~Chapter 20~

   She's crying, I thought. Part of me wanted to rush back to her, put my arms around her, tell her I'm sorry, that it's all okay, that I'm here for her... That I'm here...
   But I didn't.
   I couldn't. She wasn't there for me when I needed her. That showed it all. She never truly loved me, these tears are just her frustration, her wishing that she could get me back on her side... It's all for the war.
   Right?
   "NO!!!"

   The pain and suffering in her scream was like snapping a cord somewhere inside me. It hurt. A whole damn lot. Physically and mentally.
   And it also woke me up.
   Damn it. Another of those dreams. According to Kris, they're sort of real. Adriana is trying to contact me through my dreams, make me feel sorry for her, make me believe her and come back. I guess our spirits are connected that strongly through the past life.
   I took a deep breath. That's not going to happen.
   In some dreams she tells me I'm not really me right now. Well, she's wrong. Like Kris said, she never knew me in the first place. Didn't love me, only used me. Like Kris said.
   I got up and walked out to the kitchen area where, like every morning, Kris and Daisy were already up. Daisy was making something that smelled good and Kris was just sitting at the table, waiting. When he saw me, he smiled.
   "Good morning Caleb."
   I grunted in response as I sat down and held my head in my hands.
   "Had another dream?"
   I nodded.
   Kris was quiet for a while, then said, "I might know how you can get her to stop."
   I looked up at him. He looked cautious and maybe a little fearful, though I wasn't sure since he never seems scared of anything.
   "There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about actually."
   At this I sat up. Is the mysterious Kris finally going to reveal a few secrets? Tell me what's happening?
   "You remember I mentioned a war, right?" Kris asked slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. Daisy left the stove and whatever she had been cooking and sat down beside Kris, eying me curiously.
   "Yeah...?"
   "Well...I'm not exactly sure how to explain this..." Kris looked to Daisy for help.
   "It's no ordinary war," she said, "it goes back to your past life. That's about when it started."
   "What countries is it between?" I asked, wondering how on Earth Adri could be mixed up in a war. Peace-loving Adri.
   Kris and Daisy looked at each other. "Not countries," Kris said.
   "States?"
   "Think bigger..." Kris murmured.
   "Continents?" No way, this would be in the news or something.
   "Bigger..." Daisy whispered.
   "There is no bigger unless you're aliens or something."
   "Um...not exactly..."
   "We're...sort of..." Kris and Daisy shared a look. "Dead." Kris said.
   I just stared at them blankly.
   Then I tried to laugh.
   But they were completely serious. "What."
   "Long ago, we died, and our souls went to Hell. We're demons. But you, Caleb. You died long before us, and were an angel, married to Adriana, as king and queen of Heaven. But you were being deceived by her. She was good at first, that's why she was of Heaven in the first place, but she became corrupt with power, and used you. See, Heaven and Hell had once coexisted. We were at peace, no war, no agitation. Really, we were all contempt with our afterlives. But then I realized Adriana's corruption. I saw that she was deceiving you, and was going to warn you. But before I could, Adriana waged war on Hell to stop me. But, knowing that angels would reincarnate were they to be killed, I took one last desperate attempt to save you. I distracted the rest of Heaven with a main attack, and in the meantime, went directly to you and Adriana. I attempted to kill you, so that your soul may be saved and reborn without her evil, but she got in my way. I was going to simply take her prisoner so that her immortal spirit would not cause trouble, but I accidentally killed her, causing her to reincarnate. And after that, you tried to kill me, since you loved her, so in self-defense, I had to kill you. I kept a small hope that maybe she would not be tainted in this life, but it appears that she was. This is why I stepped in to save you from falling for her tricks once again. Yes, I purposely killed you with negative and hateful feelings towards her and your own love to make you become a demon like us, but it was only to save you, and hopefully end this damned war once and for all. With you on our side, we may have a chance to defeat them and finally restore the order that once was."
   I stayed silent for a long time while I soaked it all in.
   I wasn't so sure I trusted his words. It all seemed to correlate with the images I had in my head, his story of Heaven and the war and him killing us, but something didn't seem right. I couldn't see his face in the images. Why? Why couldn't I see his face?
   "So what does this have to do with my dreams?"
   "Well," said Kris, "you can go tell Adriana to stop it in person. See, you have the ability to visit Earth. Demons aren't trapped in Hell, just like angels aren't trapped in Heaven. We can visit and look like normal humans. So, you could visit Adriana and tell her to stop calling you."
   See Adri? Am I ready for that? It's been kind of hard without her, am I ready to face her yet?
   "How?"