Disappear: Into Shadow

- CHAPTER THIRTEEN -

When the fog cleared, the heavy weight Michael had felt at the cave's mouth pressed down again on his heart. The far shore appeared and his first view of Hell was a sheer wall of rock.

Thousands of feet high it stretched out towards the Heavens. It disappeared into the fog from whence they came. Ahead of them, it lay curving towards the horizon and beyond. The face of the cliffs seemed endless. The opposite banks of the Styx remained a sandy beach dissolving into fog a few feet from the river's bank. Charon navigated his craft closer to the cliff face.

A splash in the middle of the river caught Michael's attention.

"Charon, what lives in the Styx?"

"Nothing lives in there, boy." The flat rasping hiss replied.

"Then what was that splash?"

"Since you're paying me when we land, it's nothing to concern you," He cackled and said, "Otherwise, you would have found out soon enough."

"You said nothing lives in there!"

"I stand by that, what's in there isn't alive, per se."

"Charon, stop being difficult," Azrael snapped. "Michael, he's only trying to wind you up."

"A straight answer! That's all I was looking for." Michael said.

"You won't find any of those here, boy." Charon rasped.

"What did I just say to you?" Azrael said, her pale blue eyes burning with cold fire.

Charon turned his hooded head away. He resumed punting with a low wheeze. Michael swore it was a chuckle.

"He may be a shit, but he's right Michael. There are no straight answers in this place. This isn't a place for answers, only suffering. Even in the Heavens there are no answers. They're considered similar ground, reflections of the other.

"How can Heaven and Hell be the same?" Michael asked.

"They are hollow realms, based only on the perceptions of their residents. Take the souls away and there's nothing left. The residents make the place. Not the other way around."

Michael saw her eyes burning with a new intensity. The fires of a passionate ideal.

"When the souls are here, one flat is for pain and the other is for fulfilment." Death said. "Almost everyone else waits alone in the fog."

She moved to sit on the thwart in front of Michael. With her back facing downstream, her blue eyes burned upstream at Charon. "Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, you've been living your life as a human. Inside a strict belief structure," she said, "you have specific ideas about what life after death is supposed to be. Once your physical life ends, you'd travel into these heavy realms. Whatever particular Heaven or Hell you believe you should find will be waiting here."

Michael nodded his head. He struggled to focus on her words rather than her face, her eyes, or the way her mouth curled to one side when she smiled.

"If you had been true to your beliefs and acted in whatever fashion was considered appropriate, you'd probably end up in your idea of Heaven. That Heaven would be a place inhabited only by fellow believers. Similar beliefs find similar beliefs. It's a world exactly like Earth. Hell can even cross over and affect space in the physical world."