31- Souls in Heaven
"And to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things…"- Ephesians 3:9
The elevator doors creaked once more, opening to an impressive, wide room; she could see halls and stairs carved into it and beams horizontally placed just below the ceiling. By this point, something had compelled the woman to finally stand up. Almost as if the elevator grew impatient with her suffering, it had taken her to another, previously unseen floor. She rubbed a tear off her cheek, contemplating her circumstances. Yes, she was absolutely frightened- not that she hadn't been previously, but…this was different, somehow. At least before, she had learned that Sammy was her ally…well, she did eventually. The other cursed beings she met hadn't shown her such kindness.
She frowned a bit. Even though she was only thinking to herself, she still felt guilty and found it necessary to correct this notion.
No, Norman wasn't necessarily unkind. After that moment of reticence in the moving box, Francine started to have a sense that he was just simply…out of his own control. Touching her roughened neck one last time with a wince, she looked up ahead, shadow from the overhead lights lining her brow.
And as she gazed upon yet another space left for a stranger to wander, cut wood and sharpened metal leaking ink like a giant's open sore, every soul of the studio seemed to latch onto hers. Sammy still correct in his assumption as he allowed her to enter the angel's abyss; she did want this more than he.
Why, though?
She took her first step out of the cubed cage, the sole of her shoe tapping into a quiet world. Her feelings for and about the inky beings followed her, leeching away what used to be a thriving drive for self-preservation.
On the surface, she seemed very resigned to this new life of 1930s hell. In a way, she was- but it was a resignation to survive. And for her, it didn't just mean physical survival. No, Sammy wasn't the only one who knew that life without belief wasn't a life worth living. So what did she believe in? A lot of things, as many people do. But dire circumstances can make it clear what matters most to someone, and that's what it did for her. And with their reveal, she found she was not satisfied.
She looked side to side, observing that there were again a few paths to take. The left seemed to be a narrow hall, and it traced around a lowered room directly ahead. To her right, a closed door. Three paths, then. Which to take?
Another step was taken to look over the middle path. Her eyes shot open, hearing a crackle from a speaker above…but no one spoke. She didn't wonder why it was so, but it made her remember Alice was still watching. A shiver crawled up her spine.
Why did she want Francine to see Norman? And why did she seem so…hurt, angry? What did Sammy even do to warrant such emotion?Of course, all these questions could be summarized as one: What did Alice know? As she seemed to hold a key to Sammy's lost past, the woman had decided unconsciously that is was also the key to understanding the studio and her new existence. In Francine's view, Alice was the piecer of puzzles, the keeper of mysteries, the only one who seemed to understand.
How strange was it that Alice was starting to see the mortal in the same way.
"Don't come any closer!"
As Francine strayed down the staircase, the voice came yet again to halt her in her tracks. It caused her concern, of course, but something was…off. It was a tone that the angel had never used before, and so it was a surprise to hear her capable of it. It wasn't just a call of anger. It was a call of desperation.
Bizarrely, Alice was beyond rage and beginning to drift into pure upset. It grasped something inside the woman, and her brow furrowed. "L-listen, Alice," she boldly called out into nothingness, "I…" It took a second to find the right words, the speaker silent as if Alice was holding her breath. "Remember when…you told me I looked scared?"
No answer. She continued anyway.
"I'm…still scared," she admitted, her own voice quaking as she heard herself speak. But the silence remained, leaving her unsure if Alice was pondering or waiting for more. She had more to say, and so Francine finally let her heart pour out, as was her first instinct when she met the angel some time before.
"I'm…I'm really, really scared. And I think-" Francine swallowed. This next statement was so stupidly risky. But it was her truth. "I think for some reason…you're scared, too?"
The woman couldn't understand why, but she and Alice seemed akin in their discomfort, their uncertainty of fate. Maybe if the mortal admitted her feelings, her overseer may soften as well.
Again, nothing. With a heavy yet quickened heart, Francine started to walk towards a small bridge looming above a river of ink-
"Stay. Away."
The slightly deeper of the voices returned, and despite its muted restraint, the poison it contained still seeped the air with an echo. But instead of quenching the woman's fires, they only burned brighter and higher.
Sammy, Norman, and even Alice herself seemed to clasp upon Francine's shoulders, overcoming her with grief and longing. She felt what must have been their anguish and eternal suffering. Her eyes started to tighten, cheeks pushed upward as she clenched her teeth. All along, everyone seemed to be overwhelmed by her presence and ordered her time after time to leave, like she didn't belong anywhere in this place that served as her prison. Hell, even an elevator had gotten sick of her. It made her feel…discarded; it was hard enough to be by the life she should have been living right now in the outside, but it stung so, so badly to not even have somewhere to be when she couldn't escape it at all.
She decided then that she was here to stay.
"Where are you going?!" Alice's voice flew over the woman's head as she clenched her fists, marching over the bridge. It was Francine's turn not to answer, probably unable to as doggedness twisted her chest so forcefully that her temples grew sore. The last word of the seraph dissolved into a gasp, and then-…into a hearty, mocking laugh.
"You think you can walk the path of angels, little girl? I'd like to see you try."
The mortal's chin lifted up as she stood at the foot of yet another staircase. An angel rested above, holding a scroll that, unlike her living counterpart, welcomed Francine to enter cloud nine. Underneath was a solid metal wall, likely a bolstered door. She stopped yet again. How foolish was she to let her need for answers face someone she knew nothing about, besides that they hadn't hesitated to send shards of glass flying right at her? But again…what made her afraid was what fueled her actions. Even as Alice pushed herself further and further away, Francine only wanted to get closer. The fact she knew nothing made her want to know everything. If this was her life now…it wasn't worth living if she couldn't understand it.
"Well?" the angel interrupted, "What are you going to do?"
Oh, how little did Alice Angel comprehend that this wasn't a tease she had uttered but an invitation.
"I-…What?"
And then Alice said nothing more as Francine came to the top of the stairs to the enormous figurine's open arms. With her last step, almost as a command-…the impenetrable metal door had begun to open for Francine. It was like she was a king returning to his court waiting with baited breath, exalting her presence with laud and grandeur.
The horrid scrape of metal upon metal as the gate finished was accompanied by an equally unsettling screech from every speaker.
"WHAT?! WHAT?! How…how did you-?!"
The audio paused, silenced by a recognition that seemed to elude Francine. As her ears flooded with adrenaline and spite, the woman would hear the words that did eventually come, but not their meaning. To her, they were only more of Alice's insistence she be left alone. Well, Francine wasn't going to let that happen. Not when she was stuck in this fucking place for God knows how long and questions were still left to be answered. And so, Alice Angel's next cries were misinterpreted to be of the same kind, their true nature unappreciated.
"No! NO! What are you doing?! STAY AWAY FROM ME! LEAVE! NOW!"
Francine didn't know that up until this second for decade after decade, Alice had believed she was the only one who could open that door. And she certainly didn't want it to in this moment…and yet it did. The angel was realizing in horror that even in heaven, there was a god more powerful than she. The woman was right; Alice was scared. Scared of her.
There was one voice left unremembered, one man that Francine now knew but had forgotten to consider as she tried to carry the burdens of every prisoner of the studio. And yet, his musings rang most true:
"What a positively silly thought."
The hallway definitely wasn't as long as it felt. Maybe it was the angel's growls and cries, indistinguishable to the mortal's foolish idea of what this situation meant. Maybe it was the tables along the way, toys and paper left untouched woven into spiders' long abandoned webs. Maybe it was how suffocatingly close the walls were, seeming like organs of a mechanical behemoth that had swallowed them all, pumps and gears moving and whistling all around her.
How mistaken was she to think that its release to an open room would bring only relief. The shadows had lifted, but an absolute nightmare fell as she came upon a cavern of corpses.
Of course, she gasped and she shook in utter terror, but she wasn't the only one doing so.
While Francine took in only what she could see, Alice could only dwell upon what it was this scene was missing. As the seraph accepted that evil had entered her home, she could only ask it one question:
"…What else can you take from me?"
Even as the sight of monsters strapped to a few of the tables gaped at her with dead eyes, the woman was maybe cut most by the invisible- the sounds of someone besides herself sobbing. It was Alice, totally despondent for a reason beyond her comprehension; it betrayed a desperation to keep whatever it was she had left that the ink demon demanded he take.
"They're all gone, Francine…" The angel above sniffled. "Every last Boris. He took them. He took them from me. All of them!"
The mortal stood still, chilled to the bone as an empty, Frankenstein-type vertical bed stood next to her side. Their backdrop a true ocean of ink, she didn't know something used to be strapped there.
Or someone.
Author's Note: Hey remember when I said not much has changed since Henry has been there?
I lied a little bit.