It was Maggie’s, though she didn’t look as she had the last time he had seen his companion. This was not the worn, tired, aged face of Maggie, but the one much like when he had first met her. While he had rarely seen her dressed up, even with her hair done, this figure wore a white gown with a sharp, plunging neckline. Wrapped around her wrists was a shawl that dropped back behind her, fanning out around her dress. Her dirty-blonde locks were done in curls, as though wherever she had come from, she had plenty of time to fix herself up.
This was nothing like the image he’d seen of her the previous times she’d appeared to him...when she was stark mad, a specter screaming out in the night, calling to him, blaming him, hating him. He wondered once again why he was witnessing this vision. What caused these hallucinations? Was it something in his own mind? It must’ve been, but he didn’t question it, because even if it was, he appreciated the opportunity to see his friend once again.
She approached slowly and then knelt beside him before offering a warm smile. “Hello, my Kinzer,” she said.
“You seem a little more cheerful than the last few times I saw you.”
She chuckled. “It seems that it is very difficult to break through the boundaries between where I’m at and where you are. Initially when it happened, I hardly even knew what was going on.”
“Well, for someone who didn’t know what was going on, you sure knew how to tear me apart.”
“I wasn’t angry with you, Kinzer. I was lost and confused, in a place that is very different from anything you’ve known.”
“Are you saying you’re talking to me from some sort of afterlife?” he asked, feeling even more skeptical that this vision was anything other than that, because he knew there was only annihilation.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Because of what the Almighty has told the immortals about the universe, about all the realms, how unlikely it is that I would be able to reach you from there. And while I understand your skepticism, I do have to tell you that I am quite real right now and very much alive in the place where I come from.”
“Why are you here?”
“To help you, Kinzer, because from here, I see your pain and your hurt and your agony, and I see how much you don’t want to go on. And I’ve been there, as you now know. I have seen the darkness, and I have made my choice that I will live with for all eternity, but there’s still hope for you, Kinzer. Still hope that you can fight this and win.”
“I’ve already lost.”
She reached out and stroked the back of her fingers against his cheek. “There is hope, though. You aren’t like me. You’re not going to give up. You’re going to win this, and you’re going to save everyone. You have to because life is a precious thing and it’s worth fighting for. If Janka has his way, he will see to the destruction of all the realms, and there will be but an elite few, corrupt, disgusting individuals who survive the darkness.”
“If any of this is even real…”
“What does it matter if I’m just in your head? Then I’m a part of your brain telling you to have courage and fight, and I know you believe these things anyway.”
“Can I ask you about it? Wherever you’re at? In case I happen to be wrong?”
Her gaze drifted, sank to the floor. “You can ask anything you like.”
“Are you saying that when creatures die, this place is where they go?”
She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t work that way. It would be a lovely fantasy, wouldn’t it? Echoing those dreams of mortals that have always been around, I guess. The Almighty was mostly right about what it is like when any of His creations come to an end. It’s like taking a painting and throwing it into the fire. But for me, because of what He did, because of how He is within me and how I gave birth to His child, I am in many ways an extension of that which He is. The hand of the artist rather than the painting. And so I will exist in this strange limbo for what seems like an eternity.
“There are others here. Very, very few others, but we are here together. They are the ones who helped me soothe myself into this, to understand where I was, what it was, and even though it seems a short time to you, for me, adjusting to this place has taken generations. I hope to come to adjust to it even more.”
“These others who are with you…”
“Some are remnants of past figures from when He attempted similar experiments. Some you would be amused at the names I would tell you because you would wonder if maybe people were not right in their ideas about the afterlife. But we all are here together, cheering you on, wanting for you to put an end to Janka’s reign of terror.”
Kinzer knew it couldn’t be right. It was impossible. However, he couldn’t help but be tempted to believe everything she said was true…and what it would mean.
She offered a warm smile before saying, “But now I must go.”
“What? Why?”
“This is a great strain, regardless of how it appears. It’s probably one of the most painful things I can imagine, trying to reach you right this moment, as though I’m taking a saw to my forehead and slowly tearing my way through. Although, that would be more pleasurable than what I’m experiencing now.”
“You seem totally calm to me.”
“I realized I had to find a way to control my feelings, my expression of them, because I only scared you the last few times I reached out. Time does not work the same here, so I have spent what would seem to you many years, working on this composure.”
“Before you go,” Kinzer said, “just tell me—are you happy where you are? Is there happiness there?”
Her eyes widened and watered up as though she was about to cry. “There’s only pain where I’m at. Immeasurable, excruciating pain in this in-between place, and I have been assured by the others that’s all that lies here for us. I would love to lie to you and say that I’m so much happier now, but there is no rest for me anymore. Only eternal suffering. Do not pity me, though. This was always my fate after the Almighty chose me for His purpose. I would have ended up here in this agony and on my own one way or another. Don’t feel bad for me. Just be relieved that when you pass you will not have to suffer the same fate.”
