The End - Chapter 6

After a restless sleep Lauren and I were up and ready to solve the Japanese puzzle box. The moment we stepped out of the warm welcome lounge, a bitterly cold gust of air froze the moisture on our skin. Instinctively we retreated back into the warmth of the hotel lounge.

Soon the pristinely clean taxi pulled up to the curb and signaled for us to enter. Snow kept on blurring my vision as I was sprinting through the freezing conditions of Tokyo. I heard a dull thud and my foot hit a jagged stone protruding from the pavement. I fell down.

My hands were touching the freezing bare concrete. I couldn’t even lift them as they were stuck. Gasping for breath, my lungs struggled to process the cold air. A shiver ran down my spine as I heard an eerily familiar voice “Be careful. Be very careful.” A wrinkled old hand lay on my back and I began to involuntarily twitch.

I couldn’t believe it. The scene before me began to whiz and images of milestones in my life seemed to rush around me. My head began to hurt and sweat trickled down my face even though it was freezing cold. Nausea rushed through my body, as the images sped up into a brilliant blur of white. I struggled to stay conscious, but it was just too overwhelming. I collapsed to the ground, as the blur around me dissipated. I croakily sucked in the few breaths that I could manage. Though I could hear footsteps crunching in the soft snow and the busy traffic in Tokyo, all I could see was the colour black.

Through all the chaos and confusion in my head, I finally figured out what had happened. The elderly lady still had her hand pressed into my back. I had to escape. I lurched and writhed, but all I felt was the stinging coldness of the snow. A sharp, yet soothing female voice commanded, “Stay still.”

Thick ropes shot out from all directions and tied me up; I gave up once again. The voice echoed in the darkness “Good. Now, pay attention.”

The darkness below began to disappear, revealing a glowing red underneath. At first, the warmth felt wonderful; contrasting the harsh wintery bitterness of Japan. But within a few minutes, breathing became uncomfortable because of the unbearable heat.

I lifted myself off the ground and noticed that I was standing in a glass corridor. Steep rocky cliffs around me all ended up at a cracked glowing terrain that appeared about one hundred metres down from where I was observing.

Where was I?

Glancing around my surroundings, I heard a groaning noise echoing from below. I could see a vague shadow. It was a man; he looked as if he was in his fifties. Looking rather familiar, it struck me that it was my late father. A dark cloaked figure glided across the cracked ground and stretched a long bony finger; the finger was pointing at me. My father slowly turned around and glared gloomily at me. His skin was a dull grey and his eyes drooped. His face all deformed and twisted.

Surely this was hell.