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Four broken ribs, a gunshot to the upper arm, multiple shrapnel wounds and of course one missing eye. That’s what it took to finally keep Keegan down. The young soldier lay in a soft clean bed on the fourth floor of Mombasa Hospital. Keegan had been in that hospital for a week and had spent the first few days in the intensive care unit before being transferred out to his own private room, partially due to his own demands. The pain was kept in check with medicine and his injuries seemed to be healing steadily. What he hated was knowing he was taking up a perfectly good hospital bed that could be given to a patient who actually needed it. The bed was far too soft and comfortable, but that’s just how you feel when you spend most of your days sleeping in mud or a hard wooden floor if you were lucky. Boredom was a slight issue, but Keegan had been given a couple of books and a tablet by some of his fellow soldiers who had come to visit. 	The young soldier also had a good view; outside his window he could see the city of New Mombasa and beyond that the ever-so-inviting ocean. The first thing he wanted to do when he was released was to jump into that soothing cold water and just float there, with the sun on his face. 	Or maybe there’s something else I need to do first.	“Mr Monroe, there’s someone here to see you.” The nurse’s English was impeccable. 	“Who is it?” Keegan asked. His voice was croaky from smoke inhalation from the airport.	“She said she came to collect on your offer,” the nurse responded. 	A smile crept across Keegan’s face. 	“Send her in.” 	The nurse stepped to one side; as she did Terra Kisaragie stepped into Keegan’s room. She walked with a slight limp and held a crutch under her left arm but seemed to be moving well without it. Terra’s skin was slightly paler than when Keegan had last seen her; her jeans clung to her hips by a belt that she hadn’t needed before. Terra’s gaze clung to the floor as she entered the room. Slowly and with great hesitation her gaze lifted to Keegan’s bedridden state. Her expression changed; colour flooded her face as tears welled up in her eyes. She threw her hands up over her mouth, dropping her crutch to the floor. Keegan managed a smile. 	“Hey, quiet girl.” 	Terra took a moment to compose herself. She sniffed and wiped her eyes, smudging black make-up across her face. 	“Hey,” she whispered. 	They stood there looking at each other for a long quiet moment. The nurse decided it best to leave them alone, and that was when Terra joined him at his bedside, clutching one of his hands in hers.	“You’re a hard man to find, Keegan Monroe.” 	Keegan chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I probably should have given you my number, but in my defence, I was a little preoccupied.” 	Terra couldn’t quite look him in the eye as she spoke. 	“H-How much do you remember?” she asked.	“Before or after the explosion?” Keegan spoke again before she could respond. His words turned the warm summer’s air icy cold and sent a shiver down Terra’s spine. “Before or after Limbo?”	She surprised Keegan then. He was expecting a flood of tears; he was expecting the frightened young girl to throw herself into his arms and cry, and when she did, he would hold her and comfort her. But that’s not what happened. Terra gave him an honest smile and a breath of relief. 	“I thought I was crazy. I have all of these memories that I didn’t dare share with anyone… and then there are the voices.” 	“The voices?” Keegan asked cautiously. 	Terra nodded slowly. 	“The doctors called it ‘stress-induced psychosis.’ They say it’ll pass in time but I’m not so sure. What about you? Did you come out of there with anything like that?” 	Keegan thought about it for a moment. 	“I’ve been on some pretty heavy-duty painkillers since the attack. I’ve only really been conscious for the last few days and everything is still hazy.” 	Terra’s eyes worked their way across his body, scanning his injuries. Keegan was covered in bandages, and even the parts that weren’t bore dozens of tiny scratches and bruises. 	“You must be in agony,” Terra mumbled more to herself than to him. “I’m so sorry.” 	“It’s my job, Terra,” Keegan said. “I knew the risks, as did everyone else. I’d do it all again and give up my other eye if it meant you’d get through that door.” 	Terra’s expression changed; she remembered something then. 	“Keegan. Just before I went through the door, I saw something, something I can’t explain.” 	“A big dark room like a prison cell, right?” Keegan interrupted. 	Terra stared at him in awe. 	“Y-Yes, what about the people?” 	“People?” Keegan questioned. “I didn’t see anyone.” 	“I saw two people standing there on the other side of the door,” Terra added.	“What did they look like?” 	Terra shook her head. “I couldn’t really see them, the image was distorted, it’s hard to tell but they looked like men, big guys maybe? I’m sorry I’m really not sure…”	“But definitely people. Humans, not Damned?” 	Terra nodded. “Yes, a hundred per cent. Two people, probably men. I think they were wearing white.” 	“The Damned went straight for it as well,” Keegan added. “That’s how I got out. I gunned the lot down as they rushed the door and slipped past Mar… the big one.” 	“All of them?” Terra asked. 	“No, just the ones that attacked you, then I ran through the door with the others on my tail.” 	“It’s a good thing they didn’t follow you through!” Terra exclaimed. 	Keegan looked out of the window. “Does beg the question though, doesn’t it? Where did they go?” 	Terra cocked her head. 	“What do you mean?”	“That door,” Keegan murmured. “I don’t think we actually went through.” 	“That must be the painkillers talking,” Terra said. 	“No, hear me out.” Keegan took a long breath, he looked around the room as he tried to string together his thoughts. “Witcher hit us both with a defibrillator. Those were the impacts you felt when you were in the water. After you went through, I had the same thing. Now, granted we both stepped through that door but I don’t think we made it all the way through to the other side.” 	Terra threw up her hands to stop him. 	“Keegan, this is all very confusing, what are you saying?” 	The young soldier held a hand to his missing eye. He strained as if the very idea was causing him pain as he spoke. 	“Terra, what if the door wasn’t so much an actual door, but more of an opening or a bridge. What if… and I know how this sounds… but what if being closer to the door is what allowed us to be resuscitated?”	Terra groaned; her head was starting to hurt too now. 	“I don’t get it,” she snapped. “Are you saying we didn’t go through the door at all?” 	Keegan nodded excitedly. “Exactly! I think we may have just been in the right place at the right time. Somehow, despite the weird time zones of Limbo, we arrived at the door at the exact moment in this world that we were being resuscitated.” He gave her a wide grin. 	Terra smirked. “That is definitely the meds talking,” she laughed. “That’s one hell of a coincidence, Keegan.” 	He gave her a more serious look. 	“After everything we’ve seen, is it really that hard to believe?” 	Terra swallowed hard. 	“You make a good point.” 	Keegan smiled; he turned and looked out of the window again. Terra followed his gaze, her heart sinking as her mind also wandered in the same direction as his. 	“Where did the door come from?” Keegan asked. 	“More importantly,” Terra added, “where does it lead?” They both shuddered. Terra took Keegan’s hand back into her own. Her mind wandered as she tried to think of something to talk about besides what had happened, but all of her thoughts were on Limbo. Well, almost all of them. 	“Nathan Kebal survived,” Terra mumbled. “I keep playing it out in my head, the helicopter and those men, and I just don’t see a way he could have survived unl—” Keegan threw a hand over her mouth. He whispered gently into her ear. 	“Think about where you are, Terra; you don’t know who’s going to be listening.” 	Terra pushed his hand away from her face. 	“Oh right, yeah, because talking about the fucking afterlife wasn’t crazy enough already!” she snapped. 	“Nobody would believe or even understand us talking about that, but Kebal is different.” Keegan looked around the room. Satisfied, he whispered to her again. “I saw him escape, he ran right past those guys in black and they acted as if he was fucking invisible. There’s no way guys of that calibre would miss a target like him, not that close.” 	“The voices said something about that, come to think of it, they pointed it out to me,” Terra added. 	Keegan took note of that. 	“The voices did?” 	Terra nodded. “Yeah, is that unusual?” 	“For psychosis, it’s not unheard of, but it’s rare.” 	Terra shook away the worries and anxieties trying to struggle their way into her head. 	“You don’t think he was connected, do you?” 	Keegan groaned as he strained to look around again as if he was looking for an invisible watchman. 	“I don’t think he was, Terra, I’m damn sure he was.”	Terra swallowed. 	“What do we do now?” 	Keegan shrugged. “About Kebal? Not a whole lot, there will be an investigation; the CIA and I’d wager MI6 will get involved in that. In the months and probably years to come I expect my company will get a good chunk of work out of this.” Keegan’s expression changed as he thought of something. “As for you, however, you have some serious thinking to do.” 	Terra cocked her head. 	“Huh?” 	The sniper smiled, his eyes lighting up with excitement. 	“Have you ever considered a job in the military?”	They spent the rest of the night talking, and the next day, Terra came to visit Keegan again, and the day after that. Keegan Monroe and Terra Kisaragie had survived and escaped the nightmare world that was Limbo. But deep down neither of them could shake the feeling that somehow it wasn’t over. Eddie’s warnings hung in their minds, and never strayed out of reach. 	“Oh my, if only you knew… the consequences of your actions.” 	&nbsp;	&nbsp;	&nbsp;

Limbo: The Door Above the Lake

Smudge_Writes

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Robert Brian Smith

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