Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Fear Used: Ouranophobia- fear of heaven
Title: A Heavenly Demise
Username: SixFoldDimension
Word Count: 2,913

What is heaven? How does it work? If nothing is perfect, then how does it exist?

“I… I don’t think that you should do that….” a small voice whispered.

“If I listened to everything you think, I woulda’ lost my rep already,” a harsher voice spat. “And quiet, before someone catches us, ‘kay?”

“B-but--!” the first voice stutters. He pauses. A sigh. “Okay.”

“Heh. Now there’s a friend.” The second person turns to the wall and continues doing whatever she was doing.

Aaron, feeling utterly defeated, dropped his gaze to the floor-- unwilling to look at the deeds of his own best friend and love interest. She was standing there, blue spray paint bottle in one hand and red in the other, vandalizing the brick wall with graffiti. And he was there, too-- helping her; if holding three other spray bottles was considered ‘helping’.

“At least she’s only doing graffiti,” Aaron thought to himself as he began to feel more and more guilty. Yes, only graffiti. Compared to the other things that Grace could’ve done, her crime was pretty humane.

Compared to Grace. Not Aaron. He knew: if it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t have even thought of such a thing.

Aaron sighed and rubbed his forehead. He didn’t want to be here. He really didn’t want to be here. But did he have a choice?



How does someone get into heaven? Do they need to do good deeds-- or do they need to have a good heart?

The pair lived in Cleary Stone Hills, ‘The Land of Potential’. It was a fitting name, actually-- potential described a lot, all without mentioning good or bad.

Some say that Cleary Stone Hills was a land of peace. Others knew Cleary Stone Hills as a land of horror. In some ways, both queries are correct.

Clearly Stone Hills was a land for everyone. Gracious, wholesome and wonderful people came to live here-- as well as cruel, heartless hoodlums and thieves. Behind the beautiful landscapes and lakes, dangerous alleys and clubs were hidden. And beneath the ugly surface of the clubs and alleys, there dwell a trace of good will-- as to say, there was a little good and bad in everything and everyone… except that some people had more good or bad than others.

Aaron was definitely more good than bad. A respectful, hardworking student as well as a loyal and honest friend, the only thing he seemed to lack was a strong sense of authority. He had come to live in Cleary Stone Hills with hopes of meeting new people, different people… people that weren’t angels, like he was. If only someone had told him before, but now was too late-- he got what he wanted, with more than he was asking for.

Grace had the backbone that Aaron lacked, but her strong spirit seemed to be the only thing good about her. Simply put it this way-- she was no saint. Grace truly lived up to her street nickname, “Demon Girl”. Other than vandalizing alleys, she destroyed public property, abused animals, injured small children, injured big children, injured all people in general… and much more. “Demon Girl” was dangerous. “Demon Girl” was to be avoided at all costs. “Demon Girl” should not be allowed to roam the streets. “Demon Girl” should be locked up in juvenile prison, where she belongs.

“Demon Girl” should be this. “Demon Girl” needs to that. “Demon Girl” was a demon. But what about Grace?

Nobody knew Grace. They only knew the demon. All day, everyday-- he’d hear spiteful rumors about her, knowing that they were true-- Aaron found it hard to believe that “Demon Girl”, the delinquent, and Grace, his best friend, were the same person.

In some ways, he figured; they were not.



What is hell? How do you get into hell? Will I go to hell? Will the people I care about go to hell?

“Stop! Please stop!” he cried as he pulled against her sleeve, teary-eyed. “Please don’t do this, Grace…!”

“Shut up!” she hissed. The bag in her hand-- which held a small snake-- nearly slipped from her grasp as he interfered. “Don’t touch me! You almost made it fall!”

“Don’t do this, please,” he repeated, desperate. “We could get in so much trouble--”

“You mean I could get in so much trouble,” Grace corrected. She shoved him out of the way and proceeded to dump the reptile in a bed. “If he tries to blame you, just put all the blame on me-- my reputation is bad enough,” she added with a smirk.

“But I don’t want you to get in trouble,” Aaron whimpered. “You don’t have to do this, I don’t care anymore, Grace… just let him go, even if he ripped up my homework….”

“I care, even if you don’t,” she replied. He couldn’t see what she was doing to the snake-- but knowing Grace, Aaron knew that the end result wouldn’t be good. “No one gets away with hurting my best friend.”

“He didn’t… didn’t….” His voice trailed away as her words sunk in. Snake? For him? Not for her own fun?

Stunned, Aaron sat in the corner of the room, silent. He only watched her until she was done.



What if heaven is hell? And if hell is a heaven? Why didn’t God specify everything for us?

“Why did you do that?”

“I told you-- because that p***k annoyed you.”

“I said that I didn’t care anymore.”

“And I told you: I do.”

Aaron kept walking, trapped between guilt and overwhelming joy. He knew that Grace didn’t like snakes very much; yet, she retrieved one-- and a poisonous one at it-- to punish an enemy of his. Was that a friend or a foe? Someone who would cause another person a visit to the hospital for months was pure evil-- but what about someone who would do it in the name of friendship?

He didn’t know. He just kept walking.

“I’m bored.” Grace suddenly stopped, nearly making her absent-minded friend collide right into her. “What do you wanna’ do?”

“I dunno’. Visit a lake?” he suggested, taking a few steps back.

“That sounds really dumb.”

“It isn’t,” protested Aaron. “There’s a nice view… and frogs….”

“Frogs?” A grin split across her face. “Awesome. Let’s go.”

Aaron frowned. “I won’t let you kill the frogs,” he added seriously.

“Fine-- I try to kill the frogs, you act as the dumb environmentalist, ‘kay?” said Grace, a mischievous glint in her eye.

Aaron sighed. “Whatever. But seriously-- I won’t let you kill the frogs.”

She smirked again, but didn’t say anything. Involuntarily, he started to smile himself. Aaron and Grace, laughing and joking; as different as they were, they started to walk to the lake-- together.



What if I don’t want to go to heaven? What if I want to go to hell? Will God let me pick, even if I’m a good person and deserve to go to heaven?

“This is probably what heaven looks like,” Grace commented, looking at the sky from her position, lying in the grass. The usually-blue sky was now a mix of tangerine-orange and soft pink, while its the puffy clouds looked almost gold. A breeze came once in a while, brushing the fully-bloomed flower trees and pulling a few petals into the sky.

“Maybe,” replied Aaron, who was lying right beside her.

“Well, looks like I gotta’ enjoy it now,” Grace yawned. She caught a deep purple petal that was within her reach and held it.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked carefully, sitting up, concerned.

“What? You think someone like me’s gonna’ go to heaven?” When she saw the look on his face, she burst out laughing. “Oh, c’mon… seriously now.”

“You’re not a bad person,” he said, unfazed. “You just hide it by pretending to be bad.”

Grace shook her head and sighed, also sitting up. “But I do bad things. Doesn’t matter why or whatever-- bad people go to hell… right?” She started playing with the petal in her hands, avoiding his gaze. “But you’re going to heaven, of course.”

“Not without you,” he added, almost too quickly. She started to smile, which made him start to smile as well. “If you’re going anywhere, then I’m going to follow you there.”

“You mean you’re gonna’ follow the nice, pretty girls that also make it to heaven,” she corrected. Grace wasn’t smiling anymore; in fact, her face had become solemn, and even deadly… the face that she usually wore.

“You’re wrong.” He looked at her with a strange-- almost curious-- expression. “You are wrong, Grace.”

“Heh. Maybe I am.” She climbed to her feet, and Aaron followed her suit. She ripped up the violet flower petal into pieces and chucked them into the sky.

Instead of flowing in the wind like petals, they pelted back down to earth like rocks.



They told me that it was all in my head. That I didn’t have to worry. But even if it’s in my head-- does it mean that it’s not real?

Aaron had made his way back home, alone. Grace always left to walk her own way when they departed, and today was no different.

Today was no different. But he still felt lonely.

He continued, trudging again the cold winds-- which, he noticed, seemed a lot colder without Grace around. Maybe the weather hated him, and it liked being horrible to him whenever he had no one to lean on?

Or maybe he felt this way because he had somewhat stabbed Grace in the back.

After they split paths, he made a beeline to the house of the person who had ripped his homework-- and took the snake out of his bed. He didn’t like the idea at all. The snake was returned to the forest, where she had found it.

Aaron felt good at first, but the good quickly wore away as he thought about Grace. He had… betrayed her.

“Maybe I’ll just tell her what I did,” he pondered as he walked back home. “She’ll probably beat me into a pulp for it, but it’s worth being honest to a friend… right?”

Aaron may be a person of more goodness than evil in him, but nobody mentioned anything about intelligence.

“That’s what I’ll do,” he told himself firmly.

He reached home quickly afterwards. Aaron got into the house and into bed without anyone noticing-- his parents worked late into the night, and his sister was probably out with her friends.

He folded the blanket around his body, and before he knew it, was sound asleep…

Aaron found himself in a world. A peaceful world. A pretty world. Heaven?

He rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Was he in heaven?

If he was, heaven looked a lot like it was depicted in the movies, he thought-- a place with clouds for lands and skies for scenery.

Aaron stumbled to his feet, skeptical with the cloudy floors at first, but surprised when he realized that they felt like any day grounds. He started walking, all alone.

Heaven must be a lonely place.

“Hey, Grace,” he called out before he could stop himself. It was out of habit, for she was usually right behind him-- or in front of him, rather. But not today, he reminded himself. Not in heaven.

“Where’s Grace?” he asked to no one in particular. Strangely, Aaron started to miss her-- and miss her dearly.

“She’s not coming here,” a voice whispered in his head.

“She isn’t?” he repeated, panicked. It took him a second to realize that he was more afraid that Grace wasn’t coming than he was of an unfamiliar voice talking to him in his mind.

“She does not belong in heaven,” the voice continued. “She has been a bad person.”

Aaron opened his mouth to argue, but quickly closed it. Whomever was talking to him was right. Grace was no angel.

“Then let me go to wherever she is,” he demanded, uncharacteristically aggressive.

“No.”

“Please!”

“You are not allowed.”

“But… then what kind of heaven is this? What kind of heaven doesn’t let someone be with their own best friend? What kind of heaven--!”

“Aarie, you nutcase, be quiet!” a different voice boomed.

“Huh?”

Aaron woke up with a start, panting and sweating. It was dark, but he could tell by the blurry outlines of the furniture that he was in his room and not in the so-called heaven. Leah-- his sister--, who’s room was next to his, was standing at the door. Aaron couldn’t see her expression, but he could tell that she was angry.

“I’m trying to get some sleep here,” Leah said rather obnoxiously, “and I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t talk to yourself!”

“Sorry. Weird dream,” he explained hastily, burying himself into the covers again.

…

“You can leave now,” Aaron added.

Leah didn’t leave. She kept standing at the door.

“Leah, what the--!” Suddenly, she was not at the door, but in his face, a wide smile plastered on her facial expression.

“Don’t think you can escape me like that! How was it? Who was it? Tell me quick before I have to hit you!”

“Huh-- what?” Aaron looked from her maniacal grin to her clenched fist to her grin again. He gulped. “Y-you mean my dream?”

“No, stupid,” she sighed. Aaron blinked. Leah threw her hands in the air. “I was being sarcastic! Yes, you moron!”

“Well, uh, it was about me going to heaven without my friends…” he started, slowly edging away from his sister as he talked.

“Go on….”

“…and then a voice in my head told me that they couldn’t come to heaven,” he continued. A gloomy feeling started to overtake him once more. “Even though I tried-- I asked to leave heaven to be with her, too-- they wouldn’t let me….” he stopped talking.

“That’s it?” He could tell that she was disappointed, but he nodded. “What? No girl?”

“What girl?” he asked blankly.

“Never mind…” Leah mumbled. She patted his head like he was a child, which made his scowl and squirm away.

“So you were scared?” she inquired, poking his forehead teasingly.

“No,” he half-lied. The dream itself wasn’t very scary. It was the thought that made him fearful-- but the dream, no.

“Don’t be,” Leah assured. She started to mess up his hair, but Aaron didn’t mind so much anymore. “Heaven is supposed to be a good place. I can’t describe it ‘cause I’ve never been there, of course-- but I know it’s good. Even without your friends. You can wait for your friends to join you and make new friends on the way. Don’t worry your silly little head anymore, Aarie.”

“And what if your friends aren’t coming to heaven?” he asked, sounding more childish than he wanted.

Leah laughed. “Then they aren’t coming,” she answered, unusually calm. “Friends that’re going to hell aren’t your friends, Aarie. Not true friends, at least.” She straightened his hair with her fingers for a little bit before she left, obviously feeling like she had helped him-- when she had only instilled even more fear into his mind.

Aaron looked down at his hands. They were shaking. Leah sounded so sure-- but she didn’t know.

He knew he didn’t want to go to heaven.



Now what do I do? One person tells me one thing, but another tells me something else. And I don’t think either of them are right. Who should I trust?

“Hah! Done,” declared Grace, dusting her hands. Aaron looked up. The wall was now sprayed with many curse words and death threats against someone named Sally-- the girl who looked at “Demon Girl” the wrong way, he guessed.

“Is it pretty?” she asked, looking at him from over her shoulder.

He didn’t answer. “Why do you do these things?”

Grace looked at him, and her expression softened. “It’s hard to explain,” she told him. “It’s something I have to do. You wouldn’t understand.”

“And I don’t understand,” he thought. Aaron handed her the rest of the paint spray. She threw them over her shoulder, mouthing, “we don’t need these anymore”.

“Don’t look so down,” Grace said. “We can do something else now. Something you like? Something that doesn’t include frog-killing?”

He almost laughed, and the burden of helping Grace with her vandalizing started disappearing from his mind, as everything other misdeed she did had. “Sure.”

Grace began to walk away-- a signal to follow. And he followed, looking to the sky.

The sky looked like heaven.

Aaron quickly looked down to the floor as the pang of fear struck him.

Maybe I won’t go to heaven after all. Even if I’m a good person. Maybe following Grace the Demon Girl will qualify as being a bad enough person, and I’ll go wherever she goes.

Which is not heaven.