LOLA IS DEAD [COMPLETED]

Chapter Six

The red dawn approached. When I opened my eyes, a fainted light from the outside altered the temperature in the room. It was morning and I noticed that the curtain had been put back in place and I assumed that Olga came back while I was asleep. I sat up and stretched my arms before I managed to stand. I walked to the window and put the curtain aside to allow the sun. For a distinct moment I found myself drenched with light and the warmth of the sun embraced me with full vigor. I was fully awake as I sulked myself in the fiery glow of the sun; a morning in Purgatory signifies the start of a new day just like in all the worlds. I squinted my eyes to see the horizon clearly. Birds flew in clustered governing the cloudless sky, mist dispersing outside the wall showing the pathway to the groves. From my viewpoint, I saw bricked houses varied in sizes. Most of these concrete houses have similar squared windows. There were cobblestone streets and empty courtyards. So this was Iduri City, a sort of dilapidated version of old Jerusalem. Below me I saw the alleyways filled with movement and hubbub that I could hardly understand. I focused on the noises and I heard souls chattering in variation of languages. I was amazed how they were able to converse with each other despite of language barrier. Most of them were talking in different tongues at each other and managed the conversation well. I concluded that souls are linguists by nature.

A knock from the door disrupted me from my perusing of the city. I spun around to see a pale looking guy, black hair and eyes standing in the door watching me. He was sporting a grin in his face.

"Hi." He said.

"Hey." I responded and wrapped my arms around my body.

"Did you sleep well?" He entered the room and closed the door. I leaned my lower back on the window.

"I think so..." I answered.

"Good. Because you fainted yesterday. You must be very tired." He said as he paced the room and stopped in front of me... He lowered his gaze to meet mine while lips pulled together.

"I guess so... You're..."

"I am Keenan. We met yesterday in case you forget." He smiled

"I... I didn't forget." I stuttered.

"Right. Hungry?" The moment he said it I felt my stomach grumbled in response to his question. My hands covered it reflexively and nodded at Keenan whose smiles widened.

"Well, come on then. Breakfast is served and everybody was waiting for you downstairs." He side stepped to allow me to go first.

"Everybody?" I asked. I was so preoccupied with my own problems that I didn't thought about the other souls living in this building nor did I consider that there were any.

"Yes. The other Guardians. You're in the Zion headquarter, the main office of the Guardianship in Iduri. Right now, you're in the safest place in the realm." He explained proudly and I stared at him like a petrified lamb. He must have sensed my hesitation.

"Don't worry. They're cool and they want to meet you." He said reassuring.

"They do?" I was skeptical.

"Of course, they do. Come." He said encouragingly. "I'll be with you."

Zion Headquarter for Guardianship was housed in a ten-floor story old building at the center of Iduri City. The hallway to the elevator was dark and the wallpapers were dithering while other wall coverings were stripped with decay that all I saw was grey cement. Keenan walked beside me in silence until we reached the elevator. The machine groaned and the door opened. He gestured for me to enter first and then he followed. I saw him pressed the ground button and the elevator groaned once again as it closed. The top of the elevator door showed that we were on the tenth floor. When the machine started to descend, I held my breath for a while, bracing for the worst elevator ride of my afterlife. But the elevator descended smoothly with just a few bumps. I relaxed. My shoulders fell as I stared at Keenan's back as he stood in front of me. Finally, we made it on the ground safe and the elevator groaned as it opened. He stepped out and I followed him.

"We're here." He said.

"So, this is the Guardians headquarter?" My voice was flat; obviously I wasn't impressed with what I saw. I was expecting to see headquarter, a real one like what I saw in movies or at the police station. But the ground floor of the Zion Headquarter was nothing like those. It was more of like an abandoned lobby of a hotel in downtown Silent Hills. This place was deteriorating but what should I expect? I was in Purgatory, the lowest part of the realm as what Olga told me. There was no partition here; all walls have been put down to give way for the training ground or sort of. There was a reception area near the entrance comprises of a table and a chair and nothing else. My eyes wandered and I could see both ends. I looked down to see the worn-out matted floor which the original color was no longer distinguishable. Now I was beginning to see a ground parking lot instead of a lobby.

"It isn't that much I know." Keenan chuckled.

"Well... Not my idea of headquarter." I said.

"This is where we do the drill before we send out the batches for the major posts." He said as we walked towards the center.

"What do you mean?" I asked confused.

"Do you see anyone?" He asked.

I turned around to cover all corners and suddenly realizing what I hadn't noticed earlier that despite how vast this place was, there was no one in here except me and Keenan. My brows shoot up asking.

"Where's everybody?" I asked. My mind was considering the possibility that Keenan was playing tricks on me.

"The base is situated underground." His eyes surveyed the entire vicinity. "We're at the surface. Come, follow me." He didn't wait for me to say anything, he glided towards the center in few strides and I sprinted so I could catch up.

"Where are you taking me?" My voice was louder this time.

"To meet the others"

"And where exactly is that?" I was already feeling irritated. Why couldn't he just tell me where Olga was or the others?

Finally, he stopped walking and spun around to face me. His charcoal eyes lit up as he stood waiting for me to catch up. My brows furrowed showing how annoyed I was.

"Here." He said amused.

"Here, where?" I snapped. "Look, just tell me where it is okay. Enough with the suspense."

I knew that he was mocking me. As if my current desperation amused him. I could see that in his face, his lips pulled together trying to hold a laugh. But he didn't say a word; he just stared taunting my nerve. This guy was impossible, I thought.

"We're here" He said it again and stamped a foot on the floor twice like a child throwing a tantrum. He smiled at me as we waited. I sneered at him. It took a minute before the floor shook beneath us and I panicked. My eyes darted toward Keenan who was currently grinning at me unperturbed. For a moment I thought that the building would collapse, and the bastard just stood there watching me looking like a tool. I wanted to strangle him and stabbed him a hundred times. Then the most insane thing happened. A hole appeared on the floor out of nowhere. It gave way to a spiraled stair equipped with iron railing snaking downstairs.

"What the..." I bit my tongue trying not to swear.

"After you..." Keenan said half smiling.

I recovered from the shock. When I saw Keenan's mocking face, I rolled my eyes and tried very hard to compose myself. With head held high I stepped on the stairs and climbed down while his annoying gaze followed. I was already halfway down when I heard his steps behind. When I reached downstairs, I stopped. I found myself standing at the end of a long hallway. There were life size angel statues standing on each side, lining all the way to the other end. Wings folded behind them. They were geared up in battle outfit but instead of holding a sword, they were holding torches blazed with fire and illuminating the entire place. My eyes were huge, and my mouth was opened, I was amazed with what I saw that I didn't notice someone approaching.

"Hi!" A female voice greeted. When my eyes found her, she gave me a sly smile as she waited for me to recover. Suddenly I felt embarrassed that she caught me looking like a fish with my mouth opened. I struggled to find my voice.

"Hi" I greeted back.

She was a petite looking girl, blue eyes that looked so big in her small heart face, dark blonde hair pulled in a tight ponytail. She looked so young; I wondered how old she was when she died. Her face beamed in excitement to see me. Perfect teeth glinted in front of me, she was pretty. Her voice tingled like bell when she spoke.

"You must be Lola?" She asked.

"Yeah... ahmm..."

Keenan appeared on my side, I almost forgot that he was behind me a while ago. I faced him waiting for a good introduction.

"Lola, Safa - Safa, Lola" That's all he got. What a jerk.

I faced Safa whose smile turned into grin while her eyes shifted at Keenan. She pouted her lips as if thinking what to say. Now I was convinced that she died very young, probably twelve or thirteen.

"What took you so long to fetch her?" Safa asked. "Olga asked you an hour ago."

Keenan smirked and walked past her. She turned around and started walking beside him. I trailed off behind them at the middle. We were now walking in the angel hallway and my eyes wandered again to see the angel statues clearly. They looked grotesque yet beautiful in appearance. These effigies were probably seven feet tall and I wondered if this was really how they look in person.

"We take a tour at the surface before we come here." Keenan said. "I want her to take the stairs instead of the elevator. I think it would be fun. You should see her reaction when the stairs appeared." He chuckled.

"Wait!" I stopped walking. "You mean you did that on purpose?" I was furious. Why did he have to do that? I was already eating by now considering how hungry I was if we didn't make a side tripped at the surface for the purposed of Keenan's theatricality.

Keenan and Safa turned around to face me and saw my face red with anger. I really felt sorry for Safa for seeing my bad side. I couldn't blame myself either for exploding like that, I was hungry as hell. I knew that Keenan was just trying to be nice but right now, my stomach was overthrowing logic.

"Hey, I didn't mean to upset you." Keenan said; I saw the shock on his face that made me winced, in check with my emotion. "I just wanted to tour you around. I'm sorry." His forehead wrinkled.

Safa stood stupefied beside him as if she had no idea what was going on. Her eyes darted from me to Keenan and back and forth. It wasn't fair to throw this all on Keenan, he was just trying to be nice, though annoying but it wasn't his fault. I was still upset with my death and I needed to control this before I could offend anyone. Thank God we were saved by Olga. She appeared quietly behind Keenan and Safa with hands entwined in front of her. There was a questioning look in her eyes, sensing the tension arising in the hallway.

"Is everything okay?" She asked.

Her query was answered by awkward silence. I took a deep breath to relax my nerve and lowered my gaze to the floor to avoid Keenan's stares. I was relieved when a girl's voice broke the silence.

"We're fine." Safa said, managing a smile. "You just save them from having lovers quarrel." She turned around and left.

"We aren't..." I wanted to say that Keenan and I weren't lovers, we barely knew each other but Safa was gone. My eyes met Olgas and I could see that she was amused by the situation. Keenan was silent beside her.

"She's a day-old soul and you're already having trouble controlling yourself not to annoy her?" Olga said directly to Keenan. She wasn't mad at all and I could sense that she was used to his annoying behavior.

Keenan was still staring at me. His charcoal eyes deepened as he narrowed his gazed before he faced Olga.

"I didn't do anything. I was just trying to tour her around." He said.

"Or scare her..." Olga rebutted.

"Whatever..." He started walking in the hallway away from us; his shoulders were high and proud showing his arrogant side. He didn't bother to look back. At the end of the hallway he turned left and disappeared completely leaving me with Olga. She turned to faced me and gave me a sympathetic smile. She reached out and put an arm around my shoulders and urged me to walk with her.

"He's not always like that. He could be a pain in the ass but his one of the best guardians that we have..." She said.

I didn't say anything to oppose Olga. All I did was listened to her speak as she guided me to this dimmed lighted antechamber. We walked a few steps until we reached the end of the hallway and stopped in front of one of the most majestic statues of angel I beheld in my entire existence. The statue was huge, bigger than those that were guarding in the hallway. He, I assumed was a male because of his masculine physicality, stood in alabaster whiteness at the center facing the entrance from where we came. Why didn't I notice this earlier? I thought. The commanding angel was also in battle garb but the breastplate and shield adorning him were made of gold, equipped with massive sword hanging on his side. His right hand was holding a golden staff with twin serpents entwined around the middle to the top where both snake heads were facing each other. Huge wings spread behind the angel's back as if caught in mid-flight, casting shadow over us. The angel's face looked serene yet cunning. His eyes were looking straight to the room as if surveying the world, vigilant of the cruelty among mankind. Something sparked within me as I stared in awe at the angel's face. I knew who he was. I read about him from books and scriptures and from the bible reading at school. There were lots of replicas of him in many churches all over the world. I knew who he was... He was not an ordinary angel; he was one of the pillars of God. This was just a representation of him. It wasn't the real one yet the presence of the statue edicts the authority of the ethereal being. I suddenly had the urge to bow my head - not because I wanted to... but it was the right thing to do, to surrender, in humility to the might of the Archangel Raphael.

My eyes were clouded with tears with the sight of him. I felt peace inside of me, relieving me from all the worries in my mind. My heart beats with unquenchable gladness that made me wanted to burst out laughing. I heard hymn of praises humming in the air and in a moment I wanted to sing a verse and filled my mind with cherubic singing. It was euphoric to say the least and I wanted to stay this way forever. But an arm around my shoulders disrupted me from the blessed trance. A touch so soft and kind that could only belong to Olga. The next time I looked at the angel's face, I swore that I saw it smiled at me and I smiled back. Olga understood what had occurred. She probably brought me here on purpose because she knew that the Patron of Zion would help me healed the wounds inflicted in me by my death. It worked perfectly well... As I looked deep inside of me, I felt calm, the kind of calmness that gave way to acceptance and later... love.

My soul was healed.