Ashes in the Darkness

Phoenix

Death was painful, at first anyway. The detachment of the soul from the body was tedious work that included creating a new body for me, ripping my body, slicing the organs, putting them back together. All of it was painful, sickeningly so. Between the angels doing the work of putting me into my new, divine, heavenly form I was blessed with wings to fly. Fly above water and mountains and streams and forest. But eventually I was having to come back down. The coming and going of my soul was frustrating since it was like being given freedom from an earthly prison but only for mere moments.

But when the pain was finally over, death it was peaceful. The journey to the pearly gates felt like swaying of waves and then flying again, flying high and fast. White surrounded me many times, consuming my body in stoic happiness and delight. The light would flash, and in those flashes, I would see a familiar and beautiful face, one I had not seen in many, many years.

"Hayes?" I said, although my voice didn't sound like mine. "Hayes is that you?"

"You made it little sis!" Hayes looked to healthy, like the day I watched him graduate high school. He was so incredibly handsome with a chiseled chin and hard muscles. "I'm so happy you're here!"

I ran for him, I ran for him and felt his arms wrap around me, he even smelled like Hayes used to smell. Tears spilled from my eyes, tears that were so full of love and devotion. He returned my squeeze of his body with his own bear like, suffocating squeeze but I welcomed it. "I missed you."

"I missed you too, little sis," He squeaked, his face flashed in the light once again, strobing like a light that was losing its light. Frustration emanated in my heart, I didn't want the light to dim again, I wanted to look at his face as long as possible. "How is our mother?"

"She ah," Why couldn't I answer that?

"Our father?"

"He..." I wanted to open my mouth and answer that, but nothing came out, no words filtered into the air from my lungs. "He..."

Hayes's face distorted; his voice deepened. "Why can't you tell me?" The light around us faded for much longer now, strobing long and with a darkness that was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. "Phoenix, look at me."

"What did you call me?"

\Hayes' face distorted again, his skin beginning to fall away from his muscles. I watched in horrified, frozen fear as the muscle decayed in front of me. His eyes never change from their concerned look. Melting away from the bone, his muscles bled down his body until he was nothing left but a skull haunting the muscles of another person. Tattoos lined a forearm, skulls floating around the cells of pale skin.

A thick Manchester accent emanated from the skull. It didn't speak, but came through my temples, soaking the bone beneath and floating into my mind until I could hear his voice in my head. "Hear, this place is the darkness you learned to love so much," it said. The toe of his boot skimmed the ground, kicking up the gravel and dark powder that floated between them, "the ash you laid in with me."

Tears spilled for my sins, soaking the ground until it turned the ash to a disgusting mush. Falling to my knees my hands soaked in the ashy mud, sinking into it, baptizing myself in the evil I had committed. My tears created pools at the feet of the masked demon, and I bathed in it, as I had done so many times before. Taking handfuls of it, I covered my face in it like it was the face paint my comrades had worn the last time I saw them. The further I dug into the pools of tears and sin, the better it felt... the sweeter the taste was. The ash-mud was up to my waist, and I looked up at my master that stood with dark holes for eyes, but somehow, I knew that he was smiling, giving me an evil smile. I slipped further down, letting it up to my neck.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and slipped under the mud made of the ashes I made. Ash. I was Ash. It was warm under the mud, buried in the ash where I belonged.
Ashes in the Darkness.

The thing was... I could have stayed there. I could have drowned myself and let the darkness take me completely, stayed in that pool and died over and over again. Burned away over and over again. Let the masked demon keep me forever and drown with me.
But Phoenix's rose from the ashes, reborn again anew.

My eyes flashed open.

Angels stood around me, covered in white and blue. They spoke in their angel language to God. God looked so familiar, white beard and a ponytail that was slicked back. Heaven was so bright. I heard more and more angels, more of them speaking that language. As I assessed what heaven looked like I searched for Hayes, he should be here.

That language, why couldn't I understand it if I was in heaven now? I should be able to understand right? I should be able to talk to them, but I couldn't because there was something in my throat clogging my airway. I listen to it more, trying to plead with the angels to let me speak, but none of them seemed to be looking at me, noticing me. Why couldn't I understand them... I looked to God again, with his white beard, he must know that I am trying to speak. But he just kept speaking to them in that language. Then I felt it, my own heart racing. A heartbeat. I was dead, I shouldn't have one of those. I listened again; I couldn't understand because they weren't speaking angelic languages... they were speaking Russian.

"Phoenix in the Light" coming soon...