The Seven Deadly Sinners

27

The whiteness consumed my field of vision for a few seconds but started to fade as Colby's room came back into view. My eyes focused themselves all the way and I found myself face to face with Colby, whose eyes had also just opened.

His arms immediately shot out and pulled me into him and he kissed the top of my head.

"I told you they didn't die," I heard Kevin say from across the room.

"What happened?" asked Corey. Colby set his chin on top of my head but didn't loosen his grip around me.

"Hades wanted to see us. Pulled us down," Colby said.

"Damn Hades. Lives for dramatics," Jake said, shaking his head.

"Pulled us down?" I asked.

"Yeah, to hell?" Kevin said.

"O-oh my god. I, we were in hell?" I asked. "But it was empty. There wasn't anyone there. It was just an open space."

"Oh, that's just what Hades wanted you to see," Colby said. "I could see everything."

"And what is everything?" I asked.

"It's basically a huge house, I guess. All of the humans live in it together. Except everyone is in the state they were in when they died. Like, if you got shot in the head, you'd still have the bullet hole. You can generally tell how they died. If you can't tell, it's from old age or heart attack or cancer or something," Jake explained.

"Oh," I replied.

"It's not like some place of eternal torture like humans think it is. Heaven and hell are exactly the same. It's just that all of the 'bad' people live in hell and all of the 'good' people live in heaven," said Kevin.

"So what exactly determines whether someone goes to heaven or hell, then?" I asked.

"Everyone is born good-natured or bad-natured. Just the way their brains are wired," said Colby.

"What? Your actions don't affect it? Where you go when you die is predetermined the minute you're born?" I asked.

"Yup. Unless you kill yourself. Then you go to a place called the middle. Suicide is technically a sin so you can't go to heaven, but God and Hades agreed that someone who kills themselves has had enough pain and negativity in their life, so they go to the middle," said Jake.

"Oh. So...is there even a point to religion?" I asked.

"No. That's just something humans made up to make themselves feel better or like there's a point to life. Where you go after death is already decided for the most part. What you believe in doesn't change anything," Colby said.

"Wow. Okay," I said. That probably pissed a lot of people off when they got to wherever they were going.

"Can Jupiter and I have a minute alone, you guys?" Colby asked.

"Oh, sure," Kevin said, leading the way out of the room while Corey and Jake trailed behind. Colby shut the door behind them and turned around to face me. I was still sitting on the bed, but the look in Colby's eyes made me feel like he had something important to say, so I stood up. He took a few steps closer to me and took a deep breath.

"So...," he trailed off.

"So what?" I asked after he didn't finish his sentence.

"We, uhm... yeah, no, I can't. Can you just read my mind?" he asked.

"You want me to read your mind?" I asked.

"Yeah. Please," he said.

"I guess," I said.

"Thank you," he said. He gave me a shy smile and I stared into his eyes.

"So what?" I asked again to solicit his response to the specific question.

So Hades said we fell. All the way. And it's only been, like, a week. And I love you.

"Really? You couldn't have just said that out loud?" I asked.

"I don't do feelings! Not ones that aren't anger and shit," said Colby. I gave him a smile.

"I know, baby," I said softly. I knew it'd only been two weeks. I knew that. But the way Colby made me feel, how close we'd become, we way we automatically clicked. I knew we truly had fallen all the way. I didn't want to be anywhere without him and I knew he didn't want to be without me. "I love you, too."

The way he looked at me when I said that would have absolutely made my heart stop if I was still a human. His eyes lit up, losing the dark glow I didn't realize they'd had all of this time. The blue lit up and the heavy depth behind them vanished. He smiled a big smile that reached this eyes and he let out a laugh, his happiness unable to be fully displayed by a smile.

"Come here," he said. I quickly walked over to him and threw my arms around his neck. He squatted down and grabbed the underside of my thighs, then wrapped my legs around his waist, holding me up. I grabbed the sides of Colby's face and smashed my lips against his, finally feeling like I was complete. I hadn't realized that I'd never really fully felt fulfilled with my life and who I was until now.

I didn't know what I had been missing out on until I got it. I'd never loved someone in any romantic sense before, never been in a real relationship or had a serious boyfriend. I'd kept to myself and that was how I liked it. At least I thought that was how I liked it. But now that I knew what it was like to have someone complete me, I would never want it to be any other way.

Colby broke the kiss after a long while and stared into my eyes.

"Okay, I can say it now. I love you," he said.

"And I can still say it. I love you too," I smiled, kissing him again.