Infernum

Alex leaned down and offered his hand to Hope. She looked up at him.

“It’s too big, Alex, this is an impossible reality in where there is no escape for us; what can we do against such an empire?” she asked.

“You can start by taking my hand,” Alex replied earnestly. Hope grinned and took his hand; then, with one gentle pull, she was on her feet.

“No matter what happens, Alex, I am glad fate has brought us together, even if only for this short time I am glad to have known you,” Hope said as Alex smiled back at her.

“What now, Hope? What can we expect?” Alex asked as he embraced her in his arms.

“The council will send another house, they will find us here and that will be the end of it I imagine. If we do survive the encounter, there will be only a short hearing before the council and then death,” Hope replied with scorn in her voice.

“How much time do we have, Hope?” Alex asked.

“I’m not sure, Alex, but it can’t be much,” Hope replied.

Alex looked around the room and then outside, staring for a long time at the Infernum. He looked at all the black charred rock and flowing lava outside; a sight he once thought of as beautiful now just looked dark and depressing to him. Seeing all the darkness around him he looked over to Hope.

“I can’t die here, Hope, I just can’t. Let’s go home, back to the surface where it is light and green and good. That way we can be comfortable when they come for us,” he said. He took hold of Hope by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Please Hope,” he asked.

“Okay, Alex, we can go, let us be comfortable in your home in this our final hour,” Hope said as she extended her ribbons and waited for him to join with her.

Alex extended his ribbons and joined them to Hope’s to open a porthole back to the surface. As his ribbons joined her, their minds were once again connected and Alex saw darkness in Hope’s mind, a part of her that had never surfaced before. As the connection between them was finalized, Alex listened to Hope’s thoughts with a morbid curiosity.

How can I live like this? Everything I have ever believed in is a blatant lie, nothing but wool over the eyes of my people… Am I a blatant lie as well? How could I have partaken in their deception without knowing? Did I know all along? There is only one question left to ask; how can I continue to exist knowing that I am a part of that same artifice that has devoured my world and so many others, leaving nothing but a used empty shell in its wake? Hope thought to herself as the porthole began to open and tears formed in her eyes. Alex was speechless as her thoughts and feelings streamed into his mind unfiltered. He began to feel himself slip into a deep melancholy with Hope as they were now connected and of a single mind and body once again.

Alex saw the porthole open, revealing his house on the other side. It was dark, no lights were on, and it looked abandoned and cold. He began to think how easy it would be to step just halfway through the porthole and close it with him inside it. That would do it; that would end this madness instantly without pain or fuss, he thought.

Tears began to roll down his face and he became angry at the lords, at Caelo, at everything. Those fucking assholes… How could they do this to me? he thought. How could they do that to the daemons? There is nothing left for them to take now; I won’t let them take any more from me… This is it… There is only one thing left to do! Alex concluded as he and Hope began to move through the porthole slowly. They were in the middle of the porthole now, moving as one body; they both stopped halfway through when the porthole began to close with them still inside it. As the porthole closed, Hope’s consciousness faded away and everything went black as a feeling of calmness washed over her…

***

Darkness gave way to light as Hope awoke in Alex’s bed to the sun shining through the window reflecting off of the snow outside.

“What happened?” she asked herself out loud.

“We almost didn’t make it. Hope,” Alex replied, although she wasn’t talking to him.

“I thought that was the end, Alex. I was sure of it,” Hope said.

“It almost was, for both of us. I don’t understand what could have compelled me to kill myself; I mean … that’s insane, I would never do that,” he said with a puzzled look on his face.

“It was our connection, Alex; it seems to be a very powerful bond, like nothing I’ve ever seen before in fact. Apparently, when we stay connected long enough, we start to share a single consciousness like we are of one mind,” Hope explained. Then she went on to ask “How did you pull us away from … that darkness?”

Alex walked closer and took a seat next to Hope at her bedside.

“I have no idea, Hope, one minute I was ready to end it all and take my own life with you, and then, for some unknown reason, I looked into your eyes, your beautiful emerald eyes and… I don’t know; I just couldn’t stand the thought of not being with you any longer. So I kind of snapped out of the trance I was in; I grabbed you and then leaped through the porthole before it closed… Thank God,” Alex said with a sigh of relief.

Hope looked up to him from the bed as she sat up and stared out the window at the fresh coat of snow on the ground. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she asked.

“What’s that, Hope?” Alex replied.

“How something as simple as frozen water can change the whole world and give it a new beginning… A fresh start so to speak,” she explained.

“Ya, I suppose it does,” Alex replied as he too stared out the window at his snow-covered view of the valley below his house.

“Do you think it might be possible for us to get a fresh start like that? A new beginning where we can just be together without the burden of my house?” Hope asked as she began to cry, showing a weakness in herself that she didn’t even know existed.

Alex turned and looked at her with his caring eyes.

“Hope, in the short time I have known you, counting all the wonders I have seen because of you, I have learned one thing. Impossible is just a 10-letter word, and it means nothing to us. If we can imagine it, we can do it. I have no doubt in my mind that we will find a way to be with each other,” Alex said with earnest sincerity.

Hope looked at him. “I truly hope so, Alex, I truly do, but one question remains though… What do we do with this information? If it is revealed, it will change everything.”

Alex was now sitting on the bed beside her with his arm around her shoulders for comfort. He looked at her. “We can worry about that later… For now, we need to figure out how to stay alive.”

***

Hope thought on the idea of staying alive for a while. She stayed in bed and thought of a million different scenarios where she and Alex might be alive at the end, but, alas, she could not think of anything. If they ran, they would be hunted. If they fought, they would lose. If they went public and told her entire planet of the truth they learned, there would most likely be mass suicides followed by chaos, civil war and the eventual annihilation of their entire species as the lords were a vastly more evolved race than humans, even with our advanced knowledge of nanites. The lords, of course, who had been using the humans as slaves, had been concentrating on their ultimate goal of ascending to a higher plane of existence ever since they took over our society. And the lords had nearly completed their task, only a few of them remained in a physical form.

Alex entered his bedroom. “Hope… Any ideas yet?” he asked.

Hope looked over to him and with a solemn tone she said, “I have been thinking on it for a while now, and I believe our only course of action is to run. There is a small chance that they will think I died as Gabriel did and as long as we stay hidden, we can live in relative peace.”

Alex looked at her. “Just exactly how hidden are you talking about, Hope?” he asked.

“I think to be safe we need to avoid all the planets on Caelo’s patrol route, and this one just to be safe. But don’t worry, Alex, there are plenty of planets out there that we can hide on that nobody from Caelo would ever look at,” Hope answered.

Alex dropped his head as the reality of the situation began to sink in.

“You mean I will never see my family or my friends again? And what about your house?” he thought out loud.

“I’m afraid not, Alex, we can’t risk it. And as far as my house goes, my house was just a leash that I severed when I chose you and I am glad to be free of it. The sooner we can leave the better. I don’t know how much time we have left,” Hope replied.

Alex looked at her with earnest eyes and told her that he needed the day to say his goodbyes and get his affairs in order. Hope was reluctant but ultimately agreed with him and they were decided. They would leave first thing in the morning, as tomorrow was the first day of their new lives… Together.