Edge of End (32 page)

Richard laughed a warm laugh. I looked
at his gray face lit by the lucid light which was supposed to take
me away from this hell. I still could try to reach it, but without
Elizabeth it wouldn’t have any meaning. She was lying behind
Richard, the distance was too great for me to reach her.

The devil rose into the air and
started hovering around Richard, but it didn’t touch him. I thought
he would have attacked me and finished me off, but instead he spun
on his heel and walked over to Elizabeth.

“
I want you to watch me
make her suffer before I steal your power,” he said loudly still
walking. “You will have something to think about in the other
eternity I’ll leave for you…”

Just the thought of anyone causing any
kind of harm to Elizabeth filled me with strength. I stood up. My
clothes were ripped, my hair dusty, my face wounded, however, I
didn’t feel pain, I felt only the power rushing through my veins.
It was mightier than ever.

“…
her expression begging
for me will stay with you forever,” Richard went on. “And you’ll
have to deal with it because it was you who had filled her with
hope, but gave her nothing in return.”

The devil noticed me standing. Closing
its wings on its back, it swooped down intent on wiping me from the
ground once and for all. I ran as hard as I could so the devil’s
eyes couldn’t follow me. It was right in front of me, its huge
mouth half open, its sharp teeth craving to slice my body in half.
At the very last moment before I would run into the devil, I leapt
over it landing behind it. I darted ahead, not like the wind, but
like light.

Richard, standing beside Elizabeth,
spun around as soon as he felt me behind him. His eyes widened with
fear. I have no idea of why he felt such dread. I grabbed him by
the neck, hoisted him up and then slammed him onto the ground. As
he hit it, the whole ground shuddered.

I lifted him again, his feet inches
off the ground. Richard punched me in the face. I felt my teeth
rattle in my head. I automatically let him go and cradled my face
in my hands shrieking in pain. Richard took a hold of my shirt and,
in next to no time, he had me dangling in the air. He threw me up
in the air, and I hurtled towards the mouth of the devil, which had
turned back and was rushing to meet me.

This is the end, I thought. At any
moment I would be in the claws of the monster being devoured, but
suddenly somebody grasped me mid-air, and we both fell to the
ground.

“
I’m tired of saving your
ass,” a gruff voice came.

“
Malcolm,” I cried out
irritated. “You were supposed to hold back that flying piece of
shit up there.”

“
I know. I underestimated
them,” he sniffed sarcastically. “But, at least, I saved
you.”

“
Yeah, stealing me out of
its mouth,” I whined at him spitting out more dust. “If you’d kept
it back, I wouldn’t have been flying into its fucking mouth at
all.”

He gave me a slight smile, “Cheer up.
Go, get Elizabeth. I’ll hold Richard.”

“
Yeah, I’ve heard that
before,” I teased, but I did as I was told.

I lost sight of the devil behind the
mist. From the distance I saw Elizabeth flinch.

“
Malcolm, Malcolm,
Malcolm,” Richard said solemnly standing a few steps in front of
the old man. “At last we meet again to play our favorite game, but
this time as opponents and on my grounds, right?”

“
These are my grounds too,
remember?” Malcolm replied showing no emotion in his voice. He put
his hand on the rag wrapped over his face and rubbed it.

“
Yes, I know, how could I
forget? I’ve been waiting here for you for such a long time, but
you preferred to wander in the middle. I didn’t want to pick a
fight with you there at the café you used to frequent, poisoning
yourself just so you could avoid reality.”

While they sparred, I sprinted over to
Elizabeth lying facedown and breathing shallowly. One of her hands
lay awkwardly beneath her body, and the other was flung above her
head. I rolled her onto her back.

“
Elizabeth, can you hear
me?” I begged her as I slapped her face lightly.

She blinked with difficulty. My heart
thumped. I took her head in my hands and pressed it lightly against
my chest.

“
It’s okay, you’re going
to be okay,” I whispered in a hopeful voice.

“
Jonathan, what happened?”
she mouthed. “Did you kill Richard?”

I looked at the gray-skinned man
crossly. If I’d had a chance, I would have.

“…
and yet the game you’re
playing has ripped your soul from inside,” Malcolm was saying. I
couldn’t see Richard’s face, but I was sure he was grinning smugly.
“You’ve been in this town as long as I have, but unlike you, I’m
repenting.”

“
Too late to repent,
Malcolm.”

“
No,” he said looking in
our direction, his eyes narrowed. Elizabeth and I had helped him to
believe that the light could survive in any soul dwelling in this
town. It was there, deep inside everyone,
hope, repentance, regret
. The
feeling had possessed both Elizabeth and I even standing on the
threshold of hell, on the edge of end. This is what had made
Malcolm change and avoid the road Richard had chosen to
take.

“
There is still a little
hope,” he said with low but clear voice.

But not for Richard.
The
town
had
gnawed away everything good in his soul. Before Malcolm there was a
devil, full of evil. He cracked his knuckles as he straightened his
fingers and, with that, he snarled and charged towards Malcolm. The
old man stood still waiting for him, ready to take him on and fight
to the end.

The sound of the first
strike thundered the air, and it could surely be heard from the
beginning of the
town
.

I helped Elizabeth sit up. “We can go
now,” I said glancing back at Malcolm and Richard fighting. “Can
you stand up? I don’t think the passage intends to stay open as
long as I want it to.”

Elizabeth quickly glanced over at
Malcolm and nodded reluctantly. I was just about to start pushing
her when a thunderous voice roared through the clouds deafening me.
The sound waves hit me in the chest. My body trembled, and I edged
myself back, my eyes full of fear, my body full of anxiety. I
turned back to look over my shoulder at the light–was it fading
already?

The stream of light gave a brief
flicker as if it were about to extinguish, but, somehow, it
continued to shine. I had mixed emotions and didn’t really know
what I felt. I became charged with an incredible power.

“
Are you alright?”
Elizabeth said placing her soft hand on my cheek.

Was I forgetting to breathe? I
surveyed the mist. They were returning; three shadows were
furtively swimming in the mist and moving towards Elizabeth and me.
Upon seeing my glazed over eyes, Elizabeth glanced back, her jaw
dropping open in horror.

“
Jonathan, get up. We’ve
got to reach the light,” she was pointing at the light source
ahead.

My mind reeled, what to
do–
should I run or stay?
“No!” I hissed, standing slowly. “They will tear
Malcolm to shreds. They’ll finish him off once and for all. He has
done more than enough for us, we can’t just leave him.”

I tore my eyes away from the mist and
looked at Malcolm. Richard had taken a hold of Malcolm by his neck
and was punching him brutally. The rag slid off Malcolm’s face.
Finally, I saw the part of his face that he had so long
concealed–half of his head didn’t exist; it had been completely cut
off–his eye, eyebrow, half of his skull and brain. Yet he was still
alive.

“
He’ll finish him off any
moment,” Elizabeth cried, waiting for me to go and help him, but
the three devils remained lurking in the hovering clouds of mist;
they would surely descend at any second.

I shoved Elizabeth away from me.
Perplexed, she backed up further. Three large hideous faces leaped
into my view from within the mist. The last creature was blocking
my way, preventing me from escaping that pure hell.

Lacing my fingers together, I brought
my hands up close to my mouth. I tilted my head and closed my eyes
just like I was praying–and that’s what I did. I prayed. My lips
shivered as I mouthed long forgotten words of prayer. But still I
felt the every move the devils made; I felt them thinking, longing
for me.

Opening my eyes, I held my hands out.
A surging invisible wave of inhuman power flowed freely from my
palms. It was my territory that surrounded the light; I was the
strongest in its path; the light was charging me through my back
and neither devil was able to stand the power of that heavenly
light.

The three devils collided with the
mighty wave that had been flowing out of my palms. They flew
through it with panicked shrieks. The next moment they became
blanketed by stone; their wings remained spread open, but they were
completely still like statues. Frozen, before they could have ever
reached Elizabeth and me, they exploded into a thousand tiny little
pieces leaving small particles of stony dust settling on the
ground.

Elizabeth watched everything unfold in
shock. Her eyes wandered over the ground and met mine.

“
I’ve reached the peak of
my power finally,” I explained shortly. Richard’s time had come. I
faced him.

Malcolm was lying at his
feet. Richard savagely tore one of his arms from his body and
tossed it aside if it were a bone for a dog. Groans escaped
Malcolm’s mouth that quickly turned into screams of pain as blood
streamed from his shoulder. Richard had noted my immense power and
he appeared startled, doubt showing in his dark pupils. Then the
darkness in his eyes returned. It was me against him. Even
the
town
had
withdrawn itself knowing that its chances of bringing me down were
slim to none.

I knew what would come the next, I had
seen it in the night. The last time travel I had experienced wasn’t
my past, and neither my present, it was my future.

When I stretched my hands out again
facing my palms up towards the sky I knew I could do it. Richard,
his eyes full of terror, was detached from the ground and hung
suspended in mid-air.

“
You can’t kill me,” he
managed to say in agony. I knew he was burning inwardly because I
was doing it.

“
I’ll get rid of you,” I
told him clearly as I opened my arms as wide as they could
go.

Richard smirked for a second, but then
cried out in absolute agony–a flame exploded out of his chest. He
was overwhelmed by the sizzling fire and the horrific pain as he
internally combusted, his body becoming small bits of meat that
rained to the ground.

Silence fell and finally the somber
mist began to fade, and the dark hole that had opened in the ground
became visible. I lowered my hand and let out a huge sigh of
relief, my eyes still twitching nervously; the mighty power that
had possessed me still hadn’t gone. For a fleeting moment I felt
equal to God, the Lord of surroundings, but I knew this wasn’t
going to last long–my power would leave me as soon as the light
disappeared.

A soft, affectionate touch on my hand
made me blink, and my eyes fell to the left. Elizabeth had taken my
hand in hers and stared fondly at me with her beautiful brown
eyes.

“
How did you do that?” she
asked.

“
I saw it,” I told her
about the vision in the night.

“
So you saw the future,”
she whispered, her breath circling my nose and caressing my
nostrils. How sweet she smelled.

Malcolm turned on his side snapping my
attention back to him. I hurried towards the old man with Elizabeth
following closely behind. As we neared him, I could clearly see
Malcolm’s half face. I noted the dried bloody spots hanging from
the remainder of his brain and the wrinkled edges of his skin. The
picture was terrifying; I knew that it would stay with me forever;
it was going to haunt me wherever I went, but I didn’t allow it
stop me from showing compassion. I knelt down beside his body and
placed my hand gently under his head, raising it
slightly.

His one eye looked at me, his face lit
up with delight. I reached for the rag that had been wrapped around
his head and pressed it lightly onto the socket from where his
right arm had been torn off. He let out a yelp, his breathing
quickened, and he writhed in pain.

“
He was mine,” Malcolm
howled. “I should’ve ended it with him.”

“
Yeah,” I murmured. I gave
a fleeting glimpse back at the light. “I can take you back and
release you from the pain. You’ve done so much for Elizabeth and
me. I owe you, and I’m willing to risk my passage for
you.”

Even though the pain was immense, he
managed a faint smile. “I’ve got no place on Earth anymore. My time
there has passed, but you still have yours to return to. Go, take
her with you.”

“
But you’ve changed,
you’ve repented,” Elizabeth’s voice trembled fighting back her
tears.