Chapter 28: Schooling Death

Chapter Twenty-eight:  Nathan

Schooling Death

A hint of something else underneath Her aura has been modified. Oh, on the surface, I know her delight in my puzzling demise, but there is more. No gloating precisely as I should think or even antagonism. Wonder or skepticism, perhaps? The enlightened cloud has dimmed in color to a dirty gray.

“I meant no offense, neither to the girl nor to You,” I declare reluctantly because I think I know where this conversation goes. It’s nowhere good.

“Conceivably,” She replies with measure in a pensive way that is closer to what I recognize and dread the most. “It transforms nothing, Nathaniel. You have set in motion that which even you may not perceive. Not even I may undo it.”

“Did You bring me here just to threaten me?” I speak the words unthinking because I am flabbergasted by what She dares relay to me.

“Knowledge is not mutually exclusive,” She continues in the same tone of thoughtful contemplation as if I do not talk. “It is collaborative, as you will learn.”

I scoff, growing more vexed with Her and my impotent situation. “You speak to me as if I am a neophyte when I am no such thing.”

“You should take more care of the things you speak into existence, for eventually, you may come to bear witness.”

Higher anxiety creeps into my mind as the words I would say are snuffed out like the light when the cloud mimicking its now pure white aura descends upon me all of a sudden. She does threaten me for my acts against Patrice. I knew it! Why now? 

Not even She cares for these mortals so much. Everyone knows that She has retreated further away from their realms. The disenchantment in Her creatures made in Her image remains a sore subject with Her against the fallen retainers of Her court.

The wind chimes have stopped as I breathe fire down my throat and lungs, which must be the essence of the cloud. She travels through my neural pathways regardless of my want or fight of Her within. She does not heed. Instead, She’s lighting them up like the lights on a Christmas tree.

The visions begin now as I scream at Her. “Get out of my mind!”

The cry does not stop what happens. I cannot block them either. Flashes of the past collide inside me in moments of everything that leads me to this moment. Centuries pass in a blink. Kingdoms rise. They are sacked. Empires prosper, disappear, and are forgotten to the civilizations who remain. I see the present acts of my selfishness in how I have stolen the will of a not-too-pretty girl who hides in her own clothes. Without permission, I assume her body, ravage her desires, and act on them with glee. I use her like a child’s toy.

Strings are cast from Patrice’s arms and legs. They link to me, her puppet master who grins in lust. Tears stream from her green eyes. They turn to blood trailing down her face full of sad indignation. Disgust fills me, for I am the cause of her pain in my insensitivity. At the crux of it, I comprehend her loss intimately to me of her grandmother and boyfriend. Shunned by her parents and brother, Patrice has fled the comforts of the familiar in spite of how unpopular that is.

No one understands her trepidations or her panics. So isolated is she with the truth of the realms that no flesh bag should comprehend. Of course, Patrice cannot speak about what disturbs her most. The authorities on her plane lock away people for lesser mutterings. Most would think she’s gone mad. Following her about has also summoned terrors unwittingly by me because she knows what I am and what I do.

“Why does Death torture me? Hasn’t he done enough? What more can he take that I love?!” Patrice weeps. Her soul shatters with her heart. 

“Leave me alone!”

Thrust away by hands I cannot see, I may not linger with the crying brunette with russet highlights in the dark. No luck do I summon to reach my arms around her shaking shoulders and hold the child. They pass right through her, regardless of my repeated actions. I want to speak the words of apology, to soothe the anxieties I have placed upon her. None of this is my plan.

Our roles swing beyond my control. A rankling rises that Abir puppets my body or wields the gifts that are mine alone. 

Then She metamorphizes into Patrice, who is cast into my body. The human in my place lays claim to the evil spirit that I should have carted to hell since I neglected my purpose.

Minutes churn unchecked by me to my responsibilities. Hours and days collect in my ignorance of death standing still. 

In other realms, time runs differently, expanding beyond that which it should. My duties left undone for a novice is shameful. A mere flesh bag shows more care and sympathy for another life, not her own. Even one so undeserving as the Nazi war criminal, Alvin Stein, is taken for his time expires as all on the mortal plane should.

In a flash, new images appear. The rage of the old gods ignites from their long slumber as I overlook the performance of my duties. A new thread forms out of my misguided hunger for knowledge. It takes my breath, the violence that runs forward in its stead. 

Cars crash in explosions. The flaming skies fall. Pristine rivers turn to blood. The earth shakes and breaks apart as millions of demons stream from the crevices like invading insects, killing innocents. The old wars reign new between the veil, ripping into the mortal realm and all kingdoms high and low.

Unseated from Her throne, the Lord of Hosts is betrayed. Too many angels have been torn apart, trying to protect Her. 

The carnage of wings ripped from their backs are stacked everywhere in the streets of gold. In chains above the piles of dead, She has been defiled and condemned before the Enemy. No further humiliation does he need to force upon Her after he and his horde thoroughly ravage Her mind, body, and spirit. In the meantime, his demon princes, with their newfound freedom, rampage all realities and unmake the universe.

Laughter quakes my senses in my retreat back to my body. It is not Her as I cringe at the dismaying sight following me. Stunned by how She has been made low, I watch, unable to stop it.

“You are too late!” the Beast explodes with demonic chortles as a molten chain of hell’s flame hooks to each of Her wrists, feet, and each side of her torso. 

“Where are the champions of Your glory now?” he mocks with his toothy grin.

Her raiment of precious metals and silks lay in taters upon bruised skin that loses its luminosity. Crucified in the air, the Supreme Being’s head droops in defeat before Her tormentor. 

The last chain licks in vivid red fire loops around her throat until She succumbs. Cracks of heat and flames split across Her skin that burns like paper taken up by the winds of change. The color washes from Her agony-stricken eyes as She chokes on the blaze of corruption. In one horrifying cry that booms through my soul, She is vanquished. The Heavenly Host, who fight a valiant battle, lament their loss.

“I have won!” roars the Beast as creation turns to bedlam. He sits upon the throne of the Most High in triumph.

The darkness returns gratefully to my sight as sweat stands all over my body. 

I am still screaming as I feel Her death and that of everyone in every realm. No longer do I lay on the pillar of stone. I sit on my knees, crying tears of blood, knowing that this horror I have seen is my doing. It has already happened.

“Please,” I beg and tremble, where I still kneel overcome by the terror of the premonition, “Take this vision from me.”

A hand touches the side of my face and trails down to my chin. It tilts my face up. I obey. Patrice stands before me; long tresses flow behind her and a crown of sparkling jewels upon her head. Clinging to her slim frame are robes of pure white, with no adornment other than her tiara. 

Her green eyes are full of sympathy as I stare into their pale depths. I frown up at her, not understanding why a human would dwell in this in-between place.

“When you leave here, it will fade as will our little conversation.”

I close my tearing eyes as I try to catch my breath. Something so contemptible I wish to put out of mind as soon as possible. 

I know I am marked by such knowledge. Already I detect something further fluctuating within me. I do not like it any more than the expression of sympathy in Patrice’s eyes.

“When the time is suitable, you will recall that what you must, but until then...” 

Patrice lifts me in level with her face by grasping my chin in a hand that turns into a shining gauntlet that matches her tiara. Startled for a moment, I try to squirm away from the hold, but her grip is like an iron vise. Pure light consumes her eyes and mouth. She inhales, sucking in her cheeks while doing it. My eyes widen at her power that catches me off-guard in how well it subdues me.

The entity before me is not Patrice. The aura is all wrong. I know Patrice’s energies because of the swarthy shades of redness and the suppressed brownish-orange I have tasted when acting on my curiosities inside her as her. 

Passions needing release plague her world. Is she good enough? Can she succeed on her own? Will she ever find happiness again? Does she risk letting anyone in to find out?

This aura in front of me shows as purest white. Such human cares are transcended beyond the physical limits of the mortal realm. I sense cosmic wisdom here in her state. No doubt or chaos rules it, flaring at me like a beacon. Neither do any colors mar it with the weight of human frailty I have identified for thousands of years. The burden of sin is not carried either as the aura opens to me.

By the second, I weaken, unable to fight. The creature absorbs too much power. When the fake Patrice releases me, I do not drop to my knees. I keep falling! Tiny shards of ice form on my fingertips, the end of my nose, and eyelashes. 

My teeth chatter as my limbs freeze and turn blue.

Backward, I coast in darkness. I reach for the nothing that passes me by. Willing myself away from danger does not work. The powers I once have, have forsaken me. I do not sense them, in fact. My stomach is lost as I scream in the fright, taking hold.

The calming voice of Her fills me with warmth and drives each beat of my heart I touch with alarm. “In the darkest hour,” Her soprano utters without an echo. It sounds far away as Her light diminishes in the minutes that tick past, “when all seems lost, only one thing may be acquired to prevail against the Enemy.”

For a while, I muse on why this is happening. The haunting words of Abir repeat several times. Closing my eyes, I listen closely. Tranquility surpasses my panic when I do.

This will pass over me soon. The certainty of that in my bones supports my serenity. From this nightmare, I will wake. A new day will greet me where I may even correct my mistakes. Pacified at least on that front, I detect Her weak smile. All the while, I tumble through the gloom. Her warmth fades in the journey toward the unknown, and the cold settles back into my bones. I cry out because the icy nails hurt! They attack my joints!

Abir is very far, as if down a long tunnel, but I hear Her well. When She utters Her final words, they are all that follow me in the dark.

“Only one thing can soothe the lost, feed a soul, and may seal what’s broken. Only one thing is stronger than pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, hate, doubt, or fear, Nathaniel. This you must find although you have searched for eons but never discovered. In this, you may not fail. You must share it in the wholeness of your being as if woven into the fabric of your soul. Otherwise, a certain future will be as you foresaw, where all that I have established, every reality and realm of creation will perish.”