Original Michael Jackson Story: MichaeLuna Excerpt: Part 9

"How can they say that about you? How can people believe any of it - for a second?"

Luna lamented in a way that only an angel can. Hot searing tears poured down her face. They fell to the ground as cool summer rain, for as they fell, the anger melted from them, the sadness escaped, and they provided what was needed by the earth, plants and trees. Healing rain.

"Dear spirit, dear man. Michael please don't let them tear you down. You are invincible, unbreakable. Surely my love has made you so."

Luna felt his sorrow as a knife in her own back.

"It is in every cell of your being to emerge victorious, Michael."

She whispered to his soul, hoping something in him would hear her.

"Lies have always been lies for centuries and centuries. It is only in your highly technological world that a human may be slandered and libeled so far, so fast and so furiously. Hear me, my darling boy. Though they cover the world with lies about you, the false accusations are no more true than if it was just one liar telling just one person. It is all an illusion, yet such a painful one that it seems very real to you."

Luna's tears continued to fall. She couldn't stop them. They blinded her to anything else that was happening around her. The glorious setting that was her celestial room, turned cold as it evaporated into an entirely different landscape. She was back where Michael had first sought her. The trash-lined streets were bleak and colorless.

She was seen, but could not feel the devilish eyes on her back. She was vulnerable, immersed in the pain of Michael's pain. She couldn't fathom it. Who was standing for him? Who was screaming the truth? How could this be? She wanted to be with him when he finally transcended to her realm, but not like this, not having him destroyed by lies, drowning in drugs to ease the pain.

"Micha...!" She screamed in frustration and anguish, but his name was choked from her throat. She struggled in darkness as a hood was thrust over her head. Where had she gone in her mind that would allow this to happen? "No!" she screamed inside her own head, furious with herself for allowing this outrageous turn of events, but it was too late.

She felt their hands on her arms like a cold sticky mist. The stench was gagging her. This ugly world between worlds that she had once created to hide from them, had become their hunting ground. They had somehow deduced how to reach her. Her pain was their road map. Her anguish their opportunity.

"Wheeee doggies!"

"What the hell, Rasper? Are you a hillbilly singer now?"

"Just shut yer face, Growler!" Rasper's words did nothing to dissuade his partner from the humorous accusation.

"Friggin' idiot! Yeah, you got her. I did most of the work, as usual." Growler's face contorted into something as close to a smirk as a ghoul could manage.

"Work?" Rasper carried his prize over his shoulder. Luna had gone limp and was practically weightless in the demon's estimation. He imagined that in her terror, she had fainted.

"Oh, shut the frick up!" Growler's leadership qualities were mostly in his own mind, but he saw himself as the tireless brains behind his partner's "brawn."

"If you'd worked when it mattered we wouldn't be here!" Rasper accused. He was good at accusing. He and his partner in music (their chosen profession in an earthly lifetime) had been too talent-deprived to make it in "La La" land. One plagiarism too many, and they were drummed out of the business entirely. They had opted for paparazzi jobs, specifically snatching pictures of unsuspecting celebrities. The tabloid writers loved them, but those were the only people who did, if you could call them people.

Luna had gone deeply within herself, realizing that to struggle would be wasting valuable time.

She saw the color of her dreams, the one place she could always find Michael. She knew that even in his despair, his energy would reach out to help her. He'd saved her so many times without knowing it.

"Just once more, please Michael," Luna silently called to him. The bright purple of orchids in bloom flooded her mind with visions. The flowers weaved themselves together to form the material of Michael's shirt, the picture faded to be reborn as a beloved book on her library shelf. The book became liquid flowing down the shelves to the floor, carpeting her home in blossoming orchids until she could feel them under her feet. She removed the dusty hood, and standing in her beautiful celestial palace once more, Luna inhaled the magical orchids' rapturous scent.

"Thank you, my darling boy," she sighed.

She smiled at the laughing flowers.

Her kidnappers realized after congratulating themselves for several moments more, that their victim had vanished, fading from their grasp in a wispy twirling purple mist that swirled around their empty heads before silently evaporating.

Luna whispered to the flowers as they musically echoed her words.

"As once it was said that beauty is truth, so beauty shall set you free..."

Michael slowly awoke from a glorious purple-hued dream.

"The purple moonlight and you...the moonlight IS you..." he mumbled. Though his memory was clouded, the strength to face another day was granted, as he had granted her the strength to return home.

He would soon be forced to leave his home, but he would carry Neverland in his heart forevermore.