We walked for three days. No ice. No wings. No devil blood to make us fast. Just three humans with torn clothes and bleeding feet walking back to the walls. The ash field was behind us now. Behind us also was the place where door was. Where devil was. Where Maya was. Where we left her? Did we leave her? I keep asking myself that. Did we leave her or did she leave us? She smiled when door closed. She smiled like she wanted to stay. Jessica says she did not want to stay she was forced. Nickolas says door is gone so question is useless now. But I keep thinking.
The sky was blue. Too blue. It hurt my eyes after ten years of red sky inside devil's collection. For ten years sky was red like blood sunset every day. Now it is blue like in mother's storybook. Too blue. I keep squinting. My feet hurt. I have no shoes. Devil blood used to make my feet hard like stone I could run on broken glass. Now I have normal feet again and every sharp stone cuts. I count cuts. Twenty three cuts on left foot. Nineteen on right. Jessica slept on my back most of time. She is light now. Before ice queen she was heavy because ice in her blood made her heavy. Now she is light like bird. But she cries a lot. Every hour she wakes up crying because she is cold. Real cold. Not ice queen cold. Human cold. "Tadashi my hands... my hands they hurt..." she would whisper and put her hands inside my shirt for warmth. Her hands were red and cracked. All her life her hands were blue with ice veins and never felt cold and never cracked. Now they are red like normal girl who works in winter. All cracked. I would blow hot air on them like when we were kids and mother would do when we came from snow. Her fingers are small again. I forgot how small her fingers were before ice.
Nickolas walked beside us. He did not talk much. His wings were gone. Just two small white stumps on his back now with feathers falling off one by one as we walk. He tried to hide it but I saw him wince every time wind touched stumps. White light still came out small but now it was mixed with red blood. Angel blood is red when angel becomes human? I don't know. I asked him does it hurt. He said no but his face says yes. He keeps touching his back to check if wings are growing again. They are not.
Second day we found water. Small river that used to be border before walls. Water is dirty now. Black. But we drank it because we are so thirsty. Jessica drank and then vomited because her human stomach is weak again. Ice queen never vomited. She never needed water. Now she needs water and she vomits dirty water. I held her hair while she vomited. Like big brother. I never was big brother before. She was always big sister queen. Now I am big.
On third night we saw it. The Walls. From far away it looked same as we left. Big white walls that protected humans for 100 years. We all grew up drawing them in school. Teacher would say draw your protector and we would draw big white wall with smiling face. We were taught to thank the walls every morning. Thank you walls for protecting us. Thank you walls for keeping demons outside. We sang song to walls. Now as we came closer we saw it was not white anymore. It was pink. Like skin after you stay in bath long time. And it was moving. Slow. In and out. Like chest. Like lungs sleeping. There was low sound coming from them. Not stone sound. Flesh sound. Breathing sound. The whole wall - 50 meters high, 10 kilometers long - was breathing. Inhale for ten seconds. Exhale for ten seconds. The air around it moved towards it when it inhales.
"Tadashi..." Nickolas stopped. His voice shake. He put his hand out to stop us. He is only one with some light still so he can see better in dark. "Do you see that? Do you hear that? Do you feel ground? Ground is beating too... like heart..."
I put my hand on ground. Ground was beating. Small small heartbeat coming from deep under earth from wall roots.
Jessica woke up on my back. She looked at wall and her whole body froze. Not ice freeze. Fear freeze. Her nails dug into my shoulders so hard I bled.
"No..." she whispered. Voice small. "No no no... he told me... the Devil told me in the door when he took Maya... the walls were made to keep humans safe... he said he made them with his own hands to protect us from outside demons... he said he loves humans so much he built walls..."
Nickolas walked to wall first. He is brave even without wings. He always goes first. He touched wall. The moment his hand touched it wall pulsed. Like heart beat fast. And a face appeared. On surface. Pushing out from inside. Like person trying to push through plastic. A human face. Eyes closed. Mouth open like screaming but no sound came because mouth full of wall flesh. Then another face appeared beside it. And another. And another. Thousands of faces pushing out of wall from inside the stone. All along wall as far as eye can see left and right. All faces. Some young. Some old. Some with no teeth. Some babies with eyes not even open yet. All trying to get out.
"The walls are not walls," Nickolas said. His voice was barely whisper. He fell to knees. His hand still on wall. He was shaking. "They are not stone. Tadashi... they are bodies. The Devil's first collection. His first experiment. He did not build walls to protect humans from demons. He built walls out of humans to keep the other demons out. For 100 years we lived inside a cage made of our own dead. My father... my father in angel library told me walls were built with holy stones from angel world... but it was lie... it was always bodies... 10,000 bodies... 100,000 bodies..."
Jessica fell off my back. I tried to hold her but she fell hard on ground. She crawled to wall on hands and knees. She put her hands on a small face. A little girl's face. About Maya's size. Maybe 7 years old. Same small nose. The face opened its eyes and looked at Jessica. It smiled. It had Maya's smile. The same gap tooth.
Jessica screamed. It was not human scream. It was ice queen scream but there was no ice again. Just raw throat scream that made blood come out of her mouth and nose. "MAYA? MAYA IS THAT YOU? DID HE PUT YOU INSIDE WALL? ANSWER ME!"
The small face did not answer. It just smiled and then closed eyes and went back inside wall skin. Like it was tired.
"Tadashi we have to break it! We have to break all of it! My sister... is Maya inside here too? Did he put her inside the wall before he put her inside the door? Did he put mother inside here too? Father too? We have to break every stone! Every body! We have to free them!"
I did not know what to say. I looked at wall breathing. For 100 years humans prayed to walls. Thanked walls for protection. And walls were their mothers. Their fathers. Their lost children. Listening to every prayer from inside stone. Feeling every thank you while being in pain.
Nickolas fell to knees too. He put both hands on wall. Light came out of his hands again. Small light. Weak. Human light now. Not angel light. But wall reacted. The faces turned to his light. They wanted light. They have been dark for 100 years. Hundreds of faces turned to his hands like flowers turning to sun. Some opened mouths.
"We can't break it like this," he said crying now too. Tears on his face mixing with wall blood on his hands. "If we break it all the souls will die again. They are still alive inside. They have been alive for 100 years inside stone. They can feel. They can hear. If we break wall they will finally die second death. But if we don't break wall they will stay alive in pain forever inside wall. What do we do? Tadashi what do we do?"
I did not know. I am 16. I was half devil yesterday. Today I am just boy with bleeding feet. How can I decide for 100,000 souls?
Then ground shook.
From other side of wall. Something was hitting it. Something big. Bigger than house.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
Dust fell off wall top. Faces inside wall started shaking. Breathing walls started breathing faster. Scared. Like animal that hears hunter coming.
Something outside was trying to get in. Now that Devil is dead the real demons outside walls have smelled human blood again. For 100 years devil's smell kept them away. Devil's collection smell was like poison to outside demons. Now devil's smell is gone. Only human smell remains. Fresh human smell from inside wall because wall is bleeding.
Jessica looked at me. Her brown eyes red but hard again. Not ice queen hard. Human hard. Big sister hard. The same look she had when she was 10 and I was 7 and bullies took my bread and she fought them with no ice just hands and teeth.
"Tadashi put me down," she said. She wiped her face with her red hands. Blood and snot and tears all mixed. "I have no ice again. But I still have hands. I still have teeth. I still have weight. Let's climb. Let's see what is outside that devil was so scared to hide us from. If outside thing is worse than devil we need to see its face."
We climbed the breathing wall with our bare hands while something big was hitting it from other side and faces inside wall were screaming without sound and Nickolas was praying in angel language that now sounds like human crying and old prayers from inside wall were whispering thank you thank you for coming back to us.
We climbed 50 meters with bleeding hand.