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He laughed with a nod. “Get out of here and cause some havoc.”
Thedarkreacheddeeperthan pitch-black and the cold surpassed freezing. He was dead, he shouldn't be feeling the biting cold. He tried to focus his eyes but there was no light to draw a single image from, or maybe he didn't have eyes anymore. Maybe he wasn't anything anymore. Maybe his soul had substance, but it was erased when the Gatekeepers claimed him.
There was a lot to theorize and think about when you don’t have anything to interact with. He wasn’t floating in hellfire, which he was grateful for, but an eternity of sensory deprivation may not be any better. Instead of straining to sense something, he reached into what was left of his mind to remember things that mattered.
He tried hard to recall her face in the darkness. The excitement that lit up her eyes when she talked about wanting to help people, and the wonder in her expression when he shared his dreams. The feel of her hands combing through his hair, trailing down the back of his neck. The overwhelming passion when her lips pressed against his.
He hoped his sacrifice was worth something and she was at least safe from whatever they had planned for her.
She was still alive. At least for a little while longer.
You still call for her.
The voices were back. They taunted him, a reminder that though he saw no one else, felt no one else, he wasn’t alone.
“Memories I like to look back on.”
Memories of your afterlife. You have yet to look back at your life before her since being here.
“I didn’t think I was interesting enough that you would want to look inside my head.” Trying to keep up a strong front, he paused. This was his choice, this… wherever this was. There was no changing his mind, no going back.
There was a long silence before he groaned. “I feel more human when I think about her. My life was good, but it was over. She was a new beginning. A new way of being. Something brighter than anything I recognized when I was alive.”
Something to protect?
“I hope I protected her.”
You have not let us near her.
“You are the ones that dragged me into this black dot of nothingness. As far as I know, you’re the one that has the control. Not the other way around.”
The voices hummed, swimming around him in the darkness.
You are a guardian soul. Meant to protect.
“But now she’s out there on her own…”
Doing what she is meant to do. Meant to be.
“What does that mean?”
A tingle moved through Mel as he once again had the sensation of having feet. Ground formed beneath them. A pinpoint of light punctured through the darkness, beckoning him. Memory took over and he walked toward the speck of light. It was just ahead, dim and reachable.
Peering through the light, he saw Anastacia standing in the kitchen.
She was still in the apartment.
Mel’s hands reached out to her but were stopped by an invisible border. The dividing line separating him and the darkness from her in the living world.
Behind her, a shadow shifted and a long, slender black hand reached for her.
“No!” Mel beat against the transparent wall. The protection and love he felt for her overwhelmed him, pouring from his chest and forming around him like armor. “Don’t you dare touch her! I won’t let you take her!”
A hot pulse of energy burst from Mel's chest, pushing through the barrier, grazing Anastacia's back as it slammed into the appendage, making it recoil from the blast. Anastacia spun, looking for what caused the feeling.
Mel leaned against the border panting even though he couldn't feel the air pushing in and out of his lungs.
“Hello? Is someone there?” Her voice echoed, sounding like a ripple skimming the line between the physical world and the nothing he was trapped in. Her eyes glowed, tendrils of golden light dancing in them as she searched for an answer.
