Page 72 of Faith and Damnation

I wondered, as I stared into the abyss, if that was how Gadriel had felt before she was thrown in the pit. I shook the thoughts from my mind before they got any further. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to go on. But Medrion was out there, somewhere, and we needed to get to him before he got to Lucifer.

Otherwise, all was lost.

Abaddon carefully touched the tip of his boot to the fraying bridge of Light. It rippled like water, the light fading as the waves of light rolled away from his foot. He stomped down on the now transparent section of bridge and was surprised to find that it remained solid.

“That’s not disorienting at all,” I said.

“We can see the bridge’s dimensions and general trajectory ahead of us,” he said, “As long as we stay on the path and move with purpose, we should not fall.”

The wind howled above us as it went racing overhead, the voices of the lost souls trapped within it whispering as they sailed past. Already I could see spectral forms rushing across the bridge, faces and limbs forming out of thin-air, mouths twisted with pain, skeletal hands reaching for its Light.

“You make it sound so easy.” I remarked.

Abaddon laughed grimly. “We will have to do our best to withstand them,” he said. “We cannot give up any more of our Light.”

“I know. Get to the machines, restart them… that’s how we help them.”

“Agreed. And whatever you do, don’t look back.”

I frowned at him. “Back? Don’t you meandown?”

“I meanback. We are being followed.”

I wanted to look. I needed to look. How could someone tell you not to do something, and expect you not to do exactly that thing? Instead, I stared at him, swallowing the ball that had surged up into my throat. “What… what’s following us?” I dared.

“I am not sure, but I spotted it as soon as we exited the valley. It is stalking us, with the very likely intention of consuming our Light—all of it.”

Great. Just great.

It was one thing to satiate lost souls with Light; they had left me weak, although time and Abaddon’s own Light had recharged me. It was an entirely different matter to be consumed. Whatever he had seen was bad enough to make him want to spare me it, and that scared me more. Heaven was warped and broken, but I couldn’t imagine an entity here that would want to hunt and eat us.

It wasn’t that long ago, at least from my perspective, that I had been soaring over the Sacred City and bathing in the warm light of our heavenly sun. I still remembered the way the sunlight danced on the golden surface of the many basilicas that made up the skyline of the Sacred City. So much light, so much joy, and love, and peace.

And underneath it… rot.

That’s where these creatures are coming from, from the bowels of Heaven; from the deepest, darkest chambers in this place.

More and more I was starting to realize that Heaven was built on bad foundations, and that those foundations had been cracking and breaking ever since Lucifer’s rebellion. God had entrusted him to build Her vision of paradise, but that vision was powered by human souls. Seeing the lost spirits, how they begged, and how I’d felt compelled to help them; I could hardly blame Lucifer for rebelling—their pain was our own.

Her commandments contradicted everything.

Shehad doomed us all from the start.

Abaddon put his foot back onto the bridge, and followed tentatively with the second, bouncing a little to test its sturdiness once more before offering me his hand. I grabbed it and looked purposefully into his eyes as I pulled myself onto the bridge, determined not to look down, or back. He smiled warmly at me, and I couldn’t help feeling that familiar butterfly flip in mystomach. I was glad he was there with me, amidst the monsters and chaos.

I wouldn’t have been strong enough to face it on my own.

“Ready?” asked Abaddon.

I nodded. “As ready as I can be,” I said.

“Together, then.”

We took our first steps across the bridge of Light, over the gaping wound in the ground below. It looked like we were walking on air, but it felt more like walking a tightrope. The bridge ahead of us was lit, but when it flickered and faded, there was nothing underneath us but an infinite dark that went… well, only God would’ve known.

As soon as we were out on the bridge proper, the winds began to buffet us again. The first gust brought with it a shrieking wail, a disembodied moan from a voice that came rushing past us. I felt someone grab my arm and try drag me toward the edge of the bridge, but Abaddon was firm and unmovable on his feet, and he had me securely by the arm.

I looked up the entire length of the bridge as it stretched away from us and into the sky. This was going to be one hell of a climb, made only more difficult by the constant barrage coming at us from all around.

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