No Bells Ring in Heaven

"Must you leave without fulfilling my wish, Seraph?"

He had some guts to ask. I looked up at the red sky. There was nothing but barren, burnt land all around us.

"What else could you ask for?", I looked back at him.

"You look so old, Seraph", he chuckled, "What exactly did you give the others?"

I looked behind me without answering his question. There was no one and nothing.

"What? It's a long story", I answered without looking at him.

"We've got time to kill", he grinned.

"I don't", I said, but went on to answer him anyway, "I gave everyone what they wanted."

"Really?"

I glared at him, "Yes, really, Grim. I took a fee, of course."

He laughed.

"And what will you take from me?", he asked, grinning.

I looked around and then rested my eyes on him.

"There's really nothing."

He seemed to agree.

"So how'd you manage?"

"Well, Grim, you could almost call it travelling back through time. Though, it really isn't that. I split the worlds to create new ones. Time doesn't exist for me anymore. Everything is linear now. It's all happening at once. And I can never be sure it's happening at all. But the theory itself is pointless. Where do you see theory anyway? The world is magic. It's all magic."

"Right, right, now don't go off about theory and all that, Seraph", he sighed, "Let's talk about something different, though."

"You know what, Grim?", I looked at the red sky.

The world was getting destroyed. I figured I'd soon need to leave.

"In one world, you told me about a boy that wanted to save his friend. But instead he took up God's offer and became the god of death. You said that boy was you. I wonder if that was really the truth though. You looked like you were pulling my leg."

Grim laughed, "That does sound like me. And yet, I have no reason to lie to you."

"Who knows? In one world...the original one...I made a promise to Lady. I promised her that I would create a world where all of you could have your wishes fulfilled. I didn't intend for it to be a world where you'll all have exactly what you wanted, but a world where all of you could find closure and happiness. But at some point along the way, it became clear to me that no such world existed."

Grim had gaping holes all over his body and his pitch black blood marked most of the ground around him. He'd stripped down to the waist and his hair had grown out, almost to his knees. It was just as I remembered him when he had fought against Lady. Of course, in this world, he didn't lose.

"So what'd you do then?"

"I decided to create a world of their own where they could be free. A world suited exactly to what they wished to create. But in other worlds, I killed them all and stole their powers from them for my own purposes."

"If you could change so much that you could redo the entire course of their lives, then why not help me save my friend back then so that I never have to take God up on his offer?", he asked, with a vague smile on his face.

"Lady told me what you really wanted. The truth is, Grim, even if you had saved you friend, even if you had never become a god of death, and even if you hadn't lived as long as you have, you still would have wanted the destruction of the world. You despise existence itself."

He chuckled, "Bravo, Seraph. You're right on the money."

"I know. So here's a world that's about to be destroyed. This is your greatest wish fulfilled. Now, Grim, tell me this, are you happy?", I stared at him, sternly.

He looked my way emptily, with a coy smile. It was a while before he began. He'd averted his gaze to the barren sky.

"Yes, I am happy. This is such a perfect world", he stretched his arms out and closed his eyes.

I watched him with a vague satisfaction, knowing that this was my cue to leave.

"Well, then", I murmured to myself before leaving his world.

Just like Grim, I could have helped Prophet, my dear dead friend. But I didn't. Not only because I couldn't stand a world with a Prophet that wasn't original, and thus an alien to me, but also because I felt I'd already fulfilled his wish. Prophet was in peace now. A peace he could never accomplish otherwise because he was shunned by God and the world created by God.

"Who's superior, a mage or a god?", I'd asked Grim in one such world.

"A human with the power of a god or a god with the power of a god. Who do you think?", he answered with a smirk.

"I don't think they'll play any bells when we go to heaven", I'd said after one long pause.

"Don't worry. They won't."

Looking at all the worlds I created, I was sure there were many that had been destroyed just the same even if Grim didn't exist in them. Those worlds were bound for chaos because a human created them. A mage, but human nonetheless.

I don't know when it happened but the original world was gone somewhere really far away. I thought of my father often but I never ventured to find out his fate. If he'd killed me just like my mother asked him to, perhaps all those worlds wouldn't have existed. And perhaps so many of those worlds wouldn't have suffered and died.

As far as I had gotten now, I could feel that I was closer than I'd ever been before.