Celestial Crossing Chapter 1: The Gate Keeper

Chapter One: The Gate Keeper

"Odd." There was a distant voice, echoing on the edges of Melody's consciousness. While her flesh was cold, her body limp there was light just beyond her lids, harassing her to wake up from the terrible nightmare she'd had. Someone had tried to kill me. What a terrible dream. Forcing her eyes open felt like a chore. The task, though simple, seemed far more exhausting than it should've been. What did I eat before bed? Why can't I remember going to sleep? Slowly one lid opened, then the other. It took a few moments before her eyes adjusted enough to the well lit, though unfamiliar room. It took her only a second to notice the strange looking man towering over her and her ears rang with panic. Was it a dream?

"Who are you?" Melody choked out in a panic, her voice sounding weak and frail. Her body seemed stiff but the panic she felt helped her will her limbs into action. In an attempt to flee the man standing over her, who certainly looked like no doctor she'd ever seen, she lifted an arm up to reach out but the limb fell useless and landed heavily on her stomach. Her limbs were sore, as though she'd been lying with them above her head for a long time, but now the feeling was returning to them, and painfully at that.

Forgetting temporarily about the man, Melody couldn't control the tickle in the back of her throat, one that seemed to spread all the way to her lungs. Coughing became unavoidable, but the pain she felt in her chest was unexpected. Eyes growing wide with fear, she maneuvered her sleeping, tingling left hand onto her chest right over her heart. Having expected to feel her dress stained with blood, she was surprised to feel nothing except for the cloth of some kind of shirt. The memories came flooding back to her now. Just as she had finally been given the award she'd worked so hard for, someone in the shadows had shot her. It hadn't been a dream at all; it had been as real as this moment was now. Using every bit of energy she had, Melody pushed herself to sit upright. Looking down at where the bloodied wound should be, she tugged her knew strange shirt down enough to glance at her skin. Where she expected to see her insides, she saw merely untainted flesh. "Someone shot me! I've been shot, I'm not crazy! I know someone shot me!"

Remembering the man in front of her, now that her panic had begun to subside, she glanced back at him. He was wearing a long shimmering white robe that covered him from head to do, the material looked ethereal, occasionally shimmering with faint bluish lettering Melody didn't recognize as any language she'd ever seen before. In his right hand he held a lengthy and ancient wooden staff that, the paint chipped in places which held a perfectly smooth opal, or at least what Melody thought was an opal, at the very top. His hair was as white as the robe he wore and disappeared into the robe like camouflage so she couldn't tell how long it was. The most peculiar thing Melody noticed was how milky the man's eyes were. She wondered if he was blind, but his stare was penetrating her so she disregarded the idea nearly immediately. Drawing her gaze away from his peculiar eyes, she noted the marks that looked similar to tattoos on his face but wondered if they were burnt into his skin since they almost looked like scars.

Realizing she was definitely not in a hospital, Melody turned her eyes from the man observed her surroundings instead. The floor beneath her was marble and pristinely polished. There were six stone pillars on either side of which held up what she could only describe as something she'd seen in drawings depicting ancient Rome. Perhaps even more startling was the fog that surrounded her that now seemed to lift as she observed the room. There were no walls to this room and beyond then she could see the universe, nothing but the void and distant stars. Glancing all around her to make sure she wasn't losing her mind, the panic grew more vivid in her mind when she realized what was lying next to her. Hurrying to her feet, she could only think of one thing, and this thing was more important than the exhaustion her sore limbs reminded her of with each motion: Escape.

After she steadied herself, Melody attempted to speak but instead screamed in horror. There were no words in her mind that could describe everything running through it. She ran before she realized her legs had done so and only stopped when she reached the end of the stone floor. Nearly losing her balance at the edge she screamed a second time, and louder, when she realized the room dropped off into space. There was nothing below them except the fog dripping from the edges of the marble into oblivion.

Recovering from her close call, she turned to look at the man who stood still in his spot and merely watched her with those milky white eyes of his. Removing his left hand from his robe he casually ran it through his silky hair which turned out to be shoulder length. His hand was far different than the rest of him which looked young but wise, it was withered and he was missing his third finger. Hesitantly, Melody looked back to what had caused her to panic on the ground next to where she'd woken up.

The maimed and mutilated body of a man lay lifeless. It looked as though something had smashed him to bits, but peculiarly enough there was no sign of blood on the ground. Is he some sick twisted outer space serial killer? That sounds ridiculous, Melody! You're an educator, this isn't possible. Now that Melody had managed to swallow the disgust she'd felt, and had stopped to observe what she'd see, she could see the limbs and organs slowly moving back to where they rightfully belonged, seemingly healing right before her eyes. This definitely isn't possible.

The panic, seeming to have passed, made way for the exhaustion she'd felt when she'd first woken up, forcing her back onto her knees. Despite her body's weakness she kept watching the corpse on the ground reattach its limbs and soon enough he looked as if nothing bad had ever happened to him. In fact, the young man began to move, just as she had done only moments ago. Melody's head spun and she felt faint so she turned her head away from the confusing sight and looked back to the abyss beyond the columns.

"I'm afraid that his death was a tad bit messier than yours, so it took a few minutes longer to completely the process. My apologies, I saw how it frightened you." Melody was surprised to hear the masculine voice of her captor and nearly fell onto her back in surprise. The man had traveled across the room in a matter of seconds and now stood right in front of her. None of this is possible… is it? She sat there stunned, both from his speed and upon realizing what he'd said. This man's death was messier than hers, so did that mean she was dead as well? If she was dead like she now suspected, then where was she? What was this strange place floating in the middle of the universe? It didn't look like any heaven she'd read about in stories on Earth. There were no pearly gates, no clouds, no Saint Peter.

"Did you say dead?" Stuttering, Melody's eyes brimmed with tears, her throat suddenly clogged with the emotion of this revelation. She had been about to get married, she had been about to received an award she'd worked so hard for. It couldn't be right. How could that all be taken away from her? "B-but where am I then if I'm dead? I don't understand! I don't feel dead!"

"And how exactly does one feel dead, pray tell?" It was clear this man didn't want an answer from her so Melody didn't think too hard about the ludicrous question. "I'll explain everything in a moment when dear Joseph is awake and aware such as you are." His voice was soft and comforting. Perhaps he is Saint Peter? Melody watched the body of the young man that must have been this Joseph. The young man blinked a few times in confusion before he struggled to move his lips and started patting himself down. Joey quickly looked to the man dressed in white and to Melody then back down at his unscathed body.

"I jumped off the…" Joey began to speak but before he could finish he was being moved unnaturally and not of his own accord. In a mere second Joey and Melody were seated next to each other on the ground and the man in white stood in front of them, though neither freshly dead arrival had seen him actually move. Without looking behind him, the man sat down in a chair that seemingly appeared out of thin air behind him. It was marble, just like the floor, ornately designed like things that both Joey and Melody had only seen in story books.

Placing his staff tiredly across his lap, the man looked down at the two frightened and recently deceased humans and offered them a small, comforting smile.

"Allow me to save you both some very precious oxygen. Yes, you both died. Horrible deaths at that, the both of you. Melody," he glanced at the woman with the pretty red hair, "you were shot in the chest, right in the heart I'm afraid. Joseph," his eyes turned to the young man who looked nowhere near as frightened as Melody, merely wounded, "you stepped off of the subway platform just as the train arrived. You timed it perfectly. I do wish you could've just slit your wrists like all the other suicides. Maiming is incredibly hard to reanimate." Melody hung her head and bit back tears. She had stopped listening after the man had recounted her murder. The truth seemed to terrify her. Joey on the other hand, was outraged.

"What the hell am I doing here, then? I didn't subscribe to any of that religion nonsense when I was alive and this sure as hell doesn't look like heaven. I don't need some fancy afterlife! All I'm asking for is some peace and quiet!" Joey tried to move. Surely this was some cruel joke being played on him. After all his years of suffering, hadn't it been enough? Now he couldn't even commit suicide properly. Either that or every religion on Earth had it all wrong. Having finally comprehended what the man in white had said about her companion, Melody observed Joey. She had never known anyone that had tried to kill themselves before. Life was precious. She couldn't wrap her mind around how anyone would throw it away, and at such a young age at that.

"Calm down, Joseph."

"Joey, I'm not Joseph."

"You're not dead." The man in white didn't seem to care that he had gotten the young man's name wrong.

"What?" Joey's mouth hung open.

"Excuse me?" Melody stared in shock.

"You just told us how we died, that we were dead! Now you're telling us we're alive? Alive or dead, make up your mind! We can't be both." Joey snapped in frustration but the man merely chuckled in response. He pointed at the two of them with his frail looking hand and offered yet another small smile.

"My dear boy, you had it right. Yes, you died. But, you see, those necklaces you're wearing have allowed you to come back to life here in the Celestial Tower. This is… the In-Between." Despite his eloquent explanation, both of his guests seemed stunned into silence and confused. Melody placed her hand over her heart, feeling the necklace she'd been given only moments before her death. Joey looked down at his hands, something he often did when he was frustrated so he could concentrate on his tattoos. The problem now was that the tattoos were nowhere to be found. The scars he'd carried with him since childhood were missing as well. Holding his breath, Joey quickly touched his face in search of the scars that had made him an outcast for so many years. One of the most distinct and troublesome had been on his lip, disfiguring him. His fingers ran over the soft flesh of his lips and found nothing.

His scars were gone, completely gone. So were his tattoos, his piercings and all the acts of rebellion he'd committed over the years.

"Holy…" Joey couldn't think of anything other than obscenities and muttered them under his breath. He wanted to see himself now, he hadn't seen his face without scars in years.

"Oh yes, you must be surprised. You see, because you were brought back to life by the necklace and it had to heal you of what killed you, any sicknesses, unnatural marks or oddities you had during your life have healed as well. You're completely brand new. It's like being born again, without having to go through the tedious growing pains." Despite his confidence, this man who was greeting them in their life after death, seemed confused. Something clearly was amiss before him, but he didn't' seem to want to share it with Joey and Melody.

"So what do we do now then? If we're dead, and then alive again, what's the plan from here?" Melody asked what she knew Joey had to be thinking. The man seemed to contemplate his response and tapped the bottom of his staff against the marble floor a few times, the sound echoing throughout the heavens. The man had been expecting two men to arrive in his tower that day, now this young woman. Turning around to face his guests, his smile spread across his face one again, he narrowed his eyes playfully at Melody.

"The answer is obvious. You keep living."

"You mean we can go back home?" Joy flooded through Melody and she felt the tears forming in her eyes once more. Perhaps this was all some kind of bad dream she was having. Soon she would soon wake up in a hospital bed surrounded by her peers. She would get to see her kids again, receive her award and go back to her simple life as a teacher.

"What? And what part of jumping in front of a subway train don't you understand, asshole? I don't want to keep living! That's why I killed myself." Joey protested. He couldn't go back to Earth! He didn't want to live amongst the vermin that walked the streets and called it home! He wanted to die! He wanted to be cold, lifeless underneath the dirt. Death was supposed to be the end, not the beginning. Getting to his feet, Joey flipped his middle finger at the man.

"Just because I'm blind doesn't mean I can't see, Joseph." The man insisted with a smile. "It's too bad you feel that way because you have no choice but to go on living. You see, you don't get to die until your purpose… the purpose those necklaces have for you, is fulfilled. Then you can die in peace." Joey yelled in anger, no words coming to him. He'd never felt this sort of rage toward anyone before in his life not even after all he'd been through. Not being allowed to die was the last straw. The man in white's expression never faltered, in fact he looked like he understood the pain Joey felt. In an instant, Joey's hand flew up to the necklace he wore and he gripped tightly at it. The man in white's eyes narrowed, foreseeing what Joey was about to do.

"Fine! If the necklace is keeping me alive then I'll just take it off and kill myself all over again!" Joey spat in anger, but as he tugged the necklace in an attempt to break it, his fingers stung with pain, similar to a burn. Joey reflexively let go of the necklace and examined the fresh scorch mark in the shape of a star that had appeared on his hand. The man in white went back to smiling once Joey's attempt to remove his necklace had been thwarted. Melody slowly got to her feet. She finally examined the odd white dress with small golden stars scattered about the pattern, reappearing just as the writing on the man in white's robe did.

"If you insist on repeatedly killing yourself, Joseph then you and I will be spending a lot of quality time together seeing as each time you will return here for me to put you back together. I assure you that I will get quite annoyed with you by the third time. I think you and I have very little common ground, plus I find the gore of reanimation tiring." The man in white spoke casually and Joey glared at him in response. Before he could say anything, the man continued. "As I told you before, you cannot die fully until your purpose has been fulfilled and that is for your necklace to decide." Melody walked over to the two men who stood at odds with each other and put her hand comfortingly on Joey's arm. Joey pushed her arm away and Melody looked irritated. She had only meant to comfort him but it was clear he didn't want her help.

"Does that mean I can go back home?" Melody decided she wouldn't help Joey anymore, not with his attitude. Instead, she'd fend for herself. As she examined the man in white's gaze, a sense of dread hit her like a ton of bricks. With the raising of his hand the two recently deceased fell back to the ground in the same sitting position they'd been forced into before. The man's smile had faded, his eyes turned cold; he did not want his guests wandering around his home or trying to cause any further issues.

"When you say home, I am assuming you are referring to Earth."

"Of course I mean Earth, where else could I possibly go?" Melody scoffed, as if any other response would be idiocy.

"Ah, it's the same with every culture. You're all so narcissistic that you think you're the only ones in the universe hmm? Your precious Earth is but a mere speck of dust in this realm; one in a million. I highly doubt that with your luck you will be going back to Earth. While there is a very slim chance you could be going back there, there is a much greater chance you will be going to a world far different than yours." The man seemed annoyed by her assumption that Earth was the only world worth visiting. Melody's jaw dropped open and she formulated an angry response in her mind. What was the point of returning to life if she couldn't return to her life?

The man in white held his left hand up. While it was his job to send them to a different world, he was growing weary of their tantrum and complaints. So instead, he tried to preempt any further objections and continued to explain what would be next for the recently deceased. "I'm afraid your fate is in the hands of the stars. There have been many before you that have ventured through these halls of mine and they all suffered the same fate. It'll be your adventure, when you step through the doors and the end of the road, and your adventure alone. I cannot tell you what's in store for you on the other side. I am merely a gate keeper. Yes, much like the Saint Peter you speculated I could be, Melody." The man in white alluded to what he'd seen within her mind. Melody's cheeks flushed out of embarrassment and fear.

How could anyone read minds? Joey looked lost and disillusioned. The fight he'd felt only moments before had faded into sorrow and misery. Before Melody could ask how he'd known she'd been thinking of Saint Peter and the pearly gates, the man in white continued. "There is no heaven on the other side of my doors, at least not for the two of you. When you leave, you will arrive on a new world, with a new life. You will not be reborn, you will be the age you are now and you will find your way. If, by very slim chance, it is Earth you are destined to return to, then you will resume your old lives. That is all I have to tell you."

"You expect us to live on a different world?" Melody asked softy. She had a thousand more follow up questions, but Joey had more pressing matters, it seemed.

"What if I get to this new world and kill myself again?" The man in white sighed, finally showing some irritation with Joey's stubborn nature.

"It won't work. If you kill yourself on this new world then you will simply reanimate and stay on the world you killed yourself on." The man in white banged the end of his staff into the ground again, as if to make this new rule, and the opal looking gem on the top of his staff glowed brilliantly for a mere second.

"I don't want to live!" Joey shouted in frustration. It didn't seem fair that he had to live when he so sorely wanted to die.

"I will make you a deal, Joseph. When you have fulfilled your purpose and you are finally permitted to take that necklace off, meaning when you are free of the tasks that lie ahead of you, then I will personally kill you myself. That will be the end of it. You will be dead, sent into the abyss of nothingness, never to think, feel, or whine again. I'm afraid that simply killing yourself in this case will not work. The same goes for you, Melody. You cannot simply keep killing yourself because you think it will increase your chances of getting back to earth. It won't. You will just waste time and cause yourself pain." Melody seemed embarrassed that the man in white had once again seen the idea she'd been forming in her mind.

"Why can't you just send me back to earth? You told Joey that he'd be reanimated on whatever world he killed himself on!"

"You two simply don't listen do you? I suppose I'll have to spell it out letter by letter then. I cannot send you to the world that rejected you! You both died on Earth and there are rules tied to these necklaces. You were sent away naturally, either by your own hand or someone else's. Earth rejected your existence. Who knows, perhaps you will be more welcomed on this new world you arrive on. Joey did indeed kill himself to end up here, but it was earth that decided he was through. The world drove him to his end. If you or Joey kill yourself or one another on a different world out of spite or simply to get back here, it isn't the world that rejected you so you will appear back on this world until it is done with you. The only way to get back here is if you die naturally and naturally means something you cannot force!"

Joey and Melody sat in silence for a long while. The man in white had given them a lot to think about and it seemed any objections either of them had would be met with the same frustration and explanation. Joey shifted uncomfortably in place, scratching at his hand where his tattoos used to be. Living a life he didn't want to live seemed unfair. He'd made his choice with life and he wanted it to end. If he had just left the necklace at home like he'd considered before leaving for the subway, then he would be good and been dead instead of trapped in this figurative hell. He could've ceased to exist and finally be in the void he had been craving since his mother's death. Rubbing his temples as if to make room for all of the new information he'd received, he stole a glance at Melody. The woman who had attempted to show him kindness had begun to cry. Surely she wouldn't have been so eager to be kind to him if she had seen him on Earth.

He turned his glance away from her and back to the marble floor. The man in white said that she'd been murdered. He wasn't sure whether he should feel pity for her or pity for himself. Neither situation seemed like something to rejoice about. At least Melody wanted to be alive, seemingly. She apparently had stuff to live for, like her friends and family, perhaps a job, perhaps hobbies and goals. Joey had nothing back home, no friends, no family, no goals, no job and the one thing he had wanted with every fiber of what was left of his soul, he could no longer obtain.

What was left for him if not death? Now he was being forced to go to another world, with more strangers, uncertainty, and more problems. He could barely fit in on the world he had been meant for, how was he supposed to fit in a new place? Sighing heavily, Joey turned toward the man in white while Melody wiped the tears from her cheeks and attempted to stop crying.

Realizing she was free of whatever invisible grip the man in white had on her, Melody forced herself to her feet and bowed before the man. "I'm ready to go now, if you please. I don't want to be here any longer. If I must live a new life, then I want to get on with it." Melody stood upright once again. This man had been kind enough to numb her pain when she'd arrived, surely he deserved some respect. Terrified of what was going to happen to her, Melody was trembling, but found comfort in the small hope that there was a very tiny chance of her getting back home. Having never had good luck, she thought perhaps this could be her time.

Desperately, more than anything, she wanted to stop crying. She kept trying to tell herself that this was an opportunity; an amazing chance that very few people got to have and she should be honored, not terrified and mournful for her old life. Self pity never did anyone any good. And while she wished this man in white could send her back home, she knew that arguing something that didn't make sense to her would get her nowhere.

"Are you ready as well, Joey?" The man in white asked as Joey pushed himself to his feet as Melody had done. He walked to join his companion in death. Melody still looked like she'd been smacked in the face, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"When I've fulfilled whatever purpose this has for me and I can take this off, I want it understood that I want to die. Permanently. No tricks, no games, no afterlife, no more quests." Joey spoke harshly to get his point across. The man in white smiled and nodded his head to agree. Raising his staff into the air a strong wind began to blow. As the robe lifted away from his arms, the recently deceased could see the decay on the man in white's arms. There were bite marks, and what looked like venom coursing through his veins. His fingers looked barely held together, as if something were slowly killing their gatekeeper.

The wind whipped at Joey and Melody's hair, their feet forced from the ground while this unnatural gale seemed to life them and hold them suspended in midair. The gem on the top of the staff gave off a faint purplish glow and once the man in white slammed his staff onto the ground as he had done many times before, the wind died, set Joey and Melody back on their feet and an ornate door appeared behind him. The hinges moaned and creaked as though the door had not been opened in a very long time. Stepping out of the way of the door, the man in white turned his head to look past the door as it opened. Beyond it looked nothing like a new world, but merely the black space that surrounded the rest of the Celestial Tower. Joey and Melody took a step toward the door but the man in white stopped them from going by swinging his staff down in front of them.

"There is one more thing. You two must stay together from here on out. Whatever purpose you have, these necklaces brought you here together for a reason. Besides, you don't know where you're going to arrive or what's going to happen when you get there. There is strength in numbers. One of you has weaknesses where the other has strengths. You complement each other in ways you will soon know. Joey, remember, if you want to take that necklace off then you're going to have to rely on Melody to reach the end of the line." His words seemed more serious now than any others he had spoken.

"Wait! You've been so kind to us, but we don't even know your name!" Melody finally realized. How selfish could she be? She hadn't even asked his name. Then again, neither had Joey and they had both been through quite the ordeal. The man in white smiled brightly and laughed.

"Melody, if we happen to meet again then I promise I will tell you my name."

"Let's go then." Joey muttered uncomfortably. The two recently deceased walked toward the door that had been left open for them. The moment they stepped through the barrier the door held, they disappeared and the door slammed shut behind them, disappearing into nothingness as quickly as it had appeared, a cold wind dying down behind it.

"Not what I had been expecting, but they will have to do." The man in white stared at the spot where the door had once been then sat back down once more in his chair, weary from the day's efforts.