When I opened my eyes, I knew that I was still unconscious. How did I know? Well, you don't often find yourself meeting someone that looked exactly like you but with a halo around him in the real world outside of that one time I accidentally unleashed Lovecraftian horrors from outside the flow of darkness. Look! That was just once! And that was just a potion-making experiment gone wrong! Look, let's just get back to the story!

I stopped talking when I realized that what I had just said didn't come from my mouth, it came echoing forth from the shadows surrounding us in ways that were entirely impossible for how the light was shining. I pulled my arms closer to me worriedly and wondered just how much more weird my day could go. The angel-me was just staring at me which wouldn't have been so bad if his eyes weren't so painfully bright, like they had been there at the fiery childbirth of the world. Those eyes has seen how the arrival of the universe brought life that wasn't ordained by The Lord. Those eyes has seen how the first cries of pain, a sound as so far unheard to them, brought our first nightmares and the end of the peace we had never known. I hated to admit but I was terrified, I had been scared before but this was different. This was mind-melting terror that had me glued to the floor. I struggled to control my bladder and I was shamefully proud that I was able to.

My body refused to look up at those awful blue eyes but my brain took charge where my body had failed. "What do you want from me," Thankfully, my voice only cracked once during that short sentence. His eyes flickered back and forth nearly imperceptibly as he picked and discarded possible answers before settling onto one. I would have preferred for him to have taken longer but when you're a being older than Time, you didn't live this long by being indecisive.

"We have been searching for you for years, how did you manage to evade the Ophanim," I winced as his voice which had a chorus of Angelic Cherubs undertones that pounded my ear drums with modulated, multi-pitched sounds that only marginally managed to dissolve my simple, primate brain into gibbering mush. Careful not to offend, I timidly raised up my hand and politely asked if he perhaps could just ever-so-slightly lower his voice; if he didn't mind, that is. He furrowed his eyebrows and my face certainly did not twist up out of fear, nope it certainly didn't. 

I opened up one eye and when I saw that he hadn't decided to smite me, I breathed a sigh of relief and worked his question over in my head. The Ophanim were the Heavenly Thrones of God, a meta-physical symbol of his Power and Grace. They were more devoid of a sense of self than any other angel which made them less real and even more terrible. They could appear as either an ethereal fog of raw Divinity or a burning wheel the could destroy Creation. They were so Great that the smallest size they can manifest in is of a galaxy. They were utterly invulnerable to all physical damage and possessed precognition about anything that could threatened the universe, which didn't seem all that useful until you consider that you practically needed to destroy a universe to even scratch one of them. They could create a mimicry of emotion but it was laughable considering how they merely repeated what others were feeling, unable to think for themselves. Unsleeping, moving in paths so fast that they were inconceivable to mortal mind, and able to rip apart the atoms that make up the Earth with a stray thought, they were the perfect extensions of God's Power. A sentence came to mind that described them perfectly "The Watcher of Creation, greater in breadth, power, and sight than the world. An existence more empty-the true permutation of callousness,"

Which made it increasingly difficult to think of why they couldn't Seen me, the possibilities that I could think of were becoming more and more disturbing. "Perhaps it has something to do with the circumstances of my birth?" His eyes weren't nearly as terrifying as they were earlier now that I had something to occupy my mind with. Nonetheless, it still felt uncomfortable to have them stare unblinkingly at me. He slowly nodded his head which gave me the opportunity to study him more closely. His face was a carbon-copy of mine, the only differences being the neon blue glyphs he had etched into his face. They were of no language I knew, and I suspected that they were of no language in the world entirely, but they made an insane sort of sense to me. 

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

With a shock, I realized with horror that the glyphs chronicled the history of Heaven-that there were more glyphs beneath his skin, spinning in and out of existence and when I Saw them, I was dragged into them; the hidden wars, the times the entire universe barely missed Armageddon, the time when Lucifer fell. I experienced them in a heady rush of power and clarity, feeling for the first time in my life what it meant to be confident in the truest sense; the utter confidence that no matter what's happening now, that it will be alright in the end. I lived through the heartbreak that wrenched my heart into an unrecognizable shape when the greatest out of all us all Fell, the Transcendent Son whose one of many names was Lucifer. I could understand everything completely, from the atoms that made up the world to how the universe will end and how He will make it anew. I could drown in the sea of knowledge that was pouring into me and smile the entire time. 

I pulled out of my trance with a deep gasp and shuddering confusion, I felt as if I had somehow found the answer to everything but it slipped away from my fingertips just as I returned from gazing into the angel's marks. I felt oddly disappointed but at the same time satisfied, that what I had lost was better lost. 

I didn't hear him approach until he held my chin in his hand in a fatherly manner. I froze up like a deer in the headlights. "You must be awfully curious as to what had just transpired but you must not do that again lest you lose all sense of sanity. The machinations of Creation must not be shown to a child who is as innocent as you," I would have disagreed with him on the "child" and "innocent" part if I had somehow forgotten that I was talking to an angel, someone that was infinitely older than me and had seen things so monstrous that the sheer shock factor of them would have killed me. I settled for trying not to have a heart attack.

"As I was saying, the reason why the Ophanim could not find me the be the fact I don't have a soul. I mean look at me, if you were to look inside of me all you'll find is darkness. Intestines? Nope. A heart? Nope. A soul? Up for debate," The angel only looked bemused. "What, what so funny," I scowled as his grin grew only wider. "You merely lack a few pounds of flesh, but a soul you have and it shines most brightly," He got this beatific look on his face that made him look all smug, not holy whatsoever. But that kinda became irrelevant when he manifested his Curtana-the angelic sword that all have associated with them-to cut open my chest. If I was a normal human then I would be dead by now but as it stands now, I was just mildly worried if the flames on the blade would catch me on fire.

He pointed at the darkness inside of me and said "You may be physically empty, but your soul blazes bright," As he said that I saw a silver light emanating from inside of me, so bright that I was shocked that I wasn't blinded by it. I put my hand out and watched with awe as what I knew had to be my soul floated out to rest on my hand. It was so warm, so bright, it gave me hope. I'm not ashamed to admit that I had tears flowing down my cheek, but they were the happiest tears I had ever had. 

I stood there staring at my soul for what seemed like forever until I looked back at the angel "I think I know who you are now," He said nothing but I had a feeling that his smile was a little bit more conspiratorial. "I think it's time for you to go back to them now," I nodded and start to fade back into awareness. 

I was nearly all the way back before I said "Wait! I haven't figured out why the Ophanim couldn't find me!" By the time he replied, it was but the smallest whisper "Worry not, I know why now," Confusion filled my face as I tried to think of what the answer could have been. I realized that I had better things to worry about now that I was about to wake up in the bar of the woman whose niece I nearly killed and thought that maybe I should have taken more time here.

----------------------------------------------------------------------Author's Comments------------------------------------------------

I require blood sacrifices in order to keep on pumping out chapters but in lieu of that, favorites and comments are an adequate offering to the almighty writing God known as I.