CHAPTER 4 - "RECALLING DEATH"

Lukas awoke from a dream he could not recall, but he knew he had had one. And he could have sworn that he had had heard someone talking just outside of his perception of wakefulness.

He always thought of himself as a heavy sleeper, nothing really woke him until his internal clock did. This he acquired from the "programmed" time he was allotted to sleep, assignedto him when he was under Bryon Kelvin's brainwashed influence. But something unexplained had awoken him now.

His mouth felt parched, and he literally had to peal himself off his stuff rabbit - drool acting as an adhesive to it from the side of his mouth. He must have been dreaming about something to make him drool, maybe food or something else. He liked chocolate and since the weather had changed cold, he often asked Sebastian to make him hot chocolate. But it was embarrassing, to drool, and his Bitter Rabbit was all warm with dampness. In a momentary panic, he felt below the sheets down near his legs and breathed easy. He had not urinated in his sleep. He had only did that once and Sebastian had kept quiet about it.

But he felt a chill to the room that made him shiver.

It was winter time and Sebastian had sealed the windows to the best of his ability, but when the wind whipped up brutally, nothing could stop the coldness from bleeding through the walls. He had the iron coal pan at his feet and extra blankets and comforters, but this chill was something different. And it had a bitterness to it, and a sadness he could not explain. Can coldness be sad? he asked himself.

He had to chuckle to himself, thinking of his brother. Idealistically, he was a cold bastard and it was sad. He wished Ciel could be more happy. But after everything he'd experienced in the last two years, he supposed - despite his own tragedies - anyone would be bitter and cold to the world like his brother.

He placed the toy aside that he had recently taken to sleeping with, he didn't know why, but he knew he couldn't sleep without it nowadays, and sat up fully in bed. There was a rope attached to a lever in the ceiling next to his bed that if pulled would summon Sebastian from whatever room he was presently in, and the butler would come, but he wasn't one to be lazy, and he could get his own glass of water.

Swiveling out of bed, he went to plant his feet on the floor, when immediately he lost his footing, tripped, and fell face first to the floor, hitting the right side of his face hard.

Thunk!

"Owwwwww!" he voiced slowly and painfully, feeling the side of his face.

He had hit most hard on the upper part of his right eye socket and the bone throbbed with an intense pain. But he had felt worse pain - as an assassin, when he went up against opponents, he felt a lot worse from what he could recall. This hurt, very much, however.

"What did I trip over?" he wondered out loud, feeling around.

His hands touched something and he pushed on it, then he momentarily flinched at the soft feel of it. He reached out again to touch it further. It was cold, but it felt like a human body, and it was wearing clothing.

Standing, he went to his night side table and struck a match, lighting a candle in a holder and illuminated the area at the side of his bed.

It was indeed a body.

And it was Sebastian!

"Sebastian!"

Lukas shook him, at first gently, then roughly, but neither could wake him from an apparent comatose sleep.

Sebastian did tell him and Ciel than every one-hundred years or so, demon's did go through a resting cycle for an undetermined period. Was this one of those times? How unexpected and inconvenient! And at the side of his bed!

"Sebastian! This is no time to be sleeping. Rest someplace else. Awaken, demon!"

But not even his voice awoke him.

He opened his mouth to yell for help, when a hidden voice from the outer darkness of his candle spoke: "I would not do that, Lukas Phantomhive. He will not awaken, regardless."

Lukas snapped his gaze to a translucent, blue hue, that quickly formed into a ghostly entity, emerging at the back of his bed chambers near the chest of drawers. It stood, wearing old English clothes, and had the appearance of a child, much of his own age - thirteen years old.

At first he gasped, but then furrowed his brow with a strange sense of familiarity when he looked upon it. He stood on his feet slowly, standing next to Sebastian. "This may sound odd, but I believe I have seen you before…" His voice trailed off as he tilted his head slightly, taking in the entire otherworldly phantom. His right eye twitched with a sharp pain from the hit he took to his skull during his fall. He rubbed it gently and it soon faded, but he wondered if the fall had not caused this illusion he was seeing.

The ghost boy smiled. "Indeed, you have. But in another place, in another time - but in this lifetime."

Lukas didn't understanding the boy's riddle, but instead of asking for an explanation, he asked, "What is wrong with Sebastian? Did you do this?" he demanded, not asking the spirit's name.

The ghost boy nodded. "He was becoming a nuisance, evasive, and entering your mind nightly, dwelling on secrets that were nothis to know. So I stopped him when he did not heed my warning to cease his actions. And he was going to hurt you."

"Hurt me?"

The ghost boy nodded again. "In a conversion we had, he told me that he was ordered to play some sort of trick on you for a past transgression you did against your bother Ciel."

"What sort of trick?"

"He was told to frighten you, but I stopped him when he attempted to enter you mind once more."

Frighten me?

Lukas thought. Why would Ciel wish to frighten me? Then it occurred to him, regardless of how it was learned, Ciel must have ordered Sebastian to enact revenge on him for attempting to play a trick on Ciel - for Sebastian to enter his sleep and act out the demon's version of The Christmas Carol. Sebastian must have told Ciel everything that he and the butler had wanted to do and then reverse it. That was typical of his brother.

Lukas grind his teeth in anger and vowed that his brother would pay for this albeit playful but astringent treachery. He then gazed longingly at the spirit again with a sense of familiarity, trying hard to remember why he felt he knew this spirit and a name suddenly popped into his head.

"Renny…" he spoke softly and retrospectively.

The ghost boy's eyes widened with excitement. "So you do remember me?"

Lukas blinked, but the weird sensation of remembrance quickly faded as if the mere thought triggered it to vanish as quickly as it came. He shook his head. "Forgive me, but I do not. But this name and your face do strike a cord for some reason…" He shook his head again, trying hard to recall something, the sudden triggered but forgotten thought, brought it was gone. "But I can't place it. My apologizes. Needless to say, your presence here, in my bed chambers and this world, heeds my curiosity."

Renny frowned, but said, "Without a long explanation, needless to say, I am here for your protection and to repay a debt."

"What kind of debt? And how long has you been…"

"Deceased?" Renny finished Lukas's thought. "I am your third cousin, once removed. My name is Renfrew. Renfrew Phantomhive. I have been dead for near over one hundred years, given further years of grace. And I am here to repay a debt of kindness that you adhered to me during your bloody history with the evil man known as Bryon Kelvin, or Father - as you once called him. If it were not for you and your exhausting efforts, I would still be in servitude with my immoral, old master, who would have held my spirit for all eternity, by care of a now dead Fallen Reaper, who never took my soul to the world of the dead."

Lukas asked for further explanation and Renfrew told him…a long history. And that, since his freedom, Renfrew had been following Lukas, protecting him from harm, and in some small way, helped him break free of Bryon Kelvin's control, urging Lukas to fight from the shadows to restore his independence. But Renfrew would not take any credit for Lukas's struggles in this regard. Lukas had used his own mental training from his trainer to eventually break free - the brainwashing no longer effective. Eventually Lukas was caged and was set to be deposed of like other children in the past who had defied Bryon Kelvin, but Lukas found a way to escape, running away…but his memories had been taken from him with induced amnesia by Kelvin of what he had done - the missions he had undertaken for him and all his associations.

Not even Renfrew could recall everyone involved, and fortunately, two of them - Sasha and Samuel Ironstadt - were now dead, as was Kelvin's nephew, Mathu - possessed by a Fallen Reaper - whom Renfrew saw dragged to hell during Sebastian's battle in the mansion's back courtyard months prior.

"Is your old master dead? Did I kill him?" Lukas asked.

"No," Renfrew said. "He is in hibernation."

Lukas's brow furrowed. "Hibernation? Like wild animals do in the winter season?"

Renfrew nodded. "And you placed him in this state five years ago, underground…" He shook his head. "But you told me not to reveal his location if ever your memory returned."

"What you told me still has my mind in a fog," Lukas said. "I don't remember any of it. And if he is in hibernation, he is not a threat."

Renfrew frowned. "I'm afraid, you are mistaken. Time is almost at an end, and the five year hibernation cycle you and another placed him in will soon expire. Then he will awaken and terrorize once more. If you had died by Bryon Kelvin's hand, I would not worry. I am happy you survived, but I fear when he awakens he may come looking for you to retrieve what you took away."

"I took away?"

"I can say no more."

"How can we stop his awakening?"

"It can not. But as long as he is unable to obtain the secret buried deep inside your mind - " Renfrew stopped short. "Forgive me, I can not say anymore."

"What secret?"

"I have been sworn to secrecy. Suffice it to say, this is what I have prevented Sebastian Michealis from accessing inside your mind, night-after-night, despite you giving him permission to restore forgotten memories from your past. I have been your guardian, in this respect."

"Guardian? Is this the debt you spoke of?"

"Correct. Sebastian Michealis is a cancer to your mind, this demon of a butler. He has proven successful in helping you, but has been malicious in attempting to access this information, for which I have continuously forbid him from acquiring without the correct pass-phrase. Not even the Undertaker attempted to access this information when he helped you with your amnesia - the Reaper knowing better, and I informed him of such when we briefly spoke. He was very understanding of my guardianship, despite him having Reaper heavenly knowledge of this information, regardless. I also asked him to not speak of me."

So, Renfrew knew the Undertaker?

"Pass-phrase? What is this pass-phrase?" Lukas then said.

"That, I can not tell you, regardless of it being of your creation."

"So I know it?"

Renfrew nodded. "In a sense. But I have hidden it even from you with a spirit spell, and in the case of Sebastian Michaelis, this is wise on my part. If this information was ever learned and used improperly and it fell into the wrong hands, grave misfortunate will befall all who may be aware of it, including yourself."

"Did Sebastian mention a door with a hooded figure with a deathscythe guarding it? Is this guardian you?"

"He has revealed it to you? While I have been following you, I am, on occasion, called away…" Renfrew mused for a moment. "So, the demon has told you of this door. If that is all, then the secret is still safe."

"What is the pass-phrase? If I created it, I wish it known."

"Do not wish for that."

"You will not tell me? It may help restore memories I am lacking."

"You do not wish for these memories, if it can be helped." Renfrew shook his head, folding his arms across his chest in defiance. "I will not discharge a vow to protect you, I am sorry."

"Then we are at an impasse."

"Indeed, we are."

"Restore Sebastian," Lukas demanded. "Awaken him, if you have ushered him into this unconscious state?"

Again, Renfrew refused. "He will learn the error of his ways for defying my warning, like all creatures learn from their mistakes. This demon says he does not fear anything because he is not alive, but I wager that is a lie and I will cast doubt in himself of his self-delusional belief."

Lukas scowled. "What do you mean by that?"

But Renfrew remained silent.

Lukas crouched down, placing a comforting hand on Sebastian's immobile body. The butler was not just a demon to him, he was a friend - a friend who had helped Lukas when he needed it most, who had welcomed him back to side with his brother, helped him restore fractured memories, provided guidance without a fatherly-figure around, and risked his very existence to protect him and his brother from the Fallen Reapers, and for which this ghost seems to be aware of. This was an outstanding debt Lukas, at the very least, owed Sebastian in kind, regardless of Sebastian being a minion of the most detestable and wicked being ever to exist. Lucifer, the devil of biblical literature.

Lukas eyed the ghost with distain. "If you will not tell me what I wish to know or recant your personal vow, then we have nothing left to speak to each other about. Leave my sight immediately!"

Renfrew's mouth dropped agape, shocked. "But I am only protecting you - "

"I don't need your protection or want it!" Lukas said, speaking arrogantly of his own skills to defend himself from his training. "Leave my sight now!" His anger fueling his emotions for what Renfrew had supposedly done to Sebastian through spiritual means, hurting his friend.

Renfrew turned his head unwanted, downcasting his eyes, but he restated he would not recant his vow. "I would have hoped you'd understand, Lukas. Much like your brother and this demon have a contract, and so do we - a promise - and I will not renege on it." He looked back, exchanging a hard stare with Lukas. "I will leave, but I will continue to watch events unfold according to my vow."

And with a turn of his body, his translucent hue dissipated like swirling mist into nothingness.

Lukas watched the area near his chest of drawers fill with darkness once again, the light of the candle he held illuminating only the immediate area of where he was standing next to Sebastian.

Unable to carry Sebastian's weight, he left him and went down the hall to his brother's quarters, ventured through the room's vestibule and into his bedchambers. While he didn't mean to, a certain anger within him for what his brother's "trickery" must have filled him, and when he opened the door, he accidentally slammed it against the back wall, awakening Ciel with a frightening start.

Ciel jumped upright in bed.

"Brother, something terrible has happened."

"So it gives you justification to enter my bedchambers unannounced and to slam the door?" Ciel said angrily, his right eye aglow with the Faustian covenant, like a beacon in the darkness. This at least told Lukas Sebastian was alive, albeit in his comatose state. For as long as his brother had the covenant, he and Sebastian were bond by its devilish indenture. "How dare you barge in here like some sort of - "

"Get out of bed now," Lukas demanded. "Something has happened to Sebastian."

With this, Ciel appeared to forget his immediate anger and hoped out of bed. Much like a son adores and respects his father, Ciel, without saying it, respected Sebastian for his guardianship. Sebastian was like the parent's Bryon Kelvin, or someone in his association, had taken away. This was proven when it appeared the grotesque monster Ironstadt had devoured Sebastian during their intense battling, and Ciel had cried out in both horror and in a child's wail for him. Ciel, of course, denied it had ever happened afterwards.

Without a robe, wearing only his long white bed shirt, Ciel followed Lukas down the corridor to Lukas's quarters, and together they found Sebastian laying on the floor immobile, next to Lukas's bed, candle light illuminating half the room.

"What happened?" Ciel demanded.

And Lukas began to tell him everything, no matter of how fantastic he knew how it would sound.

"Damascus?…Damascus?…Where are you, child?"

The voice was that of a sweet sound woman - and it filled the open fresh, flowery smelling air with a pleasantness Sebastian was unaccustomed to. It had come from a distance, carried by a gentle wind within a mild warm climate - a mother calling for her child. But it was enough to awaken Sebastian from his evident, induced slumber, brought on by the ghostly apparition - Renfrew Phantomhive.

He found himself looking up into a bright, blue sky, as he lain on his back in a field of yellowish flowers, the warmth of the sun beaming into his skin, but that was impossible. He had not felt the sun in so many years. The sun to him was just a ball of mixed gases at the centre of the galaxy that the planets orbited. He had not felt its warmth in more years that he could recall, and yet, right now he was feeling it. Once known to ancient Greek and Roman mythology as Tartarus, but now commonly referred to as Hell - but he just called it home - the heat here was intense. But this warmth was different, almost pleasant in feeling.

But it was impossible. The day he became a demon was the day he renounced all his humanity, all pleasantries of its association, including pleasant warmth. He had not been born a demon, but given a choice, granted its privilege by another. He had not regretted the choice, but on occasion he did yearn for certain things that he missed that he had once adhered to in taking pleasure in as a human.

The voice called again, but no one replied to the woman…

As the sun bleed warmth and an overabundance of light, he raised a hand to his face to shield his eyes, and noticed its unquantifiable, smaller size, much like a child. He also took notice of his "white" nails, and the fact that both hands were bare of any markings, such as his master's covenant in the back of them. He quickly sat up and noticed the rest of himself, his diminutive stature and highly pedestrian, antiquated clothing. He wore a mauve-colored, animal sown tunic, and two simply, crafted sandals with thin ropes that twined up and around his bare calfs.

"Damascus!" the voice was stronger this time, more demanding. "Where are you, my son?"

Sebastian saw - first the head of a woman with long, flowing brown hair, who had been calling her son's name, climbing up the hill towards Sebastian, then the rest of her white, tunic covered body. She smiled at him, as if relieved to find him safe. And Sebastian's eyes widened with shock, as her features, her face - her - suddenly came to his mind with absolute familiarity and he shook his head in utter disbelief.

"There you are, Damascus," she said, showing a lovely, broad smile. "You had me worried, dear. Did you fall asleep again? You are a lazy child sometimes." She looked towards the sky. "It is a beautiful day, but your father needs your help at the peer unloading the cargo. New supplies have just arrived for the city."

Sebastian shook his head in disbelief again. There was a rumbling beneath him and the ground quaked slightly, but he didn't seem to notice. The only thing he was focused on was the face of this woman. A woman he had not thought about in nearly two thousand years, and who had died horribly.

"You can't be her…" he said slowly.

She tilted her head slightly. "I can't be whom, dear? Did you hit your head?" She quickly ruffed his thick, light, unruly hair, but apparently found nothing of concern.

"I don't think so…" he said, still in shock at what he was experiencing.

Was Renfrew Phantomhive doing this? Sebastian knew dreams became reality to those who did not realize they were dreaming - and in his preparation to frighten his master, he would use this knowledge to intercede into his dreams and scare him - but this, he knew this was no dream. This was…

He jumped to his feet. His smaller legs lowering him far below this woman's height, for which he knew he was approximately much taller, or at least as Ciel Phantomhive's butler. A demon could be anyone or anything at anytime, but for the last two years a much taller height was the height he had been accustomed to. At this moment, he was merely half that height - a boy's height, like his master's - and his skin was paler, but tinted with a redish tan probably from the summer warmth, and he could feel the warmth of his skin and blood flowing through his veins, his heart pounding inside his chest, his muscles twitching with movement, air in his lungs. Like a human.

Which was impossible!

The hill he stood on, overlooked a large city of stone and brick mortar and a long wooden peer docked with ships within a circular harbor bay with crystal blue water. And overshadowing it all was a fat volcano towering into the sky, bellowing plumes of smoke.

The ground quaked once more, more violently this time, nearly throwing him off his feet, and he knew that this world - a world of the past -had shaken many times before - from what he quickly recalled of historical accounts, caused by that volcano. It had a name, but he failed to immediately recollect it. But it was the size of a large mountain with a ring of clouds hovering around its neck like necklace with even more smoke emerging.

"Pluto is angry," his mother said, as she also gazed at it. "We have somehow angered him."

The last planet in the known galaxy, Sebastian immediately recalled. Pluto was also the ruler of the underworld in Roman mythology.

"Then why not flee?" Sebastian said with an intense urgency and importance, because he knew what was to come. When this volcano erupted, it would destroy everything! "Sail a ship, far, far away - into the sea - beyond its endless reaches! We must flee, flee for our lives! This can not be happening - not again! A man should not experience the devastation and destruction of one's world twice in his lifetime!"

He was anxious, he was apprehensive, he was…

"Bracus!" his mother called down to his father at the peer. "I think something is wrong with Damascus!"

It was then - and it was odd why had had he not noticed it before - that he noticed she and he were both speaking Italian, the language of his ancestors. But he had not spoken Italian for a long, long time. And for good reason. He had not spoken the language since the destruction that destroyed his home because to do so was to cast heartful memories upon him, and much like his master, he cared not to remember them; memories he thought he had buried. But he could not mistake where he was - where Renfrew Phantomhive had brought him; deep inside his subconscious mind, deep inside own "forgotten" memories.

Indeed, Renfrew Phantomhive was powerful. He had managed to open a locked door inside Sebastian's mind, a door opened to his past, a past he wished he could forget - and thought he had when he became a demon. He had thought he had put his past behind him. But he did not have a guardian like Lukas Phantomhive, and he thought he was stronger-willed than to allow a ghost to invade his mind like this…

He dropped to his knees laughing, nervously, even frightened, as his father came running up the hill.

He had nearly two thousand years of memories to recall…and when this volcano erupted, he knew this city will not see the light of day again until the middle half of the 18th century - its citizen's buried alive, frozen in time by hot ash and volcano soot - the city cast into eternal darkness and forgotten to all until excavated, found with the bodies of buried souls trapped within hardened volcanic ash, their faces in agony and death.

And his own fate sealed in the mix of it.

The city of Pompeii with the volcano Vesuvius towering over its body will disappear in a supposed single day and night like the island of Atlantis in the Mediterranean Sea, despite similar destructions in the past that nearly destroyed it but for which was granted latency for an allotted time with occasional earthquakes and ground tremors. And with this city, the nearby cities of Herculaneum and Nuceria will be affected…and will be gone, destroyed - forgotten! One of the worse natural disasters to occur in all of time!

He thought he had buried it deep inside his mind.

But now it had come rushing back, and yesterday, was the festival to Vucanlia, the Roman god of fire, the day before the fateful day…today!

He had told Renfrew Phantomhive that nothing frightened him, but Sebastian knew that was a lie - and he remembered at that moment he had thought of his home in the past. The ghost must have read his mind at that moment and had apparently tapped into Sebastian's history very easily, creating this mind illusion.

He tried to abolish it from his mind, to save himself from experiencing his history once more. But failed miserably. Renfrew Phantomhive obviously intended to punish him for entering Lukas Phantomhive's mind - to frighten him for not heeding to the ghost's warning.

And his nervous laughter suddenly turned to tears and be began to cry.

For a demon, it was unheard of. But for a thirteen year old boy, knowing he was about to die - he allowed it. And couldn't help it.

August 24, 79 A.D.

The day when everything changed. The day the world ended.

The day that Damascus died.

To be continued…