Chapter Thirty-Five: The Grief Child

The fog clouded our vision and then dissipated again, leaving us somewhere else. We were no longer in a sleazy motel, no more peeling wallpaper. Instead, we were in a playground, an area of green grass, with swing sets and carousals and slides. And yet, somehow, in contrast to the previous motel, it seemed even more filled with a sense of despair and hopelessness.

"Be careful," Omega said. "The Hell of Loss often looks easy to pass through, but that's how it traps people."

"I don't get it," Tulip said. "How does a playground represent loss? I got the swamp representing life and the motel representing love -- twisted love, sure -- but a playground?"

"It's not a playground," Omega said. "Look closer."

I watched as Tulip squinted at the area around her and then I turned myself to 'look closer' as Omega suggested. I looked at the carousal, its metal arms beckoning for me to spin around like I had done in younger days. The sides were sharp, sharp enough to cut, and I knew if I spun around on it, I could cut a hole through time and I would find myself back as a child, when I was young and happy-

Wait, I never played on a carousal as a child. That wasn't my memory. "Something's not right," I said.

"I keep wanting to stop and play," Tulip said. "I keep wanting to go on the swings and twist them around like I did as a child. I want to do that so much my heart aches. I want my heart to stop aching."

"It's the Lacrimosa," Omega said. "The Grief Child, the Weeping Kin. Stop."

We stopped walking forward. I wanted to go back, to go on the carousal, but I knew I shouldn't. I held onto Tulip's arm and she grabbed my hand. The writer stood alone.

There was a girl in the path before us. She was young and small and thin. I forgot about the carousal and thought only of her. She smiled at us and my heart ached to reached forward and touch her and hold her.

"We are passing through," Omega said. "We cannot stay."

The Grief Child looked at Omega and I could see a shimmer, like the road on a hot day, like what I was seeing was just a mirage. The Grief Child looked at Omega and she shimmered again and I saw beneath the shimmer and I wish I had not. What I saw was something oily, something amorrphous, something without shape that had given itself a shape. It had given itself a shape that no one could resist.

The Grief Child smiled and waved us onward. As we passed it, it touched our shoulders and I shuddered, not in fear, not in sorrow, but in happiness. It touched me and I felt happy.

I was glad when the fogs descended again.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Motel Hell

We walked through the fog and soon realized that we were no longer outside. The fog formed into walls and the earth turned into floor and soon we were walking down a long hallway. There were doors on either side with strange numbers on them, numbers that seemed to swim in my mind. I looked away from them and towards the center of the hall.

At the end of the hall was a door.

"Where does that lead?" Tulip asked.

"To the center of the Hell of Love," Omega said. "Appropriately enough, it looks like a motel, right?"

It did look like a motel. The wallpaper was cheap and peeling, the floor was carpeted with a beige rug, and there was a strange odor in the air.

The door at the end of the hall grew larger in our sights until it looked before us. It must have been some trick of perception, since it had looked like a normal door before, but now I could see it was large, at least ten feet high. Or perhaps the door had simply grown as we approached it.

Omega went to open the door, but the writer stopped him. Instead, the writer knocked twice.

"Come on," a female voice called. Omega and the writer shared a glance and then opened the door.

The only word that could describe it would be a boudoir. There were silk curtains over the windows and a brick fireplace with a roaring fire, along with a four-poster bed. And on the bed was a woman.

I blinked and the person on the bed was now a man. He smiled at me with a lecherous grin. I blinked and she was a woman again.

"Please forgive us, God of Love and Lust," the writer said. "We only wish to pass through."

"Oh, please, don't be so formal," the man/woman said. "Call me Al Basti. And you can certainly pass through if you like, though I hope you'll stay a little bit first."

"We would," the writer said, "but we don't have much time."

"Oh nonsense," Al Basti said. S/he winked at me. "You have all the time in the world here. My brothel caters to all tastes, all types. We have girls and boys just for you."

"I'm sorry," the writer said, "but..."

"He lusts," Al Basti said and s/he was looking at me. His/her eyes were pools of red. "He lusts after you, girl." S/he looked at Tulip. Tulip said nothing, hypnotized by those red eyes. "Go on, you can give in. You lust after him, too, don't you? Give in and everything will be fine."

The need to touch Tulip swelled within me. I wanted to grab her, to kiss her, to throw her onto that bed, to fuck her. She turned to look at me and I knew she wanted to do the same to me.

We raised our hands and touched one another and it felt like an electric current passed through us. Her face drew nearer to mine own and her mouth grew larger in my vision and I went to kiss her and...

There was a splitting in my head, an ache that made me cry out and fall to the ground. My vision swam and I saw the ORACLE in front of me, her beautiful face shaking in disappointment. I had failed her.

Al Basti stood up from his/her bed and approached the swimming vision of the ORACLE. S/he waved her arm and the vision disappeared, but my headache remained. "What a tightass," s/he said. "Very well. You've already seen what the Hell of Love does. Just remember: you will never experience anything like that ever again. You may go now."

We walked through the other door of the boudoir and out into another hallway. The fog returned and I was more relieved than I had ever been.

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Hell of Life

We walked through the swamp, our skin sizzling, sweat dripping from our flesh. Even Omega, who rarely had nothing to say, had stopped talking and started drinking deeply from a water bottle the writer had given him. In fact, the writer had given us all water bottles.

"Be careful with them," he told us. "Don't drop them, don't drink too much. Proportion them. I have more, but not an unlimited supply."

"Why does it matter?" Tulip asked. "I can see a pool of water up ahead anyway."

"I wouldn't drink from that," the writer said. "I wouldn't drink from anything here."

"He's right," Omega said. "The swamp Abzu is where EAT comes from."

"Eat?" Tulip looked at me, but I didn't know what they were talking about either.

It was at this point when we reached the pool, which looked deep and refreshing. Even though I wasn't particularly thirsty, it still looked tempting, and I started to step forward, intent on scooping up some of the clear blue water into my hands.

The writer stopped me. "That's not a good idea," he said.

The water bubbled. A head burst from under it, wet strands of hair flicking upwards. A woman rose up from the pool of water, but the water rose, too. The water clung to her and I realized that she was the pool. Her face was too calm, too serene. Her eyes were the bluest I had ever seen.

"I heard my name being called," she said.

Omega immediately pulled out a knife, but the writer touched him on the shoulder, causing him to slowly lower it. "You have so many names," the writer said. "What do you wish us to call you?"

"Sirara is good for now," she said. "I heard you call this place Abzu. The primordial swamp. That's not its real name either."

"It has no real name," the writer said. "It is Eden. It is Abiogenesis. It is the beginning and end of life."

"True," Sirara said. "And look, my sister walks among us." She gestured behind us and we turned to see another woman climbing up the crook of a tree. She looked exactly like Sirara except instead of water, many vines were wrapped around her, and her eyes were the greenest of greens. "You have attracted the attention of the Lady of Greenery, Ninsar."

"We are merely passing through," the writer said.

"Oh, I know," Sirara said. "But she gets so hungry. Her plants need to feed, after all."

"I thought you hated the Algernon Forest," Omega said raising his knife again.

"Why should I hate her?" Sirara said. "We are two sides of the same coin. Progression, regression. Evolution, stagnation. We feed into each other."

"Well, you won't feed on us," Omega said.

"No, we won't," Sirara said. "Your fate lies forward, beyond the Seven Hells. We just wanted a look, that's all. A look before you go beyond the Wall."

"Have you ever been beyond the Wall?" I asked.

Sirara smiled, her teeth slimy and blue. "Once," she said. "There is an ocean. That is all I can tell you. Now go. Before my sister gets impatient."

We followed Omega and fog began to cover the swamp. Before we left, I heard Sirara say, "The next Hell you visit shall not be so pleasant. Love never is."

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Charon

Tulip and I stood next to one another in the parking lot as the writer took a can of spray-paint and made drew a circle on the ground. He looked at it thoughtfully, then drew an x across it.

"What does it mean?" Tulip asked.

"Nothing," the writer said. "And everything. It means whatever you want it to mean."

"Do you always talk in cryptic bullshit?" Tulip said.

"Most of the time," the writer said. "We just need two more items. You two stay here." He walked to the right and then stopped, turned around, and walked to the left.

"So why are we traveling with him again?" Tulip asked me.

"He's going to lead us to the Wall," I said.

"And how do you know that?" she asked.

I shrugged. I didn't know if I should tell her about the ORACLE or not. I tried to play it safe. She didn't seem to mind being in the dark. She told me that it was fine just having an adventure for the sake of having an adventure. "Like The Hobbit," she said. "Although with more eldritch abominations."

We stood there talking until the writer came back. In one hand, he held a handgun. In the other hand, he held a cheeseburger. He set the cheeseburger down in the center of the x-ed circle. Then he held up the handgun.

"Are you sure he knows what he's going?" Tulip asked.

"No," I said truthfully.

The writer pointed the handgun at the cheeseburger and was about to pull the trigger when a voice said, "Wait, wait, wait!"

A man ran into the parking lot. He wore a black hoodie with the same x-ed out circle on the back. He pulled down his hood and I saw he was young, with long, dark brown hair. "Dude," he said to the writer. "Were you going to shoot that cheeseburger?"

"Yep," the writer said.

"That is not cool," the man in the hoodie said.

"We needed a way to find you and this was the fastest," the writer said. "Hello, Omega. By the way, you can eat the cheeseburger if you want."

Omega's face broke out in a massive smile. "Awesome," he said and grabbed the cheeseburger, gobbling it up in three bites.

"We need a favor," the writer said.

"Are you runners?" Omega asked. "I only do favors for runners."

"Sure," the writer said, "though we're running towards, rather than from. We need to pass through the Seven Hells."

"Whoa," Omega said. "Even I don't go near those places."

"Still, we need to go through them," the writer said. "We need you to show us the path."

"Why?" Omega asked.

"You don't need to know that," the writer said.

"Then why should I risk my life for you?" Omega said.

The writer laughed. "Risk your life? Which one? From what I've heard, you have so many, it's hard to keep track."

Omega seemed ticked off at this. "It still hurts when I die, dude."

"Fine," the writer said. "We need to pass through the Seven Hells in order to reach the Wall. And that will allow us to save the universe."

"Sweet," Omega said. "Why didn't you just say that? Okay, follow me."

Tulip turned and looked at me. I shrugged. Who was I to question the wisdom of the writer? If this Omega was to be our Charon, then so be it. I just hoped they both knew what they were doing.

We starting walking behind Omega and he began to talk. "Going from plane to plane, that's easy. You just have to find soft spots, places where reality bends. Reality is like a seven-layer dip. You got the melted cheese on top -- that's normal reality -- and then you got the guacamole and the sour cream and the salsa. Those are the in-between places, like the Path of Black Leaves. Then you get lower than that, where everything becomes mushy. That's where the Seven Hells are."

As we walked, the landscape around us changed. The parking lot faded away, the buildings disappeared into fog, and the ground turned from concrete into wet earth.

Trees entangled with vines rose around us. We were in a swamp. I could feel the humidity of the place bearing down on us.

"Now, because reality is so mushy in this place," Omega said, "things tend to get even weirder than normal. Like this place. This is the First Hell."

"Welcome to Abzu. Welcome to the Hell of Life."

Chapter Thirty-One: Seven Hells

"It wasn't real?" I asked.

"No," the writer said, "it was all real. That was the point. You had to face yourself and forgive yourself."

"For what?" I said.

"For whatever," he said.

"I found myself back at my parents' house," Tulip said. "It was...freaky. Nothing bad had happened, not like last time, with the other me. But there was still tension and...I had to confront my parents about some stuff. It wasn't pleasant."

"What about you?" I asked the writer. "Where did you find yourself?"

"It doesn't matter," he said. "We're wasting time. The next step of our journey is ahead."

"Which is?" Tulip asked.

"The Seven Heavens and Seven Hells," the writer said, pulling out the notebook. "The Seven Hells would be the easiest to get to, since all we need would be a Charon."

"A Charon?" I said.

"A ferryman," the writer said. "Someone to ferry us into Hell. I suppose we could ask Jack, but he always wants to make a deal. And one of the Fears definitely won't do it."

"Whoa there," Tulip said. "First of all, the Seven Hells don't sound that pleasant. What are they, exactly?"

"Not sure," the writer said. "Never been there. Let me check." He flipped through the notebook and then stopped at a page. "Here we go." He showed it to us.

THERE ARE SEVEN HELLS:

THE HELL OF LIFE, THE HELL OF LOVE, THE HELL OF LOSS,

THE HELL OF LONELINESS, THE HELL OF LOATHING,

THE HELL OF LOOKING, AND THE HELL OF LANGUAGE.

"Oh, that can't be right," Tulip said. "'The Hell of Language'? What, are we going to get attacked by a gerund?"

"We'll get to that when we get to it," the writer said. "Now we need a ferryman, a person who can move between life and death easily." The writer scratched his chin and then snapped his fingers. "I know just the guy." He grinned a manic grin. "We need Omega."

Happy Halloween

Hello, all. We're about three-fourths of the way through the manuscript now and I've been trying to post two chapters a week, but things at work are getting busier and more hectic, so I'm going to change that. I'll try to upload one chapter a week now. That way, we should be able to get through the rest of the manuscript by January.

Thanks,
Pete (Properly Paranoid)

Chapter Thirty: The Heart of the Matter

I said hello to Roger as I clocked in, then sat down at my desk and began to work. It was another boring day. Actually, it was the same boring day, just repeated over and over again. Wake up, go to work, come home, repeat. Intersperse with meals and sleep. Shake vigorous and you get one life unlived.

I still remember parts of my dream. The ORACLE and the Ivory Woman. The writer and his notebook. And especially Tulip. I don't know why. They were just part of the dream.

I wish I could dream it again. I wish I could just continue the dream where I left off. I wish so many things these days.

Wake up. Go to work. Come home.

It's the small, mundane things that distract me from my life. There is a stray cat I see sometimes around the neighborhood. I left an open tin of tuna out once for it. A small gesture of kindness. I don't know why I did it.

Wake up. Go to work. Come home.

I no longer believe there is a conspiracy against me. Why would there be? I am not important. Nobody around me is important.

Wake. Work. Home.

I stay awake later and later each night, my eyes trying to pierce the veil of night, even knowing that nothing is behind it. I guess I don't see the point of sleeping and dreaming of dreary things.

Wake. Work. Home.

And then I found myself on the edge of the overpass. It was on the way to work. I stopped and looked out at the sea of cars, all of them driving at breakneck speeds, going to their own jobs, find their own ways in the world.

And I couldn't stand it. I stood on the edge of the overpass and I wanted to jump. Jump and end my repetitive existence. Break the infinite loop.

I stood on the edge of the overpass and thought about the end of my dream. "Home," the writer had said. Home is where the heart is. Home is where we keep ourselves hidden away from sight. Home is where we can see our true selves.

I stood on the edge and felt myself fly away. I let go of what I was and it floated like a ghost into the sky.

And then I walked home. I walked into my apartment and there they were. The writer, with his notebook, and Tulip.

"Took you long enough," he said.