And will be done (Fields of the Nephilim: Volume 4)

Chapter 1 (the story continues after the death of Mina)

I thought it was irrelevant to say more when I believed I have already said enough, and that I have already ended everything. Well I guess it shows that nothing really ends. Everything is a cycle. Every seeming end is just a prelude to a new beginning. Every answer always conjures a new question. And every new tale commands for more attention.

I failed. That was my last thought when the waves carried me towards the depths. The coldness seeped and enveloped me, rocking me gently into the bottom of that vast ocean where the kind priest had led me. My last glimpse of him was that of regret, of sorrow, of surrender. I believe he had been standing there by the shore like a mute statue until the waves might have calmed and I have lost all consciousness----slipping away from the world and the new life he might've tried to offer.

And what of my own regret? Ah yes I admit it as I have admitted my own failure. I admit that I have regretted not taking the chance of standing side by side with the priest in front of his little chapel if only for a while to tell and listen about the marvels of the humble manger. I wanted to know whose hands have delicately painted those small figures and faces, the donkey and the lamb. I wanted to study each pigments imbued on the rose colored robe of Mother Mary and of the earth color that made up the flesh of their exposed limbs.

And yes, I have also spied a small piano in the corner and it would have been nice to run my fingers on the surface of its varnished wood. I could already imagine the current waves of excitement as the notes of Beethoven or even that of Chopin would rise and fall in an echo all throughout the walls voicing out all of my regrets.

Regrets...yet I chose to let go. I have chosen defeat which has long been mocking me and luring me with its songs of oblivion.

Well, all these are unimportant now. What's done is done. Now let me tell you the untold events of when I have died. Died? Yes I have died in a sense that I have almost forgotten who I was; my goal, my sensibility, my emotions. To put it simply, I am no longer the half-mortal child or perhaps lesser than what I am as when I had fallen down the aisle of the priest's humble chapel.

I didn't simply disappear though. I don't remember reaching neither the bottom of the ocean nor the hilarity of being chewed up by some Leviathan. I didn't remember seeing the light as well as most people do when they die. It was even stupid to think about such thing. It was also stupid to think I'd see the gate of either hell or paradise. It was stupid to even remember if I have seen Death beckoning me with the glint of his scythe. Nonsensical.

When the cold water left me, all I've felt was scalding pain and yet my body doesn't feel like my own. It was like my own flesh hasn't been a part of me all along, and yet the pain was formidable. What was the talk about Hell? About its boiling cauldron and consuming fires? I tell you I have seen none of it or probably I haven't yet seen a glimpse of it to even change my mind about believing in it. So where is the pain coming from? I didn't know except that it was all over me.

When I tried to grope in the dark, I felt the solid ground beneath me like it was the same ground that mortals tread or the same blood-soaked ground in Gehenna. I even thought back then that I was back in Gehenna or probably I drifted ashore into some mortal island and this would have been a better consolation. But no, Gehenna's air would've been more pungent, and an island wouldn't be as dark as this. And where is the mist coming from? Not that I could see it but I felt it all around me almost welcoming me towards their care.

I started to move. I couldn't feel my own limbs except the pain yet I tried so hard to think of owning it once again. With my shivering hands I pushed through the ground so as to support myself from getting up. I heard the crack of bones and felt the sudden rush of blood in my veins. I could taste the saltiness of the ocean in my mouth or it could've been my own blood as well.