The Line

A closing curtain

Everything was bright. The nearly-blinding light formed one thick ray that traversed the entire room, bathing every inch of it in a uniform degree of luminosity.

At the other end of the room stood a new judge--his judge--in a grey three-piece suit; behind her, a desk and a chair. The strange triangle-headed audience sat all around, gesturing to each other with strange hands and giving each other strange glances. Watching him.

"Step forward," the judge commanded.

The room had already been silent, but a kind of hush--a closing curtain, unseen and heavy--fell over it anyway when he didn't immediately comply.

"Step forward, Mr. Solo," the judge repeated, slower, as if he simply hadn't understood her the first time.

But he had.

No, Juan thought.

"No," Juan said.

///

Something told him the audience was laughing.

"Do you know why you're here, Mr. Solo?" the judge asked, sharply.

Definitely laughing.

"Y--yes." That was it. The fear was there. It was just creeping slowly, spreading slowly, until it was everywhere--in his bones and in his blood and deep into the fibres of his mind--and he was too numb to fight against it. He hadn't refused to move in order to spite the court--he'd refused to move because his legs wouldn't allow it.

He swallowed again.

"Why do you think you're here?" the judge asked.

"Because I died."

More ecstatic gestures from the audience. Although there was no audible disorder, the judge shouted, "Order! Order!" Order must have quickly ensued, because she quieted down and slackened her jaw after two outbursts only.

Juan went on, but he sounded clipped, hesitant. "I'm here because I died five months ago. That's what the Line is. Some kind of"-- he didn't want to utter the word Flynn had used-- "... purgatory. This Retrial is meant to determine where I'll move on to next, isn't it? You were watching me all this time, and now you're going to tell me if I'm good or bad. If I'm going to that garden or that... pit."

The court screwed up during Angelle's trial.

The court is human.

Or something close to it, at least.

"Where's Flynn?" Juan asked. That last thought had stalled the fear.

"In another courtroom," the judge said.

"Can--can I see him?"

"No, you may not."

"I have another question, then." For some reason that before-last word echoed terrifically: question... question... question... "Flynn and I thought we were going to escape. But--but where would we have ended up?"

The woman had a sharp face, all cheekbone and jaw, and the harsh lights made it sharper still--he nervously noted this useless fact before she said, "Weiss was misguided. He allowed his feelings for the redhead to cloud his judgement. He thought he had us fooled. But we weren't blind to your preparations. Or the fact that he called off the pluggers."

Juan needed to know. "Where would we have ended up?"

"There's only one way out of the Line: through the court."

That's not an answer! "Where--"

"Unfortunately, your antics had repercussions inside the court, affecting some of the trials." Like Angelle's. "Trials are a delicate process, you understand. They require our utmost concentration."

"So there's a way to return to the other side?" Juan almost sounded hysterical. "I could go back and see--"

"It's too late," the judge interrupted, and something strange happened.

The room warped and bent itself, the way ripples spread through liquid, before popping back into place with a stomach-shattering lurch--and becoming someplace else. His ballroom. Home.

Quick strokes of violin filled the air. The girl in the blue dress--

The memory shattered itself and vanished. Juan closed his eyes and opened them, gasping, heart hammering. He stood in the court again, but everything was dark save for the desk, his judge, and the chair.

Everything was so dark.

"Sit down, Mr. Solo," the judge commanded. 

Juan didn't want to, but all the will had been sapped from him. Along with the energy required to stay upright.

He traipsed over to the chair on half-cooked legs and sat down.

The judge turned to him and said, "Memories like that were manufactured to bring out your true nature. You were supposed to believe you were truly condemned, already a criminal, forgotten, abandoned. We wanted to see if you would seek redemption or sink lower."

More memories. Juan took his hand in his head--these memories hurt--as the images fell into place then disappeared: Flynn and him, learning to swim (the saltwater helped), playing cards, fishing, picking up flashies, watching idiot kids throwing pebbles at pluggers, sowing raincoats half-blind, crying, laughing, cowering because of a storm, arguing, planning, dreaming.

Every moment of his five months in the Line overwhelmed him at once--zap! zap! zap!--filling him past his brim, making him jerk and lash out. When he saw himself from outside his body--he looked like some crazed animal--writhing in pain while the plugger grazed him, he couldn't hold back the scream. When he saw himself pushing Flynn into the water and leaving him behind, when he saw himself, four-quarters out of his mind, sending Flynn to his Retrial with the plastic gun, his eyes were streaming. He could barely breathe, either; vomit was charring his throat.

"Make it stop!" he shouted.

It stopped. It stopped so abruptly the sudden calm only dizzied him further.

"Tell me, Juan." Where had that gavel come from? "Where do you think I should send you?"

Juan breathed deeply as something tightened in his chest. It was obvious and probably unavoidable and he knew it now, but his voice came out all thin anyway.

"Wherever it's warmest," he mumbled.

And the judge tapped her gavel.

---

I think I should mention that "A closing curtain" is one of my favourite parts. It was probably also the easiest to write. I woke up, reached for my iPod, and this whole thing just leaked out of me, holy hell (at least a terrible draft of it did).

Next part is the end, guys. Are you ready? Because I'm not.