Chapter 3: Good Bye. Good Luck

Dead. Zephaniah was surely dead. He died in the dark pit of an impossibly large creature. Some might say he died when a dark umbral blade was plunged into his chest. He might have been good as dead from when his wrist was torn off and blood was pouring out of his arm. Some might even claim he was dead the moment he listened to that voice and decided to turn around and go back into Jodie's house. No matter which way you look at it, Zeph was nonetheless dead. And shortly after his death, he found himself staring dumbly at a bright white landscape, a stark contrast to the netherly abyss that was his final resting place.

Above him was an endless expanse of rolling white clouds with the light of some hidden golden sun lining their edges. The clouds tumbled and spilled despite the lack of the slightest breeze. The ground was even more wondrous in that it appeared to be a near-perfect mirror of the sky above it. It was like he was on the surface of still water reflecting the spectacular troposphere above him without error with the exception of occasional ripples that intersect without origin. His bewilderment was soon replaced with anxiety. His gaze darted in every direction hoping to find some sort of landmark or feature. Every which way he looked was empty and indistinguishable from the last. Even looking to the sky, he was unable to pinpoint where the source of the light was coming from. The clouds plumed and billowed, obscuring the elusory light behind them.

"Welcome to Heaven." A voice came from behind and above him.

"Ah?!" Zephaniah started and turned around to find the source of the voice. Zeph looked up at a person atop an all-too-tall podium peeking over the edge back downat him. The structure was some sort of stone like marble with ornate carvings that made it look ancient. Zeph couldn't make out the features of the podium-person from the angle he had at the base, but he was pretty sure they weren't threatening. He was also certain this structure was not behind him until just this moment which added to his outward bewilderment.

"Wooah, jumpy one. You must have had a rough trip. Exciting!" The voice came again when a face poked out further from the top of the podium Zeph wasn't sure which of the owner's features stood out to him more. The androgynous figure leaned over the edge to reveal his frosty white hair, despite matching Zeph's own youth. Under a loose curtain of the hair were crystalline blue eyes, framed in matching white lashes all painted on the canvas of the face so pale it bordered on inhuman. His mouth couldn't be seen from over the edge but his eyes seemed to smile when he spoke again, "Oh yes, I know you. You are late! Oof, very late. Still, welcome welcome welcome! Better late than never, I always say. Believe me, I know a good guy when I see one. Congratulations! You did it. You weren't a dick."

"Who are you?" Zephaniah breaks his focus on the podium to take in the sight of the sky once again. "And what is this place?"

The man rolled back on his heels to also take in the beauty of the realm around them leaving him out of sight once again. "This, Zephaniah Rios, is Heaven. Well, sort of. This is actually the gate but it's more like a formality. It's pretty much Heaven. We basically just need to check a few boxes and you can be on your way to the afterlife! As for your other question-" He pauses for an effect that was lost on Zephaniah but still earned his attention as the man peeked over the edge of the podium, this time to reveal a smile when he spoke "You can call me Pete."

"Am I dead?" Zeph responded.

"Not a requirement but yes you are quite dead. Weird how everyone asks that..." Pete trailed off before starting again. "Doesn't matter now! Welcome to the Gates of Heaven. Like I was saying, it's pretty much a formality. We just need to verify your sanctity and cause of death." Pete flips some papers just out of view. "Ooh, babysitting? Self-sacrifice to save an innocent? Never double parked? This is practically open and shut. You should have no pro-" Something Pete was looking at made him stop his verbal onslaught.

Zeph's attention caught up to the break. "What?" The pause was feeding his worry. "Why did you stop?"

"That can't be right..." Pete trailed off again but this time it didn't seem like he was talking to Zeph.

"What's wrong?" Zeph's voice cracked. The realm they were in was unlike anything he had ever experienced but something in Pete's voice gave him an eerily familiar feeling.

"But he- How could he be-?" Pete began to ramble and the feeling in Zeph's chest grew to a panic.

"Hey!" Zeph shouted and seemed to cause a startled commotion with the papers and Pete. "What's going on up there, huh? Is there some sort of problem?"

"Uh, it's okay, Zephaniah. I just- I- I just need someone else to take a look at this. Hold on!" Pete did some motion with his hands that Zeph could not see and in that same moment, a tall grizzled man walked close to Zeph from his side. This obviously startled Zeph because the moment before, he was certain he was alone at the base of the podium. The man was tall, even as he hunched. Zeph was 6 foot 1 inches when he was alive and is now staring up at the man. The creases he wore on his face showed that he was well aged. He looked like had seen too much throughout the years and didn't like what he saw. His hair was an unkempt dirty brown with a few stray grays riddle throughout. Even his clothes screamed noir with a dark brown trench coat and drab white collar shirt. Despite the burning cigar pressed in his lips, Zeph noticed he smelt surprisingly sweet, like cinnamon and maple.

"What is it, Peter?" The man spoke towards the direction of the podium but when Zeph's followed his gaze, there stood Pete right at eye-level and the podium was now simple and meek.

"This soul, here. Zephaniah. Look at this!" The man sonters around to the other side of the podium as Pete spoke to read the writing in front of him.

"Well, that can't be right." The man leans in as if to discern between the text something he might have missed before.

"That's what I said! But this-" Pete jabs his finger into the text audibly for emphasis. "This is never wrong. It can't be wrong! It's immutable!"

Both men turn their heads up to meet eye's with Zephaniah again. Zeph tries to decipher the look that spreads across both men's faces, picking up notes of confusion and a little distrust. "Will one of you just tell me what the fuck is going on? -Oop" he flinched "Can I cuss here?"

The grizzled man takes a long drag from his cigar before billowing out a smog. It was thick and and full bodied until it broke when he walked straight through to the other side of Zephniah. "It's probably better shown. I need to see what happened before you died that caused this."

Pete coughed while swatting away the invasive smoke surrounding him. "I really wish you wouldn't smoke."

"What's it going to do? Kill you?" He didn't say it as a joke. It seemed he meant the words with more point and disdain than should be appropriate given the setting. "Look, now, kid. The reflection pool."

Zephaniah looks down to the watery flooring and the reflection of the sky gives way to what seems to be dark night. The clouds above were unchanged by the image reflected in the water seemed to be another sky. This didn't bother Zephaniah. After all the sudden changes and the experiences he has been having, he was ready to accept just about anything that happened her as reality. The reflection of the water showed the top down view of a medium sized suburbia. He recognized the area; it was Jodie's neighborhood. He could even see his old apartment from this top-down view and delightedly tilted his head remembering he doesn't have to pay rent anymore. The vantage shifted and zoomed in like the perspective of a bird diving down towards Jodie's house. The view stabilized when they were all looking from overhead and could see a light from the front door paint the lawn in soft yellow. Then sound came from the water, causing ripples to form at the edges of the image.

"Sorry, Jodie! I forgot I-uhh - have someplace to be! See you guys tomorrow. Tell booger I said 'Good night!" And a nervous Zephaniah escaped from the house, walking down the sidewalk towards the bottom edge of the image on the water. The real Zephaniah watched, transfixed on the recording of him. It felt so real to him- almost alive but surely it was just reflection in water. He watched his visage walk to the edge of the imagery in the water and disappear into a ripple. He even followed the ripples till they would meet his feet. Though they didn't meet his feet. Instead, the ripples met the edges of a soft gelatinous appendage that he somehow immediately recognized as part of him.

"AH!" Zeph's started scream caught the attention of the two men that seemed to be muttering to each other over the image before they were so rudely interrupted. Zeph stumbled backwards falling on he now considered to be his backside but is more aptly described as more of the same gelatinous fluid. He shook a soft flubbering arm in front of him and could see the unimpressed men in the other side. It lacked form and was more like a translucent blob than any arm he has known before. He slapped the floppy appendages to his unshapely body and a wet slapping sound responded as he frantically inspected it new form. "My body! I'm- I'm a slime!"

"No, you're a buffoon." Retorted the grizzled one. "That form is just your soul. It will solidify later, given the chance. Not some made-up creature from a video game."

Pete adds on in a much kinder tone "It's okay, Zeph. Normally that's part of the orientation but this is more important right now." He hurries over to Zeph, helping him upright again. "We need to know what happened to you."

Zeph unsuredly plip-plopped back to the edge of the reflection where a bright purple flash filled the image all the way to the edges. The light was gone as quick as it came and now the house was all the same with the exception of the deep purple light emanating from the windows.

"This isn't it, there must be more," Speaking again, the other man dragged heavily from his cigar before making a sliding gesture with two of his fingers. The events of Zephaniah's death played out for him at a speed he wasn't sure he could handle. Even seeing his past self walking back toward the house, he could feel the imminent danger deep in what I knew as his bones despite the recent news of not having bones. He was watching his death in fast forward. If he couldn't stop it before, this was like watching a roller coaster speeding to a brickwall. He saw his body thrown at the wall as if he was just wet pasta. He watched the blood pour from his arm, re-living these horrors as silent observer in the room beside the action.

"There!" The man's hand jerked to a stop shape. "What the fuck is that?" On the pool's surface was Jodie, standing over Zeph with a shadowy absence in her hand. "Hey! What the fuck is that?"

Zeph didn't notice he was being asked anything. He almost forgot about how he died. It wasn't that long ago but still the traumatic violence he felt seemed to melt into sand when he died. Now, he is staring down at the very thing that took his life and all he could do is relive every moment: each cut, each drop of blood, and all the pain that came with it. The memory flooded into him when suddenly, Pete's pale face filled his vision. "Come on Zeph. Wipe those tears, my man. What is that in her hands?"

Zeph brushed the amorphous blob that made up his face when his voice shook out a response. "Some sort of sword or something." He sniffled. "She called it a name but I don't remember what she called it." He tried to breathe but the air didn't come. Tears filled his eyes and he was back there again with the sharp pain impaling his chest. It was as if he could feel the fingers of the sword digging and prodding through his insides. It grabbed and pulled through his chest, like a dirty hands pulling themselves up from a pit. He was at a loss and thoughtless in this moment but the probing swelled and what rose to the surface was a single word. "Dunbal"

"Dunbal?" The older one spoke seemingly disinterested whatever new hell Zeph was going through from across the pool. "The weapon's name matters none. This-" he gestures angrily at Jodie in the pool "This is impossible. This can't happen."

"Well, it happened." Pete piped in, shaking his head.

"How did they get a possession of that magnitude? Her soul is barely even there! And that weapon." His tone got progressively more hostile to the water as he spoke until his focus shifted up to the shook pile of Zephaniah on the floor "I mean look at what it did to that thing"

"Hey he is still human!" Pete rose up dismissing the reflecting pool with a single sweep of his hand. Before Pete could add to his declaration, the other man postured towards him. Pete barked back at the man. "I called you to figure this whole thing out. You just said what they did to Josephine was impossible. Aren't you going to- to- investigate? This soul is the victim! A human victim."

"Is he? Look at him closely, Peter" The man stamped over to Zeph and gestured an implicative hand to him. "He is an abomination. Tainted and vile. As for the harlot, I don't know why you bother to learn their names anyway. It's over, this bumbling idiot managed to stop their plans so there was never any chance of their success in the first place. There aren't enough resources on earth to sustain a vessel for a demon that size."

"How could you know that?" Pete managed to move between Zeph and the other man as his tears began to roll down Pete's cheek. "She is still alive. Heaven or hell, her name would show in the book if she was ready for judgement."

"Soon, the whore will die and her bastard child will be free from whatever devilish plan she subjected him to." The man stepped closer to Pete now towering over him.

"The fuck did you say, geezer?" Zeph found himself upright and was now moving in closer on the other two at the affront.

"ZEPHANIAH," Pete turned his head to stop him from moving too close. A shout turned to plea. "Please, you do not want to fight this fight right now. He was never human like us, he doesn't understand our plight."

"He doesn't understand a Goddamned thing, does he?" Zeph clenched his gelatinous fists.

"You see, Peter? You heard him right? Spitting in the face of god. Ready for more violence. That's what you are trying so hard to save," the man gestured to Zeph for Pete before hardening his stance. "It's time to send him away. I will hear no more of this."

"Hold on, there must be some other way." Pete pled.

"There isn't. He doesn't belong here. It's not my job to figure out where he goes and it's not your job to save him." The man's voice became ice on each word as he spoke them, "Send him away. Now."

'Isn't it your job to find what happened here? This isn't right! Even I can tell there is something more going on!" Pete was sheets on a clothesline in the other man's storm, defiantly clinging on against the buffetting. "We can't just turn our backs on him. He is a victim!"

"There is nothing to figure out. His souls has demon in it now. No matter how big or small, all demons were exile from the kingdom of heaven. We saw the agents of hell fail and now he was leave. I shouldn't have to explain this to you Peter. You know all this." He studied Pete unwaivering. The stare was long and he saw something in Pete that he didn't like. For his part, Pete kept his eyes locked in anger while streams of tears flowed unrelenting. How could humans be so naive to the threat of demons? He knew Pete had never met one but the ones cast out from heaven were always vile, coniving creatures. They were vain and angry. They envied the light but hated those showered in grace. It had been several ages, maybe longer since a demon had even witness the gates of heaven this close. Now, a saint stare at him, asking to let the enemy through the gates. That could not happen. He hasn't seen war. A covenant could not be broken. The man decided the time for conversation was over and he pivoted off line from Pete in a way that allowed him clear line of sight of both the saint and Zeph. He extended his arm to Pete and from it he pointed a silvery ornate pistol directly at Pete's head. "Send. Him. Away. Now"

Pete's tone turned sullen, almost pitying,"You really have fallen from grace, haven't you? Are you going to shoot me?"

"I will do what I have to keep this kingdom safe," he said. "Will you?"

Pete didn't respond to the man but turned to Zephaniah and hung his head.

"Send him away, Peter, or I will rid us of him my way," the man said. Pete lifted his head, to meet Zeph gaze. His face was a beautiful mess of genuine despair holding back a terrible sob. "Peter." The man dragged out the name, goading a response.

"Okay! -Okay." Pete's voice quivered. He blinked out a stream of crystal blue tears. "I'm so sorry, Zephaniah. I wish there was another way. I have to send you away now." But Pete hesitated a moment longer when his face loosened.

"Peter!" The man urged forward with the gun a little closer to Pete.

"Hold on!" Pete snapped at him. If he was afraid of the other man pulling the trigger on him, there was no evidence of it in the face he gave him.

Unphased, the man started to count down as if dealing with a child. "Five."

Pete hurriedly spewed information to Zephaniah. "Zephaniah. You are going to hell but it's not over!"

"You are wasting your breath. Four," the man continued.

"There may be a way out of hell. I know you don't have any self-regard but Josephine and Dylan are still alive. Their fate's are not written but I think they are still in danger" Pete said.

"Three." The man clicked something back on the back of the pistol.

"Survive! Find a way to help them. Don't trust demons." Pete said. "Don't. Make. Deals."

"Two." The man turned his gun away from Pete and marched up to Zephaniah, menacing the gun in his face. He was a mix of surprise and maybe a little impressed to see Zephaniah defyingly staring in the face of absolution.

"You have to go now. I'm so, so sorry, Zephaniah. Good bye." Pete said. "And Good luck."

"One." Just as he said the word, the water parted a perfect circle beneath Zephaniah. He fell through and the man was left standing with his front toes sticking out over the edge of the hole. He stared into it a moment too long before Pete closed it again.

"Angel's had sin before us." Pete's voice was steel.

"Wrath too." The man responded. "We made the right decision, Peter."

"Did we? How are you going to sleep tonight?" Pete started back to his podium. "That kid would have sacrificed everything to save even you." Pete huffed out a laugh, "Maybe he just did."

"Enough, Peter." The man holstered his gun. "It's over now. I will return to my post."

"You know, I wonder if the gates would open for you if your name showed up in my book." Pete flipped through some pages as he continued. "I wonder the same for many of your kind."

"Enough, Peter!" The man said. "Your first name is still in that book of yours. Don't lose sight, Peter."

Pete clapped the book shut and the podium disappeared into the water with all its content. "Oh, We lost a lot more than that today, Michael."

On all beaches of hell, souls wash ashore in their rawest state: a gelatinous, fleshy mass barely in any shape or form. Their grotesque visage is a mess of barely human features, waterlogged and pruned after floating in the sea for an unknowable amount of time. Most can barely move when they find purchase on the sands of hell but every soul and demon could see the red sky and its clouds parted for what looked to be a falling star. In a fireball, Zephaniah pierced the sky, leaving a trail of smoke and ash before cratering into the dark gray sand. He wouldn't know it though. At some point between crossing between heaven and hell, he lost consciousness.

Zephaniah slowly came to and started to perceive the red hellscape from his little crater on the beach. For him, it was breathtaking in a way. The sand was coarse and thick, soaked in what tarrish fluid made up the sea whose wake spilled over the edge of the crater, before soaking into the loose sand. He looked out to the horizon at the setting red super star that dimly washed the scene in its bloody hue. The sun was paired with a collapsing neutron star that seemed to soak up some of the red sky but speckled it with glittery nebula stretching from across to each horizon. The sea was pitch and glittered the reflections of the absurd cosmology. The surface was only broken only by the wake and some enormous sea beast that created the surface occasionally to skim some floating souls off the surface. Zephaniah turned more to see the beach lined with large rocks hiding the feet of several enormous volcanoes erupting in the distance. Somewhere in the middle distance was a structure; walls, like a fortress, seemed to climb out from the ground but the ground wasn't quite ready to let go. There were clearly the tops of buildings behind the walls but his gawk was interrupted when his vision finally landed on the grotesque being that was standing between him and the distant city.

The creature was taller than any human ever was; it was easily 20 feet tall fully erect but it was squatted in a feral "M" stance. Its 4 long, slender legs were a rubbery alien gray but thick hair and disproportionately small feet. Its body and arms, though conventional in number, still matched the legs in length and lank. Thankfully, it wore a tattered cloth over its crotch or Zephaniah would have a full unfettered view of whatever the demon might have down there. If only its head had a matching cloth to hide the horrible, repulsive face. It was shaped like a massive egg, easily the size of Zeph's whole body in its current state, but instead of any discernible bone structure, the skin had 5 long vertical slit openings that left flaps of oily residue dripping from the edges. Behind those opening with pocked holes that seemed to inhale and exhale slowly as they drooled out the strange secretion. Somewhere among the vented holes were 3 off-kilter human eyes without lids that simply let the viscous slime drip over and down their lenses. Zephaniah would have shuddered yesterday at the sight of this creature, but today it's just another bizarre occurrence on the list. The being leaned in and hissed and a voice that gurgled like somewhere who never cleared their throat in their whole life and the phlegm was thick and audibly ventilating.

"Welcome to Hell, fallen"