Chapter 14: Hell's Fire
"No!" shouted the twins. Gene and Noll grabbed Yukio's spirit and ended up going into Hell's Gate…
Noll could feel hands, lots of hands, touching his body. Then come the fire.
"Aaaah!"
Eyes wide open, Noll looks around. Fire rose and came from far beyond his eyes could reach. Thousands of wailing souls whined, moaned and whimpered in harmony. Chains clinked like instruments of an ensemble. Someone is making music out of sinned souls' agonies. From a distance, he can see and smell burning flesh. Is this hell?
His eyes searched for the others. Mai, Lin, the monk, the miko, Misako and the priest. Then Gene, his father and his mother… Lastly…
"Yukio!" he shouted in the air. He can barely keep his mouth shut because of the pain. He looked widely around, found nothing except rows of rotting, burning, squirming bodies, moaning and whimpering with their own chains, through the vast fire. It was horrible.
Noll lifts his feet and steps in the fire. Instead of burning, white silhouettes raise him up and cover him from the fire. Instantly, he's free from the rotting smell and heat of those eternal coals. Looking at his hands, Noll finds out that they are not burned at all! He then looked at the silhouettes protecting him. They are souls.
He hears thuds low, loud and thunder-like. He whips his head to the sound and sees two torches of white light surrounded by rotting and burning bodies. The moment he yearned to come closer, the souls drifts him like the flowing sea. The light torches are also silhouettes. Gene turned to him with a smile and so did his father.
"Didn't think you'll be able to come here, little brother." He said. They share nearly identical grins.
Noll looks at the black soul squirming in agony under the burning corpses. It writhes like a snake, trampled by other corpses. Somehow, it looks as if the dead drags the black soul deeper and deeper into nothingness. Noll looked frantically around him. They were the only three light torches and everything around him seemed to be either fire or smoke. He even seemed to have forgotten that he is actually floating in mid air.
"WHAT BUSINESS DO YOU HAVE ON MY HOLY GROUND?"
It's like thunder, low and rolling against the fire, like the wind. Noll can't explain it. The corpses don't seem to like it too, because their screams and wails got more loud and shrill. Noll's hair flew around his face with the sudden wind. A huge dark figure emerges from the flames. Seeing only darkness, Noll can't make out its eyes or face. It is like a huge shadow set against the fire and the dead. Fear, sadness, anger and pride are storming inside of him. The dread is the most suffocating-
Noll clutches his throat, wanting to gag.
"FIRST THE WHITE SOULS, NOW THIS HUMAN?"
Noll felt every word like a knife against his skin. He clutched his arms but found no blood. He looks at the shadow and thought he saw fangs. Suddenly, the shadow engulfs the whole place. He looks at his hands and his body before realizing that he was still protected by the white silhouettes. He felt warm against the cruel and menacing darkness. He found courage.
"WHAT BUSINESS DO YOU HAVE HERE, SON OF MAN?"
The words seems to echo through the darkness.
Memories flash through his eyes. The rampaging spirit took Mai and tried to kill his crew. He was being targeted by the spirit. His parents showed up in his dream and Gene held up an intricately decorated fan…
"An evil spirit evaded going to Hell and created chaos for a long time…" Noll's voice seems to resonate against him, from inside him and out through the darkness.
"BUT THAT IS FOR ME TO DECIDE. ON WHAT GROUNDS DO YOU WISH TO BURN?"
Burn..?
"THIS SON OF MAN IS STILL ALIVE AND BREATHING. IT IS NOT HIS TIME YET. YOU STILL HAVE NO RIGHT OVER HIM."
It's a warmer voice that seemed to come from Noll's shield, from the souls. He felt each word vibrate in his heart towards the darkness covering him.
"HE HAS COME HERE FROM ABOVE! THOSE THAT CAME FROM ABOVE MUST NEVER GO BACK!"
Suddenly, blinding light burst forth. Noll ducks his head and closes his eyes, hoping for the best…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~xoxox~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Oliver?"
"Mother?"
In front of Noll are pine trees reaching out to the sky. Around him is a lush, dark green carpet of grass. The place is breathtakingly beautiful.
"You fell asleep," his mother laughingly says.
"What? Oliver fell asleep?" a man's voice says. Noll turns his head towards the voice and, true enough, sees his father come down from quite a steep hill. Martin Davis is a big British man with broad shoulders and a fast receding hairline. His wife, Luella Davis, is lanky. As she gracefully stands up to meet Martin, Noll can't help but notice the silver streaks in her brownish hair. Martin and Luella Davis… Noll is back into being a Davis.
A smile slowly makes its way into Noll's lips.
"I could sleep whenever I want father," he says.
"Father! How could you leave Mai and me alone down there?"
Noll stares at Eugene for a very long time when Gene came up from the same steep hill that Martin came up from. He can't believe it. He must be dreaming. How could Gene be alive? But there he is, climbing up the hill towards them in his khaki pants, looking as arrogant as ever. Noll nearly forgot Gene mentioned Mai. He would have still ogled at his twin brother if Mai didn't suddenly come up from the same slope.
"Wait, Davis-san! Gene-san!" Her familiar shrill voice floats toward Noll.
She looks very… different. Her hair is tied in a ponytail and seems to flow down the length of her back. And she… Well she… Unbelievable…
Martin laughs as he rushed to help Mai go down the slope. She loses her footing for a while and nearly topples down the hill. When she saw Martin and Gene's very worried faces, she giggles.
"Naru," Mai panted as she sits, cross-legged, on the grass next to Noll. "Why are you staring at me? Is there something on my face?" she pouts.
"Maybe Noll's just not that awake yet!" says Gene as he throws a mock punch to his brother. Noll brushes it away and everyone laughs, just like how they were before Gene died. Mai takes both of Noll's hands on her inflated stomach. So it's true. She is pregnant. He also noticed that both of them seem to be wearing the same rings on the same finger, the claddagh rings to be exact. But didn't he buy the rings just yesterday?
"Look at how sweet they are, Martin," Luella exclaims. Noll looks around him. Are they saying them? Him and Mai?
Mai turns to face Noll. "I think we'll have twins," she says.
"We..?" Noll tentatively asks. "How old are you?"
Mai pouts again before she answers, "23 years old tomorrow. Why did you ask? You couldn't have forgotten about it… could you?"
"No not really…" He says. All of this… Just can't be real… Or can it be?
Wait, Noll thought. I remember that Gene died. He was killed in a car accident orchestrated by a spirit. Was Yukio his name? All of us, Madoka, Takigawa-san, Matsuzaki-san, Brown-san, Hara-san, and Yasuhara-san, except Lin and Tanaka-san were at the hospital. That spirit nearly killed Mai and I was sucked into… someplace…
"Don't force yourself thinking, Noll."
Gene's voice. He looks at Gene smiling. Gene's eyes are glass-like…
"Oliver, you shouldn't be thinking of work while we're here on vacation!"
Father…
"Yes, Oliver, everything would be easier if you would not think all the time"
Mother…
"Really, Naru, what are you thinking about now?"
Even Mai…
"Then, all of this is just a dream-" Noll exclaimed at last. Like glass, the whole scene shattered into the darkness.
"-after all…"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~xoxox~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The wind whistles loud in Naru's ears. A familiar voice calls out to him, "Naru… Naru…" getting louder and louder by the second. Naru felt his eyes heavy and willed himself to sleep but delicate hands shake him up.
He opens his eyes to a blurry, twilight sky. Mai suddenly appeared in front of his face.
"Mai..!" he grumbles. He feels his body sore all over. It is as if he ran a track race and his body feels so heavy. "What happened-"
He didn't get to finish his question. Mai tackled/ hugged him tightly and cried.
"For a minute there, I thought we lost you." Naru heard Takigawa-san say.
"Mai get off him!" Matsuzaki-san says, pushing Mai away from Naru. She procured stethoscopes from somewhere and began a breathing test for Naru.
"What happened?" Naru says while looking around. Yasuhara-san supports a shocked Masako. Brown-san, supported by Madoka, limped closer to the group, smiling sheepishly. Takigawa-san is patting Mai's head while she cried. Everyone's limbs seem to be intact.
"Do you know how long you were gone?" Matsuzaki-san says. Naru didn't even have to answer her. She continues, "Three hours! Three freaking hours!..." and she rants on and on. She wouldn't have stopped till Takigawa-san told her Naru might need to be admitted and examined in the hospital. So they all waddled towards the stairs, their backs to the slowly rising sun.
And so the mission ends…
AN: This isn't the last chapter… since I'll be doing an epilogue of sorts… but this chapter needs to be posted! m_O_m gomene, this took sooo long…
AN2: I'll also be putting up an extra chapter, aside from the epilogue…