Chapter 4 - Just Like Heaven

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A small strand of light escaped through the clouds, glared onto his shut eyelids while the wind blew the white sands over his body. His lips did but move to breathe, though only faint voice could be heard escaping.

“E…Eve…,” was muttered.

His eyes opened wide to see the light escaping dark storm clouds above. Though it wasn’t very bright, it felt blinding to him. He’d been unconscious for almost a week’s time.

“What the hell,” he exclaimed loudly, but through the winds and the roar of nearby waves not much could be heard.

He’d been laying asleep on an empty beach, the water from the ocean dark and murky, crashing on the shore only one hundred meters from where he now sat. It seems the light was enough to wake him where we could not, however it hadn’t shone since he fell here.

“How in the hell did I get out here? And just where the fuck is here?”

He looked around frantically; up both ends of the beach, hoping to see some kind of habitat. But nothing. He stood up quickly, and climb to a nearby dune to get another perspective. Still, nothing.

The scenery, as the land was laid out, included the vast expanse of desert beach sand, the raging dark sea in one direction, and a deep distant forest in the other; all of this was dreary in a way. The trees were tall, and dark; far off in the distance (thought it stood out very apparently) lay a much larger tree, towering above the rest. The little bit of light that woke him had already escaped back into the clouds.

The shade continued on forever it seemed.

“I don’t know where I am, or how I got here but there’s got to be someone around,” he grumbled as he reached for his phone. He found that most of his belongings were missing, however his phone was still where he expected.

“Great…I get fucking mugged, left for dead…and all the leave is my phone,” he opened it up, “which has no fucking signal. Good game.”

Despite not having signal, he happened to glance at the date on the screensaver.

“Holy shit! I’ve been out for a fucking week!? How the hell did I…” his yells were drowned out by a nearby scream, one that seemed very familiar. “Eve!?…” another scream, “EVE!”

He ran toward the screams, near the torrent waters. When he arrived however, nobody was there. But there was a set of footsteps walking toward the water, and disappearing at the line the tide would come up to, left in the sand; no signs of struggle…a willing march into the ebb.

“Eve…I…did you drown?,” he asked in a whisper as he fell to his knees before the mighty ocean. A tear escaped his eyes, and though I was told not to interfere, I could sit in wake no longer.

“I feel this is where I must make my introduction…”

Even we angels have our limits.

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“Why won’t you show me how you do it Vale?,” she pleaded of him, with a resounding giggle, “just show me how you can do it so well.”

He was reading a book beneath a willow tree on an outstretched blanket; she was sitting next to him, holding his arm, and suggestively nudging him.

“Do what so well my dear?,” he looked over at her with a sarcastic glimmer in his eye. “Make you…scream?”

“And make me laugh. How you make me melt,” she said softly into his ear. She slid her arms around his neck, pushed aside his book, and pressed her forehead to his so they faced one another. “Show me how you do it and…”

“…and what,” he asked.

“…I promise to run away with you,” she whispered.

He kissed her, grabbed her by the wrist, and in one movement swung her down onto the blanket; he leaned over her, his glasses flung off to the side, the book tossed even further. Her eyes were wide, and her breathing heavy. He breathes were deep and violent.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said to her, staring her straight in the eyes, as he leaned down to kiss her neck. He pinned both her wrists down with each of his hands.

“I promise. I’ll run away with you,” she closed her eyes and said in a suggestive tone.

“I’ll hold you to that…If you must know,” he explained, “the trick is nothing more than what lies inside of me dear.” She looked at him perplexed. “A beast…that can not be tamed.”

She paused for a moment, and then began to chuckle. His expression however did not change in humor, but rather became more serious; his eyes now took on a sinister glare. When she realized this, she began to worry…and shuffled up from beneath him.

He picked up his glasses, and put them back on; his eyes locked off into space toward the forest. She stared at him, now fettered by his sudden change.

“Vale…Vale you’re scaring me,” she said. “Vale what’s gotten into you?”

A snarl came from his mouth, and his eyes grew intense into the distance over her shoulders. She shuddered a bit. Just then, a very close loud howl came from behind her. She let out a small squeak of fear, and her eyes began to well with tears of fear.

As she turned to see what it was, He reached past her very quickly, grabbing a large black wolf by the neck, and quickly slamming him up against the tree pinned. Still with his right arm outstretched. It was very apparent that the wolf was not yet dead, but getting there.

He turned over his left shoulder, fixed his glasses with his left hand, and looked her in the eyes. She could see blood of the wolf ,splattered from the impact to the tree, on his face.

He told her, “the trick is…I never let you see me at my worst. But I fear it’s become too late. The beast is…aware Ver…”
She jolted up from her bed, dripping sweat.

“Another freakin nightmare,” she thought to herself, “and again with Vale. I swear, I don’t hear from him in a month, and I start having the craziest dreams…nightmares about him.”

He’d been out of touch, as we previously explained. The dreams kept worsening, and her state of delirium was enough for the army to have to remove her from full active-duty; she was on temporary-on-site leave, and under supervision of medics in the mean time.

“PTS syndrome, or whatev, my ass, I just need to stop thinking about that asshole,” she said out loud. “He could at least call me and give me some freakin…something, geez.”

She sat and thought about the dreams, as she’d grown accustomed to doing. Even though she hated the nightmares, she still worried they might represent a bigger problem, so she evaluated all of them just the same.

The men, the trees, the wolf. They all had to mean something bigger; they couldn’t just be objects or scenery. The actions, the places, the time and events: all of these had to be something bigger. To be honest, she’s always been this way. Even when all she was doing was watering their life source, she thought about everything she saw.

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His head shot up and swung around behind him. A tall figure clad in a full set of white and gold plated armor, and helmet in his right arm. A glow about him seemed to illuminate the otherwise dismal atmosphere.

“…I apologize for not doing it sooner Vale, but you see, we’re not exactly aloud to up here,” said the figure. “My name is Adam.”

The thoughts shooting through Vale’s head escalated exponentially. Eve, the message, his dreams, and now…

“…yes, that’s who she was referring to,” said Adam. “You have a rather persistent memory for someone in Midgard. Those memories, those figments and fragments, even those little flashes were supposed to have been erased.”

“Erased?” asked Vale.

“Yes, exactly as it sounds,” replied Adam. “They are system glitches, in a sense, and we’re supposed to clean them up so you couldn’t find each other again. But once you did, despite our attempts…I saw how much you suffered to get the…”

Before Adam could finish, Vale swung around quickly, standing to his feet and jolting at Adam, and with one outstretched arm held Adam in the air. A lust for blood sat in his Vale’s eyes now. Adam had no choice.

From a sheath-less hilt at his side, a sword materialized into Adam’s hand, which he swung in the same motion he drew it with. The swing sent out force that sent vale flying ten or so yards, releasing his grip on Adam.

While Vale picked himself up in a daze, he looked over at Adam, floating where he’d been before, choking and gasping for breath, and dripping spit. What amazed Vale more was not the brightly glowing sword now in Adam’s hand, but the slight transparent outline of wings keeping him aloft. Adam had made his point, and Vale now had fear in his heart.

“Who…what….what are you?,” Vale squeezed out, as he shuffled back to his feet. He took a defensive posture, worried for an attack. “Where are we? And what have you done with Eve? You know where she is don’t you!?”

Adam had now collected himself. He set himself back onto the ground, and began slowly walking toward Vale. He placed the materialized blade into the empty sheath, and it seemed to disappear as it went in.

“I guess the first one’s pretty obvious,” Adam said with a smirk, “I’m your valkyrie; your guardian angel. And this? Well, we call it Asgard…”

“Bullshit,” said Vale. “Bullshit!”

“Don’t you wish? At any rate, as for the last question,” Adam continued, “I didn’t do anything with the one you call Eve. Someone higher up is responsible for that…and she’s fine. She’s where she’s been since you got here…fighting your human wars. Noble as she’s always been.”

For some reason, all of this was making a weird kind of sense. Like he’d seen this all before; like he knew what Adam was saying was true. This scared him, but he didn’t question it; he wanted answers, but he couldn’t remember where he’d heard the name Asgard before. Instead he turned back toward the ocean, and began to walk.

“And now where are you going?,” asked Adam.

“To find my way back,” Vale chimed.

“Back,” responded Adam. “Your way back from death? That’s not an easy task to accomplish.”

Vale stopped cold in his tracks. He suddenly remembered where he had heard the term before. “Asgard…,” he muttered, “is Heaven. And so…,” He turned around slowly to face the vast dark forest, and looked far at the tallest of the trees, “…that’s…the Tree of Life…”

“Its name is Yggdrasil, and you would be wise to address it as such,” said Adam, “after all, it’s the fabric that keeps life going on your realm Vili.”

“Why? Why am I here,” Vale begged.

“Don’t sound so desperate. It doesn’t look good on you Vili,” Adam snapped. “And the reason you’re here is the same as anyone: you died.”

Vale was at a loss for thought, and barely whimpered, “how?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure that it’s a normal death by any means. It was voluntary, though, not suicide. If that were the case, you’d be bound for the boats in Niflheim…your death was actually very inter…”

“HOW!?,” Vale now demanded.

“You really don’t remember do you?,” Vale sighed. “You died for her to live…I swear, you remember everything I try to erase, but the past week I didn’t even bother with, you can’t remember a moment. Guess I have no choice…”

Adam put his hand onto Vales chest, and began reciting an indecipherable hymn. Through the sound of the melody, Vale fell asleep and entered a shared dream state.

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Eve’s Dream:

You were in the middle of the water, a radiance emitting from your body. I always dreamed of the ways I could make you glow like that. In ways that only I could see. I always hated heights, but I’d walk out to the cliff’s edge just to see you.

My legs would tremble in fear, and I would often lose my balance, but I would wait there for you. Watching you dance on the ocean’s surface. Twisting around and around, making patterns with your footsteps. You were the wind, softly blowing, shuffling the waves around. And when you were through, you come sit next to me, and I’d kiss you on the forehead.

Then when you left, I stared at the ocean again, and I could hear you from the other side. You asked me to come, but I was bound to this land, and the sea was unforgiving of me.

“Why are you so far away? I should have told you before I left. Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you?” I could hear your voice carry your questions to me. The breeze brought it to me gently every night, in absence of when you would dance.

So I tried. I tried to go to you, but I knew I was bound. And the ocean that separated us told me it would take you from me forever if I didn’t offer myself in return. He said It wouldn’t hurt, and I wouldn’t even remember you when he was done. He said he’d drown my memories of you deep inside me, where nothing could unearth them.

The only girl I loved. I die for you, so please keep dancing. And please keep shining so bright, so that I can find my way back to you.