Somewhere in Between

I stepped through that door expecting fire and brimstone, souls being chased by hell hounds, thoughts of possible scenarios in the seconds it took me to go through the door. What was on the other side though was completely unexpected. It was a large, almost barren room, except for a couple of chairs and a large desk on the far wall. If I didn’t know what I had done and where I’d gone, I’d think this was the reception area for a big company. But it wasn’t, and the fact that it was nothing like I thought it would be only served to frighten me even more.

I glanced around, and saw a door I hadn’t noticed opened on the far right portion of the wall with the desk. It was designed to look just like part of the wall.
My heartbeat accelerated, which was funny because I was dead mind you, and my palms began to sweat. Who was coming in here? My whole body hummed with anticipation, and adrenaline. Standard fight or flight procedure, but I didn’t run and I didn’t fight. I just stood perfectly still adrenaline still running through my veins and willed the person behind the door to hurry up and come out already.

When they did, I felt like fainting. It was really him, my beloved Ryan. I couldn’t believe my luck, I get to hell and the first thing I see is him. I ran towards him and when I got close enough, I jumped on him. He had seen me running towards him, but hadn’t expected me to jump on him and as a result of the unexpected shift in balance, and he fell. With me on top of him.

“What are you doing here?" he asked me in an overly concerned voice.

“I came here to be with you because…” I stopped. Could I really tell him? Well I had died to come to him, so it must be obvious already.

“I love you, with all my heart and I couldn’t bear being away from you,” I told him leaning down to press a kiss to his lips. He returned the kiss happily and then pulled away.
“Do you remember when I said I had something to tell you later?”

“Does this count as later?”

“It does and guess what?” he asked, a smile on his face.

“What?” I asked him with a smile as well, not being able to hold it back.

“I love you.”
And with that, he pressed his lips to mine just as I had done not even minutes before.

“Well isn’t this a nice sight.” a cold voice came from the vicinity of the door Ryan had come through.

We pulled away from each other and looked to where the voice was coming from. There stood a man, his face all sharp angles and very cold.

Ryan gasped and pushed me up and then I helped pull him up.

“Ryan, I send you down here to greet the new soul and this is what I find you doing?” the man snapped, Ryan's anger evident on his face.

“It wasn’t his fa…”

“Did I say you could talk?” The man cut me off from taking the blame away from Ryan and putting it on me, it was after all, mostly my fault.

“Sir, is there something you need me to do?” Ryan cut in after that.

“Indeed there is, take him down.” The man said with absolutely no feeling on his face.
“What?!” Ryan cried out, panic coloring his voice.

“I won’t do it! Let me take his place? Anything for him not to go down there.” Ryan begged and once he said those words I understood. I understood who this man was and what going down there meant.

“Sir, please. I’ll do-”

“No!” I cut in.

“No, you’re not going down there. I made my choice; no matter the consequence and even if, I have to go down there, away from you. I’ll still find comfort in the fact that your somewhere nearby, because I know you will be."

The man, who was in fact The Devil, grabbed my arm and proceeded to yank me towards the door. I was staring at Ryan the whole time. He had fallen to his knees and tears were running down his face. I felt my heart breaking just looking at him like this. He looked up and me and mouthed I love you. I did the same.

Just before I was pulled through the door, a white mist started swirling up behind Ryan. I gasped alerting Ryan as to what was forming.

“Stop right there Lucifer.” A booming voice suddenly came from the mist and the devil froze and turned around. Yanking the mist and me towards Ryan.

“What are you doing down here!?” Lucifer spat.

“I came to get that which belongs to me.” The mist spat right back.

“Nothing down here belongs to you. So leave before I do something we’ll both regret. But mostly you.” The devil hissed at the mist in a condescending tone.

“Lucifer, Ryan’s mother is about to die, therefore his contract has been terminated and Ian is only here while Ryan is here. As per his last words, he would not be here otherwise. Now let us leave peacefully or…” the mist left the threat hanging and Lucifer showed actual fear.

“Fine take them, but don’t bother coming down here again, I’ll honor my contracts. Just as long as you never show your face here again.”

“You know that is a promise I can’t keep, but for now I shall go.” The mist said and enveloped Ryan and me.

I moved my hands around until I hit something. I knew it was Ryan so I grabbed on to him as we continued our journey up.

When we reached our destination, the mist simply whispered, “Welcome.” and disappeared.