[BOOK TWO]
"Anniversaries to some are like counting the years spent doing something great, years spent together, or years spent alive." I started slowly, voice dropping to a drawl as I peeked cautiously out of my bedroom blinds, scanning the road to...
I FIRST BEGAN to carve the edges of the rope where I can reach. It wasn't easy to remove the blade from the holster, but since Jonah had been dumb enough to leave my legs untied, I managed to stretch my legs up to retrieve the switchblade from my thigh. My years cheerleading had never served me better than today. All those stretches where I had whined about back during my glory days in high school soon became a vital lesson that could lead to my escape.
Who would've thought?
My hand bent itself at an odd angle, desperate to saw through the rope before it became too much of a strain. On a bigger scale, I also had to beat Lucius in getting myself back to Hell and to find Dimitri.
What a strange escape. I was escaping towards war instead of away from it. Towards the battlefield where chaos reigns, instead of fleeing towards the safety of my home. I could if I wanted to. I am sure Heaven will not bear the horrors of the deeper parts of Hell. It will be much more pleasant, and without a doubt I will be able to escape back home to my family and Bella with the aid of time.
For that, however, I will be giving up the other half of my life. My other best friend, Minnie, who was still in the middle of the raging war. I will lose my new friends, Wilhelm, Calvin and even Fabian. And of course, Dimitri. I might not see him again until the day it is time for me to pass on. That is, if he wins this war. If not, all of Hell will burn brighter than how the bible and the rest of history thinks.
The rope holding my right hand secure against the armrest of the couch snapped off, breaking my wrist free as I rotated the joint a few times to ease the discomfort. It took less than a few mere seconds to remove the next and last bind, and soon enough I was home free.
As much as it pained me, I made the decision to leave my dazzling heels behind. Such a shoe will be pain to use in war, and it will be best to go without them. By a pure stroke of luck, however, the ugliest pair of green rain boots were placed near the door. It was seated beneath another loop of rope and a shovel. Perhaps it had been gardening shoes for Jonah, but I didn't stop to think twice. Slipping my feet into the boots, I quickly ripped my floor-length dress at the knee, shortening it drastically. As the blade of the knife went through the silky fabric of my dress, a little bit of my heart tore with it as well.
It was an impossible task to navigate to Hell. Perhaps towards Earth it would've been easier, seeing as how angels had long since watched their human counterparts. And yet Hell would've been cornered off from Heaven, their only conjoining path being Paradise itself.
Yeah, maybe that would be it. Just search for an endless line of lush green leaves and an infinite forest. Wouldn't be that hard, considering this entire realm is a pure snow white.
My feet walked instinctively, taking the path in which Lucius had led me down upon during our journey here. It seemed almost stupid of him to bring me here, only to leave me alone without any of the guards he had instructed Jonah to place. It was nearly too easy, too simple for Lucius. If he had asked Jonah for guards, it is impossible that the latter wouldn't oblige.
So what was it that will be in my path? What will make this escape tougher than it seems?
The answer to my question was immediately answered a little more down. After I jogged past the place in which Lucius had teleported us to, I immediately noticed a large green background. However, these lush trees were not on a level ground.
The white pavement cut off sharply, ending right like the cliff I had fallen from back when searching for my way to Hell at the start of this entire journey. The drop was unforgiving, and at least a skyscraper's worth of decent should one ever drop from it cluelessly.
Now I know why Dimitri and the rest of the boys never returned to Heaven. They did not have their wings; they could not fly their way here. And to add on to that, perhaps their teleporting abilities do not work within Heaven as well, thus further restricting their entrance to this sacred realm.
"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered under my breath, daring to peek over the edge.
The cliff extended into a roaring waterfall, thundering down onto the floors of Paradise and spreading into a large pool of water. Even if there weren't any rocks down by the riverbank, the fall will surely be too deadly.
My heart began to pump even louder than before, ringing in my ears as I bit my bottom lip. Either way, I had to jump. To go home or to go to Hell, this will probably be the way out of Heaven seeing as how I had arrived in Paradise first before the rest of the realms.
I hesitated, oscillating between looking at the deadly beautiful waterfall and the safety of the heavenly ground behind me. While I was doing so, a single familiar voice snapped me out of the hint of fear, sending me into a wide-eyed frenzy looking for the speaker.
"You got to jump, Pilediah! I'll catch you!" Fabian's voice called even though his body was nowhere to be seen.
"Now I'm hallucinating speeches," I muttered to myself. "How lovely."
"You are not hallucinating, damn mortal. Now jump! Hell is at war because of you. The least you could do is actually be in it."
Ah, now that sounded more like the real Fabian.
Knowing that jumping was my only way out of Lucius' obsessive grip, Fabian or no Fabian catching me, I took a deep breath before taking a few steps back in order to give myself space for a head-start run. The wind whipped my hair back, thrusting the blonde mess behind me as I took a final gasp of air before my feet left the contact of the ground.
For a second there, I was flying. I was soaring through the air like a free bird, dancing with the winds before gravity finally caught up with me. Once the second of glory was over, I was met with the full force of the unforgiving gravity. Following the flow of the waterfall, I fell.
And boy was the fall unforgiving.
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