• I hate it here.

    I stretched out my legs in the small amount of room I had in front of me, the bones popping and muscles aching from lack of movement. The shallow, hollow sound of breathing was resonating off the walls.

    I hate the quiet.

    It used to never be quiet. There was always music. Music of nature – footsteps, laughing, the wind, crying...anything. Any type of sound would be better than this utter, complete torture that is silence. The silence that's ripping through my ears louder than any noise ever could. False hope was eating away at the time that was slipping away from me slowly; praying and pleading with an unknown god did nothing.

    It was getting harder to breathe. After each passing minute, breath was harder to draw in, as if my throat was slowly closing and becoming useless. The air was thick, too; dampened by some unknown source. It was all I could do at the moment to keep my sanity, to keep any amount of myself that I had left in tact. But I felt empty. I was being destroyed by my own thoughts and doubt. No matter how hard I tried, the endless emotion that I couldn't escape from was burning away at the tip of my core.

    I tapped the stone wall that stood in front of me with my foot in a slow pattern. I hadn't talked in a long time, so any movement involving my vocal chords felt like a futile attempt. I had come to recognize the room even in its darkness. Sight was something I had gotten used to doing without, and all my other senses seemed heightened in it's absence. I heard everything, felt everything, and smelled everything. I heard the scuttle of the smallest creature that managed to make its way into my hole, the tingle of a small breeze that made its way in from insignificant cracks in the walls, and the smell of the soil underneath my dying body.

    I also felt the deep void within my soul, growing bigger with each heartbeat.

    My lifeline was missing. I felt the ties being severed slowly, day by day, hour by hour, millisecond by millisecond, as each string was cut by the sharp edges caused by the absence of my reason for being. At first there were cords and cables; steel and strong, connecting me to my life source, but soon even the seemingly indestructible was destroyed by those monstrous beings that didn't understand us. That didn't comprehend the meaning of what it meant to be completely dependent on one thing. To be fully engulfed in the presence of another and to need – to constantly yearn for – that tingle of presence and that connection of fates.

    I sat in the silence for a few moments longer, making small movements to convince my brain that my body was still there. A small spider that had made its way onto my soiled leg was the only presence I felt.

    I feared that I might not be able to keep my fingers from slipping off of the small grasp on the branch of life I had left; afraid that I couldn't keep myself from falling into the endless cavern of death that closely taunted me. That is, until a shock was sent through my body in tremors, a wave of warmth that splashed over my senses in an instant.

    I felt the presence of another. Somewhere closer than usual. I immediately jolted to a start, my body pained by the sudden movements, but I was blinded by the excitement I felt in having another conscious, thinking being near me. I leapt to my feet, dragging my hands along the rough walls to feel around the small space, praying that the presence was somewhere close enough for me to touch.

    I felt nothing. Despair came over me once again; the realization that nothing tangible with a pulse was anywhere close enough for me to feel or to connect with, severed another string. I slid slowly back down the wall, thumping to a halt against the dirt. I mustn't give up complete hope. The feeling still had not left me completely - I knew someone was near. The sound of a heartbeat, faint but distinctable, was close enough for me to hear and sense. I didn't tap my foot this time. I strained with all the strength I had left to listen. The repetitive drumming of a heartbeat was like Mozart's symphony – a masterpiece to my longing ears. And then, in an instant, heaven came in choirs of angels.

    “Abel.”

    The voice was pure. Elegant. Smooth, longing, sweet, justifiably perfect in every way. The most loving voice I had ever had the pleasure of experiencing. But most of all, it was recognizable.

    And it was calling my name.

    “Abel. Abel are you there? Answer me.” A light thumping followed the angelic voice, as if gentle hands were hitting the stone form the other side.

    My arms shot to the wall, my fingernails ripping off as I attempted in futility to tear into the stone like an animal. I pushed until I forced a sound to emit from my parched mouth, the sound tearing through me throat and resonating in my mouth.

    “Avi!” I managed to choke. “Oh my God!” The intense amount of joy and elation I felt was indescribable. No longer was this hole a prison – no longer was it a hell. The cables that had been worn down over time due to the absence of Avi had been resurrected and they now bound me to to my cave. I continued to fight a useless battle against the wall. It was now my enemy – the only thing keeping my ties from reaching nearer to their true destination.

    “Calm down, Abel. Don't wear yourself out. You'll never be able to make your way through the stone, it's too thick.” A sigh followed the pained voice. My spirit fell as I heard the hurt hidden behind the voice. I knew it was true. The possibility of me fighting though the barrier with my own weakened body was one millionth to one – an absurd fantasy. I continued to beat the wall out of anger, hot tears rolling down my cheeks.

    I was elated and miserable at the same time – the synchronization of the two emotions mixing like oila and water, confusing me. The external darkness that surrounded me now clouded my thoughts as well. I had never felt this much joy in anything – knowing that my reason, my love, my everything, was alive and near me rekindled my strength. But as soon as the strength was regained, it was ripped apart as the reality sunk in.

    Avi was in hell now, too.

    I breathed heavily until I felt my pulse return to normal. “You have to get out of here. You can't suffer like the rest of us. You don't deserve to.”

    “What a foolish thing to say. I deserve it just as much as everyone else, Abel. I'm repulsive. A deformed creature.”

    I kicked the wall, sending a flake of stone off into the abyss. “Don't say that. There's nothing wrong with you. If there's something wrong with you, there's something wrong with me.”

    Avi was silent for a moment, letting the reality of what I said sink in.

    “...I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean that. Still stubborn as ever, I see. Even if you don't agree with me, it's my fault you're here. You never had to respond to me two years ago, you had no obligation to be with me the way you were - “

    “Shut up. That doesn't matter now. You know that even if I tried to leave, I wouldn't have been able to. It's my own fault I'm in here. All that matters is you're here and I'm here. You and me. That's all that matters now.” The repetition was helping me more that Avi. I wanted to drill it in my head. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else matters. Nothing else will matter for as long as I'm here. I have to be with Avi, I have to get to the other side of the wall somehow.

    I kicked and sent another crack off the wall. It hurt – badly, but the pain was nothing compared to the separation. I could handle it until I broke though the wall.

    I kicked lightly at the wall. Avi sat in silence. My love preferred the silence at times, unlike myself. Avi loved to feel. To think and imagine. The creativity emanating from that mind is one to rival Beethoven and Bach.

    “Sing for me, Abel.”
    No second request was needed. I sang loud and clearly, the sound catching in the tiny tomb and rebounding off to fill me with my own music.

    Hell sure does have good acoustics.

    “I missed you.” Avi said quietly, barely audible through the barrier. I put my hand on the wall. “I love you.”

    ~

    “How did you get here?”

    Finally the question was asked. After days of sitting, singing, and connecting again, Avi was curious. “I guess I should have assumed the question would come sooner or later. Do you really want to know?”

    “I wouldn't have asked if I didn't.”

    I inhaled deeply.

    “I was planning to travel to the Southern-most part of the city a few days after we had seen each other. I knew it might be awhile before we would be together and I felt in need of a cleansing. I was planning on writing there; I packed my guitar and a change of clothes. Before I departed, I wrote a letter and addressed it to the public mail box closest to where I knew you were staying at the time, in order that the Oretta wouldn't happen to stumble upon it; however, I unknowingly sent it without the realization that the Oretta now have station to intercept mail before it is delivered to it's final destination. They've thought of everything... I wasn't the only one that was destroyed by simple words – at least ten others were taken with me in that one batch of writings. The used the return address, of course, to intercept me just a day after I had left. The brutality was horrifying, even for them...they honestly show no mercy. The crushed my guitar, cut my hair on the spot and stripped me down. The untarnished take pleasure in ridiculing the imperfect. They were devils in a purest form. Not in their normality, but in their insensitivity for my feelings. They spat at me, called me a demon. They made me feel inhuman, like a freak show on display. They got passerbys to join in the ridiculing as well before they led me off. I was an example for the people. Anyone in that crowd that might have once been in love was no longer tainted. The travel to where we are now was silent, except for one girl. She wouldn't stop screaming. As if screaming would stop what was coming...as if it would make things better. She was so young...and so naive. Love was so easy for her. There was a couple there, too. Holding hands for the last time. They were killed on the spot. I kept my eyes closed the rest of the way. I couldn't take the stares, the laughter, the utter repulsion from the onlookers. We arrived and I was taken through a line, past a series of buildings in which people were being led into. Those that showed any affection were immediately killed. The last bit of sunlight that I saw was at least a month ago...I lost track of time. Time has no existence in here. The sun...I miss the sun. The warmth. To see the glow of twilight and the shimmer of dawn...things I took for granted. I miss feeling warm.”

    Avi touched the other side of the stone, and I could sense a small amount of heat that managed to make its way to my side.

    “It's cold over here, too.”

    Cold was an understatement. I was shivering, shaking down to my fingertips. The physical cold could never be escaped in here. Hell wasn't hot...there were no flames, there was no burning or inferno.

    It was emptiness. Cold, unfeeling, unchanging emptiness.

    “I'll tell you my story some other time.”

    Avi never told me the story.

    ~

    “Forbidden things were always appealing to you.”

    I didn't have the strength to laugh. “Not forbidden – beautiful. The world they live in is black and white. and covered in blood. Once one of them feels love, it will all be over.”

    Avi scoffed. “Love. What a feeling. It has become the ruin of this earth, though it's the only thing that's true. What a paradoxical world we live in, Abel.”

    “The Oretta will realize their mistake. They can't go on living this incredible, ridiculous lie for forever.” I persisted. Avi chuckled sarcastically. “You were always one to be hopeful, even in times when it's foolish to be. The Oretta will never understand. Just as a fish doesn't know what it's like to be out of water without dying, or as a snake will never know what it's like to fly – the Oretta will never understand what it's like to be in love.”

    “But isn't love hope? We have to hope that it can't be like this forever. That God won't allow it.”

    “I stopped believing in God when he stopped believing in me, Abel. Maybe it's time you gave that some thought as well.” Avi was dying from the inside out. It scared me, seeing this deterioration of an angel. “If God cannot accept me for who I am, how can I be expected to accept him if I've never even seen him? If he's never given me any indication that he's saving me, that he loves me more than you do?” I heard the panic cracking along with the voice.

    “He brought you to me. Even under these circumstances, you're still here, aren't you? With me?” Another dry laugh followed. “Enclosed in a hell, banished into a world where we're sentenced to be separated forever. That doesn't sound much like a heaven to me, angel.”

    For a moment, it didn't to me either. I kicked the wall. I knew there was a God, because by some miracle I was making a dent in it.

    “Just be patient, Avi. We'll be out of this hell eventually. It's not permanent. I see it as a purgatory. Life is a purgatory. I can never be fully united with you until I finish this. Just wait.”
    Avi sighed deeply, “Abel...look at what this place has done to you. You have to realize that you're only killing yourself faster by hoping that there will be a way out of here. Just...be with me. Please, don't kill yourself. If you die, then I die. It's as simple as that.”

    “As long as I have a reason to live, I'll live.”

    Avi cried.

    ~

    I was barely alive.

    Will power was my strength. Avi spoke more than I did, reciting poetry and music lyrics as best as they could be remembered. The wall was slowly coming down.

    I somehow found the inner strength to destroy it. Months, years, centuries of kicking had caused the wall to wither down to mere stones. The few stones that kept my final chords from connecting.

    The hell was warming; the atmosphere changing. I felt heaven. It was so close...close enough for me to reach out and almost touch but never get to. But I knew I could get there. It washed over me, the warmth. Full of emotion I had never felt before in my life. Avi's voice was beginning to blur. All I could hear was the rush of the warmth cascading into my tiny room. I couldn't see, or hear, or feel anything anymore.

    My body was barely intact. I had managed to live off of the pure desire to push through the wall, and now that it was almost complete my body recognized the victory and was shutting itself down. In a few moments, I would no longer have a reason to live.

    I reached through the gaping hole in hell, the stone hot under my touch as I pushed the last bits of rock away from the barrier to the other side of the wall. Avi was waiting for me, knowing the day was near.

    “Congratulations, Angel. You just conquered hell.”

    I continued the last bit of force I had in my arms to break through into the room and rest my hand on Avi's.

    “Two angels caught in hell have finally escaped. You're a miracle.”

    I wrapped my fingers as tightly as I could manage, the final ounces of liquid left in my body falling in streams from my eyes, drowning the room.

    “You are my reason to live, Avi. I have no more.”

    “You are my heaven, Abel. Let's bring love to the world together.”

    I closed my eyes into the darkness and slept forever.