Eyes of the Devil

He didn’t know how long he had been falling. Hours, perhaps…or was it only minutes? He had lost his concept of time, let alone his sense of direction. Up was down and left was right. He could see nothing except the darkness completely encasing him at the moment. He could feel, however. The dry, heated air blowing his hair away from his face (he was falling face down, he decided) and bringing thin tears to his eyes also brought warning. Of what, he was unsure. Only one thing was clear to him at the moment.

This was anything but Heaven.

The feeling of crunching bones finally brought his fall to an end. Cringing at the gruesome sound, he was almost too afraid to move. A few short, gasping breaths escaped his parted lips, and his eyes opened in shock.

“I’m…not hurt?” he asked the warm, stale air, coughing a few times as it baked his lungs dry. “I didn’t…break…anything?”

He shifted slightly, and a thousand clipped ivory echoes met his ears. Slowly creaking to his hands and knees, he chanced to look around. His thin fingers wrapped around several sharp edges, and he immediately withdrew them. To his surprise, he did not bleed. The scratches disappeared within seconds. Changing his focus to the surface he was currently kneeling on, a sudden realization came to him.

Bones. A giant pile of cracked skulls and limbs, clumsily tossed to the ground, now serving as a platform for him. A raspy scream rose to his throat and threatened to escape, but it died out quickly. His jaw dangled halfway open in disbelief, but at the same time, he realized how normal this was.

A dim red glow to his left temporarily captured his attention, and he attempted to stand without being pulled beneath the top layer of bones. Finally scrambling to his feet and stabling himself like an explorer scoping out new territory, he gazed across the horizon.

A ribbon of flowing embers wove like a serpent across the flat expanse, neatly severing it in two and creating a visible boundary. Lava from a volcano, he guessed, or perhaps a path of destruction brought by some war. The latter would make more sense. Why else would there be so many bones beneath his feet?

Just as this chilling thought entered his mind, the mound providing his vantage point began to rumble and quiver. He flailed his arms wildly to maintain his balance, but all in vain as it gave way, seeming to recede from him and drop him unceremoniously on the stone-covered ground.

Before he recovered from the dizziness brought on by what was sure to be a concussion, the bones began to rattle and clink together of their own accord. Smaller ones the size of pebbles skittered around his feet and returned to their owners while longer ones stacked on top of each other to form arms, legs, and ribcages. Full skeletons formed around him. And all at once, they began to walk.

He quickly scrambled to his feet, hoping not to be run over. A pair of legs walked by him, cut off at the base of the spine. Another skeleton passed by, wildly swinging an unattached arm and accidentally slamming it into the back of his head. He pressed a hand to this new injury and winced at the cold feeling of blood.

“Hey, watch it,” he grumbled. A sharp pain gripped the middle of his chest, and he looked down to see an indentation the diameter of his finger poised just above his heart. He gingerly touched it, sending shockwaves of throbbing pain throughout the injury.

A tall shadow eclipsed the ruby glow of the fire for a moment before moving along. He weakly glanced toward it and was shocked to see the elongated form of a horse walking by. The light passed through its empty ribcage, casting bars of red on his face, like a prisoner looking out of a cell. He shook the thought off quickly and began walking as well. He managed to remain mostly hidden within the throng of bones and half-finished humans. Though judging from their walking speed, he had to wonder if they were once human at all. They hardly gave him any notice, never showing that they even realized he was there.

All at once the ground beneath his feet sloped sharply, and he joined the skeletons as they tumbled head over heels down the hill. Most of them landed in another heap of bones, only to roll back up into their regular walking positions just as quickly. He, however, did not fare quite as well. A large gash formed on his forehead along with magnificent violet bruises painting his arms. He blinked and stared as they deepened a shade, then lightened and disappeared within seconds. He tenderly touched the cut on his forehead and jumped when he felt the skin knitting itself back together beneath his fingers. The injury on the back of his skull seemed to have healed as well. In fact, were it not for the strange opening in his chest, one would suspect he had never been injured at all.

They slid down another hill; this time he managed to stay on his feet. At the base of the short slope, the rough stone changed to a different surface. From a distance he thought he was looking at thousands of interlocking grains of rice, spreading along the road beyond his line of vision. They seemed to be parallel to one another, and almost worn smooth by time. As he neared this road, however, he quickly realized he had been wrong. Very wrong.

It was paved with bones.

He hesitated to step onto the new ground, and as soon as he did, he realized he was alone. The skeletons had retreated away from him. He turned around and glanced back up the hill – which he now realized was actually just a very short mountain among others – to see them stumbling back up to the top, only to tumble down again and repeat the process. He shook his head and glanced away, taking another step forward and trying to forget about them.

“Gerard Way,” called a gruff voice nearby, followed by a few steps from a horse’s hooves. He halted instantly and stood still, almost marveling at the sound of his own name and how it seemed to fit so well with the world around him. He glanced toward the voice and nodded once, unsure who was addressing him. He glanced upwards at a slight angle and saw a man’s face, someone not much older than himself and with hair a deep shade of red.

“Hurry up now, we haven’t got all day. It’s unwise to keep him waiting, you know,” the man grumbled. He swept one muscular arm in the direction of something behind him, and Gerard slowly stepped toward it, but stopped. He could hardly see anything within the shadows, and he wasn’t quite sure he trusted this mysterious man just yet.

“What are they doing?” he asked hoarsely, lifting one limp finger to motion to the bizarre ritual of the skeletons. Surprisingly, the man before him rolled his eyes, which flickered a shade of red precisely that of blood. Gerard sincerely hoped it was only the light.

“It’s a game to them,” the man replied. “They try to see if they can keep their bones from getting mixed up with each other’s. Now let’s go; he’ll be displeased if I return late.”

Gerard stood firmly in place. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me a few things. What’s going on, where am I, and who the hell is this person you keep talking about?!”

The man continued glaring at him for a second longer before picking him up and tossing him back a few feet. The sound of horse hooves clattering against bone filled Gerard’s ears as the creature took off at a gallop. He slowly stood up, immediately regretting it once heated air blasted his face once again. He returned to a sitting position, realizing he had been placed in a cart of some kind, perhaps even a carriage. A sharp turn threw him to one side, and as the cart was righted again, he caught a better glimpse of the man in the gleam of the ruby light. The man who had essentially kidnapped him was not a man at all. He was a centaur, and now Gerard was at his mercy.