Inner Discord

Chapter 20

"I was dead. I knew it for sure. I had died together with the girl whose name I still do not know. But still I felt alive for some reason. I could move, and the surroundings seemed familiar. I wondered how could I be so sure to be dead. Then I noticed it. There was no air. No that wasn't it. I was simply not breathing. I checked and my heart apparently did not beat anymore. So I simply had to be dead. I opened my eyes. This had to be the afterlife. It was prettier than I had imagined it would be. There were trees everywhere, and I smelt the fragrance of the woods, heard the rustling of leaves, felt a soft breeze tingling my skin. 

"I stood up. Looking around me, I saw that I was in the forest were I had once been tied to a tree for a whole week. But that didn't matter anymore. I would try my best to forget all of those memories as soon as possible. Beneath me I heard a soft groan. It was the girl. I ducked to stretch out my hand. When I felt she had grabbed it, I pulled her up. 'Where are we?' I whispered. The girl shook her head as a sign that she did not know.

"We decided to walk around a bit. We enjoyed the sight of the playing animals, who weren't even afraid of us. It was a paradise, a utopia. In fact, I even thought for a moment I was glad that I had died. I had a big smile on my face, and thought this day was too perfect to be real. It was the first day I hadn't been tortured or locked up. The freedom, it was just too perfect. In the evening, we sat down on the ground and despite not being hungry, we enjoyed a meal together, that we had collected in the forest itself. The food seemed almost too luxurious. I felt like a rich man. 

"The night was even more perfect than the day had been. We looked at the dozens of stars above us, while hugging each other. Then, suddenly, the girl kissed me. I kissed back. It felt great. I realized I had fallen in love with the girl. The rest of the night was heavenly. We made love a few times after each other. Sleeping wasn't included then. Not that we had to anyway.

"The next week, our romance continued. We acted totally like a married couple, and I didn't curse my and her parents anymore, because without them, this never would've happened. My life could not get better then, I could not get happier. But the eighth day, when the sun came up from behind the hills again, we were brutally interrupted. Someone had come to get us. We could not defend and were separated. How was it possible that even being dead, I still endured this torture? That was what I thought back then.

"We were brought together again before a beast. It literally was something that can hardly be called human. But yet it was beautiful. It's hard to describe, but it looked like all the beauties of nature were brought together to form it. It shone the most beautiful and clearest white I'd ever seen. Then it spoke to us. 'My children. Fear not, but you will be sent back to earth. As you are me, you will be granted the power of Hell, Heaven and Earth. You will be allowed to return here hence you fulfill this task: kill all people on earth, my creation, they've not yet gone far enough. They were a failure of mine, of me, the Devil himself. Kill'em, and you may return here. Now go.' After that, I felt like I died once again."

I woke up slowly. I was still astonished because of the dream I'd had now. But because of it, I understood everything better. However, there were a few irregularities that I wanted to ask Aphron about. Flaws in the traditional story, things that could not be right. But first I wanted to rest some more.

Meanwhile, Seb, Psyche and Sophronuste had arrived at a home. It was decrepit, dark, scary and looked like it could collapse any moment, but Seb walked in smiling brightly. He apparently found the house very fitting. Psyche understood why when she saw Sophronuste lift a hidden shutter under the smelling tapestry. Inside there was a staircase that led to a super big and modern room. There were computers driven by magic everywhere. It seemed Sophronuste 's best magic  had to be technology, otherwise it would be nearly impossible to build a place like this.

Then Psyche saw something weird stand at the back of the room. It looked like a machine of some sort. On it, there were three circular cracks, and the universal magic symbol. On the sides there were weird patterns that Psyche had never seen before. She decided to ask Seb about the use of it. 'What is this machine for?'

Seb grinned. 'You will learn that soon enough. For now, it's enough to know it's a machine designed to prevent the extinction of mankind to happen.'

Psyche was not satisfied with his cryptic answer, but decided to give up trying to get it out of him anyway. 'Tell me when the time's come then. For now, I want to sleep. Are there any beds in here?'

Sophronuste nodded and pressed a button. A whole room rose out of the floor, slowly, with the scraping sound of metal against metal. The inside of it was beautiful, it was like a suite in a five-star-hotel. Everything was provided. Psyche drooled only by the sight of it.'Enter before it closes again', Sophronuste said.

Although Psyche did not trust the woman a hundred percent, she went in anyway. She was too tired to not sleep right now. On top of that, the bed was godly. Before Psyche had even pulled out her dirty clothes, she had fallen asleep already. The room went back in the ground with the same, scraping sound and Psyche was locked up, alone, in the dark. Seb and Sophronuste laughed. Psyche was theirs now.