Radicle (Terminal trilogy #2, can stand alone)

13: Homebent

 Kell took me down a lengthy and boring route, one that unfortunately stood as the only exit from Hell. We took the elevator outside Envy down to the lowest point of Hell, and turned onto a long dusty hall.

At the end of the hall was a great set of double doors, and past that was a conference room similar to The Few's one up in the city. The place had been half-heartedly cleaned up, but dry blood was still stuck to about half of the wood paneling. A rusty elevator waited on one side of the room. I vaguely recognized this place- it had been the same room Tecie had led me out of when I first came to Hell.

"Just head up from here. And out." Kell said carefully.

The elevator was a fairly old one, but again a familiar one. There were only three buttons- down, medium and up- and I realized Kell had made the matter of escape painfully easy. There was no reason I couldn't hit the medium button and head back into Pride. I wasn't about to do that though. That'd be foolish.

I hit the up button, and began my ascent. I zoned out as the elevator buckled to a start. My mind was lucidly clear, and I couldn't really gauge my thoughts. Was I relieved? Was I mournful? I just seemed to feel a little bit mixed in every which way. Was that normal?

Time passed very quickly. I suppose it had something to do with the dullness of the dim lighting and repetitive sounds. I almost laughed when I realized these were the same conditions I had order on the new church recruits, boring and uncomfortable ones meant to make time even more meaningless.

I had to take a moment to reevaluate my location, but from there on it was a short walk to the outskirts of Heaven. It was midday, and it wasn't long before I saw a hunting party. I knew two of the angels in it, actually: Parabel and Eiphet. But in a fit of melancholy determinism, I decided to let them pass me by without making my presence known.

I didn't want to talk to anyone right now but Michael. It would only be after speaking to him that I would feel comfortable again. With this in mind, I skirted around the outskirts of Heaven. The only walls in Heaven were around the inner circle, and I spied the Church Tower beyond one tall white wall.

I struggled to climb it. In the end I had to ditch my shoes to find good footholds, and even then, I came out of it tired. The top of the wall was a good foot across though, so I had a moment to sit before jumping down.

In Heaven, the most prized angels were the trades ones. Michael couldn't do technical skills, after all, as it was below him. So instead there were a couple of angels who knew how lights worked, or knew how to heat the bathwater. And they lived a pretty exclusive life. We needed plumbers, masons, and electricians, after all. So they simply didn't get felled. Me and Fust used to call them untouchables when we felt like being rude. They were required to teach others their craft, after all. It just seemed like the couple masters always managed to outlive their apprentices.

The light panels that sat on the roofs of some of the inner circle houses were now recognizable to me as nothing more than electric bulbs connected to solar panels. The houses too had lost their charm- they were fine houses, sure, but I was starting to see them as old rotting relics instead of sacred places.

The wall was poorly made too. And the Church Tower was frankly horrific. We had built it ourselves however long ago, and looking at it now, it seemed like a structurally unsafe building. It was a great tower stretching however long into the sky, made of odd colored and heavy stones. It was more wide than tall though- it had to be, as there was a single hollow circle that stretched up through the middle.

At the very bottom was a dusty sand stage. We would all sit on the various levels of the tower- connected through a narrow spiraling staircase. There were nine levels total, and not much preventing one from tumbling down onto the pit below. A great number of pillars held up each floor, but I had to wonder if that was enough.