Clawing Back to Heaven: Chapter 3 – Challenges Before the "Reward"

Chapter 3 – Challenges Before the "Reward"

Days like this when I’m spending it entirely in bed with my family are the best. My children and husband are all in one place in each other’s arms resting and loving each other’s simple company. Moments like these make it feel like they’ll never leave me and that I’ve discovered Heaven on Earth. This is where I want to be for the rest of my life and I want nothing more than this moment. A moment…a moment that isn’t real.

Waking up inside my dream, all my memories flood back into my mind in a second. Looking at my husband’s face, I see it cycle through the many husbands I’ve had, none of whom were able to give me any children. I wouldn’t call Leif an official husband, but his face is the one that stays on my husband in this dream and Harald’s face is the one on one of my children while the other’s face is featureless. I’ve never seen a dream correct itself to reality like this. Usually, they get worse or more disappointing, yet, for some reason, everything feels more correct than before.

As I relax in bed, reality completely takes over my dream and I wake up soon after. What’s strangest about what happened is that I want to go back to sleep and enjoy lying down with Leif and Harald. I guess this is a result of forgiving Leif and finally accepting Harald as my son, something that I feel stupid for taking so long to do. Jude is still keeping the boat straight while looking at a map and a telescope to look at the stars in the night sky as a reference.

“Hey, I’m awake. Let me take over,” I say as I get up from the makeshift bed of rags, drapes, and Jude’s long robe.

“I’m fine. We should be near a fishman settlement soon,” Jude says.

“Then rest get two minutes of rest, at least. We’ve been at sea for a day.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

I don’t steer the ship for what feels like an hour before I see the broken ships of mankind’s futuristic past in the distance. These ships are like floating cathedrals and churches on the sea all of which are crashed into one another to form a makeshift city. Once I dock next to one, Jude immediately wakes up as if he had never fallen asleep. We are met by many friendly fishmen, most of which focus their thanks and welcome to Jude. Because of what happened last time, I keep my guard up, even though nothing seems wrong with this place. It suffers the effects of my curse as every other place in the world with many of the fishmen having clear mutations from their demons on their bodies and penitents around every corner.

Unlike before, the city’s leaders come to us and take us to a popular restaurant to eat. One of the leaders claims this is so that everyone can enjoy the company of the Pope, something that Jude is okay with even though it feels like a never-ending amount of people come to receive his blessing and talk to him. I think sailing the sea for hours was less exhausting for both of us. Not many people come up and talk to me, something that I’m used to as a result of being Evander’s guard so many years ago. I wouldn’t want all the attention anyway. It’s too exhausting and makes me understand why most men and women of high status prefer to stay in their castles and expensive meeting places.

After the dinner and telling everyone why we’re here, we are given a place in the best inn in the floating city, a two-bed bedroom since Jude still doesn’t want me to be far from him. I fall asleep, and yet, I don’t feel like I’m sleeping. In fact, I’m awake with my eyes open, unblinkingly looking at Jude and unable to move. It’s been a while since I had sleep paralysis, a sign that demons are near. Sure enough, the shadows in the room grow and I see dark forms walk out of them.

“Did you think you could so easily forgive the men that hurt you the most? Do you really forgive Evander and Leif?” a demon whispers in my voice.

“We gave you the chance to get what you wanted. Dominic’s descendent was yours to keep, but you fought us and used that moment to humble yourself against us. Do you think you’ll get out of this with a happy ending?”

“Do you think you’ll get the ending you want? The one that you deserve? You know you can only get it if you take it for yourself.”

Someone like me doesn’t deserve anything.

“So you tell yourself, but we both know you feel differently and that this journey that God has for you is nothing but pain and suffering at your expense.”

“God took away your true love. He even took away your son. What kind of son wants his mother to walk a path where she does nothing but suffer and die?”

I don’t deserve to be called his mother after what I did to him.

“You deserve better than him. You deserve to be more honest with yourself. Stop trying to hide the sorrow and anger you feel at God with all this praying, penance, and humility. You know He would want you to be honest.”

“Be honest about how you hate Leif for violating you in body and soul.”

“Be honest about how you hate Evander for extending your life and giving you false hope in his own delusions.”

“Be honest about how you hate yourself for constantly going back to God even though He keeps letting you down no matter how much you try to serve Him.”

I keep repeating Hail Marys and guardian angel prayers to get the temptations of demons out of my head. The memory of my parents plays in my head when they told me to pray these two prayers in addition to a prayer of trusting myself in God’s hands so I wouldn’t be afraid at night. How long has it been since I last thought of my parents? Are they looking down at me in disappointment? I left smiles on their faces the last time I saw them, but now, I’m unsure. Again, the memory of my parents comforting me at night plays again, except now it feels more real and the words they say are a bit different.

“It doesn’t matter what you do. We’ll always love you,” my mother says.

“I know you can beat any challenge you face, my soldier girl,” my father says.

Did I ever hear them say this before at this moment? No. I think they were here with me just now. Before I know it, the room around me has brightened up and the heavy presence of the demons is gone. Thank you for everything, mother and father. I’ll try to be the daughter you’ve always been proud of.

Going back to sleep, I feel like I only rest for a few minutes until everything around me starts to shake. I guess there really is no rest for the wicked. Looking outside, I see that it’s daytime, everyone is scurrying around, and the guards are directing people to safety. We ask what is going on and learn from the captains of the guards that attacks from demonically possessed people and fish monsters come every now and then and this is just one in a series of them.

“They’re attacking probably because we’re here,” Jude says.

“Don’t worry about that, Your Holiness. Just get to safety,” a captain says.

“No, I will not. I am the head of God’s Holy Church on Earth, and just as my predecessors before me, I will lead you all into battle from the front.”

The captains look at each other and reluctantly accept Jude’s command.

“It’s an honor having you fight with us.”

“The honor is mine.”

We don’t have much time to organize our forces as the enemy is already in the city. They leap out from the sea, mutated by their demons, and start attacking whoever they see and destroying holy statues from ages past. Jude leads the counterattack from the front as he said while I fight alongside him. It doesn’t take long for the chaos to separate us, especially with something that keeps shaking the floating city. The fishmen call their own fish to fight against the enemies’ monsters and to eliminate whatever is causing the shaking.

Eventually, the thing we are looking for emerges. It’s almost humanlike in shape. The monster is as dark as the night, has red eyes, four arms, red teeth, and sharp tendrils coming out of its mouth and head. The singular tendrils that are colored red and white remind me of my own face, and sure enough, it focuses its attention on me as the demons start whispering in my mind.

“It’s over.”

“Our power grows without you.”

“God has abandoned you, yet again.”

“Join us and you will be spared eternal punishment.”

“You can save them by submitting to us.”

“Assume your rightful place as queen of the world.”

“We can give you the happiness you deserve.”

Praying against the enemy, I ask the intercession of Mary, my guardian angel, all the saints I know, and the people in Heaven that I know are looking down at me. The monster starts lashing at me with its arms and tendrils to stop my praying, but I continue as I dodge its attacks and cut at its arms, body, and tendrils with my blessed sword. Suddenly, the state of Mary at the front of the floating city starts to glow. From it, a familiar face emerges.

“Hello, Priscilla. Didn’t think you’d see me after so long, did you?” Persephone says.

“No…I didn’t,” I say. After a short pause, I say, “But I appreciate your help.”

Persephone was Dominic’s wife and his true love, though I should say he loved God more than her because it is because of his love for God that he embraced her as his wife over me. She’s much like every other spirit from Heaven that I’ve seen, clothed in gold, having bright wings, and a shining halo. Her pink eyes with one iris being bigger than the other and her curly hair make her distinctive and instantly recognizable to me. As she pushes back the monster and the possessed, I remember how much I hated her because of how jealous I was of her. In life, she was a ditz and nowhere as pretty as me, and yet, Dominic chose her.

These feelings of jealousy start to feel like fresh wounds to me, so I push them back by thanking God that she made Dominic happy in a way that I couldn’t and was his companion into Heaven. The enemy is in full retreat now. Jude comes up to me and is wondering what I’m looking at. When he sees Persephone, he instantly recognizes her, remembering how I described her and thanking her for her aid.

I thank her as well, and then say, “Thank you for everything, including taking care of Dominic. You truly are the woman he was meant to be with.”

She comes up to me with a big hug and then says, “Aw! You’re welcome! I hope to see you join us soon so we can reminisce about old times.”

“Yeah,” I say as I hug her in return.

After fading away, the light from Persephone is replaced by the crimson fog of Onocrotalus. From it, a voice says, “You are finally ready to embrace your suffering, the key to the world’s salvation.”

It’s funny. I would’ve denied such a thing not too long ago.

Instead, I embrace it and say, “I accept. Lead me there.”

In mere seconds, Jude and I are taken to a place where, much like its people, appears to be constantly bleeding.