Saturday Morning at Fabyn Villa...
"Uggh..." Nora groaned, waking up on the coach, the sunlight hitting her foremost. She slowly sat up, her bare feet touching the cold floor tile, shaking her awake from the drowsiness.
She rubbed her eyes, looking around the long couch, seeing her friend Alice asleep beside her, wrapped up comfortably in a cozy blanket.
"Knew movie night will end up like this..."
Nora's eyes turned away from her asleep friend, and looked towards her left, seeing Alice's mom Julia snuggled up with her mom Evelyn. Julia's blonde hair tangled with Evelyn's black hair, the state of their disheveled clothes, their bodies intertwined gave a clear hint of their activities.
"To be getting frisky with their kids almost next to them, they're seriously pushing boundaries..."
Nora thought, her gaze still lingering on their bodies, slowly finding the wet evidence of their fun at their crevices.
"If they're so great together, why not just get married already. Planning these stupid sleepovers just to hook up is just childish at this point. Mom practically just spends half her nights with her already, finding excuses of legal paperwork and bullshit even though everything's already over"
A hint of envy washed over her.
The frown on her face immediately turned to concern as she thought about her twin sister Kiera locked up in her room from yesterday morning. She quietly left the scene and went to the kitchen, microwaving some pasta to bring to her, knowing she must be starving.
"Mom's so careless now, almost like she doesn't even care about us. Even though I was the stupid one to snitch on Kiera, mom definitely crossed a line by spanking her."
The microwave made its beeping noise, snapping Nora from her thoughts. She made her way, walking up the stairs to Kiera's room, plate in one hand while her other hand took the keys out of her pocket.
"Even though it's cruel, it's kind of exciting having the keys to her room..."
The thought of having some control or possession over Kiera tickled her brain, bringing an innocent smile to her face. However, she immediately took a deep breath, hiding her smile behind a stone cold face as she unlocked Kiera's room.
"Mom told me to bring you some-" Nora stopped abruptly, finding the room empty, the window flung open with a bedsheet tied to the window frame hanging out. Her face turned to horror, as she immediately looked outside, seeing the makeshift rope of bedsheets reaching the bottom.
"Shit! MOM!" Nora yelled, immediately checking the bathroom just in case, before rushing down to wake everyone up.
The night before...
"Urghh..." Shay groaned, slowly moving his head around before opening his eyes. His head felt heavy, and his body ached, lying flat on his back. Looking up, he could see plain darkness, however he could tell it wasn't a room.
"Where the hell am I now? What happened..."
As he tried to get up, he felt a throbbing pain on the right side of his waist. He looked down, seeing blood seeping out through his shirt.
Then, he remembered his confrontation with the Redeemer. He got shot by him, and bled out on the street, using the last moments of his consciousness to transfer the video proof of his innocence into his phone. All of it to have a hope of proving to his ex-wife that he didn't cheat on her.
He managed to stand on his feet, stumbling forward. A faint light followed his footsteps, illuminating the ground under him. After walking for a while, he was sure he wasn't in an enclosed space, yet there was no sky above him.
"Anyone here? HELLO?" Shay tried shouting, his voice immediately fading out without even an echo.
"Am I dead?"
He eventually got so tired that he fell to his knees, his body giving out. He thought back to the moment of his death, realising what he died for might not even reach Evelyn in the first place. Even if it does, he would never know.
"Evelyn... Nora... and Kiera... My baby daughter... I left her alone in the world... I broke my promise to her... She loved me more than even my wife, and now in pursuit of Evelyn, I lost everything... She's all alone because of me..."
He broke down, tears shedding down his face, his heart sinking just imagining her getting the news of his death.
Suddenly, he saw a faint glimpse of light from the distance, slowly getting closer to him. He wiped the tears off his face, trying to make out what it was. As the light got closer and closer, he could see a female silhouette, not resembling anyone he knew.
Her footsteps got closer and closer until she stood a few feet away from him. Her body and face were still completely shrouded in darkness. Except for her long silver hair, flowing down to her hips. She looked at him, and then leaned down, offering her hand.
"W-Wait! Who are you?" Shay asked, fumbling backwards.
She hesitantly retracted her hand. "Did you get his name?" She asked, her voice sounding almost like a disfigured echo.
"What?"
"The Redeemer's name. Did you ask for it?
"Why his name?" Shay asked, his voice getting drowsy.
"I've spent years trying to track him down. His real name would have helped." She replied, sounding disappointed.
"Oh... I could've but... I was more focused on his phone..." Shay replied, almost sounding ashamed, as he lowered his head again, staring at the ground. With a trembling voice, he managed to ask her, "Are you here to take me to my death?"
"Hold on to your soul. Hold on to your memories. You're already slipping away but there's still hope. Help is on its way, but I need you to stay with me."
"Huh?" Shay replied as if he got started awake. "Okay... Alright... I'll just-uhh lie down for a while..." His body fell forward, his face hitting the ground near the girl's feet.
She stepped back immediately, squatting down next to him. "You need to stay awake. Don't fall asleep!" She commanded him, her echoing and faded voice making him even more sleepy.
"Don't worry... I won't..." Shay slurred with his lips touching the ground, barely moving, making his words sound blurry. He could barely feel his body anymore, his eyelids slowly dropping down.
"NO STAY!" Her voice thundered, a loud shockwave causing a tremble into the ground like an earthquake. Shay's eyes opened wide again, alarmed by her sudden scream, but even that was momentary.
She kept shouting more, but even her words didn't seem to reach Shay's ears anymore. His eyes closed again, as he slowly fell into eternal sleep.
Suddenly, he was wide awake again, in a different place. But it felt different, it felt empty and quiet. Not like the quiet you would get from an empty desert in the middle of night. This place was silent on another level, not even feeling any wind.
As he looked down a little, he discovered the reason why. He didn't have a body anymore, no legs, no arms, nothing. There was no sound of blood flowing, heart pumping, lungs collapsing and expanding. More importantly, there was no pain anymore, not even the tiny things you get used to with life.
He couldn't close his eyes, as there were none. Having no option, he tried making sense of the place, but it looked nothing like he had seen before. There was no ground, no up, no down, no clouds, no sea.
Calling it space would be wrong because there was no dark, and there was no light. There was no color or shade in existence to describe it. What he could see now was beyond his imagination.
In this vast space, he could see tiny particles of white light, all floating around, moving in a general direction. Looking towards it, his astonishment turned to horror, seeing a vastly gigantic face, as the specs of light converged into its mouth.
The particles of light, appearing scattered up close, formed long continuous streams, over trillions and trillions of them in each stream. If that wasn't enough to drive anyone insane, there were an infinite number of such streams, all flowing into that big mouth, like a vortex of white blinding light.
The illumination from those light particles made it hard to see properly, but there was definitely a body connected to that mouth. Shay didn't dare to look in that direction, or even try to comprehend the size of such a being.
If he had to guess, just the teeth of this being could be bigger than the entire universe. He felt scared, he felt terrified. He couldn't imagine such a nightmare on his own. This was real and it was happening.
Travelling steadily, as he got closer and closer to the mouth, its size continued to grow, breaking his own expectations of what he considered massive. By this point he could very well guess that the particles of light were people's souls, consciousness, aura, essence or whatever you may wanna call it. What he did know was that he was one of them, floating formless through this sea.
He waited for his end, his mind drifting back to his daughter, trying to remember her face, thinking back to every moment he had with her. Then, he suddenly stopped moving along with everyone else, everything stood still, as the gigantic head slowly started to move.
The head slowly tilted down, simultaneously closing its mouth, as its eyes fixated on Shay. In one sudden motion, its eyebrows furrowed, pushing Shay all the way back through the stream.
