The Superior Realm (Part II)

She followed the Old woman’s index to where it landed.

All the way down to a black hole, there he sat on its edge, dangling his legs down into its abyss and flapping his arms about hysterically as he formed balls of gases and dust and shot them down like cannons, seeing them dissipate and then disappear in front of his eyes, he laughed frantically and clapped his hands and threw his head back in ecstasy and laughter, then held his hands to his heart as if trying to pace his beats again.
His pants were purple, green and golden,  they were wide like a clown’s and tight around his skinny waist by a yellow belt,his brown boots went high up his shin and ended right under his knees, his chemise was white and half open with ruffles randomly wavering on his chest and his face was edgy, his chin was pointed and his nose was peaked,his skin was pale and it had numerous brown scars and freckles, he had black lace on his chin, his hair was also as black and came out in every direction, swaying like headless snakes and his eyes sparkled with the colors of the dust orbiting the black hole and a certain dangerous ecstatic power.

His recklessness filled her with horror, ‘’He’s in charge of the hearts of humans!!’’ she almost yelled out ‘’Who is he?”

“Oh, you don’t know him’’ The woman’s eye widened with surprise “He is fear, my darling”

“And he lives in a collapsed star?”

The woman nodded and stirred the tea in her fragile porcelain-like cup.

The younger woman was overwhelmed by fear herself and so she knew that he must have noticed her looking at him or overheard their conversation. No wonder the human heart did not stand a chance of communicating when they’re in the hands of this drunken maniac, all of a sudden she did not feel sad anymore but angry. And so she set her mind to go and tempt fear out of his possessions.

She looked at her reflection on a panorama of heated gas, she adjusted her dress and undid the first two buttons from the top, so that she can alter fear’s mind and grab his attention and she dimmed her brightness to an almost human glow. She glided over the colorful gases and dust of the nebular belt and shot herself over stars until she was approaching fear who was still playing with his cannon balls, she felt a gravitating power as she neared and with every step she found that her fear intensified and the control she had over her feet got weaker. Until she had no control at all and she was sliding towards the abyss.

A hand wrapped around her ankle as she was sliding in and flipped her around. All of a sudden she found herself sitting beside him. Up close, his face was more childish, his lips were wide open in a smile, his mouth was really big, no wonder she thought, for she knew that fear needs convincing thoughts to work through, so he talked a lot to the soul. His eyes were wide and he was staring at her, they were exactly like the universe, they reflected it perfectly, with the black endless depth in the background the the bursting sparkles and mingled hues constantly changing. She was breathing quickly, panting even, it was the first time that her soul had panted in the superior realm, and she was fighting to catch her breath but it was so difficult.

“You were going to fall into my dying star and then I would have had to lick you off the walls”
His eyes widened even more and his mouth gaped at its width as he laughed that she could almost see inside him. She understood nothing of what he said, but thanked him for saving her as she brought herself to sit closer to him. He jumped off in an acrobatic move and did cartwheels around her then jumped to the other side.
‘’You were my friend” he shouted over to her “I’ve lived with you but then you left. I know your name and I slept beside you on the floor, and you always gave me delicious food.... Such delicious food from your mind, but you left” he calmed down at that last phrase as he seemed to be overtaken with nostalgic fondness.

She was taken aback by his sudden outburst, it confused her and then she felt out of control, she had to force herself to take back the situation in her own hand, because when he fell silent it seemed like the whole universe fell silent that even her thoughts had an echo and they exposed her confusion to him. His words were strange, but she understood them almost immediately, fear had been in possession of her heart and he accompanied her for the better share of her earthly existence, there was no doubt about it. Then she saw the yearning on his face, fear yearned for her and she thought she might be able to use that to regain the power.

“And here I am, old friend” She smiled as warmly as she could bring herself to “I’ve come back to feed you again”

He jumped up and down in joy as he hopped his way to her again.
‘’Despair?” he asked popping on her right,
“Doubt?” he popped to her left.

“I will feed you if you show me where you keep the hearts of my fellow humans” She said firmly as she stood up stomping her feet and making a cloud of dust rise.

He circled the edge of the abyss slowly as he held his hands behind his back and made a series of ums and hums. His eyes narrowed and sharpened as he stood and examined the girl.
‘’Come with me’’ he snatched her hand and jumped right into the abyss followed by all the ill-fated particles orbiting the black hole, and her.

The inside of the black hole is exactly like a scared person, it is blind and yet it sees every thing being destroyed with great clarity. As they went down she first saw small creatures in the dust that dissipated, those creatures did not seem like they mattered much but they made her aware of the nature of this place she was in, it made her wonder if deeper inward, the same thing might happen to her soul and so this question has taken this little tunnel of destruction to be inside her as well.

Then the creatures started getting bigger, even bigger than her, and they started catching flames and some started freezing altogether. She saw a fierce creature that reminded her of a kraken whose tentacles started falling off like icicles and smashing midair, as the poor creature itself let out a wailing sound and smashed to bits himself and his stone-hard particles rushed against her, almost touching her face as they accelerated down, and by then she was in a state of complete petrification, she was not the master of anything that was happening inside her or around her, it all belonged to fear, and she thought that if fear was so strong in this superior realm that humans don’t stand a chance against it in their inferior realm.

And then they landed, the ground was as black as the walls surrounding it all the way up, they were so dark that she could not see them at all, and if her feet wouldn’t have touched them she wouldn’t have believed they existed at all. He let go of her hands and she heard him screaming and laughing as she assumed by the movement of the sound was some kind of victory lap around the place, then he lit a lantern, a sun that burnt on a stick that he placed upon a fountain that She could now see in the middle of the room. And in his cart wheels he came from behind her and pulled her hair down so that she faced upward.

Looking above her at the high walls fading into the darkness she saw that the walls were not blunt and black at all, they were in fact stacked with hearts that were arranged in circles around the place all the way up into the black nothingness, countless, dissimilar and foggy. Each one of the hearts had a different mist swarming inside it, with different colors and different shapes emerging and disappearing, forming pictures of people and places, handshakes and kisses, dreams and reality, fantasies and actualities and she recognized the mists as being the compressed souls the humans are keeping in their depths. She did not realize the awe on her face and her dropped jaw until he pulled her hair downward twice more so that the pain intensified and then he let her go.

He started jumping around on the walls, one foot on a heart then another foot on the other, in a way that it seemed that he was selecting the hearts that he stumped on and whenever his feet touched a heart, the mist inside it would form a black hole, just like the one they were inside now, only without a sun on a fountain at the core of it.

And she tried to jump up and catch his ankles ‘’Wait, what are you doing? Stop!” she yelled as she chased him around the room, but he was quicker, he had the energy and the chuckles of a child who was let out in a meadow after years of being grounded. Her attempts were futile, there has to be another way to stop him so that humans could save themselves.

‘’I have your food” She found no other choice but to scream ‘’Come down here and take it”

Fear approached her as she felt the same sensation of no control approaching but she kept fighting for her power, until he stood right in front of her, eyes wide as ever staring at her and lips curled in a smile that only accentuates his edgy chin. Then he spread his hands to her and pointed with the other for her to put the food there.

She did not know what to do, as she had nothing to give him and she had no plan, the fear in her soul was only a reflection of his presence and if he takes her hands to where her heart is supposed to be, he will easily find out she has no human heart and he will reveal her deceitful soul’s glow.

And just as she had expected, he tapped his empty palm twice before his gaze started to get wider and his nostrils started to flare. she retreated back as he lifted her by the collar with one hand and placed his hands on her chest with the other and then he fell silent and silence reigned over the place again except for the beating of the hearts. She was breathing but there was no heartbeat and she was trembling but there was no fear but him.

‘’You deceived me” he left her to fall to her knees as her soul eased out of its disguise and slowly regained its glow, “You deceived...Me!” he turned away and ran to his fountain and started weeping.

She stood there mesmerized, perplexed with no idea of how to proceed. She walked to the walls and started trying to pull the hearts off the walls, but they were stuck to it as if they were a part of it.

He turned back to her, seeing what she was doing, his face got more serious and his face got even more peaked, he attacked her from behind and started pulling strands of her hair off, he messed with the red and golden ruffles and scratched her neck in an attempt to pull her away.
“Stop it, Fear, Stop it, please” she begged.

“Fear?!!!!” he stopped mid air.

“Isn’t that who you are?” she finally pushed him off as she tried to regain her poise.

“How dare you call me that?” he growled and hopped with his back still hunched to the fountain where he knelt down and washed his face with its starry water, as it rushed over his face and through space, it sprayed on her face and one drop was enough for her to understand. This creature is not Fear at all, he’s Faith.

“Had you simply asked I would have told you” he turned around to face her, his face was changed, but not really. His features were milder, fuller, his eyes eased into their pockets and were not wild with madness anymore, his nose was less pointed and so was his chin, his mouth was tighter and even the way he moved eased.
“Hope is also what’s holding their hearts,” he said “The darkness I live in is the one they chose for me.
“Faith has always been a great friend of the dark, for if it was made easy, everyone would believe and then the meaning of the good fight would seize to exist. If you see where you’re stepping next then what do you need faith for? I was in the light someday, and when I am, they call me fact. But when I’m not. they forget me, that’s why I was kept in here.

“Why in a dying star? Why this kind of darkness?” she rushed to his side and wrapped her arms around him, the poor creature suddenly seemed weak and sad, as sad as she was when she had been earthly.

“Humans are known for their forgetfulness” he said “They saw my manifestations, they saw hope and they saw fear, but they seemed to neglect me until I started withering away, and when I did, I had to find somewhere to reside, and as I collapsed, so did the stars, as a way to console me, because I was the reason they were created in the first place, I was the reason everything was created, I am the energy that runs the dynamic of the universe, but I’m a parasite on their souls, without them I can not exist, if they do not feed me, I perish.

“And so I had to adapt, I had to feed on whatever else they offered, for if they won’t have faith then they will surely have one of my sons, hope or fear... And I'm sure you can clearly see which one they have favored, I am only giving them what they want as a last attempt to survive.”

She walked away with the sadness in her heart gone, but with her soul conflicted with a hurricane, much like the one she avoided in her short life.

Where truly resides the superior realm?
In the realm where the choice survives no matter the change, but awaits for someone who would see?
Or a realm where nothing ever changes, and the light of your soul is preset, but where Faith himself lives in a collapsing star begging to be resurrected?

And who’s to say the two really differ anyway, for if the soul falls dead, 
Do the realms hold any meaning at all?