Jacob was consumed in thought over his meeting with the twins. He wondered if his encounter with the woman of his past and her deceased infant had been real, or if it was part of the elaborate teaching method of the twins. He was pulled from his thoughts by hymn books being set on the pews by the minister.

Jacob walked through the wall of the building, dragging his chains behind him. The chains felt heavier than usual somehow. He saw snow falling lightly as he left the wall and people milling about the street. He realized that this was not the same place he had exited the church the last time he left it, but he could not focus on the thought as he had the sudden urge to move in a direction.

The urge to move was physically painful, and Jacob could do nothing to resist it. As he walked he felt himself being urged to move faster. The weight of the chains crushed against his shoulders and waist and pulled roughly at his wrists and ankles. If he had a body there would have been blood drawn where the shackles touched him.

Jacob rushed towards his destination and found himself entering a small house in a poor section of London. A family was sitting around a table with a festive, yet humble Christmas dinner laid before them. The family was holding hands, and a prayer was being offered by an adult man whom Jacob assumed was the Father.

Jacob stood in bewilderment, unsure of what he was supposed to see or learn in this setting. He listened to the prayer and found it to be simple. There was nothing extraordinary spoken; no especially ill family members to pray over, no outlandish requests made. Just simple gratitude. Gratitude for family, for home and food, for Jesus Christ as the focus of the holiday, and requests to keep the spirit of Christmas in their hearts the year long.

“Beautiful, is it not?” A voice said from behind Jacob.

Jacob turned around and saw Jared standing with his white robe, green sash, and book in his hand. The torch on the outside of the book was glowing as if on fire, yet the book did not burn. It was open, and Jared was writing in the book with his finger.

“Pardon?” Jacob asked, unsure if the messenger was referencing the meal, the family, the holiday, or the prayer being offered.

“Is this not a beautiful scene laid before you?” Jared replied.

“I suppose it is, I simply thought you were referencing a specific aspect of the scene.”

“That is why you are here, Jacob. You are to accompany me this day and observe my daily task, so that you may learn of the beauty that I am referencing. However, I will not mislead you; your burden will be increased to compensate for the moments of respite. This will not be an easy day for you … though I suppose that is your new existence.”

“I told Daniel and Andrew that I was eager to learn more, and I meant it. Lead on and I will endeavor to increase my knowledge through your guidance” Jacob replied with conviction.

“Well said, man, well said” Jared exclaimed while closing his book.

The family had begun to eat. Without warning, Jared began walking. Jacob was urged to follow him, and he gasped in shock at the weight of his chains. He felt as if his burden had been tripled, and he groaned as he pulled the weight to catch up with the angel as the room blurred around them. After a moment the blurring stopped, and they found themselves standing next to another family sitting in prayer.

This family did not have their hands joined, yet a similar meal was laid out, and their heads were bowed in prayer. Jared opened his book and began recording what Jacob assumed were the words of the prayer. He looked reverent as he wrote, often looking at the family as he wrote as if he had no need to look at the page to record the information.

He would close the book with the glowing flame on its cover, then the room would blur again as the man walked, the world moving around him rather than him moving through the world. Jacob had to pull his incredibly heavy chains in order to travel with Jared, yet he did so without complaint. He would have to pull them regardless so it might as well bring purpose other than eternal torment.

This pattern continued for an unknown period of time. The families changed, the food changed, the language, the decoration, the weather through the windows, the material of the buildings, the clothing, who prayed, everything changed. They visited the rich and the poor, royal and vagrant, healthy and ill, and all were in the attitude of thanksgiving and praise unto their lord, asking little save it be protection or longsuffering through the spirit of Christmas. Thousands of faces, thousands of prayers, and thousands of people flashed before them, all with Jacob hauling his eternal chains behind him.

Then the world blurred and Jacob was standing in the familiar church building. The building was empty other than the two of them.

“Sign here, please,” Jared said, holding up the book with the cover open and the front page facing Jacob.

There were two lines on the page, and next to each line it read “witness” with the first line already signed by Jared. As a businessman, Jacob was aware of the concept of two witnesses for an event, and he had signed thousands of documents in his lifetime. However, this was unlike any earthly contract. For a brief moment he thought of questioning the act, yet he reminded himself that he had nothing left to lose. Finally, Jacob did as requested, using his finger as a pen the way he had seen Jared write.

Jared closed the book and walked over to a shelf against the wall, a shelf that Jacob had not noticed before. He placed the book with the glowing flame on the shelf next to several other books, taking another in its place. This book looked the same as the first book, except the flame on its cover did not glow, and was dull in comparison to the book that Jared had held before. Jared had been holding a book with this same cover the first time Jacob had encountered him, on the first anniversary of his death.

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Without a word, Jared moved again. The world blurred around him until he was standing in a room with a family as before, but the attitude of the room was entirely different. There was no prayer of thanksgiving over the food, no joined hands, and no humbleness. There was fear over the room as children ate in silence. Their mother had a faded black eye, and a fresh handprint on her face from an unknown offense against the man at the head of the table. The man ate in silence as well, seemingly unaffected by the situation.

Jared wrote in the book as he looked on, gazing at the situation dispassionately as if he had seen similar scenes countless times before. Jared wrote in the book for some time, and when his finger lifted from the page a metal link appeared behind the man and attached itself to a chain before disappearing. The world blurred as Jared walked, Jacob at his side dragging his heavy chains.

The next scene was completely different from the first. A single woman was sitting at the head of a long table in a large room. She was eating an extravagant meal while two maids waited on her, refilling glasses and plates as the woman consumed her meal. She wasted much of what she touched, dumping food on the floor she thought was unacceptable to her palate as her maids rushed to clean up the mess. As one of the maids was on the floor, the wealthy woman dumped wine on her back, then proceeded to scold the maid for the state of her clothing. The maid began to cry as she apologized for the offense she had not committed.

Jacob finished his writing, the link appeared as before, and the room blurred as they moved to another room. This dinner was in a humble shack in a poor part of town. Two men were sleeping on the ground with empty bottles scattered around the room, and blood dotting their faces and knuckles. The table had been knocked over and the food trampled on in a drunken brawl.

Two children were eating the food from the ground as quickly as they could as if they had not eaten in some time. One of the children was whispering, pleading for the man to stay asleep as they ate. Eventually, one of the men stirred and tried to kick the children from the food, but he missed and the children ran into a room in the back of the house, carrying what they could with them in their haste.

The link appeared as the room blurred. Another scene appeared, different than the ones before, but similar all the same. The same pattern of shifting people, languages, and locations took place, but there was never a prayer of thanksgiving uttered, never a kind moment, never a peaceful encounter. There was always a chain etched upon a soul, an abuse given, an offense earned. There were sometimes men and sometimes women at fault, and often children were shown in various states of neglect or abuse.

Thousands of Christmas dinners appeared before them, thousands of entries in Jared’s book, and thousands of links formed in sin against mankind. Jacob had begun to cry at some point in the journey, having recognized several Christmas dinners similar to ones he had experienced in life. He pulled his chains from each blurred scene as he cried.

In an unknown amount of time they were standing in the church again, Jacob trying to compose himself from his fragile countenance. Again, Jared held the book up for Jacob to sign as a witness to the events, and again Jared placed the book on the shelf. This time he returned to Jacob holding a book with a very different torch on its cover. This torch held a black flame, as sickly and dark as death itself.

The room blurred and the two of them were standing in an alley where a hooded figure was pulling a dagger from the chest of a man dressed as a merchant. He quickly searched for coins in the man’s pockets, took a purse, and without a sound slipped out of the alley.

Jared and Jacob followed the man for a few minutes, listening as the man called out a “Merry Christmas” to a stranger in passing. Jared stopped writing and a full length of a chain appeared behind the man, but it was on fire. The length of the flaming chain joined a massive ring of burning metal that had appeared around the man as if it was consuming him alive. The man was unaware of the chain and smiled to himself as he walked. Just as quickly as it appeared the burning chain was hidden from sight.

It all happened so fast that Jacob did not have time to react to the murder that he had just witnessed, and the world blurred.

They were standing in a bedroom where an unconscious woman was lying on the floor. A man was quickly getting dressed, apparently in a hurry to leave the room. It took Jacob a moment to realize what had transpired, then he was stunned. Jared recorded with no apparent reaction, the flames and chains appeared, and the world blurred once more.

A woman was seen placing a powder of some kind in a cup of tea and serving it to a man who appeared to be her husband sitting in a chair by a fireplace. She watched without emotion as the man died before her eyes from the poison in the glass, then proceeded to remove the tea and set up the room as if the man had died in his sleep in the chair.

On and on this pattern continued with Jacob having to witness countless despicable acts of atrocity against mankind. Murder, rape, and torture seemed to be predominant themes. In time, Jacob began to close his eyes whenever the blurring stopped, trying to shut out the horrors he had to witness. However, even if he used his hands to cover his eyes it was as if they were transparent. He was forced to witness the horrible crimes.

At one point they stood in a room for so long that Jacob began to wonder if the nightmare had ended. There was a lengthy discussion taking place between two men who appeared to be dignitaries or leaders of some kind, speaking in an unknown language. Jacob did not understand what was said, but eventually, a large sum of money was passed from one man to the other, and the receiver signed a document sitting on a nearby desk which he handed to the other man. A massive inferno of chains and fire appeared around the two men and engulfed them, but they paid it no mind and toasted each other’s health.

The world blurred and they were standing in the church again. Jacob was numb with tears sliding down his face as he remembered the horrible things he had seen. He couldn’t process them all and they seemed to dominate his thoughts.

“Sign here please,” Jared said to Jacob, but Jacob was so stunned he did not hear him at first, forcing Jared to repeat the request.

Jacob heard him the second time and looked up to meet his gaze. There were tears on his glowing face, tears from witnessing countless crimes, many millions more than Jacob had witnessed this night. It was then that Jacob understood what Jared had said in the home of the very first family they had visited. After witnessing the lowest depravity that mankind can force upon one another … seeing a happy, unified, loving family giving thanks for their Lord and Redeemer was indeed a beautiful sight.

Jacob stretched out a shaky hand to the page and signed his name. Jared wiped his tears as he strode to the bookshelf and placed the book next to its companions. The date appeared in plain black ink upon the outer binding of each book, and then the books and the shelf vanished.

Jared turned back to Jacob, his countenance restored, and spoke.

“Jacob, I was not instructed to ask anything of you so I will not, but I would suggest that you apply your witness to your recent study of the New Testament. Also, today marks the fifth anniversary of your death. Until we meet again, farewell.”

Then Jared was gone, leaving Jacob alone in the church with his tears and his chains.