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Ex planations

“D ear Lord, it’s colder than Hell out here,” Honey said as she sat down on the step next to him; she was bundled in a quilt, just like the one she had dropped onto his shoulders. “Though I suppose that’s not how the saying really goes, does it? Everyone says its hotter than, not colder. Oh, except in Dante’s Inferno. One of those circles is supposed to be cold.”

She continued to look him full in the face as if she were expecting him to comm ent on it.

He looked away under the pressure of it and cleared h is throat.

“It’s alright, I know,” she said.

Flinching, her statement forced him to look back at her. She nodded with an air of confirmation, but he still wasn’t sure what she was c onfirming.

“You can’t know,” he whispered.

“That you are a demon who has not only escaped Hell but found a new life here on this plane of existence known as creation or reality, for lack of better more comprehensive words. And that the woman who saved you is becoming something you struggle to define.” Her smile faded down to one tinged with sadness. “I’ve been watching you for a long time, Lares. In fact, I am the one that gave you t hat name.”

Rafferty’s entire body went still, his muscles locking with a strange urge to run and an inability to do so as the skin covering them prickled.

This time she was the one who looked away, casting her sad smile out over the dark and cold. “It is the name of a Greek god of house and hearth. Protection god. It was aspirational.” She glanced back at him, and he saw the metallic flash of power in her eyes.

“You… you’re one of… you’re a demon?” His voice cracked, his mouth dry.

“I wouldn’t call myself that,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, I try my best.”

Gripping hard on the quilt with his shaking hands, he pulled it tight, more terrified by his next question. “Or are you… one o f… them ?”

“You mean an angel?” Honey laughed a sparkling peal. “We do go by that. Others would call us such, but I thought you would know better. There are no such things as angels, right?” She gave him a conspirator ial smile.

“Ah.” The sound burst from Rafferty’s chest. It was neither a laugh nor a cry. More like a burst of relief and despair. “Are you here to send me back?”

She blinked at that. “Back? Ba ck where?”

“To where I belong.”

Her lips pursed a moment. “I’m not here to judge you, corn muffin. Nor punish you if that’s what you’re thinking. You’ve already punished yourself enough. And I bet it’s not what you want. Not really. It’s just what you think you deserve. éliott and I have been debating this. He argues that you wouldn’t have tried to work so hard to escape it to be here, but I think you think you deserve to be there . Or at least it is a more comfortable idea. That’s why you’re having trouble a djusting.”

“It wasn’t comfortable. It was torment.” He growled at her daring to call it anyt hing else.

“But you knew what to expect. You knew who you were. That is its own sort of comfort.”

Rafferty blinked, following her strange sort of sense. “I do belong there,” he agreed. His face dropped into his hands as he felt his being shattering at the admission.

They sat like that for a long moment. At first, he thought she was waiting for him to get it together, but that wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t ignoring him either; she still felt present with him, while not in a hurry for him to do or say anyt hing more.

Finally, when he felt more in control of himself, he asked, “What hap pens now?”

“Well, one option would be to get off this freezing porch and come inside. The others are waiting to tal k to you.”

There were others. It didn’t surprise him. “I’m ready,” he agreed.

Nodding, Honey stood up, folding her blanket over her arm, and led him into her house.

Only it wasn’t a house on t he inside.

The last thing Rafferty saw as he stepped through was the light of the circle bursting from the floor. Then everything w ent white.

H e is back.

He knows this place intimately… and it knows him.

Despair cuts. He expects to be held in a small, enclosed space. The eternal crush. The darkness, the emptiness. A coldness that isn’t coldness. Existing, but alone.

Yet, what he feels is… space. A wide openness, filling and alive. Teeming with energy. There are no concrete shapes, no bodies or sense of physical form, and still so much… existence. They welcome him, reach out to touch him. Though he does not hear it, he perceives laughter and a joy. A nd relief.

Grief fills him, tendrils of darkness that ignite his fear, that they, the others, will be disgusted by him and push him away. Yet, they don’t. They do not recoil; they are only holding still, waiting, ready. A single being comes forward, moving past his darkness, or rather weaving through them, avoiding the tendrils until the last minute. It is Honey, though he does not know how he knows it. He simply does. He knows she means to hold him, and he decides to let her. Just with that simple decision, his darkness retreats.

Love in the form of light pours into him. He knows he doesn’t shine as brightly as the others, and it doesn’t seem to matter. The others reach out to him with the same eagerness and joy as before.

Once he is calm, Honey leads him through, and the other lights go their own way. She brings him to a place… a field of darkness.

He has no other way of underst anding it.

There are thousands of them, concentrated balls of darkness. He understands that there is a single being inside each. They are writhing in their ow n… hells.

Like he once did.

A new understanding washes through him, one that shocks him. It even sends out small waves of energy, like a pebble dropped into a s till pool.

This was Hell.

What he thought of as hell was this. And it was of his o wn making.

He wants to reject that idea. He even backs away from the field.

Honey tries to assure him, to keep him fro m leaving.

Safe.

You are safe.

The concept comes across to him, and he now understands he is not being put back, nor is he going to become… stuck like t his again.

Something has changed within him. Something h as healed.

More light pours into his being, light that has always been there, always waiting to embrace him. He had kept it out, for fear of it cons uming him.

But why?

He wants to ask, but there is no way to. Instead, the question is just u nderstood.

And the answer returns. The others, the countless others here are also afraid. They steal energy from each other, in order to maintain this darkness, for fear of the light dissipating it. There is saf ety there.

He pi ties them.

He pitie s himself.

Honey moves amongst them and he follows. He does not wish to touch any of the dark orbs. She understands a nd agrees.

The darkness isn’t dangerous. It is only the absence of light.

But those inside do not understand. So they lash out. The light holds them here and waits, peeling away at their defenses layer by layer. Hoping to get in e ventually.

That which is of the light cannot be separated by the light. Only perceived to be so.

Honey comes to a stop before one of the orbs of darkness. Rafferty perceives no difference from this one than the others, but Honey touches it tenderly. It hurts her back; he can see it consuming her light. Alarmed, he surges forward to protect her, but she accepts his embrace, and her light is restored just as quickly as i t is lost.

She conveys they must go inside.

He is confused. The darkness did her harm?

She indicates the orb. This time he perceives how thin the darkness seems, even though such a concept is n’t right.

He struggles to u nderstand.

He does.

The light will soon break through. Honey has waited for this orb to open. Wishes for it to open. Will continue to wait if she must, but she believes he can help. It is so close. He can reach the bei ng inside.

He is afraid.

H e recoils.

His own darkness forms around him again.

Honey reaches out more, as many times as he needs.

This darkness is too familiar. He could sink into it and never come back.

But then he remembers another light, a light so bright it cracked through this darkness once before. He let her in, and now he can and will neve r go back.

That realization stops him. His light returns, still dim, but there. The darkness retreats once more, also present, surrounding his light, dimming it, but not extingu ishing it.

He will neve r go back.

He regards the other orb, floatin g trapped.

Honey indicates to go in once more.

Pl ease help.

And he wants to. He feels … not darkness. Not pity, or sadness, or anger.

Empathy.

He desires to hold the being inside, who suffers as he did. To show them, there is a way out.

And that desire is worth braving the other being’s darkness.