Chapter 27 #2
I consider it. The entity will not allow me to consume its power. Despite its newfound hospitality for its host, it will kill me if I try again. I know this in my bones.
Michael must know something I don’t.
I’m sure I reek of desperation in seeking his help, of all people, but I have no choice. I was already near my breaking point before this. “How?”
“I will expedite the process by forcing your soul and its inhabitant to neutral ground.” His voice is like the soft, sinister hiss of a snake. “When it’s over, I will allow only one full soul back into your body. There will be no half measures.”
Inside me, my shadow starts thrashing again.
I ignore it. “And what do I have to do?”
“You must make it submit to you. You will know if you are successful, for you will be dead if you are not.” The stagnant magma in his eyes turns to flickering, glowing flames, as if he’s excited for either outcome.
“And if your territory issues aren’t resolved quickly enough, your body will cease to be capable of holding a soul, and you will both be forced off this plane.
But unlike the star who holds the key to the Abyss, your soul will merely be that of a dead mortal: gone, unable to ever return. ”
And I will have died for nothing.
Dusk once said that nobody can read thoughts, but with the way Michael watches me in anticipation, I’m not sure that’s true.
He seems to breathe in my desolation, my desperation.
His eyes, darkened in the shadow of himself, reflect my destitute face.
If the star kills me because I can’t control it… then so be it.
I want to live!
But if I fail, I won’t be worthy of living. There is too much at stake. If Michael says I must make the entity submit to me, then that’s what I’ll do—or I’ll die trying.
“Do you accept?” he urges, not letting me think about it for long. “We’re running out of time.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I accept.”
For a split second, something that looks like pride crosses the archangel’s cold face. Though I’m sure it’s not for me. It’s merely egotistical satisfaction in his ability to lead me into submission.
I’m given no further warning.
He reaches out with a gold-armored hand, grasping my shoulder tightly.
Suddenly, I’m flooded with the strongest sense of peace and euphoria.
It feels as if he’s channeling a blessing from God Himself directly into me, so resolute that it could turn a sinner into a saint.
I’m awestruck, temporarily turned into a full believer in Michael’s righteous authority.
For who could be more deserving to lead the legions of Heaven than this?
He is the strongest, the wisest, the most serventile. God’s favorite angel.
Then I watch my soul leave my body.
My world turns upside down, and I’m thrown into the most profound ego death possible.
I didn’t think it was possible to see the essence of who I am so thoroughly stripped away and pulled apart.
Yet, I watch in utter horror as the core of my identity is split in half.
My body falls to the ground in a violent seizure—but my thoughts, my self-awareness, float somewhere outside of my body.
No. My soul is not just passively floating, but being pulled away. Dragged from the body that it desperately wants to cling to. Needs to cling to. My two halves belong together more than my lungs need oxygen.
The air becomes warbled, distorted, losing its physical qualities.
Light is sucked into a vortex, quickly ceasing to exist.
Even gravity fails me, and I begin to fall through some vacuum of reality. Twisting, turning, falling both fast and slow… When I finally land, it’s like time is slowed around me, rather than me hitting any distinct stopping point.
A slowly shrinking window hovers in the air, separating two distinct realities, each existing at the same time. If I don’t focus on it, it does not even appear to be present—but it is, and I get a strong feeling it’s very important that I do not forget it is there.
One side of the window holds the physical world, existing in some bizarre, dream-like state, just out of my reach.
The other, the one I’m present in, is a mockery of deep space.
I’ve been caught in a void, existing without existing in a state of pitch black Nothingness.
Here, there is no matter, no sound, no light.
It is as if even the stars have not yet been created.
Until one is born from the bleak night.
The cocoon of darkness quakes, rippling at its invisible seams. I have the strongest urge to flee, to return to the safety of my body, but I’m not even a thing to move. No material, form, or shape confines me. I am merely one with the nothingness.
Out of the void, a great cosmic dust bursts into life.
It moves like a ghost of inverse shadow, creeping its bright white tendrils out of a hole in the darkness, consuming everything it touches. The light is so strong, so starkly opposed to the void I exist in, I might as well be staring into the sun.
And it burns. It burns so bad, it’s as if my whole body is being roasted over a fire and doused in acid.
But it makes me realize that I am something.
The pain sets my boundaries, showing me where I begin and end. I have no body, but every miserable sensation is the equivalent of a nerve ending on fire. And I wonder… What am I now?
Is this the feeling of being destroyed?
Or is it the feeling of being created?
Even if I can no longer see my window, I know it’s there.
Somehow, somewhere, I am still alive. My memories of life may feel far away, and I may have to fight for coherent thoughts, but I know this is not death.
It can’t be. I’m somewhere in the Between.
Like the line between a light and its shadow, I exist on the fringes, fighting to define my own fragile existence.
Vaguely, I can feel the strength of my body, too, slowly sapping away.
Sapping towards me, to where I exist now, across the great divide.
It’s the most miserably wrong, foreboding feeling—like all of my life’s essence is seeping into my soul.
It’s feeding me energy, and I know it won’t stop until it drains all that I have left.
This is the final push, I realize. The one to prepare my soul for its departure to the great beyond. I am standing on the edge of a true and final death.
I can feel the choice like a tangible thing, challenging my will to live. The void is peaceful, quiet, and still. The light, however, is not. It is the source of my agony.
No, it is the gatekeeper.
The only one I’ve ever had to contend with, both literally and in ways I’ve never quite understood. I should have recognized it sooner.
“You,” I hiss towards it, projecting the words more like a thought than a sound. “You!”
The star doesn’t speak, but it does respond.
The wispy tendrils draw back, sucking into their hole in the void. Collapsing, morphing, and rebuilding until, finally, its searing light settles on a spherical shape.
A wave of foreign intention reaches out to touch me.
Copy, it demands.
I can’t spare any time to think about the absurdity of it all. I act immediately, imagining my body as it is in the physical world, starting with the smallest muscle. From the tips of my toes to the top of my head, I shape my boundaries into something familiar to me.
Like an image in a dream, my form becomes loosely defined, vague in areas of unimportance. I focus on moving a hand, and my mind fills in the gaps for the rest of my body. My nails scrape against matter that isn’t there, and my muscles strain with imagined coordination.
With every bit of concentration, I pull myself to my feet.
“Abdicate,” I command.
Something that feels like raw curiosity nudges against me, inspecting my imagined form. I fight the urge to cringe at the foreignness of the touch, more intimate to the depths of my soul than anything could ever physically reach me.
When the sensation retreats, the star dims slightly for a brief moment, then returns to its full blazing glory.
You are not ready, it seems to tell me.
I scowl. My life is currently seeping out of my body. I don’t have time for puzzles. “I have no choice. Abdicate. Now.”
Wrong. The star begins to pulsate, dimming and brightening. You had a choice. You chose to let him intervene.
I recoil, stumbling backwards, as I suddenly recognize that I am not imagining the intention. It is being projected to me. The entity is communicating with me.
“You can speak,” I gasp. “What are you?”
The pace of its pulsing slows before it responds.
You have given me many names.
How could it know—
I know everything about you, daughter of man.
Horror, dread, awe, and a myriad of other emotions come to a boil, slipping into the void like wisps of vapor. The entity sees them, inspects them, brushing against me again with its inhuman curiosity… As if it’s done the same thing a million times, and I’ve only just now noticed it.
There are no lies you can tell me, no secrets you can keep from me. I am the judge of your soul, and I decide you are not ready.
Dread swallows the rest of my emotions, threatening to consume me as well. “You would let me die here?”
A pity the principality interfered.
“No,” I shake my head rapidly. “No, I have to go back. You can just… hide. Do what you did before. Surely you can find a way to circumvent Michael.”
He will not allow it again.
My window is becoming smaller and smaller. I’m running out of time, and my dread decays into something more volatile.
I walked away from everything I hold dear to me. I have sacrificed, again and again, knowing I did nothing to deserve it. They want to treat me like a lamb for slaughter—but I am not a lamb. I have teeth. I am a predator.
And I am not finished yet.
“Then you leave me no choice.” Resolved, I take a step forward. “I’ll take your power as you would take my life.”
The light flashes brighter than the sun, causing me to hiss, but I will not be deterred.
I will not go gently into the good night.
The same way I imagined my body into existence, I imagine the darkness around me bending to my will—and it obeys.
I pull it forward in spiny pillars, jutting them towards the star like spears of shadows.
It shirks back, its form warbling, avoiding my projectiles before they disintegrate like ash on the wind.
Furious, it screeches at me, I will not have my judgment hastened!
“How do I know your judgment is any better than mine?” I advance another step, even as the searing pain intensifies. “Whatever primordial force you are, I refuse to play your games any longer. I am the decider of my own fate—not you—and I decide when I am ready. ”
I throw more spears of shadow at the star, but it avoids them again. Rage grows in me, burning hotter and hotter. I attack it, again and again, but I can’t land a single hit. The entity is impervious to damage.
A scream bursts out of me, holding every ounce of my frustration and fury. Fury for the star, for my circumstances—for everything. It is bottomless. Ceaseless. I scream like it’s the last thing I’ll ever give the world. Until my lungs are empty and I’m doubled over in exhaustion.
Then, and only then, does the star speak again. It regards me with an almost pensive contemplation. Softer. More merciful.
You are as bitter as you are determined.
“Yes,” I pant, straightening. “I am.”
Yet, you know not what you ask for. You do not understand the price of my gift.
“It doesn’t matter. I will pay any cost.”
No, Kaelene Lambros.
My heart stutters—
You cannot, for we must pay it together.
The light morphs again. It collapses in on itself, shrinking, all while its pulsing increases in frequency. Faster and faster, until the point of vibration.
And it begins to take the distinct shape of a four-pointed star.
“If that is what’s required,” I whisper, numb and awestruck, as I close the remaining distance between us.
By the time the star stops shrinking, it’s barely bigger than my hand, solidified into something more physical.
It almost looks like a glowing diamond, but the material is more unearthly.
More… ethereal. It’s absolutely magnificent to behold. “Then I accept.”
With one last breath of confidence, I reach out to touch it.
At once, I’m sucked into a black hole.
Splitting pain consumes me for what feels like both an eternity and a millisecond. I’m bent, shaped, refined. Turned inside out and molded into something new. Something unrecognizable, beyond the thresholds I once knew with finality.
When I finally emerge again, I do not come gently.
I am reborn in a supernova.