The Guardian of Threshold (33 page)

***

I was reaching for the box of handles when I heard Phasma’s raspy voice coming from behind. He couldn’t have been more than five feet away.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Phasma asked.

I cringed as I tried to decide whether or not I should turn around, but in the end it was inevitable. So I turned around to face the figure who had been haunting me ever since my mother passed away. It was as though her passing had opened the floodgates of hell.

I knew instinctively that I wasn’t just fighting Phasma. I was fighting fear, rage, fighting a stew of negative feelings and emotions that had dominated my very being for a long time.

“You know what? It’s time for us to settle this,” I said.

“As you wish,” Phasma replied. “You’ll pay for your trespassing.”

“I won’t let you push me or anyone else around anymore,” I said as Phasma stood there staring at me with his cold eyes.

“It’s about time you stopped running from your destiny,” Phasma finally replied.

“Don’t worry, I’m not running anymore. I’ll make a deal with you, whatever happens, you leave my friends and family alone,” I said.

“They don’t matter,” Phasma replied.

“I beg to differ. They matter much more than you could ever imagine,” I replied, looking around for anything I could use to defend myself.

“We’re more alike than you know,” Phasma replied.

“I’m nothing like you!” I yelled.

“You’re in denial, but it doesn’t matter. Your suffering shall be your demise,” Phasma said.

There was nothing I could use to defend myself.

In a way, I felt like simply giving up. But in the end, I decided that if I was going to die, I would die fighting. Even if I had to do it with my bare hands.

“You’re a fool if you think there is any hope left,” Phasma continued.

“That’s the only thing I have left, and not you or anyone else can take that away from me,” I replied.

“Hope is nothing but an illusion. Just something to keep fools afloat until the last second, until the end,” Phasma replied with a horrifying laugh.

“Then I guess I’ll die a fool. Speaking of which, why haven’t you killed me yet?” I said.

“The moment had to be right,” replied Phasma.

Cornered, I did the only thing I could: I ran as fast as my legs would take me, figuring that with any luck I would get to the zip line before Phasma had a chance to stop me.

As I turned around and started my desperate run, I felt his claws hit my back and push me onto ground. My face slid across the wooden platform and I felt each splinter as they punctured me. There was little I could do besides scream. My face burned, and my skin felt like it was being ripped off.

My body came to a stop several yards away, but I still felt as though his claws were digging deep inside my back. The pain made me nauseated and weak. When I tried to get up, the pain only intensified.

When I finally managed to get up, Phasma pushed me back onto the ground.

“Get off me!” I screamed with all the strength I had left.

I was wheezing, and the pain was almost intolerable. I became convinced that Phasma was probably right after all: the end was near. A part of me said I should just stop fighting the inevitable, because it would make the permanent transition to the world of the dead easier. I knew then that death was unavoidable, and most of all, that death wasn’t real. There
was
life on the other side, I had seen it, touched it, felt it, and most important of all, lived it. Death was simply a transition, an inevitable change that everyone would have to endure sooner or later. The other part of me argued that I shouldn’t give up. That I should never give up, even when everything seemed lost and hopeless.

At that moment, I remembered what my mother used to tell me when I was a child. In fact, I heard her voice saying, “Mark, as long as you follow your heart, everything will work out just fine. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You’re a good person, but you need to truly believe that.”

Suddenly the pain didn’t bother me anymore. I was busy trying to figure out where I had heard that recently.
No… it couldn’t have been her,
I thought. But I wasn’t mistaken. It had to be her. Had she been right under my nose all this time? Had I been too busy to see her?

I was sure of it. I had spoken with my mother on several occasions; I just didn’t realize it was her. She looked so different yet familiar. I’d finally figured out where my feeling of knowing Mrs. Barnes came from. She was… I paused for a second. She was my mother. I could hardly believe I actually found her. How could I not have realized this sooner? My mother always told me she wanted to be a librarian when she was growing up.

“Let me go! I must see my mother. She’s here,” I yelled at Phasma. As I struggled, the pain became unbearable.

“It’s too late for you,” said Phasma as he forced his claws deeper into my back.

“No, you’re wrong! It’s never too late. And hope is never an illusion. I know that now. Get off me!” I demanded.

For years, I had hoped to see my mother again, and now that I’d finally realized I had, I was bound to the floor without anything to defend myself. I clung to life by a single thread of hope. At least my friends were safe.

“Get off him!” said a fast-approaching voice.

I tried to see who it was, but I couldn’t.

“I said get the hell off him now!” Jonas said, sounding much closer.

The voice was definitely Jonas’s, but I had never heard him sound so courageous or determined.

Suddenly, I felt Phasma’s claws being pulled out of my back. I turned around and noticed that Phasma was no longer on the platform with me.

Puzzled, I looked around, only to find the platform deserted. I hadn’t realized at first that help had come from above, at least not until I saw Spark’s gigantic shadow. As he flew over my head, the bright and sunny day turned into darkness.

Jonas, Carla, and Nyx were riding Spark. His wingspan was insanely large. The only resemblance with that little and scared dragon I’d seen just moments before was the color of his scales and his face.

“Oh my God!” I screamed as they took another pass over me. They flew so low that the wind from Spark’s wings kept me grounded. But Spark wasn’t just flying around for show: Phasma was dangling unconscious from his claws. Apparently, Spark had grabbed Phasma and taken him into the air. The impact must have knocked Phasma out.

Unfortunately, the effect was temporary. I noticed that Phasma was coming to his senses.

Scared, I did the only thing I could think of: I ran and grabbed a zip line handle and threw my body forward with all the strength I had left, aiming for the narrow zip line. It was the scariest thing I had ever done in my life. I almost regretted jumping once I was in the air and it looked like I would miss the line. I was relieved when I finally heard the clicking noise the handle made as it connected to the zip line. The fact that I made it to the zip line was a miracle; I had jumped from several feet away.

I looked back and found Phasma flying right behind me. As he flew, his body left behind a dusty, thick, and black trail. Wherever he flew, darkness took over. Dayside was turning into Nightside.

I was sliding so fast that I had trouble holding on to the handle bar with my left hand. The pain in my back came back. Phasma must have left a wide hole in my back that affected my ability to hold the handle bar.

I glanced back again. Phasma was much closer than I’d hoped. Right behind him were my friends, holding onto Spark’s back for dear life.
Whose idea was this? Certainly not Jonas’s.

Suddenly, I felt a searing pain on my left side. Phasma had shot me with some sort of dark energy beam.

I was about to get hit by another beam when Spark flew in front of Phasma’s line of sight and took the hit on his right wing. He screeched with pain and tumbled through the air. I saw my friends’ faces change to complete desperation.

It hurt too much to continue to hold with both hands, so I let my left hand go and hoped that I could keep holding on with my right.

Phasma was preparing to shoot a potentially fatal energy beam.

I was faced with a choice. I was either going to get hit and fall to the ground, or I could simply let go and hope to find a soft landing spot. I didn’t dare to look below me to find out how far away the ground was.

I needed to follow my heart and just trust that everything would work out the way it was supposed to. For someone who didn’t believe in destiny, I found myself trusting it with my life.

I waited as long as I could; I waited until his energy beam was coming toward me, and then I just let go.

All my fears and doubts came to the surface as soon as I felt my fingers let go of the handle bar. I had expected the whole thing to be quick. But it wasn’t. At first my heart seemed to stop beating, and then I started to fall. As the adrenaline rushed through my body, my heart felt like a tremendous jolt of electricity had jump-started it.

Deep down, I knew that, one way or another; my life would be changed forever. I hoped I would survive the fall and that I would be able to get back to my normal life, knowing that my mother was well and not lost forever in the unknown or worse, into nothingness.

I surrendered to my fatal destiny. I’d put my trust not only on what my mother had taught me but also in her.

Even though I didn’t dare to look down as I fell, I knew instinctively that the ground was approaching fast. So I closed my eyes in a futile attempt to shield myself from the shock. As I did, memories started playing behind my closed eyelids, and again my life flashed by. I saw every smile I’d had since I was a child, every dream, every hope and wish. But they flew by too fast for me to fully appreciate them. I stared as all my childhood illusions, aspirations, and delusions were presented to me without any censor or filter.

I saw my own birth, my first steps, my first day of school, my first kiss—which happened sort of by accident with Carla when I was eight, how could I have forgotten that? All in all, it had been a good life, even though I had wasted most of it blaming everyone and myself for my mother’s death. I’d blamed God, the cosmos, my dad, her job, and myself—but at last I realized that I was wrong.

Call it what you will: God, creator, unconsciousness, evolution, or whatever else you can think of, “It” knows exactly what we need in our lives. The path we are given is the best path we can hope to walk. I knew that now; it all made perfect sense. As I fell to my death, all the pieces were falling into place.

It wasn’t that I had given up on life. I had finally given up fighting for a
different
life, the life I believed I deserved.

At last, I made peace with destiny. Destiny and I were finally and fatally in sync. I surrendered to the weightless, to my destiny. I was ready to take the next step.

When everything seemed lost, and all I had left were seconds, I felt a warm and soothing arm grab me and carefully slow my fall. My back touched the grass gently.

I opened my eyes and saw the most amazing sight. It must have been an angel sent to receive me into the steps of heaven. It had to be.

“I know what you’re thinking, Son, but you’re wrong. It’s not yet your time,” said Mrs. Barnes as she gradually became younger.

“You’re… my mother. Why didn’t you say anything before?” I asked, crying tears of joy. I felt relieved, happy, and betrayed all at the same time.

“I couldn’t, Son. You needed to free yourself before you could see things clearly,” my mother said as she tended to my wounds. The pain ceased almost immediately as light emitted from her hands and quickly healed my broken body.

“My friends, are they okay?” I asked as I tried to get up, but the task proved impossible.

“I’m not done with you!” said Phasma loudly from above us.

“Phasma, it is over! I’m not going to let you create any more havoc,” my mother said.

“You can’t stop me. One way or another, I’ll have my way,” Phasma said as he charged toward us. I tried to move again, but it was useless. Even though Phasma was still threatening me, I felt content. I had finally been able to see my mother again, and there was nothing more that I wished for.

“You leave my friends alone!” Nyx yelled as she conjured up a deadly fire bolt from her bare hands and launched it toward Phasma. The fire ignited his cloak and spread quickly. Within a few seconds, he was engulfed in bright red and blue flames.

His rather large body hit the ground with a loud, vibrating thud.

I thought he might be dead, but much to my surprise, Phasma got up slowly and limped toward me while my mother stood between us.

“Phasma, my son, you need to let your rage go, your brother has,” my mother said.

“I just want what’s rightfully mine,” said Phasma as he struggled to breathe.

“What you want is revenge, and that I cannot let you have,” my mother said, still standing between us.

“Then you’ll pay as well,” said Phasma as he accelerated toward my mother and me.

“Enough!” Nyx said as her body burst into flames. Taking the shape of a massive fireball, she flew toward Phasma.

As they collided, a huge thunderclap could be heard. A shockwave of heat rushed past us, along with a deafening scream and a boom.

Jonas had tried to stop Nyx, but she wouldn’t listen. He even attempted to hold her back, but Carla held him.

I could see Jonas’s desperation as he watched from afar while the girl he loved disappeared in a fierce explosion. I felt responsible.

“It’s not your fault, Mark. You need to stop blaming yourself. You don’t know how many times I wanted to tell you that. I’ve been there your whole life, but you couldn’t see me. When you did manage to hear me, you would disregard it as being your intuition or your own inner voice. I saw you cry, and I did the only thing I could do, which was cry with you. Son, trust me when I say this. I missed you so much,” my mother said as tears filled her eyes.

“I… missed you too,” I struggled to say, crying like I had never cried before. Her hug only made me sob louder. I held her tight, tighter than I had ever held anyone before. I didn’t want to let go because I was afraid I wouldn’t have another opportunity.