~~Young~~

Chapter Twenty Three

   No! Gage thought angrily as consciousness came back to him. He didn’t want to exist anymore, not without Sera. He wanted to die, to be gone from every realm, to be gone from existence in itself! He knew without a doubt she would never be reborn again as she was, not when he was the one who walked her body into the flames, so then what was the point? As she was now, somewhere in heaven, she wouldn’t know him either. No fucking way would God let her remember him never mind that she loved him. And without his brown feathers heaven’s warmth would burn him just as that fire had, he would never get the chance to search her out, the chance to stir some memory of their far too short time together.

   His breath grew short as that wretched pain returned to his chest. What he wouldn’t give to go back to that first time Sera stirred that something inside him. If only he could’ve known then what he did now. Love, she thawed his cold heart in the way no other had before, made him love her.

   This time he didn’t reach to his chest to try and rub away the pain, instead he dragged his palm over his face, wiping away the tears he knew he would never stop shedding over Sera.

   So badly he wanted to die, to just end it all, there was nothing left for him anymore! He had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Sera was gone, Death had vowed to ignore him and Jerry was trapped in hell. Heaven had never been an option to go to, hell…well hell had potential if he knew it would lead to his certain death. But he knew Lucifer would see that desperation in Gage’s eyes and offer him anything but. And earth…earth held no appeal for him. How could he sit there and watch all those mortals live out their carefree lives when that anger burned in his mind? Why them, why could they live their meaningless existences and not Sera? What made them so god damned important that they were allowed to live?

   Maybe he’d just stay in this purgatory, left to wander endlessly with the other souls not meant for anything more. Not good enough for heaven, not bad enough for hell they were dropped off here till their fates could be “determined”. In other words they’re only hope of finding a resting place was slimmer then the mortal lottery. Sometimes they would drift on ethereal winds to earth, haunt this place or that person, that’s when they usually found that second chance. But it was rare to be weighed for a second time. If you were found haunting then you were usually considered to be a nuisance unless you’re presence somehow bettered the life of the mortal in question. Then you’d probably get swept into heaven, but otherwise you were dropped into hell where God knew you couldn’t tarnish his name anymore than you had by your existence on earth.  

   He knew he was in purgatory for several reasons. First he wasn’t on fire from heaven’s light, second, he wasn’t freezing from hell’s lack thereof, and three, the world around him was absolutely silent. Earth most definitely was never silent. The air around him was tepid, no warmer than his body but no cooler either. Of course the fact that he was very well aware that he was lying in a soft bed, covered by some sort of sheet or blanket, was a bit odd. He didn’t know purgatory to have such items. Of his trips here when trying to find some soul or another he knew it to be one vast expanse of nothingness. A grey landscape with no sky and no horizon, it went on forever.

   Well someone had to have pulled his ass from the fire so perhaps they brought the bed when they deposited him here. He would like to have a word with that prick and ask them what the hell they were thinking when they did it too. It wasn’t like he had walked into the fire, and stayed there, just for fun. He had one distinctive purpose in mind, death, and that whoever had robbed him of it.

   The real problem though? He couldn’t see these things for himself at the moment. For some reason his eyes seemed to be sealed shut. He wasn’t in any sort of pain from it, it was as if he had closed them to sleep, but no matter what he tried they would not open.