Everywhere and nowhere

Aden - 1508 A.D.

The boards of the ship creak under my feet as I walk across the main deck. The old wood has sailed through hundreds of battles, but this will be its last. Water floods in as if there’s a hurricane surrounding us, sweeping away a few of my men. Their bodies bend and break as they hit the side railing, falling over the edge like small offerings to the ocean.

My eyes don’t leave the window of the Captain’s Quarters as my body pushes forward. Screams ring out like a battle cry as men are ripped to shreds around me. Tentacles, as long as the masts, grab whatever they can and hurl it overboard. The vibrant purple collides with the dark gray of the sky as she whips and whirls bodies all over the deck. I hear the monster fighting her way onboard, no doubt to find her master. The man, if you can call him such, that’s in the Captain’s Quarters, staring right back at me. The legends don’t have a name for him, but I know I’m looking straight into his eyes now. One as deep brown as the earth and the other as blue as the ocean itself. The ship rocks side to side with each step I take, but it’s nothing new for me. I was born on a ship and I’ll die on a fucking ship. 

The guttural sound of the sea giant quakes in my ribs but my attention never strays from the devil who has damned us all.

“Aden! Aden, please!” My heart tears itself apart inside of my chest at the sound of Amrita screaming my name. I can’t watch the love of my life be slaughtered, so I don’t turn around. I’m a fucking coward. I want my last images of her to be how we were an hour ago, wrapped up in our cot, warm and safe. I keep my eyes ahead as I walk toward my doom, my death, my last chance at redemption.

Her cries stop, and the silence is deafening. I falter for only a moment and I see the mahogany eye turn crimson and the ocean eye turn white as he sends another command to his pet. A slimy violet tentacle wraps around my stomach and the last thing I see, before the blackness, is everything I wish I never did, and everything I wish to have the chance to do again.

I’ll find you in our next life, my love.

Present day - 

My hand wraps every-so-gently around the throat of the man in front of me, effectively cutting off his unnecessary air supply. You don’t need oxygen down here. You can’t die down here. You’re already dead down here. There’s no point in hurting him, but he doesn’t know that. 

“Tell me,” I pause as I try to remember what this fetid man’s name is, again. I look over to Felix for the answer. He pushes back his sepia waves to take a look at the man, then shrugs. Fucking useless. “Tell me why you decided to defile those girls. Did you know how old they were?” My voice has no callousness, no anger, no hatred, no sympathy. He can’t answer, of course, because he can’t breathe. Because my hand is still around his throat. Because he doesn’t need oxygen down here. Because he can’t die down here. 

I release him and he collapses onto the ground in a heap of nothing, crawling around in the blood of the people who came before him. I kick him as hard as I can in his ribs and he wails, the sound making Felix shiver with antici…

“Kick him again! Kick him again!” Felix screams.

…pation. 

I won't kick him again, though. I don’t know why I kicked him in the first place. This isn’t my job. I don’t want this job. 

“I didn’t know how old they were, I swear! I swear, I would never have done it if I knew!” The man says. I don’t actually care what his name is. He’ll be gone any moment. We’re just waiting on-

“You knew exactly how old they were.” Akira’s sultry voice chimes through the space and we all move out of her way so she can dispose of the pedophile. Her tall, voluptuous body sways with elegance as she enters our atmosphere. Her long, silky black hair flows around her. Her demeanor demands respect, and that’s exactly what she gets. She doesn’t need to touch him in order to move his body. She reaches her hand out, finding only air, and grips onto nothingness. The man chokes again and his body is hoisted up, matching the motion of her muscular arm. Akira smiles as he gargles on his own blood. Felix does, as well. I do not. I don’t think I’ve ever smiled.

Akira glances my way and nods, releasing me from my post. I hear the screams as I walk out into the long corridor. I keep walking, past the towers made of nothing and everything. Tall beams of decay and rotting nobodies that used to be somebody, maybe. Nothing was created down here. Nothing created and nothing destroyed. Well nothing worth anything, anyways. I used to think that these nobodies were once people who might not have deserved this. That’s before I knew better. 

I don’t think like that, not anymore. I’ve seen too much, done too much. You can’t think like that down here. Nothing is created down here. It’s created up there and ends up down here when the time is right, or terribly wrong. Nothing is destroyed down here because nothing dies down here. Nothing and nobody. Not even me, unfortunately. But I used to be somebody, I think. 

I don’t know quite what I am now. I’m not a man, I’m not a woman. Maybe I’m just nobody. Or maybe I’m still somebody, somewhere. I don’t know what I look like. There are no reflections down here. I could be anyone, anything. I could be nothing. I don’t care what I am, just as long as I don’t end up with the nobodies.

The walk is long back to my room. I pass obsidian walls and floors, only finding color when I reach my door. The scarlet frame is like a beacon of torment. There’s no sleep down here, but I have a room. There’s nothing in my room, but at least I have one. I lay down on the ground and look up at the.. nothing. I think about...nothing. There’s just...nothing. There’s never anything but nothing. That’s how it’s always been and that’s how it will always be, I think. I can’t remember a time when there was more, so yeah..it will always be like this, I think. The onyx, uneven ceiling mocks me. “No way out,” It says.

Time doesn’t move down here. I wonder what this place is, sometimes. I would call it Hell, but I think I’ve seen Hell and I think it was beautiful. This is not Hell. This is...nothing.

One of the nobodies on the pillar outside of my room calls out to me as I make my way to my post. It says its name used to be Adam. It says it was a mailman and it has two daughters that it loves. I don’t know what a mailman is, but I think I know what love is. I think I used to know what love is. It sounded so familiar. It tells me that love is something you can’t explain. Something that you can only feel. A deep longing for someone and wanting them to be happy, even if it means you are not. 

I...want to go back to my room. 

I closed my eyes as I lay down again, and I saw things that were something. I felt...something. I think I felt something.

I saw lights on poles that were made of something. Something like those things that are up there where things are created and destroyed. I think I went up there, once. I can’t remember. I saw...people. They looked like the ones who get sent down here. They looked like them, but how they look before we meet them. They weren’t smiling, but they were moving. They weren’t screaming, choking, or bleeding. They were just moving, walking, and talking.

Was I...dreaming?

Felix is waiting for me with a woman next to him as I finally make my way back to the cage.

“You’re late,” Felix says. 

“I can’t be late. There’s no time down here,” I say, frowning. Why is there no time down here? 

“You’re still late,” He says, tossing the woman onto the floor.

“She doesn’t look scared,” I say, to no one. To anyone.

Felix turns his head to me and laughs, dryly. “Do you want her to look scared?” He asks.

No, I don’t think I do. “What did she do?” I ask Felix.

“She killed her lover.” He says.

“Why?” I ask.

Felix looks at me, again. This time his smile is gone. His lifeless eyes bore into me, as if they’re waiting for me to spontaneously combust. “Why does that matter?”

I don’t respond to him. I pick the woman up by her shoulders and...there’s something. Why isn’t she scared?

“What’s your name?” I ask her, putting her down so she can stand in front of me. Her body is small, like she never fully grew up, but her eyes.. her amber eyes are determined and there isn’t an ounce of remorse in them.

“Elizabeth.” Her voice is soft but strong. 

“Why aren’t you scared, Elizabeth?” I ask. I lower my tone and this catches me off guard. I blink rapidly as I try to understand why I care? Do I care? Am I allowed to care?

She doesn’t look away from me as she responds. The heat from her gaze resembles a smoldering flame, a life lost too soon, but one that burned so brightly once. “Should I be?”

“No.” I say, honestly. She shouldn’t be, because nothing dies down here. She will hurt, but she won’t die. “Why did you kill your lover?”

She looks at Felix for a moment, then back to me. “He molested my daughters. He deserved it. I would do it again, if given the chance.” She turns away from us and sits on the nobodies that are piled up in the corner. I don’t think she knows that they might have once been somebodies. 

Akira’s voice is heard before she is seen. “That’s what I like to hear, Elizabeth.” The decibels of her tone echo in the chamber and all heads turn to look at her. Her ivory skin is admonished with bondage covering her breasts, wrapping around her torso and ending at her ankles. 

Elizabeth looks up and her mouth falls open, no doubt in awe of all that is Akira. If radiance took a human form, it would be her. She’s not human, however. There is nothing, that I’ve seen at least, that is more magnificent than Akira. Elizabeth’s eyes soften as Akira takes her hand, helping her to her feet. 

“You left your daughters behind when you died. Do you remember?” Akira’s tone isn’t kind or empathetic. There’s no malice in her words, no judgment or anger.

Elizabeth nods. “Yes. I remember. I was in a car accident and..” She pauses, “and there was blood. A lot of blood. My head was hurting, then it stopped and I was here.” She touches her hair and when she pulls her hand back to look at it, there’s nothing there. No blood. No pain. Nothing. Elizabeth looks confused by this, but she doesn’t get the time she needs to process it all. 

Akira, still holding her hand, pulls her behind as she walks to the far right wall behind the cage. There are a set of four doors that line the wall. The doors to the rooms that we house the bad ones in. Akira opens the door to the second room. I know who that room belongs to. The man we brought to Akira, a million years ago. Or maybe it was yesterday? I don’t know. There is no time down here. 

Elizabeth gasps, but doesn’t back away. I move closer to have a better look and Akira is taken aback by my actions. My eyes lock with hers but she says nothing. A long moment passes before she looks away. She pushes Elizabeth into the room and the man inside starts screaming. 

“What’s happening?” Elizabeth asks, still not scared. How strange, this human is.

“You said you would do it again, if given the chance. Here’s your chance.” Akira says. She grabs a long scythe from the wall outside of the room and hands it to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth...smiles. “Really?” She asks Akira. 

Akira nods once and closes the door behind her. The screams echo through the entire room. I race to the opening of the door and look in. The man's head is laying on the floor, separate from his body, still screaming as it rolls a few feet away. The look on Elizabeth's face is...pure bliss, if there ever was such a thing. It makes me...smile. Justice, I think to myself.

The man is not dead, though. Because nothing dies down here. Elizabeth acknowledges this and takes a deep breath, the light fading from her. My smile is the only thing that dies with us at the moment. The man lives on. She is not happy with this. She spends the next million years, or a few hours, ramming the scythe into his body and head in long swings. The screaming never stops. Doesn’t he know that he cannot die? Why does he scream?

I watch her, until she’s had enough, or gets too overwhelmed with the loss of her grief to continue. You cannot grieve properly under these conditions. I think with each swing, each blow, each never ending scream, she realizes that, too. Elizabeth stands up straight and throws the weapon onto the ground next to the mangled body. The body that is so badly deformed, it will take the nobody a million more years to put it back together. 

“Akira,” I say. She looks over to me from the end of the cage on the other side of the large room. “Please don’t put it on the pillar outside of my room. I couldn’t stand to look at it.”

She nods once. 

Elizabeth leaves the room and I lock the door behind her. “Why did you let me do that?” She asks no one, anyone. 

Felix speaks first, as the silence of the chamber becomes too loud. “She wanted to see what you were willing to do. How far you were willing to take your revenge.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows scrunch together. I can see the lines in between them, each wrinkle and freckle working overtime as she conjures up a thought. “I thought that I wanted to make him hurt, to make him suffer as I have. To suffer as I still do and to feel what my daughters felt. Now, I know that it won’t help. It won’t make anything better. Thank you for..” She pauses, ”For giving me that feeling. One last feeling. Acceptance.” 

Akira takes her hand once more, and holds it as we stand in silence. I know this isn’t Hell. This is worse. But also, it’s just very different. Down here, you can be whatever you want to be, whatever you need to be, and whatever you already are. Nothing more. Nothing less. Elizabeth will not stay, because she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t need to.

Akira leads her to the corridor, and I follow them. I don’t get to see this part often, but it is as close as I can get to up there and I want to be a part of it right now. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I slept. Maybe it’s because I saw something, felt something. Something from up there. I wonder if I can see more, feel more, if I get closer. I don’t even know if I want to feel that again, but my body just keeps walking.

Akira takes my hand in her free one and we walk side by side, to the end of the hall. The massive wall, made of nobodies and nothing, starts to crack right down the middle and a light streams through slowly. We stand and watch as the crack begins to grow and stretch, the groans of the nobodies getting louder with each tear. The black is absorbed in the light seeping through. I close my eyes and let the luminous glow violate my senses. It’s so bright, in the perpetually dark space, that I can hear its radiation as it flows around us. It almost sounds like...music.

I feel myself being pulled forward, and I let my body go toward the overwhelming illumination. My hand slips from Akira’s and I feel like I’m free falling but I never land. I fall for, what feels like, a hundred days and when the light dims I see...something. I was never falling, I think. There’s a large white building in front of me with a giant sign that reads “Emergency Room” displayed above the doors. 

Dear God, I’ve been up here before...I-