Chapter 5

The painting that Yui drew on the canvas was as beautiful as anything Calvin had seen in an art museum. He had almost forgotten how gifted Yui was at artistry. While he was untrained in painting, he could tell just by watching that the girl had wonderful brushstrokes. She was exceptional in the way she could blend colors as well as make what she drew both realistic and imaginative.

How could anyone think someone this gifted was worthless? Calvin thought. Her parents must have been out of their mind if they said she was of no value.

However, the pictures that she painted were more haunting than they were beautiful. The first portrait felt wide somehow. Wider than the square of canvas it was drawn on. Vaster than could be captured was the environment in front of her.

It was almost like a starry night, the glinting gems of white and yellow cast against a blackish white sky. Yui had to be careful when painting the background both shades as it seemed the heavens were layered in the two colors. Stripes of white contrasted against wisps of black behind the stars.

Only they weren’t stars. Calvin wasn’t sure how Yui did it, but in the small dots of brightness the young woman had drawn intricate man-shaped figures. They were small human figures in what he thought were robes. Calvin was unsure about the clothing of those people as they were so small but they were definitely human-looking.

If he looked close enough the faces of each person in the stars were unique and individualized, like snowflakes. Calvin was amazed at how Yui had been able to capture such personalized human expressions with so little room. It was miniscule the shapes she drew but if one looked closely you couldn’t say one tiny small face was a copy of the other.

But when he observed the human figures even closer he was taken aback by their expressions. They were not ones of pain but stoicism. A hard expression with upturned faces, as if they were too holy to look down. Their noses were upturned and their eyes were looking up, if Calvin was correct. Observing their eyes was hard as they were so miniscule he had to squint to look directly at them.

The fact that they were stoic was somehow off-putting to Calvin. It hurt him. He felt as if there was something they were looking at that he couldn’t see. Something that wasn’t invisible but too far up in the heavens a man as small as him could not grasp. Calvin was amazed that Yui could capture something like that.

How could any artist capture something that detailed? He asked himself. How could one invoke such a specific emotion with such miniscule images? Yui must be a genius or…or she must have seen this very thing. Very closely.

But the way she captured such fine stoicism was not the only disturbing thing about her painting. Below the black and white horizon was a beach as pale as human flesh. It looked less like sand and more like the skin of a human. The individual grains did not cohere into something like fine earth but almost like the mosaic of the topmost layer of a man’s flesh. And beyond that was the sea of red.

Calvin was convinced the water beyond the beach of flesh-colored sand was not merely red but depicting actual blood. The color that Yui used to capture it was too dark a red to be something else. Even the way she painted it made it look thicker than water could ever conceivably be.

When she finished the painting the beach that he couldn’t tell was supposed to be sand or flesh was dotted with countless skeletons, skulls and various bones. A treasure chest of human remains littered it but not a bit of flesh remained among them. Calvin could only imagine that so much flesh was ripped off and soaked into the sand beneath them the sand had fully mixed with it. Even stranger were Yui’s words pointing to the skeletal remains.

“Those,” she said as lifted her brush to them. “Were the ones who could not make it.”

“Who could not make it to what?” Calvin asked.

She then pointed to the stars above where the figures were bathed in what looked like light.

“The ones who watch over us and look at the lives of all mankind,” she said.

Her face was so dissonant as she spoke. It didn’t look as if Yui was speaking at him but toward something else. Something he couldn’t see. Her words had a strange hollowness to them, lacking emotion. Calvin felt Yui wasn’t speaking from her emotions but from something deeper. Something he couldn’t touch or see. Something he couldn’t feel.

“I remember seeing it almost as if in a dream,” she said. “Yet, unlike a dream, I saw it so clearly. It was as if it happened in another life, through eyes that had both been and not been my own.”

Yui looked at the painting with widening eyes. It was as though she gained her memory of the whole event and now fear wormed its way into her heart. Calvin was afraid she’d start screaming again but instead her face became oddly placid. As Calvin examined her, he found the fear in her heart was not something that threatened her survival but something that made Yui’s inner being quiver.

It opened a hole in her innermost self that made her experience terror beyond the mortal plane. Looking into her blank eyes, Calvin could almost see into Yui’s heart. He could see the hole that was in her peaceful, gentle soul like the seam opening up in a piece of cloth.

“Yui…?” he asked. “Yui…?”

“I-I…” she said. “I was there…I was there to see the river of blood…the stars that were brighter than gold…and the people inside them more beautiful than gems…but…but those stars…”

Her eyes grew wider, the seam in her soul only grew as well.

“They looked down on us,” Yui said. “Because we were evil. And they were holy.”

“Evil?” Calvin said.

“There are so many lost souls in there,” Yui said, her oddly passionless voice continuing. “All so lost and full of tragic grief…weighed down by the burdens of the heart…swimming in eternal dread for their many crimes…”

Yui reached her arm forward toward the painting.

“I-” she said, tears stinging her eyes as she pitied those she saw in her painting. “I want to help them. I want to take them from her torment.”

“Take who?” Calvin asked.

The girl continued stretching her hand toward the painting, causing Calvin to reach forward in an attempt to stop her.

“That paint is still wet,” Calvin said. “You’ll stain your dress and-”

Calvin looked in horror to see that Yui’s hand had reached into the painting. The canvas rippled like still water whose surface had been broken through, circles of crimson emanating from her fingers as they reached deep into the blood. The dark red sea Yui had drawn was now a portal of liquid that she had put her free arm into.

“Yui!” he shouted.

“I can feel them,” she said. “In there…searching…searching desperately for hope.”

Calvin peered closer in panic to see human figures beneath the dark red surface Yui spoke of. Through the veil of crimson he could see people with faces distorted by pain swimming in the blood. They were somewhat covered in shadow, bathed in shade except for their faces which may as well have been white as snow in contrast. Calvin wasn’t so much disgusted by them as fascinated.

The sea of blood somehow expanded past his vision and now he was looking into the void of dark red. They dashed through the liquid maniacally, almost like fish in the ocean. The expressions of each man and woman were distinct and unique, just as those in the star were. However, they portrayed a far wider range of emotions than the star people did.

They were all tormented but had different phases of it whether it be pain, sorrow, hatred, confusion or something in between. Those in the stars were all stoic and righteous, conveying some amount of morality that elevated them above those below. It was when looking up to compare them that Calvin became more disturbed.

They have to look down to find those horrid beings swimming about and shrieking in pain. He thought. I can’t see how they can stand it.

“Look out how much pain they’re in,” Yui said as she began crying. “Look at them…it’s…it’s horrible…”

“What?!” Calvin shrieked. “What are they?!”

“Those who have died and did not make it to the stars,” Yui said. “The only ones who can cross the River of Blood are those who have never committed an evil act. Only…only I don’t think anyone’s that good.”

“So…?” he said. “That’s everyone who’s ever died? In there…suffering? Why do they look so horrid?”

“They’re still trying to get there,” Yui said. “They’re still…they’re still trying to…to…to make it. Make it to the stars. The fact they’ve been hurt…hurt by their own misdeeds…the river…it hurts them as much as they have hurt others in life…”

She pushed her arm deeper into the crimson, past her elbow.

“I have to take one of them out,” she said.

“But-” Calvin said. “But-”

“I have to try!” she said. “I can’t allow myself to see anyone else hurting!”

Yui dropped her paint brush to the floor and reached into it. Calvin watched as Yui stuck both of her hands in, waving both of her arms up to her elbow in the pool of blood. Calvin could see Yui was fishing around within it, trying to grab what she could inside. Then her arms stayed still and jerked slightly.

“Oh!” Yui shouted. “Calvin! I found something! Someone grasped my hand on the other side!”

“Oh…” Calvin said, more scared than anything. “Oh…okay…just…”

And then Yui was pulled further towards the painting.

“Oh!” she cried.

Her chest slammed against her painting as she cried in pain. She struggled and squirmed in resistance as the front of her white dress was bloodied. Yui began crying in pain.

“No!” she cried. “No! I-I wanted to help you get out!”

“What’s wrong?!” Calvin shouted.

He grabbed Yui by the shoulders, only to find an intense force pulling against him. Calvin panicked as his heart began slamming into his throat, the ensuing fear resulting from the idea he’d lose Yui again. He began screaming in fear.

“C-Calvin!” she said. “He-He’s pulling me in!”

“No!” he shouted. “No he won’t!”

Calvin put his hands closer down Yui’s arms and pulled with all his might. Calvin began running out of breath and his arms began hurting he was being fought against with such force. He began gripping his feet against the floor of his bedroom with all his might, trying with everything to wrench the thing’s grip off of Yui.

He began reliving the nightmares and panic attacks he had after Yui’s death. The idea of being without her was so harrowing to him he’d rather not live than exist without her. Life would have no meaning without Yui. It was this idea that gave him strength, this fear that maximized his strength by volumes he couldn’t imagine.

“Oh-!” Yui shouted. “Calvin…please!”

“I’m trying!” he replied.

Through agonizing fear and intense pain, Calvin eventually dragged Yui’s arms out of the pool of blood with a startling discovery. Blood stained arms and hands grabbed hold of Yui’s wrists and seemed to be wanting to drag her into the painting with them. But they were not bloodstained like Yui’s arms were. The blood darkened and flowed around them like waterfalls recycling their liquid so that it would not drip from these limbs. With every bit of strength they had, Calvin and Yui pulled the latter’s arms from the grasp of the arms.

They fell onto the bedroom floor, both gasping in exhaustion with Yui struggling in Calvin’s arms. Calvin, already tired, had the wind knocked out of him by the girl landing on top of him. He began panting for air as Yui sobbed. They both looked up to see the arms washed back into the flow of blood, disappearing like a fish caught in a torrent of water. Calvin let his head fall back, utterly perplexed at what transpired.

“That,” he said. “Was close.”

“Oh!” Yui said. “That poor soul…! If only…if only I’d been able to help him…”

“Yui…” he said. “You almost died…lost again…”

“I don’t know if he was trying to kill me,” she said. “He may have just been desperately trying to get out of that horrible place. I…I don’t know what more I could have done.”

Yui rolled off the top of him and staggered up almost as soon as Calvin did. He looked to see her white dress ruined by being bloodstained. He sighed, knowing she’d have to change again if she wanted to be presentable. Calvin shook his head.

“So is that what you saw when you…?” he asked. “I don’t know…um…”

“Died?” Yui asked. “Yes…I saw them…I saw them…I saw them carried by the current here and there…thrown around like grains of sand in a storm…their lives…or what was left of their lives by that point was torment…all of them failing to reach the other side…”

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She then looked back at the painting.

“Only…” she said. “Only…I was able to reach it. I don’t know how but I was able to swim through the torment and…and was able…able to make it that place beyond the horizon. So that I was among those in the stars.”

“How were you able to swim to the sky?” Calvin asked. “I mean…it makes no sense.”

“One can travel anywhere so long as their heart is pure enough,” Yui said. “At least…at least in that world. When one’s heart is pure…one is able to sail into the stars…and I suppose…I suppose…I suppose I did…because I had…the heart to do it…”

She looked to the side, obviously uncomfortable.

“But is my heart really pure?” Yui asked.

“It is!” Calvin said. “If there’s anyone pure of heart…it’s you!”

She sighed, looking down.

“I…” she said. “I just…I just wish the others could…could go.”

“Well I doubt that,” he said. “I doubt that anyone had your heart. Not in a thousand years could someone like you be born again.”

She then opened her eyes.

“But-!” Yui cried. “I think that’s why I was supposed to go!”

“Wha-?” Calvin asked. “What–what do you mean?”

“It-” Yui said. “It was an exchange…an exchange of sorts. To cross over the boundary…”

“An exchange of what?” Calvin asked. “To cross over…the boundary of death?”

“No,” Yui said. “There is another boundary…a boundary that is beyond the boundary between the dead and the living. One which mere mortals attempt to cross after they die…only to never reach. It is the boundary which separates the common man….”

Yui went back to the easel she sat at before taking the painting she just drew off the wooden device. She then took a blank canvas and began painting again. Calvin was amazed at the speed she could paint at and it still was beautiful. It was almost inhuman how well Yui could paint at the efficiency at which she could.

Did Yui’s skills at painting get better after she died? He wondered.

Her next painting seemed even stranger. The river of blood was still there but now there was a path of snow white stone in the middle of it. The walkway of stone was untainted by the red of the blood around it and the figures were crawling from the crimson sea onto the path.

It was a narrow walkway and they had to be careful not to totter over to the side and be drowned within. However, they were able to walk forward along the way in a single file line. As they marched forward their forms gradually changed. They no longer looked dour and hateful. They became happy, with expressions of gratitude and wonder. Love and contentment followed all who took the narrow path.

“From those above,” Yui said.

When Yui finished the painting he found that at the front of the white, stone path was Yui herself. She was swimming at the surface of the river of blood, something that he had not seen a single person do in the other painting. The ability to do such a thing must have been very special. If Calvin was observing the painting right it seemed that wherever Yui swam a white stone path followed, miraculously materializing in her wake. He was so confused at the sight.

“What…?” he asked. “What does all this mean?”

“An exchange of death for life…” she said, her hollow tone returning. “I remember…I remember being there…being there…and swimming…swimming against the current of the river…”

She cleaned the hair of the utensil in a cup of water on Calvin’s nightstand before dabbing it back into different pools of colored paint. With white and yellow, Yui drew the star people to now watch the figures below. It was now that they were no longer so disgusted with those swimming in the river of blood below. They could now tolerate the presence of the figures below. And Calvin was beginning to see why.

Yui began decorating some of the figures with yellow and white paint to indicate they had begun gaining the essence of those above. Now that the victims once swimming in the blood river were becoming like the star figures it apparently wouldn’t stain their eyes. It was almost like they were too sensitive to look at such. Calvin was impressed that Yui could so easily convey this.

“I was meant…” she said. “To die…for…for…the chance for these victims to become like those in the heavens…I had to push so hard against the waves of that horrid river…but I did nonetheless.”

“That-” he said. “That’s wonderful. I always knew you were special Yui…but I didn’t know you had some divine destiny or something…I always thought you were merely kind.”

“Maybe that is enough,” Yui said after finishing the painting. She then took another blank canvas and set it on her easel. “A kind heart…a heart renewed with unbending love and courage…to challenge the world’s evil…that may be something greater than what others call freedom…it may be the highest form of freedom…to be unbound by hatred or obsession.”

As Yui began drawing her new painting, she began crying again.

“As I lived on Earth…” she said. “I found people were driven by success and power…driven by the desire for wealth and fame…for popularity…burdened by the anger of petty grudges and the abuse suffered at the hands of others…”

Tears flowed down her face at her own words.

“So shallow and destructive humans all were…” Yui said. “Striving for a goal we didn’t understand…a goal to ascend past the stars when we couldn’t even step forward, we had so little strength.”

Calvin then could see why Yui had become sad again. The figures that had climbed onto the pathway that materialized behind her were now falling. She drew them tottering over and splashing into the blood red beside them.

He was shocked to see some of the figures now bathed in the whitish-yellow light like those of the stars were once again drowning in the dark red. Calvin’s mouth dropped in horror to find that most of those that had begun walking fell into the river of blood before flowing back to the beach behind them. He gasped in fright to see Yui painting not those people but their bare skeletons drying on the flesh-colored beach.

The few who remained on the path marched stoically on with an almost militant-like fervor. Unlike in the river of blood they were not in pain or distress. Unlike at first getting on the path they were not overjoyed. Now they were stoic and stone-faced, more like the people of the stars.

“Yet as hard as I tried…” Yui said. “Some refused…the way I made…it was so thin…not all could stay on.”

“I-” Calvin said. “I-I’m sorry…?”

He began looking at Yui in a different, odder way than he normally would. He used to see her as a gem of a person, pure and perfect in every way. Now Calvin saw her as an almost dangerous and enigmatic person. A being with a power beyond mortal comprehension.

Is Yui someone who has control over death and life? He thought. The power to even save the dead? A person who has not only crossed over the boundary of this world twice but has also allowed others to go beyond a boundary beyond even that?

He looked at Yui as she took the canvas of those lost souls falling off the narrow path to replace it with a blank one. Calvin was now aware that Yui’s painting skills had progressed that she could paint masterpieces in a frighteningly short time. It was more proof that Yui had gone beyond that of a mere human being.

She had surpassed the limit of a mortal but Calvin didn’t quite understand what Yui was. Before she was resurrected Calvin saw Yui as a victim who lay dormant during her time in the grave. Now he looked at her as someone performing supernatural and powerful deeds during her time dead rather than just sleeping. He was now beginning to grow afraid of what lay beyond the boundary of death.

Is there something beyond what lies within human life? He thought. A world…that we don’t know about? That the living don’t even know about? That’s not possible!

But now this was undeniable proof. Calvin had viewed Yui brought back to life in exchange for Nathan’s as a fluke of nature. Something that wasn’t real because it was so rare and out of the ordinary. He didn’t give too much thought to whatever force brought the knife to him or what Yui had been like in death.

Now, he felt there was something bigger than just the two of them. And that snake that appeared before Calvin for a brief moment had something to do with it. A snake that, the more he thought about it, looked like the one on the knife he brought.

Is…? He thought. Is it the same creature? Is it…is it…playing us?

Yui’s next painting answered his question, as though she knew his thoughts as well as her own. The paint pouring across the once empty canvas now brought to life the scene of Yui’s death. Calvin had to resist the urge to turn away as the memory stung in the back of his mind like a hornet’s poison.

It showed Yui standing in front of her friend as a grim-faced, stocky man slashed at her. It was almost like Yui was being defensive in attempting to position herself between her blond friend and the mugger. The knife that was driven into the girl’s flesh carried blood as it swiped across her stomach. Just as Calvin looked away he saw Yui draw something in the lower left hand corner that interested him more.

The same black snake that appeared before him was now being painted with glossy black scales. There was no question that it was the same as the serpent that had confronted Calvin. Its arrow-shaped head looked forward at the mugger and onto Yui as he watched them from afar. And as Calvin examined the positioning of the serpent in relation to the humans in the portrait, he began to notice what Yui was conveying.

Was the serpent controlling the mugger…? Calvin wondered.

It certainly looked that way. The mugger slaying Yui did not look like an intelligent, autonomous being so much as he looked inhuman and enraged. His expression held no emotion other than the desire to kill. It was odd to Calvin that Yui could capture without words such a direct meaning simply by painting the serpent in a certain location. From the way it was positioned the serpent looked like it was truly behind the events that transpired, in both a metaphorical and literal meaning.

The sun above also looked peculiar. It was positioned in the right hand corner of the portrait, in direct opposition to the black serpent. Calvin wanted to call it a sun but it didn’t seem right.

The sun in the portrait looked more like one of the star people that Yui had painted in her earlier drawings. Rather than circular it looked somewhat man-shaped, with a face within the white and yellow paint to produce a light. However, the sun bore an expression that Calvin had never seen before.

It looked stoic like those in the stars but far more regal than even them. Rather than diverting its eyes away from the scene below, it looked on with pronounced judgment, scanning the events below with anger. With the sun’s face and the black serpent in direct opposition with the murder on the level between them, a strange portrait was drawn in Calvin’s inner world.

The serpent was not the only one who had a plan. He thought. Whatever his enemy is, whoever he is faced against that holds the power above, also had a part in it. Almost like…Yui’s murder was a meeting ground between their two opposing wills. Almost as if…that which was below and that which was above clashed on the mortal plane. And not for the first time…

“An exchange,” Yui said. “Almost like an agreement between them. My life was to be taken…because…”

Her voice became hollow and dissonant, a certain hesitance residing over her words.

“I threatened the serpent of death’s power,” she said. “My life on this earth…it made him fear his domain…”

“Why?” Calvin asked. “Why would some snake fear you?”

“Because in this world of constant torment people add to its evil by hurting others,” Yui said. “Killing for the purpose of bringing life…it was a principle that this world’s bloody history is built upon…a principle that the serpent has used to corrupt us all…defiling any truth within that principle…”

She shook her head.

“A principle I didn’t believe in,” Yui said. “Because I wouldn’t hurt others no matter what power it would give me…”

Tears welled up in her eyes.

“And I suppose I was alone in that,” she said.

Calvin then felt self-conscious, afraid that Yui had seen directly into his soul.

No life without death. He thought. That was the very principle I used to bring Yui back to life. But…but it worked. Is the principle evil in and of itself? Or can it be used for good?

“Everyone I met swimming in the river of blood on the other side of death’s boundary…” she said, pausing to remember. “Had plagued another swimming along with them with suffering. They were all burdened with the other’s evil…punished for causing suffering…”

Yui looked down, ashamed at herself.

“I suppose I had never caused anyone suffering,” she said. “Which was why I was the only one allowed to cross the river’s current. I only wish I could have done more for them.”

“But if the principle of death for life is evil,” Calvin said. “Then…then how did…?”

He tried to ask the question without revealing his own evil.

“How did you return to life?” he asked. “I mean…sacrifices have to be made for…for stuff like they don’t they?”

“It’s more so the principle of making others suffer and fail for your own benefit,” Yui said. “Not just death in a physical way but in a deeper meaning…destroying the will of a person to live or their dreams…eviscerating their own happiness for the sake of your’s…a world like that is something I didn’t want to participate in.”

She then pointed her brush to the serpent in the lower left hand corner.

“I was an outlier,” Yui said. “A human being that had never committed a moral wrong. And the serpent must have noticed that. So he planned to have me killed…but in accordance with the grand star’s will…”

“How do you know all this, Yui?” Calvin asked.

“I don’t know!” she yelled. “I don’t know!”

She put her paint brush down on the tray in front of her easel and took in a deep breath. The girl looked like she was in deep pain as she leaned down and began panting. Yui squeezed the leg of her easel as Calvin rushed toward her, afraid she would collapse again. She shook her head as she waved him away, sitting back up.

“I don’t know how I know all this,” Yui said. “It’s just that…my memories they’re all coming back to me…and…and they’re really fuzzy…”

She shook her head in defiance, as if trying to jostle an impediment within her mind.

“I don’t think I was told,” Yui said. “I think I just…absorbed it while I was there…on the other side…because once I crossed over the boundary…I realized it was all connected. And I did it twice…”

“This boundary you keep talking about…,” Calvin said. “Is it…real? Like, is there actually a gate or, or...a barrier?”

“There is,” Yui said. “There definitely is. There’s a barrier, a veil, a distance…something put in place between the living and the dead. And…it’s connected to the morality of all mankind.”

She pointed to the paintings she had taken off her easel before pointing to the one in front of her. Calvin noticed after repeated proddings that Yui kept gesturing to. He then noticed what she was trying to show him.

“The heavens and the earth below…” Calvin said. “They’re…they’re so far a part.”

“Yes,” Yui said. “Long ago…apparently the earth and the heavens were closer together…no…I don’t think that’s correct.”

She shook her head.

“It was more so man used to be as those among the stars,” she said. “Before being brought down to a lower plane…the grand star would not allow mankind to retain its elevated stature because of their misgivings…”

Yui looked at her paintings again, almost fainting at the sight of such intense portraits.

“Once they abused their power…” she said. “They…were prevented from living further…a boundary called death was put up…and a river with a current so strong they could not hope to reach to the heavens to regain their power. Death…was the boundary meant to prevent humans from further abusing their power.”

“What-?” Calvin asked as he shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“A memory I absorbed crossing over the boundary,” Yui said. “And another memory I absorbed crossing the boundary past that one.”

“But…” Calvin said. “But…but why? How? What…what did humanity do?”

“The serpent…,” Yui said. “I don’t know how…but…but he poisoned the minds of humans of old and…and…they became evil…attempting to use the principle of suffering and destruction in exchange for power to advance themselves.”

“Is that right?” Calvin asked, growing nervous as he hoped she would never realize what he did to bring her back.

“Yes…” Yui said. “And because of that…death was created…to prevent them from further abusing such power. But now…now the serpent’s plan is to…is to upend that barrier that separates death from life. That separates the heavens from the Earth.”

“And why would he want that?” Calvin asked.

“Because…” Yui said. “He wants…he wants to return to his place among the stars.”