Life After Death

Chapter 45

The realization slowly dawned on me. I let the information Topher had just handed me seep into me. If I had a heart, it would've gone crazy.

"You're next," the words hung over me and for a couple of seconds I couldn't breathe. I felt Topher's hand on my shoulder. "We need to stop her."

"But how?" I pondered. "And why?" I looked down. "It doesn't make sense. Why is she doing this?" I looked over at Alexandru, Roman's father. "Do you know her? Do you know what's going on? You're Luci's right-hand man, and he should know what's going on - The End and all - so he must've told you." I was hopeful. Right then, it was the only conclusion I had come to.

"I don't... Lucifer doesn't tell me exactly everything. All he tells me is completely need-to-know," Alex said.

"What? And the end of the world isn't on a need-to-know basis?" I scoffed.

"Look, some things are best left unsaid..."

"What the fuck does that mean?" I snapped

Alex left out a huff of air. "Didn't you need my help with something?" He was diverting the attention from the topic at hand - I was annoyed, sure, but I did have something I needed him to do. The Chamber - I needed access to it and since he was Luci's right-hand, he had to know a way to open it.

"Yeah, I need you to open the Chamber," I said, surprised that I wasn't shaking after the news that had just been delivered to me.

"The Chamber as in the Chamber-Chamber?"

"What other Chamber am I talking about here?" I snapped. I ran a hand over my face. Okay, this was getting to me more than I thought. And it had every right to. I found out that Kassima - the dreadlocked psychic was actually working with ghosts and feeding them souls, and for what? What good would that do? Or maybe I should be asking, what would it benefit her? Kassima and Sylvia are linked somehow - I know for a fact that they're sisters; the picture of the blond and brunette girl in Kassima's room was the two of them years ago. But what if there was more to all of this. And I had a feeling Alex knew more than he was letting on. Then again, he was devoted to Satan, for some reason I still can not fathom, and I doubt he'd relay any information to us - any of us, not even Roman... Or maybe...

"I can help," Alex said, after three long seconds. "But you will need to hurry. And if any of you get caught," he looked at me when he said this, "you are on your own."

I nodded. I knew that he'd act like he had know idea who any of us were. He wasn't all good after all, but he was helping and that was all that mattered right now.

We walked back to where the others were, and I began to notice that we hadn't run into any of Satan's minions in a while. Not even house keeping. I remember women dressed in rags walking around and cleaning up often when I was trapped here, but where was everyone now? Something was up. And by the nervous look Alex was trying his hardest to conceal, I knew that he knew that I knew that something was up - if you can even make up what I meant in that sentence.

When we arrived Danny, Sylvia and Roman were sitting on the cement floor up against the great door, their heads all snapped up at us. Roman jumping up and coming to me with his hands all over my face. "Are you okay?" I shook him off and told him I was fine. Roman then jerked his head at Alexandru, "Who's this?" I could feel Alex tense next to me. But it was soon released and he draped an arm around my shoulders and brought me into his side. "I'm her best friend!" Alex said, grinning. I slid out from under his arm.

"Yeah," I gave him a quick glare. "Anyway, he's going to help us open up the Chamber." I grumbled some strings of profanity, mostly at Roman for glaring so harshly at his own father and a little at Alex because he didn't have the balls to say something about him being the father of Roman or at least something - but I guess it wasn't the right time.

Alex cleared his throat. "Well, before I open this bad boy up - why do you want to go inside? What's in their for you?"

"We want to see what's going on in Sylvia's head," I announced. "Her past and whatnot." I didn't want to be too brief on the subject because I didn't want to hint the fact that I wanted to stop the End. What if Alex tried to stop me?

"And you can't get it at Headquarters 'cause they dont keep record of your past." Alex nodded and sighed at the same time. Then, snapped his fingers in direction of the door and a keypad materialised on it. He punched in a long series of numbers; a soft click announced that the door was open. "Just pull the door closed when you're done." He said and whispered, "Careful," to me and left. He never even so much as glanced at Roman.

Coward. At least he got the door open.

All of us stared at Alex's retreating figure and then all eyes landed on me. I ignored them, of course, I did not want to explain how I knew Alex. That would cause me to let the a little secret slip - the fact that Alexandru is Roman's father - and that would cause shit, in turn. I just knew it. I doubted that Roman would even believe me.

I was the first to enter, I think everybody was still pondering on how I was in relation to Alex. The room lit up with my presence and all I can say was that it was magnificent.

The room was massive - maybe even bigger than Door 0. The room was filled with contraptions I didn't recognise or understand, ranging from microscopic to massive in size. The room smelt like gasoline and fire, with a hint of sandalwood. It was a different scent, something that was intoxicating and appealing at the same time. I walked in deeper to the room, and everyone else followed.

"That's it," Danny said, walking straight toward an armchair pushed up against a large white wall.

We all followed Danny's footsteps. It looked too simple to be a contraption that Lucifer could have created, then again, maybe that's what made it so special so great, because it was simple.

The four of us stood in front of us, Topher trailing behind us, poking at random things, careful not to break anything like Roman reprimanded him not to.

"What do I do?" Sylvia asked nervously.

We all shrugged in unison and then Topher said four simple words, "Just sit in it."

And she did.