing me a memory. A memory that felt as ever-present as anything I had recalled for myself.
Every gesture happened at a supernatural speed, every movement finished as quickly as it started. My eyes struggled to catch it all. And just like my dreams, everything that happened felt as though it were happening now.
↔
We are in a room where several human scientists are analyzing data on a computer screen. They are excited, pointing to spikes on the screen. The Ambassador is standing by a large black orb. At first I think it is a three-dimensional hologram of some distant solar system, but the machinery that complements the high-tech computers and sensors is far too low-tech to have been built in this century, or the ten before it. Out-of-date apparatus is intermingled with modern tech. Ancient gears feed data into tablet computers. Vintage pulleys suspend a mixture of cauldrons and high-grade beakers. Supercomputers sit on workbenches made from timeworn oak tables.
There is some mumbling and I see Bella, my beautiful Bella, walk into the room. The Ambassador is pointing at the black spot on a large monitor. He is smiling and silent lips mouth, “There it is.” Bella returns his smile.
Two hooded figures draw in close. They are the two bastard Others that ripped Bella apart. That will rip her apart. They are in the room. Everyone is calm.
The Ambassador stretches out his red palm into the darkness, fanning his fingers. He closes his eyes, and his facial features and neck muscles strain as if he is trying to lift something very heavy. Little specks of gray salt his goatee and his lush black hair recedes, if only a millimeter. He is burning time. Lots of it.
↔
“Da Vinci’s laboratory,” Bella said, pausing the memory. “His laboratory held a lot of significance and therefore power. We gathered a lot of his equipment and set it up to complement more modern equipment. It took years for the Ambassador and his team to figure out how to get it all to work together, but once they did, we were able to use it to find this place. To find Heaven.” Before I could say anything in response, Bella turned the memory back on.
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The Ambassador is smiling, proud of his achievement. His find. The black sphere rotates then stops, a tiny gray speck of dust in its center. He points and everyone starts clapping, cheering and hugging. Even Bella wraps her arms around the Ambassador’s big red devilish neck. They have found it. They have found Heaven.
The two hooded figures nod at each other, seemingly pleased as well. But before celebrations can turn into the next phase of work, the room shakes. Waterfalls of dirt and cement are shaken loose from the explosion above. Red lights start flashing and even though this memory is silent, I remember the sound of the sirens.
An argument breaks out between several of the scientists and the Ambassador. The two hooded figures are pointing at the Devil, obviously insisting on something. They point at one of the scientists, who shakes his head, fear painted on his face. There is more yelling as another explosion rips through the complex, causing all the lights to shut off. There is a flicker and the lights return. Everyone is visibly relieved that the sphere is still there.
There is more discussion and Bella raises her hand, silencing the room. Everyone is quiet, looking at her with a mixture of horror and admiration. The Ambassador mouths, “Are you sure?” Bella nods. The Ambassador’s shoulders slump as he addresses the two hooded Others. Everyone bustles into motion, gathering materials.
And this is the moment when Bella turns and sees me standing at the door, desperately trying to open it. This is when she gives me that smile that says that it will be OK. This is when she blows me our final kiss.
And this is when the two hooded figures descend on her, ripping her apart with their sacred blades.
↔
“Enough,” I cried out. “Enough.”
Bella froze the image before the blade penetrated her skin. “There was no time. The explosions threatened to shut the whole thing down and if we lost Heaven it would be over forever. That is why I volunteered—”
“Volunteered?” I cut in, staring at her through tear-filled eyes.
“Yes,” she nodded. “It was now or lose Heaven forever. I didn’t have time to think—”
“You left me!” I screamed in anger, in hurt and in the thousand nameless emotions that ran through me.
“I had to. Don’t you see what was at stake? We could have fixed everything. Made it better. Imagine a world where everyone was free to come and go to Heaven as they pleased. But someone had to get in there. Someone had to volunteer to turns the lights back on.”
“But why did it have to be you?” I asked, my heart pounding so hard in my chest, it felt as though it were beating itself to death.
The look she gave me told me her answer. It had to be her because she was the only one who cared enough to sacrifice herself for the hope of making the lives of Others better. It had to be her because she believed that a brighter future came because of those who fought for it. It had to be her because she was the only one brave enough to take the leap of faith.
I looked back at the frozen image of Bella the moment before she died. Instinctively I reached for the blade but my hand went through it. I was just as helpless now as I was then. But I could see a detail that had escaped me every time I replayed that night in my head.
Reflected in the blade was an unmistakable grin.
Oh, Bella …
Chapter 3
Thanks for Making Me a Fighter
There is this girl whom I love very much and I once left her for four years while I fought a war against lost creatures who no longer had any place they could call home. Years were lost to my hate and fear and anger. When I returned, that girl took me back without hesitation or judgment, and I learned how powerful true love could be. And when I lost her again, I gave into that same hate and fear and anger, until she found a way back from the Void to save my soul once again.
I could have been angry that she volunteered to leave me. I could have spent the last few hours before that bastard Grinner showed up, yelling, sulking, accusing and crying. I would have, except a long, long time ago I promised to love her in this life and the next. Well, we were standing in the next and I planned to keep my promise.
Besides, too much time had been lost already.
↔
I wished I could have held Bella that night, but instead all we could do was stare at each other, standing dangerously close, but never actually touching. I never knew so much joy could also hurt so badly. How does one heart have room for both?
Unsure how to fill the little time we had left, I settled for telling her my plan. If we were to be together, it meant surviving this night. Perhaps if we talked it through, some insight would surface that could make all the difference. And once I got rid of Grinner, we could be together, if only in my dreams. As I spoke, neither of us noticed that the once-blue sky was starting to fill with clouds.
She listened, a frown on her face, and said, “It is a good plan. As good as any, I suppose.”
“What,” I asked, “you don’t think it can work?”
“I didn’t say that. I have faith in you, Jean. I always have.” A single raindrop fell on my face. She looked up. “He’s coming.”
I nodded, looking up with her and watching as gray, heavy clouds grew in the sky. “I’m ready.”
Beep.
“Jean,” Bella said, raising her voice over the wind. “Be careful.”
I shot her my best I’m-too-good-to-fail look and said, “In this life and the next …”
Beep. Beep.
“I will love you forever.”
Beep. Beep.
“See you soon.”
↔
Beep, beep, beep …
I woke up with a jolt, my alarm ringing. The clock read midnight and I thought how fitting that he should breach the perimeter at that exact moment.
Hellelujah! Grinner was here.
↔
“Human Jean-Luc!” a voice called from outside. “Come out and play.”
My heart raced as I stood up. Before this moment, I had been ready to die to take this guy down, but now, knowing that Bella was truly alive and that there was a hope for us to be together, I wasn’t so sure.
I picked up the remote control and stepped outside, expecting the same serene surroundings I had always known. Instead, I was greeted by something else entirely.
In front of my cabin, the forest hung in the air, a hundred trees suspended to make a wall of wood and earth. Grinner took a step forward and the wall followed him. Thirty feet, I thought. So he had me trapped, because either I charged forward and tried to break through a wall of wood, or I jumped in a lake. Literally. Maybe that’s where the expression came from.
Wherever it came from didn’t change the fact that Grinner was boxing me in. That was fine. I wasn’t planning to run anyway.
The bastard stood in the foreground, his maniacal smile pushing out his eyes. “It is funny how the old ways still matter. When Michael asked me his question, I had to answer it. It was, after all, ordained that I must. There was so much ordained when the gods were here. So many protocols, so many rules. But that is all changing now.” He pointed to the ground, then at me, and said, “By now you are aware that I can only influence the environment immediately around me. That, too, was ordained. A … precaution the gods put in place when creating me. They always made sure that when I spoke to them I was always at least five fathoms away. It was so much less threatening that way. I may only influence so far, but Gravity is so much more than fifty feet. I am not the embodiment of a principle in which all the Universe is connected as so many think. I am its shadow bound by rules that are slowly eroding. Just like the orbit of the stars that the archangel asked me to map out, so too are the rules that confine us all.”
“Blah, blah, blah …” I interrupted. “Brave new GoneGod world, everything has changed. Boo-hoo. What’s your point?”
Scorn colored his face. “Indeed, everything has changed. But what has been done can be undone. By now you must know that my words are no lie. Bella lives and
I am the path back to her. I am also the path back to the Void. To things returning to what they once were.” He pointed to the sky. “And all I need is a kiss between two mortals deeply in love. Let me draw Heaven in close. Once it is here, you will be able to touch your beloved. Embrace her so that I might be able to find the Heaven in which she now resides.” He pulled a plain-looking box from his pocket.
“You killed her!” I said, reliving the memory of his dagger piercing her chest.
He nodded. “A necessity. Only a human soul can enter Heaven uninvited. And only Bella was brave enough to try.”
“That’s my Bella,” I said.
“Come, embrace her. And by doing so, embrace the new world I offer.”
It was tempting. I could have Bella back. But the cost of having someOther like him in charge was simply too high a price. Bella and I might not have seen eye to eye on many things, but we both agreed on this … Now that the gods were gone, it was up to us mortals to find our way. They might have left behind a mess of lost creatures to find their way, but it was our mess and I wasn’t about to take the easy way out by letting the whole charade of gods and mortals start again.
“No,” I said, pushing the big red button on my remote control.
↔
My two sentry guns had been set high enough in the tree line so that he couldn’t affect them. They flared to life, and their shots rang out like a thousand thunderclaps, each clap sending out a bullet flying at supersonic speed. But not a single bullet touched him. Not one. I knew his gravitational power could cause the bullets to fly off course, but it was the way he blocked the bullets that was unnerving. He was picking up tiny stones, pebbles and rocks, causing them to orbit around him like some twisted version of Saturn’s rings. Bullets ricocheted off the stones before joining their twisted orbit, except that the bullets were imbued with so much kinetic energy that they looped around him several times faster than the other debris.
