Eclipse

Chapter 24

Place: Reunion Tower, door number 16,001?

Time: Who cares anymore. 

A beautiful room lay before us, massive and long. It reminded me of the gargantuan conference rooms that looked odd when not in use, but beautiful when decorated with tables and and guests.  

When I was younger, my parents took me here once during a weekend trip early in the morning. I would run up and down the empty halls and peek into the large empty rooms. Some of them were step with wooden tables, speakers and a monitor at the front, others dinner tables that could hold hundreds of guests. It was always the empty ones that felt the weirdest. I think the term is subliminal spaces. 

Had it not been for the disturbing pictures littering the walls and a large display case in the center of the room, this would have felt like that. 

We walked along the carpeted floors eyeing the pictures of a man hanging on a cross. It must have been Jesus crucified, but the pictures were distorted and slightly off focus.  

The focal point was Scythe. In each picture, the camara man gave him the spotlight giving a blur to everything besides the creature that's haunted us since the beginning. 

The display stand in the center was that of a broken lance head. The spear tip being about a foot in length and the remaining shaft about two feet.  Surrounding it were three information cards. 

"This is the Lance of Longinus. It is stained with the blood of the Lord in his final days" I read aloud. 

Tamara stepped around to the side. "This lance is made of a Holy material and is the strongest weapon on Earth"

The last card I read aloud. "This is the Holiest weapon to ever be in existence. It vanquishes even the most vile evil. " and as if meant for us, the last sentence said. "Use it wisely!"

"Is this what Scythe was talking about earlier?" Tamara asked?

"It must be." I eagerly responded. "How do we open it".

There wasn't an obvious latch or release anywhere. The glass was sealed to the base. 

"Here, stand back" Tamara pointed her gun and fired, shattering the glass. 

"Take it" I offered. Motioning to my blade. "You can have something sharp now instead of those batons." 

She reached for it, taking hold of the shaft and lifted it through the broken glass. I almost expected some light to shine on her or triumphant music like in video games but nothing of the sort occurred. In all aspects, it looked like a simple bladed weapons with some red on the tip of the spear, we had no way of know it was going to work. 

"Our rail road adventure continues" I tried to smile and motioned toward the next door on the far side of the room.

A loud ding reverberated throughout the room. The familiar sound of an elevator reaching its intended destination. The door we were heading to, was the door to an elevator. 

The elevator was made of glass facing the outside giving us a 180 view of the world around us. The orange tinged sky still looked as ominous as the moment we entered the building. Music began to play as we started our ascent to the upper floors, a dark ambient music rather than the chipper standard elevator music. 

I remember the elevator ride being fairly long, a good 20-30 seconds. At some point I had spaced out, starring, not at Tamara, but through her. 

Death was on my mind, flowing blood, down walls, down hills, raining red upon my head, covering me. I flash of my friend Jeremy popped came to me spontaneously as if a ghost in the dark.