31 Chapter 31 - Castles In The Air

I went back upstairs to thank Lucifer for his help. Not to my surprise, he was seated at the table where me and Caroline had our dinner. He was drinking coffee while rifling through the pages of a book, Dickens's Great Expectations. He was back in his regular form, his auburn hair and blue eyes gave you the impression that you were in the presence of someone who wasn't human.

"Did she have a good night?" He asked when I sat myself down.

"Pretty sure she did." I replied. "Thanks for everything."

"Not a problem. Shouldn't you be getting home?"

I helped myself to another cup of coffee. "I should but I'm too ecstatic right now that it'll be useless to force myself to sleep."

He smiled. "So how do you feel about her?"

He was studying me with his cool blue eyes and it seemed to see through everything.

"I like her, is that a bad sign?" I asked him.

"Your contract says that you should be the one making her fall in love with you, not the other way around." He sighed. "But it's your life and your choices to make."

Unbidden, questions of what lies after whether I accomplish the task or not came into mind.

"What'll happen to me if I fail the task?" I asked him.

"Mephisto will end up owning your soul and in the process the Avatar of Death will stay with the demons and hell. Though I wouldn't prefer that." He looked like he was having an onset of a really bad headache. "There's a lot of things I have yet to learn. If you lose your soul to Mephisto, the body dies. What happens to Death when you die, I have no idea."

"So I have to succeed." The thought of it dampened my mood. The night was perfect a few minutes ago but now with Lucifer's reiteration of my task, everything seemed to lie on the completion of it.

"Like I said, the choice is yours to make." Lucifer said simply, as if his whole plan for a godless world didn't entirely rely on me and the other horsemen.

I drank what was left in my cup and bade him goodnight.

"You have a good night as well." He said while taking a book from the nearest bookshelf and as an afterthought. "Dante, dreams are a reflection of the things repressed within yourself."

That sounded weird but I just nodded and went home.

**

Mephisto was the only one awake when I arrived. He was eating crackers from a large bowl, dipping them in hot sauce before putting them in his mouth. When he saw me, he offered me the bowl and I took a few and following his example, I dipped them in hot sauce. To my surprise they tasted really good.

"Everything tastes good with hot sauce." He said when he saw the expression on my face.

"No kidding." I replied. "Asmodeus asleep?" I looked around and didn't see the prince of lust anywhere.

"Important business stuff came up." said Mephisto. "So how was your night with Caroline?"

I told him.

"Luci played you that song huh?" Mephisto commented.

That peaked my curiosity. "What about it?"

"You should've asked him, it's not my place to talk about it." He replied. "Aren't you sleepy yet? It's getting late."

I chuckled. "What is it with you and Lucifer? I doubt you guys even sleep and you're asking me to take a nap."

"We don't need to sleep. Evil never sleeps, remember that." He munched a few crackers and when he seemed to be finally full, he took a chocolate bar from the fridge.

"Alright, goodnight then." I headed to my bed but I couldn't sleep right away. Images of Caroline's smile and the evening started flashing across my mind. No matter what Lucifer had hinted about the success of his masterplan hinging on my success of completing Mephisto's task, I couldn't help myself from falling for her. I realized that under any circumstances, she'd become the death of me.

**

I woke up in a wasteland. I could see the outlines of what looked like to be a castle on the horizon, partly hidden by a never-ending mist. Perhaps it's just another dream but it felt so real. The coldness and the feeling of emptiness felt too tangible for this to be just a dream. I felt drawn to the castle and before I realized it was happening, I was already walking towards it.

I couldn't see any path, the mist was too thick and I kept stumbling on what seemed to be rocks. At one point, I fell to the ground and I felt my knees split open and I uttered a scream. I expected to wake up but I didn't and I finally convinced myself that this was really happening.

Finally, I reached the castle. Its gates were close and the drawbridge was drawn up. I tried to look for another entrance but as I was about to walk around to look for one, I saw that the castle was standing on the edge of a cliff and below was an endless abyss.Then without warning, the drawbridge came down and the gates opened, the castle beckoned and I walked towards the entrance.

The castle looked dead. As far as I could tell, there was no one inside. Everything inside was in a state of decay. It's ramparts, brick walls and tapestries, all of it were collapsing. I walked around and entered a dark corridor and despite of the fear of the darkness, I walked towards it not knowing where it ended.

It swallowed me whole. When I looked back, the pale light that illuminated everything earlier was gone. The darkness in here was suffocating and I knew I had to see where this corridor ended.

Then for what seemed like hours, my hands which I held forward touched what seemed to be the outline of a door. Without so much as a resistance, it opened.

I found myself in a large throne room where people must've aired their complaints to the king. On both sides of the room, dark knights stood guard. Unlike the other parts of the castle, the knight armors looked untouched.Each were holding a large shield in their left hand and a spear in the other.

They seemed alive, that at any moment they could move and skewer me with their spears. At the end of the large hall was the throne itself and on it, seated upon it was a boy.

I walked towards him, he seemed so familiar. His hair was the color of the midnight sky, his eyes the distorted reflection of a red moon, his skin was as pale as the endless mist that overrun the castle and he was looking at me with unfathomable sadness.

I felt a lump in my throat. I felt like crying, like I should know him, like I should understand what was happening but I couldn't. My mind seemed to be splitting itself apart. I couldn't say anything, neither did the boy on the throne and yet I was crying, weeping like I've never done in life. It was worst than when I lost my grandparents, I felt like drowning.

Behind the throne, I saw the pale king and in his eyes was the same sadness. When our eyes met, the knights inside the room started to close in on me. Spears pointed and I could feel that they intended to extinguish me. The boy held his hand however and the knights paused.

"Do you know me Dante?" The boy's voice sounded so familiar, like an echo of the past.

I stared at him and my mind started to unravel. I was young then, a boy playing in the sand and I figured I could've been the happiest kid in the world being alone. Solitude, it was the only thing that meant the world to me then. The circle of people that were allowed in my life got smaller and smaller as I grew up.

I always knew that people would get tired of forcing their way into my life and they would eventually stop trying to understand me. Why I preferred being alone, why I didn't care about what they said about me behind my back and whether I had friends at all. I just didn't want to live in their version of the world and so in the back of my mind I knew who this kid was. He's changed greatly but he was still the same kid who'd build and paint imaginary cities and people in his head.

"The boy I used to be, the one inside of me." I answered.

"Do you know why you are here?" His voice was eerily haunting.

I didn't answer then, I was staring at the pale king behind the throne. He looked different somehow, no longer a devourer of life but someone who was as lost as me and the boy.

When he saw me staring, the pale king began to speak. "I've learned so many things Dante. He has taught me so much." He looked at the boy reverently.

"Is this really a dream?" I asked the two of them.

The boy smiled for the first time thought it was still tinged with sadness. "A dream, a make-believe fantasy you've created inside your head, does it really matter?"

I recognized the words as my thoughts, it felt like my whole being was being split apart.

"Why are we here?" I gestured at the surroundings.

The pale king went forward, his face looked grave. "We are here to make a decision. Who gets to live and who gets devoured."

"What do you mean?" His words left me in fear and confusion, like he was stating that this was inevitable.

It was the boy who answered. "We've both search for a purpose, some sort of path and now it has been laid before us." He looked at the pale king. "Here he is, our salvation, our redeemer from the senseless and confusing world and I am willing to disappear for him."

"Why?" I sounded so lame and pathetic asking him the question when at the back of my mind I knew the answer.

"In the past, this castle was alive. You shoud've seen it. The sun shone so bright, everyday felt like spring. Everyday was bliss. I would talk to hundreds of people who live different lives and come from many parts of the world. They would tell me tales and I would listen. In the night they would sleep in the castle and I'd watch the night sky with them, the stars and the moon. I dreamed myself in their stories. Then one day, I woke up and they've stopped coming and ever since I've been alone in here, waiting and waiting and then he came in here and listened to my tales.The pale light you've seen throughout the landscape came from him. I was already in the darkness waiting for the inevitable end. My dreams are fading, my castle will fall into the abyss, it is only a matter of time before I am truly dead and forgotten."

The feeling of guilt was too strong, mingled with sorrow and I didn't trust myself to speak.

"I'd tell you to not forget me but that would be a lie." The boy continued. "We both understand who and what we are. We've searched and searched and now that search is over. My reign is ending, the throne now belongs to the pale king."

I finally understood why I was here. "You want me to forego and lose myself as well."

"Are you not tired of the world?" The boy asked.

My first thought was Caroline. She just came to mind easily like a spotlight that allowed me to focus. "If you asked me that a few months ago, I would've probably said yes but now, I can't disappear. I can't afford to. I have to live for her."

"Even if doing so would mean suffering?" The pale king asked.

"Yes." I answered without hesitation.

The boy and the king looked at each other and seemed to come to some agreement. They nodded and the boy gave the command. The knights came once more and this time they didn't falter. A spear went through my throat, scattering blood and guts everywhere. Another went through my eyes, and I felt my brain explode. Then another through my heart, and another, and another until I was nothing more than scattered pieces.

**

I woke up with a start. My heart was racing, cold sweat trickled down my back and I felt goosebumps all over my body. It was 3 in the morning. I went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. My hands and feet were trembling. The spears felt too real, the boy and the pale king, the dark knights, whether they were dreams or just a product of my imagination, was irrelevant, for the questions, the madness and the sorrow of it all remained, and they were real.