When I open my eyes, he’s gone, along with all the Architect moths save for a solitary one that sits in the palm of my hand.
“It’s just you and me, my friend.”
My cheeks are wet, my eyes blurry.I glance from the Celestial City to the moth in my hand and then the bridge behind me.
Eternity in heaven or a lifetime in hell?
It was never really a choice, was it?
45
Lucy
The glass bridge is impossibly far above me.It stretches deep into the sky and high above the mists separating the underworld from the heavens.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
This is ridiculous.
What am I hoping for?To wait here forever?What if Midnight is already in the Celestial City happy and safe?
My butterfly flutters higher and higher then darts down to race towards my head.She crashes into me not once, but twice.
“Oi!”I waft a hand in the air to stop her poking at my forehead.
“Okay, okay, I’ll try climbing.”
I head for one of the cliff walls and test the rock.It’s much like any cliff made of rock.Smooth in places, jagged and crumbling in others.
I swallow hard and glance up at the mists again.The butterfly lands on a piece of rock that juts in a few feet above.
It’s the perfect hand hold.I realise she’s helping, so I pay attention, keep my eyes on her and pull my weight up, up, up.
When I’ve been climbing for half an hour, I make the mistake of looking down and my stomach nearly drops out of my arse.I grip the cliff harder, sweat instantly pooling on the back of my neck.
“I can’t do this,” I say, like the butterfly can answer me.As if I have any choice but to keep going or fall to my death.
I suppose if I die in the underworld I’ll have to win an award for the most ironic death ever.
I glance up and frown.There’s a faint spot marking the mist.I tilt my head to squint at it as I swear it grows bigger.
The butterfly jerks off the cliffside and darts out a few feet and slams into my cheek.She leaps off and darts out again.
“What are you trying to tell me?”
Her wings sag as if I’m the dumbest shit ever.
I glance up, the dot is much bigger now.Almost the size of a fist.I strain to see and realise it’s a figure.
I gasp.“Someone jumped.”
The butterfly goes wild, darting this way and that.“Is it Midnight?”I ask, as if she would know.She can’t.Can she?
But she dips up and down as if nodding.I crane my neck up and examine the ever-growing shape, the familiar lines of waist and shoulders slowly coming into view.
“Oh my gods, it’s Midnight.And I’m now halfway up the fucking cliff instead of waiting for her safely on the ground.”
And to top it all off, I’m hallucinating a sentient butterfly and imagining she understands me.I’m officially losing my mind.
