Title: Epic
Author: HMC
Rated: R for mature issues, and for horror in the next chapter!!!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Blah, blah, blah.
Notes: Wow, this series is almost done!
Summary: Silent Bob is put to the ultimate test.

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Fear

Even in the blackness, Bob could tell it was a bedroom. Again with 
the fucking bedrooms. Did everything traumatizing have to take place 
in a bedroom?? He sighed a heaving sigh. He couldn't take much more 
of this. This was too much pain. Just too much for one man to deal 
with. 

When the lights suddenly flicked on, Bob shielded his eyes from the 
invading light, grunting in pain. When his eyes adjusted to the 
light, he first took note of his surroundings. There was one mattress 
on the floor covered with two thin sheets, bordered with paper and 
crayons. Some shirts and socks lay in heaps around his bed, all a 
small child's size. Drawings were taped to the walls, none higher 
than three feet off the ground. So it was obviously a kid's room.

His eyes then landed on the small boy that had apparently turned on 
the light in the first place. It didn't take long for Bob to figure 
out who it was he was looking at. He had small, thin hands with 
transparent white skin revealing delicate blue veins in his wrist. An 
oversized t-shirt hid his seriously underfed frame, coming down to his 
bare knees. His cheeks were tear-stained. But with those thin blue 
eyes and the golden hair, Bob couldn't deny it. God, he had to be ten 
years old, but the looks were uncannily similar to how he would look 
in ten years.

To his shock the boy spoke, firmly, and directly to him. "Who are 
you?" His voice was high-pitched and shaky, holding the innocence of 
a boy pre-jaded by life.

Bob stuttered for a few seconds, gaping wide-eyed at the child. Wait 
a second. "You can see me?" This *had* to be against some kind of 
rule.

The child nodded slowly, wringing his hands and staying near the door, 
in case he had to make a break for it. "You.... you're glowing." The 
boy murmured.

"I am?" Bob looked down, but he didn't appear to be glowing at all. 
Maybe it depended on who was looking at him, who knew?

"A little bit. Are you a ghost?" He asked tentatively. 

" I don't think so."

".... An Angel?" He looked a bit hopeful.

Bob paused at that comment. "No.... No, Jay. I don't think so."

The blond boy gasped. "You know my name!" Now, he approached Bob, 
secure in the belief that this stranger was a 'good guy'. 
Tentatively, he touched Bob's hand, as if to make sure he wasn't 
dreaming. "You don't feel like a ghost." His voice a dead giveaway 
to the awe he was experiencing. 

"How many ghosts have you met?" Bob asked, fascinated with the child 
in front of him. He'd never seen anything like this in Jay before. 
It was odd, to see the same person in such a different body. 

"None, I guess. But I saw a movie once. The boy walked through the 
ghost. It was so awesome. But you feel real, so you're not a ghost." 
Jay wiped his nose on his over-sized t-shirt, alluding again to the 
fact that he'd been crying not moments before Bob had materialized. 

"Why were you crying?" Bob asked; kneeling down so Jay wouldn't have 
to crane his neck.

Jay puffed out his thin chest, a hard, stern look only briefly 
crossing his features. "I wasn't crying!" He stated. 

Bob lifted an eyebrow in a sympathetic manner. "I won't tell 
anybody."

Jay read the expression and visibly deflated, and tears were now 
evident in his small eyes. Older Jay or Younger Jay, he wanted to be 
perceived as a badass. Forever putting up a front for others to see. 


"I'm scared. Everything's going wrong. Something's wrong with 
mom...." He drifted off and lifted a pale wrist to his nose. Bob 
pulled a tissue out of his pocket and handed it to the boy. He 
gratefully accepted and rubbed it against his face, still mumbling. 
"She didn't get up."

Bob paused, mouth ajar slightly. No. He had to be wrong. It was 
possible that Jay was wrong, he was only a kid; he could have been 
mistaken. "What do you mean?" That last strand of hope died when Jay 
looked up with frightened eyes. 

"Mom took some medicine. Then she went to sleep. I wanted peanut 
butter and jelly with the crusts off, so I went to wake her up, but I 
couldn't wake her up. I tried, I really did, but she just stayed 
sleeping, and I cried but she still didn't wake up. Dad's gonna be so 
angry...." His voice was meek, and it wavered now, almost to the point 
where Bob was sure it would crack. Jay looked at the floor, making 
tiny gulping noises that suggested he was having trouble breathing 
correctly. 

Jay suddenly burst into tears, loud child-like sobs that echoed 
throughout his body, and he curled his hands against the sides of his 
face, a gesture that Bob recognized as one he would carry with him 
throughout his life. He remembered a single instance not one week ago 
when Jay had done exactly that, cried after a hideous nightmare, and 
pressed his hands against his temples, as if to will all the 
frightening images in his head away. 

Bob pulled him into a hug, rubbing the small boy's back, trying to 
offer whatever comfort he could in the short time he'd be there. 
"It's okay. Everything's gonna be okay." He droned, trying hard to 
not break down himself.

No, too much. Too much.... didn't deserve it.... too much pain.... 
too much sorrow.

Somewhere outside the room, a door slammed, and Jay's whole body 
convulsed in Bob's grip. He immediately pulled out of Bob's grip, 
recoiling in terror at the sound of the door slamming. "Dad.... Dad's 
home." He shivered and wrung his hands even harder, his breathing 
labored to the point where it didn't really sound like breathing at 
all. More like struggling for air that wasn't available. Bob 
realized he was hyperventilating. 

Then he made direct eye contact with Bob, and it was clear to read on 
his face. Flat-out terror. This child, this young boy, was terrified 
beyond rational thought, too terrified to speak, to breath, to even 
blink. But only for a brief moment before he set eyes on Bob, and 
then motion came back to his limbs. 

Jay lunged forward and buried his head in Bob's shirt, pulling at his 
trench coat, as if to hide under it. From outside the door, stumbling 
and cursing could be heard. Jay whimpered a high desperate screeching 
sound, scared beyond rational thought at this point. 

And Bob began to fade away; his grip on the small, petrified boy began 
to slip. Jay panicked, shrieking, "NO! Don't go! Come back!" His 
chest heaved as he grabbed desperately for the fading apparition, 
needing someone to be with him at that moment, just too scared to be 
alone. Bob tried to hold on to Jay, but his body was slowly fading, 
and pretty soon his hands passed right through Jay's arms. Bob could 
see the doorknob to Jay's bedroom being turned, and someone pounding 
on the door, demanding to be let in. 

Jay fell to his knees, curling up into a ball, gripping the tissue 
that Bob had given him, as he faded from sight. 

~~~~~

The tremendous sorrow hit him full-force now; Bob was still on his 
knees when it hit him. Back in the chamber with the doors, Bob wept 
openly, too inundated with emotions and raging pain to hold it back 
any longer, too overcome to be strong. His resolve was gone, no 
longer was he Bob the Strong, or Bob the Protector. Every emotional 
wall he had put up in his life was down, destroyed, leaving only his 
true exposed self, open to injury from all the injustice and grief 
that existed. 

"And now we see you as you truly are. A forsaken creature, eyes open 
to the mockery that is life on this planet." Azrael squatted down in 
front of Bob's defeated form, his voice and face as cold as stone. 
"Now, after everything you've seen, you can truly understand. Leave 
God's side. Denounce your position as Prophet. God does not deserve 
your devotion."

Bob could only barely register that someone else was even talking. 
But he knew what Azrael was saying. Abandon God. Forsake Her. Pay 
her back for everything She never did and everything She should have 
done by throwing it back in Her face and turning his back.

Half of him wanted to. More than half. He was so angry with Her.... 
He felt a burning desire to abandon everything he'd always believed, 
to pay back a God that let such horrible things happen on earth. 

But God Damn It. He just couldn't do it.

There existed something powerful inside him that he hadn't known about 
before, screaming, "don't do it." As much as his brain wanted to, as 
much as it bellowed at him, told him that Azrael was the smart one 
here, his heart fought back just as hard. Told him that he knew 
Azrael was wrong, somehow, beyond all this logic and reasoning, laid 
another, larger truth. And the truth could not be defined by the 
handful of horrible images that he had seen. What had he seen? Pain, 
suffering, bigotry, betrayal.... But what about everything else? What 
about Jay? 

Azrael lifted Bob's chin so that they could look each other in the 
eye. "Answer me, Prophet." The demon demanded.

Bob's tears didn't stop, but at this point, speaking had never become 
so important. "I can't. I just can't." He sobbed, pulling away from 
Azrael's touch. "I know.... I know that somehow, this isn't all there 
is.... Oh, God. I just can't do it." Then he looked up.

Holy shit....

Azrael's eyes were glowing red. Blood-fucking-red. Brighter and 
brighter until they looked like they were on fire. And then he 
attacked. Bob barely managed to get his arms up in time to protect 
his face before the demon knocked him down, clawing and punching at 
him.

"What the fuck do you want, Prophet!?" Azrael shrieked, hanging on 
the brink of sanity now. "Look what God did to you!! To Jay! Look 
what She allows to happen on earth! Millions of people suffer! 
Children go to bed hungry! Fuck, what do you want?!? I've shown you 
what devotion to God gets you! You humans think you're so much better 
than me! Well fuck you!" Azrael got in a few good punches, and 
pushed back hard away from Bob, breathing fiercely, his horns seeming 
to have grown slightly in length. 

"Fine." He growled, a sound emerging from his chest that was 
definitely animalistic. He strode forward, grabbing Bob by his hair, 
unprotected by the baseball hat that had fallen off during the 
struggle. Pulling him upward, Azrael hissed into Bob's pain-ridden 
face. "This was a last resort, Prophet. But it looks like it'll have 
to do."

His voice then reached a deadly whisper. "I bet you wonder what 
happened to Jay during your little journey, hm?"

Bob's eyes widened. 

....tbc....