Garder mon Ame

Chapter Twenty-One: Something in Nothing

I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see. I sought my God, but my God eluded me. I sought my brother and I found all three.

~Unknown

From the darkness came a blinding white. Cyra blinked and found himself in a large room with a single, black door that loosely hung on its hinges. He stood up, finding that his wounds had been healed, and he tried the door again, only to find (without surprise and with just a little disappointment) that it would not budge. Turning complete attention to the rest of the room, he found it's color hospital-white and a bit mind numbing. Otherwise, there was nothing to break up the monotony. No books. No angelic choir. Just silence.

Cyra knew. The limbo was a place of nonexistence, but not of fright. He could hardly remember why his heart was beating so fast. It slowed a bit when he realized this. He could see colors in his mind's eye: so much red, a beautiful chocolate, a familiar green. . . . He sat against the door and stared at the blank wall in front of him until those colors began to fade, just like his thoughts.

He suspected he spent an eternity sitting against that door. He wondered if it could have only been a minute. But even in limbo, there was surprise.

The wall to his left opened up, revealing what he first realized to be a door, so seamlessly blended that he had not recognized it. And standing in that door, a memory that refused to be forgotten. A girl with red hair and blue eyes. She did not move for a moment, and Cyra stood up and stared as he tried to figure out whether the girl was figment or not. Finally, she moved and gave him a soft hug.

"How long has it been?" she asked. Her voice was like a bell, waking him up, and he remembered completely. He wondered if she felt the same.

"I don't know," he said, returning the sentiment. He held her out at arms-length and smiled. "Too long in any case."

"But you're here," she said. Her blue eyes glossed over a bit. "I have been wandering through these doors for what is probably forever. I have met just a few souls. But if you are here, then that means. . . ." Her voice trailed off, and she wiped a tear from her eyes.

"Calandra?"

"You're still young. It really hasn't been that long, has it? But if you're here . . .then that means . .. oh no, is it my fault?"

Tears threatened to spill, and Cyra quickly clutched his sister's face and wiped away the sorrow. What was there to say? Admitting the truth would cause a flood. But he could not lie. He instead just nodded his head, but said, "I just wanted to see you again."

Calandra stared, and finally said, "I vaguely remember, but I did not mean to cause trouble. I just. . .. "

"You were hurting," he said. "I understand that pain."

"What? No witty story? No clever anecdote about this place?" Calandra laughed slightly. "I thought you'd be full of it when you saw this."

"This is Limbo. So much has changed, Calandra, but this cannot be right. There's still too much to do." He slowly divulged everything to her. The noose. The beauty of the Judgment Palace. The even grander exotic nature of the Guardians. His wings that refused to show in the white room. Questions of a hidden eternity. A war . . . he glanced around, half expecting to see his friends begin to spill into the room, into the arms of the waiting nothingness. However. . . .

"This is supposed to be a place of blankness. Then why would whoever is in charge of this place bring us together in this moment?"

Calandra shook her head. "I do not know. But if your Guardians are in danger, then maybe this means something." She looked above her, searching for the answers in the whiteness above. "Cyra, I want to help. I made a mistake. I want to make things right again."

"This can't be the end," Cyra said. "The demons just cannot win."

"Then what is there to do?"

The concern was something. Meant something. Seemed so out-of-place in the nothingness. Cyra glanced over at the door.

"I've never seen something like that before here," Calandra said as Cyra walked over to it. He tried it a couple of times, frustrated at the futility of the situation , before Caalandra called, "Your chest, Cyra. Look."

Cyra glanced down at his chest and noticed that it was glowing slightly. Confused, he touched it to feel a cross-shaped pendant resting underneath his shirt. He pulled out the silver chain and stared at the cross that dangled from it; it was shining with a soft, liquid brilliance that cast the walls in a deeper color, more of a beige.

A gift from the holy. A symbol of protection. Of Death. Of sacrifice. As though knowing, he gently grasped the cross in his fingers and touched it to the door.

A click.

Calandra rushed up to the door and practically slammed her body into it. It gave only a little, and she stood back, confused. "It still won't open? But why?"

Cyra thought. "I think . . . I think it's locked from the other side, too."

"You think?"

A sacrificial lamb at the alter. Two. One from Heaven, to protect the one he loved. Unlocked from the inside. But he had tried the other side as well and knew it to be just as stubborn. So who was to open the outside?

"But I hope – no, I know, - that the other side will be opened as well," Cyra said.

Calandra looked at him with that hopeful pessimism that began to define her. "Really? Whom?"

Cyra trailed a finger along the door. He did not know whether to smile or sob. Such familiar green eyes . . . the name was one abandoned, but it easily sprung to his tongue when he called for it. Such was the nature of such a strong friendship, after all.

"Ardin Lux."