Stairway to the After - Part 3

Chapter 7

Aerek’s wristwatch woke them promptly at seven. Aerek silenced the beeping without a word, and they tiptoed to the door to see if it was still locked. The handle turned with little resistance, and the door clicked open in Danyana’s hand. She jumped at that and gave the others a questioning look that clearly said, “What in the world?” Iasmin picked up her sweater, swept the room with her eyes to make sure they left nothing and that they were not being watched. Then they all pushed their heads out into the hallway. No one was there.

“Let’s take the stairs, just to be sure” Danyana whispered, and led the way in the direction an emergency exit sign indicated. The place appeared deserted. They walked out into a courtyard surrounded by run-down three-story apartment buildings. They exited through an arched passage and came out on the other side of Green Street. There Danyana broke into a run toward their school, but Aerek caught up with her.

“Not there! It’s too obvious. Let’s go to the bus stop.” he hissed. Following his direction, Danyana jogged left and at the end of the block saw an approaching bus. All three of them sprinted when they saw its doors open.

“Forget it; we’ll have to take the next one.” Iasmin yelled.

“A bit more. We can make it. Come on!” Danyana shouted back. Moments later, they skidded to a halt and crammed themselves into the overfilled bus. Aerek’s back was pushed against the glass of the door, and Danyana was standing on the middle stair with nothing to hold on to. Nevertheless, as soon as the doors squelched shut, the bus lurched forward and merged back into traffic.

“I think we’ve lost anyone who might have been following us,” Danyana said.

“Aerek, are you sure the door was locked last night?” Iasmin asked him.

“Of course I’m sure. I’m not an idiot. You and Dani both tried it and every other escape route we could think of.”

“That means that either those guys just wanted to freak us out, or someone realized we were locked up there and freed us.” Danyana reasoned.

“Who would have done that, you think?” Iasmin asked.

“Who do you think? Let’s talk more in a bit. I think we can get off this bus now. Looks like a nice crowd over there.” Danyana said, pointing to the setup for some sort of a concert. Relieved, they tumbled out of the bus as soon as the doors opened. They wandered a little ways from the bus stop into the shade of a nearby building.

“If anyone unlocked us, it would have been Mensan, Vocia, or one of the Wardens. Unless it was the bad guys themselves trying to scare us away from the Windows.” Danyana said.

“Will we ever find out?” Iasmin asked.

“If it was the bad guys, then we don’t want to let them succeed in keeping us away. If it was not, then it was somebody trying to make us come back and protect the Windows. Either way, we need to go back to them.” Aerek said.

“But we don’t want to fall into another trap. We shouldn’t go back to Mensan’s right now.” Danyana said.

“Do you think they could have watched us leave the building?” Iasmin asked.

“If they did, they would still be watching now. We really need to get lost.” Danyana said. “We stand out too much as it is.”

“Especially you,” Aerek pointed out.

She glanced down at her violently lime-green shirt. “Oh, great.”

“Here, you’ll owe me, but I’ll go get you one of the band shirts.” He pointed to a nearby tent. “How about one of those black feminist ones?” Two minutes later, he was back with a t-shirt for her. It was simple – there was a giant white female symbol on the front.

“Oh, this won’t stand out.” She sarcastically remarked, pulling it over her head.

“Look around you. These are some strange people.”

“Any one of these could be following us.” Danyana said, scanning the crowd. She considered a twenty-something year old in a trench coat, but then realized trench coats were abundant in this place. Next, she noticed an elegant woman in bright red lipstick with a thin cigarette, and a very young mother with two children.

Then a dark figure standing in the shadows in an alcove of a huge building materialized. He was wearing a tight gray sweater with the hood pulled over his head, but he looked too serious and purposeful to be a random bystander. He had not moved since she first noticed him.

She grabbed Aerek’s and Iasmin’s shoulders and hissed, “Wee need to get out of here. I think someone was watching us, but intentionally let us escape. Don’t look now, but there’s a man in a gray sweater by the bank’s entrance who hasn’t stopped staring in this direction. I get the feeling that I have seen him before out of the corner of my eye, possibly at Mensan’s last night.”

“Are you sure,” Aerek asked, “That he was at Mensan’s?”

“No, but my instinct tells me that he was there.”

“So we can’t go back to see him. We should split up.” Aerek explained, “The group of us is still easier to find than each one individually.”

“Split up!? Are you kidding?!” Iasmin exclaimed.

“Only until we lose them. If everything goes alright, we can meet up back at the gazebo at lunch time.”

“Aerek is right.” Danyana sighed. She tried to keep her tone regular, “See you at lunch.” She dreaded the thought of being alone, but with three of them and one man following, it was the best strategy. He would have to choose one and leave the rest.

“See ya then.” Aerek choked out and turned away.

With a tone of finality, Iasmin added her, “Later.”

Chapter 8

Sariel watched from where he stood. They were scared, all right. They were all scared. The taller girl may have put a brave face on it, but she was trembling inside. He could see it. And the boy. He had to be the gentleman and be brave. Yet Sariel saw how he looked at his friends’ retreating forms and could tell he wished that he had held them in an embrace before he left.

“He will wish that again, before he dies,” he thought. He was certain of it, and knew that if he were wrong, it would mean he had failed.

He smiled to himself. It was all too easy. They walked into the trap without a word. He would get them, pick them off one by one, like the dirty scabs that they were. The obscene hindrance that they had become.

It was unfortunate that the Watcher’s guard had slipped up at the party and allowed random humans to encounter the Window. It would never happen again. The man who had been responsible had already been punished for his mistake, but when any one of the Watchers failed, they failed as a group also, and the rest of them would suffer the consequences, too. It was his personal goal to repair as much as he could. That was the reason Sariel had been sent on this assignment. It was simple and he was determined to carry it out well.

He could linger no longer. He bowed out of the cover of the bank building and slid into the mass of people in the square. He could see one of the girls in the crowd on the left, and the boy brandishing his elbows through the worst part of the crowd.

The one who interested him most, however, was the girl running down the steps on his right. She pulled on her hoodie and jumped down the last three stairs simultaneously, making her jacket stream in the air behind her like a black banner. He could see the sun glaring off her back as she ran, and hoped she could feel his hateful stare on the back of her neck along with it. She was alone.

Chapter 9

Reluctantly, she moved away from her friends and walked to the right, toward the stairs at the top of the square. She pulled on the sleeves of her hoodie as she briskly stepped down the stairs, letting the air lift her black jacket with every stair. She felt the heat of the morning sun on the black fabric, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up as a nervous shiver passed down her spine.

Navigating the crowd became more and more difficult toward the bottom of the square. Tall as she was, she could no longer see over everyone’s heads and could only hope she was heading in the right direction. Her plan was to spend the morning in the University Library. Because it required a card to enter, it offered some security. It also seemed innocent enough that she would not stand out.

When she finally broke out of the throng, having received several elbows to her side and one to her face, she stood in an unfamiliar alley. She hoped that she did not stand out with her new bruise. It felt particularly tender on her right cheekbone, and she could feel its warmth on her fingers. Since she could not risk getting lost in the concert crowd again (she would never get out), she followed the alley until it met up with a bigger street, and then went a few blocks down that before the recognized where she was. She had gone in a completely different direction and had to walk a long ways to the library.

By the time she passed the great lions into the building, she had checked over her shoulder at least fifty times. She did not see anyone following her. Few buildings such as the University Library still exist. The walls were solid stone and several feet thick, and the rooms all opened to balconies overhanging multiple courtyards. The edifice had once been a private palace, but now it belonged to the greatest university in the country, of which her school was only a pet project.

She scanned her card to get in as usual, and headed straight to the sci-fi section where she sank into an armchair. She delighted in the familiar surroundings for a moment before checking her watch. However, by then it was past one o’clock in the afternoon, and with a shock she realized that she had missed meeting up with Aerek and Danyana. Even after navigating the streets for so long, she still got a jolt through her system when she realized that someone might be following her. The idea of further wandering around the city alone scared her, so she found a pay phone and called Aerek’s room.

His roommate picked up, “Hello?”

“Uh, hey Mark. Is Aerek there?” she asked.

“Is that you Dani?”

“Yeah. Is he there?”

No, actually. Is he okay? I haven’t seen him since early yesterday. Is he sick?” Mark wondered.

“I don’t know. That’s why I called you.” Danyana explained.

“Well, if you find out anything, could you call me and tell me what’s up?” Mark said.

“Sure. I’ll do that.” Danyana agreed.

“I can do the same for you, if you want.” Mark offered.

“Yeah, that’d be great.” She said, “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Bye.”

“Talk to you later. Bye.” He hung up.

She also called her own room, hoping Iasmin would reply. Then she called Mia and Alex and Lauren, all close friends with either Aerek or Iasmin, but no one had heard from them. They did not eat lunch. They were not in their rooms. They had not been seen anywhere around campus.

The only way to be sure would be to go to the gazebo herself. It wasn’t too far, so she left the library for a while and went there. Even from across the street she could tell that no one was there. She went in to check, knowing that she would not find either of her friends and then turned back around to go to the library.

As a last resort, she called Mensan’s, yet no one picked up. It was odd, since he had told them that he almost never leaves his book room.

Everyone had disappeared, yet she was hiding out in the library -- Were they doing the same thing? Were they even still alive? She wondered. She could leave to go look for them. But it was too risky without knowing where they were, cut off from the outside situation. And if she chose to stay in the library, she had access to the phone. She could call back to see if Aerek, Iasmin, or Mensan had returned. She returned to the science fiction section, finding comfort in the familiar surroundings. Still, every half our or so, she returned to the phone and called Mensan’s apartment and the dorms.

When the library shut at seven, she still had not found her friends or Mensan. She did not dare to leave, so she took a few books with her. Instead of heading to the checkout counter, she wandered the halls for a while, looking for a place to escape the night guard. A door crossed with yellow caution tape caught her attention. There was a sign on it, saying, “DO NOT ENTER. This section is temporarily closed due to renovations. Sorry For the Inconvenience. The PF 394-872 books are now on the Second Level to the left.”

It was not locked, and no one saw her slide under the caution tape. She found herself in an empty room covered in dust and broken up walls and floors. Every step that she took brought up puffs of white powder that soon made her cough. She crossed to the other end of the room and out through the door into an enclosed courtyard. It was filled with dead leaves and bare-branched trees. She found a sagging wooden bench under one of those trees, lay down on it, and pretended that she was on one of the benches in the gazebo, with her friends.

Although it was only early October, the night was cold, and she had no coat to keep her warm. She did not fall asleep until several hours of staring at the clear sky later. The cold of the night coupled with her never-ending fear would not let her sleep until sheer exhaustion just took over. The last image before she slipped into her dreams was the pale moon at its roundest.

Her dream was filled with the screams of tortured souls, reverberating through her skull. They said nothing, but she knew that her faults and mistakes made them suffer continuously. This was not hell; the people had done nothing wrong. They were the innocents whom she had not saved.

Then her dream changed. The last cries sounded and then all was quiet. A light appeared and she could see a green grassy land. The sky was blue, and it was warm. When she looked closer, she could see millions of tiny flowers. Then the sky opened above her, and its color faded to a steel gray as she slowly woke. A short moment of confusion followed, but she remembered where she was. She shivered, both because of her dream and because of the cold.

She guessed that the library was open by the sounds of footsteps and doors opening and closing. Then she entered the building, seeking its warmth and headed to a bathroom. When she placed her hands under the stream of warm water, she looked up. She was surprised to see the dark rings under her eyes. She knew that she could not stay in the library forever. She no longer worried whether someone was following her. She simply knew that she could not live with the uncertainty anymore. She wanted to know how Aerek was doing, and she worried about Iasmin. She would go to Mensan’s and meet with them if there were there, just not picking up the phone.

Chapter 10

Getting to Mensan’s was not a problem. She remembered the building’s location easily, and walked quicker due to the chill of the morning. The downstairs entrance opened with the push of a shoulder just as the previous times, yet no one answered her knock on Mensan’s door. She repeatedly rang the doorbell, and in her impatience, she reached for the doorknob anyway and was surprised that it opened. She remembered that Mensan had latched it carefully behind them, even putting up the security chain. It did not seem like he would easily abandon that habit.

The sight inside scared her even more. The dishes from their dinner still sat on the counter. The food remains had now dried to them. It looked as if everyone had disappeared from Mensan’s apartment only minutes after she, Aerek, and Iasmin had left. She inevitably wondered whether someone had broken in to take Mensan and Vocia at the same time. If so, “Where did they take them?” She whispered, as if the room could tell her. She was sitting on the edge of Vocia’s bed, and after she startled herself by whispering, she listened to check whether anyone had heard her.

She did not hear any movement in the room. The only sound was of a door creaking on its hinges in the draft, and a steady “tick-tock-tick-tock.” It came from the bedside table, from a small wind-up mechanical alarm clock.

Clocks like that do no stay wound for more than a day, yet here she was, nearly two days later, and the clock was steadily ticking away, still on time. Its hour chime rang to announce nine o’clock, and Danyana jumped several inches off the bed in fright.

Someone had wound it up after the night when she, Iasmin, and Aerek were taken. Mensan was not at home, despite claiming never to leave the apartment. The clock was in Vocia’s bedroom. Vocia had left dinner to go make a suspicious phone call. It added up.

Vocia had called someone, gotten Mensan, Iasmin, Danyana, and Aerek captured, and then returned to the apartment. Danyana had seen enough to suspect her.

For the past day, Vocia may have been ignoring her phone calls because she could not give her a good explanation for still being there. Aerek and Iasmin were gone. Mensan was gone. She did not know whom she could go to, and instead chose to search for any signs that those three could have left – any warning or directions for her. They would be scratched in among the graffiti on the cement walls or written on a piece of paper, perhaps a gum wrapper, and stuck into a hollow part of the bench. That was the usual way they left notes for each other.

She did not find anything from Mensan, but it was possible that he had no time to leave a warning, or Vocia hid it. If Aerek or Iasmin were going to leave a message, it would be at the gazebo. They had planned to meet up there if they could. Sure, it was dangerous to go back, but nothing she did now was safe.

The morning air was still chilly, and a brisk wind had picked up. It bit her bare hands and got in through her jeans and jacket. She jogged a little to warm up, not stopping until she got back to the square where she, Aerek, and Danyana had split up. Eerily, it was empty. The trashcans were overflowing so that the wind blew scraps of paper and plastic cups around.

On one of the benches lay a black jacket. Danyana wrapped it around herself, then looked at her reflection in the glass doors of the bank. It had narrow sleeves and covered her down to nearly her knees. She put her hair up into a tight knot without a single loose strand. With the dark circles under her eyes, she looked almost ghost-like. The image would have been nearly perfect, had it not been for another such figure standing on the opposite side of the square behind her. It was the same one she had seen right before she, Aerek, and Iasmin had split up; the one they were trying to avoid.

Chapter 11

She cursed herself for lingering in one spot for so long. She pulled open the heavy glass door and entered the unfamiliar building. She looked up and saw many floors up in the wide-open vestibule, with giant windows along the wall. There were tall palm trees growing inside, all the way to the ceiling.
In front of her were two ostentatious staircases, each leading three floors upward to the same balcony. She ran up to the landing, from which she could observe the entire atrium without being seen from below, while she thought of an escape. She glanced around for a good place to hide, but she knew that he would search for her unrelentingly until he had her. He was thorough and enduring.
She would have to wait and use any wits she still possessed. If she failed, she could still have the dignity of handing herself over, instead of being taken by force. If she failed, she could keep her honor. This man knew what he was doing and wanted to re-capture her and her friends.
She stood still in the center of the platform and waited. Her breathing was deep and even despite her terror. She knew that, for the moment, she was alone in the atrium. No one would witness this, and if she were successful, the figure whose outline was visible through the glass would not get to tell, either. She took a deep breath, clenched her teeth, and waited for the dreaded door to open.
She did not hear him stride across the ground below her, nor mount the first set of stairs. She heard nothing but a faint squeak on her left, by which she knew to expect him. She had no weapon, and no concrete plan. He certainly had the advantage, unless he let his guard down. That was what she hoped to make him do.
She stood up yet straighter, and looked ahead, not a hint of fear left in her expression. He came around the corner of the staircase, and she could see he was shocked to see her facing him. His hand immediately reached for a knife on his belt, but he did not take it out. He approached her, hesitant, but not as cautious as he should be.
“Why do you want me?” she nearly whispered, when he had come close, standing not two feet from her.
He frowned, the first expression she had seen on his face. The frown did not take away from the perfection of his face, only enhanced its mysterious beauty. His black eyes looked away for a fraction of a second, while he gathered himself together. “I am following orders. I do not question their intent, and I advise you to not do so either.” He replied.
She stepped closer and looked up at him. He was half a head taller than her. “What is your name?” she questioned him again, against her nature.
Surprised by her audacity, or perhaps rashness, he answered by instinct, “Sariel.” He paused. “You will have no need of my name, unless my superiors are upset by your answers and you turn to me for help.”
“They do not plan to kill me straight away, then.” she acknowledged.
“No they do not. They are curious about something you and your friends have stumbled upon. Something that was not meant to be disturbed.” He confirmed. His answers were sharp and quick whispers, but they were not angry. He was curious about her; not many people he had met were brave enough to talk to him. Begged, yes; talked, no. He rarely had to read their emotions, since his victims usually had just one – fear. This girl was different.

“What are my options?” Dani asked him.

“You have no options. You will help our cause whether you wish to or not.” Sariel said.

“What is your cause, then?” she continued.

“The ultimate cure. If we learn from the Windows, they are our salvation. A cure for everything. They are the elixir of life. We owe it to the millions who have died unjustly. If we can find the path back from death, we become immortal.” Sariel explained.

“The path of death is a one-way street.” Danyana argued.

“If that’s what you choose to believe.” he scoffed.

“So this is your cause? Do you fear death, then?”

He chose his words carefully, “Death itself is nothing to me.”

“But you fear whatever comes next.” she replied for him.

“There is no heaven or hell.” he defiantly argued, but she could sense a hesitation in his response.

She ventured far enough to say, “Those sound like the words of a coward to me. Are you sure of that?”

He did not respond. Danyana could tell that he was intrigued. He seemed... almost expectant of something. Sneering, he asked her, “Tell me; what do you think you know of death?”

She lowered her gaze, as if embarrassed by his question, and noticed that he no longer had a grip on his knife. She looked back up, at his face, which he had tilted slightly to the side as he questioned her.

“Perhaps I do not know much, but the way you are going, you will know soon.” she answered softly. Before the shock registered on his face, his own knife was pressed against his throat with inexpert, yet steady hands. Their roles reversed, and Danyana looked Sariel directly in the eye.

She did not have it in her to kill him. Despite what he thought, there was no going back, and he was a brainwashed pawn doing what he was told. A powerful pawn, but killing him was not worth the stain on her conscience, even if he had killed many before and deserved to die.

She merely knocked him out using a trick Aerek taught her the year before, one she always hoped not to need. A powerful hit to the side of the neck could take out almost anyone if done right, but it was a difficult move to use in a fast-moving fight. Not expecting it, Sariel stood perfectly still and she knew that she did it right. He would wake up in a matter of hours with a pounding headache.

Chapter 12

Vocia watched Danyana leave the bank. She had been following her ever since she saw her outside of Mensan’s, but could not speak to her without revealing too much. She knew Sariel could not kill her, so she waited. It took far longer, and she nearly went into the building herself, but then she saw Danyana leaving alone, completely unexpected. She was supposed to be knocked out, or at least led out by Sariel.

If Sariel was dead, and he sure looked like it when she got up there, Vocia’s lack of intervention would not go unnoticed. Thankfully, he still had a pulse.

She shook him, “What in the world did she do to you!?”

He did not move. She shook him again. Nothing. Frantically, she smacked his face, and finally got a response. He rolled his eyes at her.

“Get up!”

“What?” he squinted. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”

“You weren’t supposed to let her go.”

“Who sent you?” Sariel asked.

“The usual. I need a report from you on everything that’s done so far. I’m taking over.”

“I can’t let you do that, Vocia.” he said, “Thank you for helping me right here, but it’s still my job.”

“You can barely talk.”

“I can do whatever needs to be done.” He stood quickly to demonstrate. “I’ve gotten Mensan out of the way, so you don’t need to watch him for us anymore.”

“Congrats. The old fart was driving me up the wall.” she said smoothly. “Anyway, I have to go. Is there anything you want help with?”

“Well, they’ve split up, so I’m going to get the twins. If you want to deal with this devil, you’re free to chase her down yourself unless I get her first. But you do the explaining afterward.” Sariel relented.

“Thanks. Cleaning up after you was getting boring.” She said. She watched him sprint down the stairs. Clearly, he had gotten a nice shock from Danyana, and now decided to pick off the three one by one, starting with the weakest. He would go get Iasmin, then Aerek, and save Danyana for last, no longer trying to bring them in, but just killing them quickly and mercilessly.

She had known from the start that infiltrating the Watchers would be lethal, but it seemed like she achieved so little from it. Her whole life was a lie. The Wardens needed to hide that she was one of them, and even Mensan could not know that she was playing double agent. He worried too much for her.

She had tried to protect him by making sure that she was in on everything the Watchers did, but she had not expected such a massive attack. Turning them all in guaranteed her a part in it so she could sabotage it, but she had to do it quietly. Unlocking the three kids was simple, but she had chosen them over Mensan. While she was gone, Sariel had killed Mensan. He did not trust her anymore. He proved it in telling her to go after Danyana. He wanted her out of the way.

She did not know where anyone was anymore. Alone, she had failed Mensan, and would fail Danyana as well. As much as she hated it, she needed to get the help of others. There was hope, if their response was quick enough.

Chapter 13

Hearing Sariel speak showed her that he was as much of a fanatic as many religious extremists. The Windows were his religion, just as Aerek and Iasmin’s mother had clung to Christianity with every ounce of her strength, until the very end. Religion was just a way for people to comfort their fears.

“No one loves you forever. No one is there to look out for you. No one would sacrifice any part of himself for you. After death, you are alone; with no one. No one knows how you feel. No one understands you. No one hears you. No one still loves you.”

That was how she felt at the moment, but she did not fall to the same seduction as others had. She comforted herself in self-reliance, while others simply replaced the words “No one” with “God.” Sure, it sounded nicer to say something like:

“God loves you forever. God is there to look out for you. God would sacrifice any part of himself for you. After death, you are alone; with God. God knows how you feel. God understands you. God hears you. God still loves you.”

Yet she knew she would be lying to herself and could not deal with that kind of doublethink. Iasmin could. Iasmin saw the worst sides of religion, and at the same time turned to it for guidance.

With that thought, she smacked herself on the head. Iasmin had been as predictable as medieval peasants. She was probably in some church at the very moment, seeking refuge from whatever cult of heretics was following her. The Windows had shaken her beliefs some, but fear would have redoubled them. Just as Danyana went to the library, Iasmin would have gone to the closest church.

Aerek’s hiding place was tougher. He was a hardcore atheist. He liked books, but in smaller doses, and detested the overly organized atmosphere of a library.

She could work on the later. Right now, she had to go find Iasmin. The entire time, she had been walking toward the school and the gazebo, but the church was in a completely different direction. She turned around, walked back half a block, and then turned to her left.

The pain hit her before she reached the church, as she was taking a shortcut through a deserted playground. Danyana clutched at the nearest lamppost as her vision tunneled and her hearing sharpened painfully. She could hear the wind whistling by her ears, and felt its icy bite as if she were naked.

She got a vision of Iasmin in a bare, ugly room. The walls were yellowing, more so toward the bottom, and the floor used to have a carpet, but now it was a ripped up mess with concrete showing through the majority of it. This room was new to her, but she recognized Iasmin even in the dim light. What was worse, she recognized Sariel standing over her, holding her up by her hair and hissing something into her ’s expression was the worst part. Her eyes were begging him to leave her alone. The ghost of her mother did not let her fight back against the will of others, the will of God.

Danyana floated back to reality, realizing that there was nothing she could do to save Iasmin. Sariel had taken her to a place unfamiliar to Danyana, and the way things looked, she would kill her soon. At first Danyana searched through all her memories, fighting to remember where that room could be, but it was new to her. Besides, she did not know where the vision had come from. It was more realistic than any dream she had ever had; it really seemed to her that she had been in the room with Iasmin and Sariel, but that was impossible. Besides, it did not have to have happened yet, and it could be a fake altogether.

Yet that was not right. Her intuition screamed that it was true, and that she could do nothing about it. Knowing that Iasmin was about to die, Danyana sank to her knees right where she was. She thought that she would cry at first, but she was not able to. Iasmin’s death was a foreign concept. The heroes of her books could die in a very moving and dramatic ending, but this was unnecessary and anticlimactic. Iasmin had done nothing wrong to deserve this. Last came the guilt. Although Iasmin was older, Danyana often wished to protect her like a younger sister, and she had failed. She felt a responsibility for whatever had happened to her.

Sitting among the woodchips in this playground was not helping anyone. She had to get going, since she now realized that Aerek would have headed straight to the Window. His curiosity defined him, just as her own love of books and Iasmin’s hard-working faith. Besides, the Window had caused all the trouble. Perhaps it had a solution for her. As she stood, she bumped her bruised cheek and winced, remembering their pathetic plan to lose Sariel.

Danyana’s black shoes made no sound as she took the stairs in Mensan’s building, two at a time. She knew she had to get to the Window quickly. Sariel had gotten to Iasmin, and she felt that he would find Aerek as well, unless she beat him there.

Partway up, a second vision slowed her ascent, but she kept going, one step at a time. She saw Aerek in a hallway, kneeling, just as Iasmin had, but biting his lip until he drew blood to keep silent. Sariel had gotten to him before her despite all her efforts. He crouched over Aerek’s huddled form like a dark spider, threatening with his knife instead of a stinger. The vision faded just as she passed a landing, and she realized that it was the same one where she had just seen Aerek. Sariel would have seen her.

He killed Aerek quickly just to be rid of him, and chased after her. She could hear two sets of footsteps echoing in the stairwell, and with a shudder realized that hers were slower ones. She chanced a glimpse over the banister and saw the dark shape only a floor and a half below her. As much as she longed to stop, and as heavy as her insides became, she had to keep on going.

She had failed Mensan, Iasmin, and now Aerek. She was only fighting for herself now. She had to run past the stitch in her side and her burning lungs. If she could turn the corner before Sariel, he would not see her. If she could slip into the hallway before he rounded the last corner, he would not see her. If she could push the apartment door open with her shoulder before he got into the hallway, he would not see her. If she could duck behind the couch before he entered the apartment, he would not see her.

When she boldly reached her hand into the Window, right through its fuzzy appearance, she felt the warmth of a sun and a slight breeze. That did not seem so bad.

She stepped through, and when Sariel finally stepped into the apartment, holding up his bloodied knife and fuming by the overturned couch, she was not there anymore.

Chapter 14

The warmth of the Window spread to the point that her frozen fingertips burned as when she had poured cool tap water on them as a little girl after playing in the snow. At first the fear of Sariel bursting in behind her kept her eyes clenched shut, but the warm air and the sun’s peaceful rays softly tickling her skin soothed her until she opened her eyes a sliver.

Danyana’s face was half buried among the dense blades of grass and tiny white flowers, but above them, she could just see the edge of a forest nearby, and a blue, cloudless sky above that. She smelled the nearly bitter, yet still sweet smell of dandelions and the mud of a stream flowing nearby. It was like the setting of a children’s story she scarcely remembered: After a princess had fallen down a deep well, she landed in a spot like this one until the handsome prince came to get her.

Perhaps this was some place from her imagination. Yes, she felt that it was. But then she wondered where she really was.

It must be the world of the Window, since she had gone toward it as she ran from Sariel. Along with that, she remembered what he had done, and she saw the images of Iasmin and Aerek in her mind. Logic told her that they died. It was Sariel’s task to bring all three of them in, but eliminate them if needed.

She knew all these things, yet there was no other way she could have learned them. The way this place was, it had just made her realize it.

Mensan had been right. It was a world of no war. After all, how can there be war if people understand; if lies are impossible.

And then she did. Understand, that is.

Aerek and Iasmin? And their mother. And Mensan. They were all here, too; she felt it. And that meant that she had died as well, upon crossing through the Window.

So this was the afterlife Danyana found. Well there wasn’t a heaven and a hell, but through understanding, people quickly become at peace with themselves. They have only their memories for the rest of eternity, and they can relive their favorite parts and be with those they knew and miss without the bitterness of death, just as she had created this fairytale land for herself by instinct.

On the other hand, they have the knowledge of all their sins. That is the hell, the inferno. Nobody, not Pluto, not Hel, not Allah or Yahweh or God, needed to judge them. It was Truth. It was Truth they discovered, and from which they could no longer hide. Truth made it heaven or hell for them.

Complete understanding was not simply given to them. The impossibility of lies made them find it. Without the ability to deceive oneself about the way things are, a person must face his or her conscience. Danyana did, and found many bitter conclusions, yet she also saw true friendship and a desire to keep good and happiness in the world until the end.

All these thoughts took but a moment. She was finally at peace, and the Window had sealed itself.

Epilogue

Windows are gates between life and death, usually made only for one person. If that person is unable to deal with death, they wait. Warmth and knowledge come through the window for some, for others it is full of bitter threats. They provoke the subconscious and tempt some, like the necromancers in the past and Sariel’s lot with a mirage of immortality.

They wait for a sacrifice, for someone confident enough to seal the window with their own death. Danyana had taken on that task unawares, yet she succeeded. Although some people died in the process, the Window was forever closed.

Now, if it were the only one…

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank, first of all, my wonderful Project Facilitator, Mrs. Garnsey, who put up with my writer’s block and procrastination for several months as I completed this project and edited it so thoroughly that even by using only a part of her edits I spent many hours rewriting parts of the story. Next I would like to thank my parents and the rest of my family for letting me spend day after day cooped up in my room working on “that project.” Also to my friends who saw very little of me the month before the deadline, and to my school for requiring this project, as stressful as it was, because without their encouragement and without the requirement I might not have gotten around to writing out this story which started out as a dream.