Flashback:-
"Oh My God we're in Hell! No such thing...I think."
The words floated up from nowhere and went everywhere. Where had Clarke heard them? Who had spoke them? Had he?
Hell? Was that why those words reached for him? Is that where he was?
He wanted to raise his hands to wipe his eyes that he might see more clearly as to what was before him but he had no hands to raise. He was simply there in the midst of nowhere.
"Hello!" he called out. He had no lips to move yet he could hear the word float through the darkness.
It was greeted by silence.
"You think that's our ticket out? No It's a comfort spell It's supposed to provide peace of mind"
The words crowded down on him. He vaguely remembered the feeling of comfort that had once swaddled him somewhere in his past.
"Thank you." His thoughts reached out once again and again no one answered.
The words belonged to a different time...a time when he was not alone. And though he could not admit it, a time when he had been pleased to have the companionship. But this was not that time.
Loneliness clawed at him. He felt an emptiness deep within his heart...an emptiness as deep as Malivore itself. It was his constant companion...his true mate..and the bane of his existence.
"No...This doesn't help me," Clarke pushed his thoughts of misery aside.
He tried to focus his vision. Why was it so dark?
"But it isn't necessarily dark is it," he thought, "I just can't see."
Ryan panicked. "Why can't I see?"
"You have no eyes," the panic rose within him.
"Anything can be real if you believe in it enough"
A distraction...the voice sounded familiar.
"What did he say?" How did he respond? "Merry Christmas, Hope."
Hope. The conversation was with Hope. It was the last thing he had said to her. The last thing he had said to anyone before...before what?
Ryan did his best to focus. It was the last thing he said to anyone before he went to the portal, but not the last thing he said.
"Don't worry Dad...I'll be home for Christmas!"
But he had never jumped. Everything had simply gone black. Not a blackness that he could see but one that closed in on him from every side smothering his memories and clouding his mind. Had Hope been right? Was there a hell? And was he in it?
"Oh God, I'm dead" he thought, " Really dead."
Why had he been struggling to remember something that he did not want to really know?
He did his best to swallow his panic. If death was forgetting his life then maybe that wasn't so bad. What had his memories ever brought him but pain anyway.
He made a conscious effort to sink down into the sea of forgetfulness that the darkness had been offering...to let go...to give in...to finally be finished...to forget it all.
The memories he had struggled so hard to find began to fade as the darkness moved in. He welcomed it and it consumed him.
It was cold. It was so cold when he opened his eyes. He curled more into himself as he tried to focus his eyes through the darkness. He could see the trees surrounding him. The night sky was so clear and he could see every constellation clearly. He wanted to get up and go to a warmer place but he was just so tired that he didn't want to move. He could feel the chilling breeze hit his skin and the damp soil under his form was cold as well. But he just couldn't. He didn't feel like. He felt as if he wasn't himself anymore. His head hurt as if it was being stabbed with a thousand pins at the same time. But he could care less as slowly the darkness crawled it was back to him and he lost connection with the world around him.
The bright light jerked him up from the peacefulness. He opened his eyes only for them to be violated by the bright rays of the sun as the searing pain made its way back to his head and he doubled over in pain as he tried to hide his head in his palms.
"Hey, dude you okay?" A voice came from somewhere.
He managed to look up to lay his eyes on a young man holding a ranch.
"I don't think so. I.." He could speak no more as he felt a shrieking sound in his head and his hands instinctively went to hold his ears as he cried out in pain and let out a scream as he fell to the ground and curled up in a ball to try and black out the noise as he held his eyes shut tight.
Slowly, the shrieking noise faded away as his mind cleared a bit. He opened his eyes slowly to see that the trees around him had bent down and all the leaves had fallen to the ground. Not only were the leaves the only ones to fall to the ground but also all the birds nearby had fallen dead and so was the man who was there.
"Oh my God!" He uttered to himself as he stood up and looked around him in panic.
"No, no, no, no, no!" He exclaimed as he rushed to the fallen man's side to check his pulse only to discover that there was none.
He had to do something before anyone found this. He had killed a man! Oh God! No!
He managed to dig a hole nearby with the help of the man's ranch. Deep enough so that no one could smell if there was a body rotting in it and then was about to get the body when he realised that he was stark naked as he saw the man's clothes. They were nothing fancy but they had to do. At least they were better than nothing.
He got into the clothes and searched the pocket for anything. He found a purse and a cellphone. The purse had some cash, a credit card and a driving licence which read Rupert Kent. He buried the body and made a run towards the truck which was parked close by. He got into the truck and drove away from the spot.
He eventually found the highway and looked for a sign board. As he drove further, he read the name Ohio and drove further towards that direction. He drove for hours till he reached somewhere in Georgia. He didn't know why he drove there, but something told him that he should go there.
He was near the borders of South Carolina when he got out of the highway and into a clearing, shadowed by trees all around. He got out of the car along with the purse but left the driving licence, credit card and the cellphone in the car itself. He opened the gas hole of the truck and light up the lighter which he had found in the truck along with a pack of cigarettes. He light it up and pushed it inside the hole and made a run from the vehicle as fast as he could. He was far enough when he heard the loud bursting sound of the vehicle going up in flames as he watched the light coming from the fire from afar.
He felt a pain tearing at his sides as he fell to the ground and then there was only darkness.