Indenuel spun around. “Hello? You there.” He tried pointing to a servant, but she didn’t reply. He leapt out of his chair as the room began to fade. “What’s going on? No, no, no. This can’t be happening.”

This was more than passing out. He could vaguely see his body sitting upright in a chair before it faded from view. Was he dying? “Help! Please, someone help!”

It was dark, wherever he was. He could hear himself breathing, which was odd. If he was passed out, he wouldn’t hear that, would he?

“You must be seeing this with me,” a mysterious voice said.

Indenuel wiped around, his sword out, swiping at whoever was behind him. A Dengrian man backed away, hands raised. “Whoa now. Easy.”

He held the sword pointed at the man’s chest. “Was my food poisoned? Did you poison it?”

“What? No. This is a vision.” The Dengrian man studied Indenuel, then his face morphed into surprise. “Indenuel?”

He gave the man a mistrusting look. “Yes? How do you know me?”

The man said nothing, his hands still raised. “I… I’ve seen you before.”

Indenuel blinked, then finally got a good look at the man. He had the brown eyes of the Dengrians. He looked like he was at least thirty-five years old. His clothes seemed so strange. His pants were made of a material he’d never seen before, and they were cut off at the knees, his bare legs showing. What kind of fashion was this? He about commented when he noticed the man’s shirt, the strangest one he’d ever seen. It was a simple fabric, with a design of humans. It was a group of Kiamese young men. Like a portrait of them, but somehow incredibly lifelike.

“This must be early in your lifetime,” the man said. “Is this the first vision you’ve ever had?”

Indenuel gave a slow nod. “I just practiced it today with Tolomon.”

The Dengrian smiled. “Tolomon. Your badass bodyguard, right?”

Indenuel was confused. “His ass is bad?”

The Dengrian cleared his throat. “Just an expression. Means tough. A fighter. You know… badass.” The man clapped his hands, rubbing them together. “Anyway, I’ll be your guide through this vision, okay? These are a little different than glimpses of the future. And let’s get one thing straight right now.” The man reached forward with his hand toward the sword still pointed at him and thrust his palm right through. “This is like the dream world. In this plane of existence, you can’t hurt me, and I can’t hurt you.” He removed his hand from the sword. “You’re safe. I’m safe. Remember that for next time.”

Indenuel paused before straightening and sheathing the sword, still keeping an eye on the man. He still couldn’t quite comprehend what was going on. “Next time?”

“I’ve seen you before, remember? This is the second time for me, but clearly the first time for you. Next time, it will be the first time I see you, and the second for you. Well, maybe the second time for you. Who knows how many more times we’ll see each other before then?”

Indenuel took a moment to close his eyes as he tried to sort out what the man was talking about. This was strange, no doubt. It would have almost been easier to believe his food had been poisoned. “I don’t understand. You… are you…” The man waited patiently, not giving anything away. “Are you from the future?”

“Your future, yes. I can see the past and the future, but I can’t change it. For example, I can’t go back in time and warn my former self about you trying to hurt me. To change time itself would make me a God. I am only a witness to history.”

“So, like a…” Indenuel’s eyes widened. “You’re… you’re the prophet! The one foretold in the Divine Ages!”

“The man with eyes of Brown from the fifth age,” the man said. “Just call me the prophet. You shouldn’t know my name.”

Indenuel couldn’t help but stare, his eyes wide. “You’re one of the most powerful prophets in the world!”

The prophet gave a half-hearted smile. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s me.”

“And… and your lineage! You’ll bring about the savior!”

Again, the prophet looked uncomfortable. “Those Divine Ages. Short, sweet, and unfortunately true.”

“Unfortunate?” Indenuel looked surprised. “It must be a great honor to have the Savior himself in your line.”

The prophet didn’t look happy. “The Divine Ages are known to everyone, including the devil himself. He will stop at nothing to foil it, and in doing so, my posterity will be in for a hard life. It hasn’t been easy for me, and it won’t be for them. Certainly, you yourself can relate?”

Indenuel had to look away as he remembered growing up in Mountain Pass. Remembered how much he suffered to keep himself hidden. “Yeah.”

The prophet nodded before he straightened, looking around the darkness they were in. “I’m sure you have a load of questions. I know I did. Go ahead and ask them before we see what we have been sent to see.”

Indenuel did have questions. A countless number of them. “How do you know my language?”

“This plane of existence helps translate between the two languages. After all, despite the Dengrian language, there’s also futuristic lingo I’m speaking right now that you probably don’t understand, so it’s filtering through to give you a better idea. Some still trickles through, though.”

“Like badass?” Indenuel asked.

“Exactly. There are also things I am forbidden to say about your future, and it will translate accordingly. You will only know, see, and hear what you are meant to.”

Indenuel gave a tiny nod. “And… this? How is this happening?”

“You have all four gifts, yes? You’re using your gift of sight, same as me. The one people usually associate with seeing the dead, both in dreams and if powerful enough, in real life. But there is this aspect to it, too.”

Indenuel frowned. “Wait, I remember hearing something about this. Prophecy, seeing the future, that can only come about if you have all four gifts.” Indenuel’s eyes shot to the prophet’s face. “Do you have all four?”

The tiniest smile crossed the prophet’s face. “I don’t think I’d be allowed to tell you that.”

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Indenuel stared at him, feeling lightheaded. It seemed like he did. He would have to. There was someone else just like him.

“And… and the future? Are we going to see the future?”

The prophet’s face dropped. “I hope not. I hate seeing the future. It only makes things harder.”

“Harder how?” Indenuel asked.

“To see it and never be able to change it, no matter what you do. It sucks.”

Indenuel’s eyes again traveled to the prophet’s strange clothes. His shoes were some he’d never seen before. They looked so bulky and made of a material he simply didn’t understand. And his shirt? The sleeves were cut off well above the elbows. And what was the point of having a shirt with a portrait on it?

The prophet must have noticed Indenuel’s gaze, and he looked down at his own shirt. “I’m usually better dressed for these things, but this vision has caught me on laundry day.” The prophet grabbed his shirt with a hand, rubbing it between his fingers. “A gift from my sister. She has always been obsessed with this ridiculous boy band. It is definitely just a laundry day shirt.”

Indenuel stared at the prophet, unsure whether the translator was working. “Boy… band?”

The prophet straightened his shirt, then froze. He looked back down at his shirt, then stared at Indenuel, his eyes super wide. “Holy stars above!” Indenuel didn’t know how to react. “Ho – ly stars! You… you’re going to … my sister’s gag gift is the reason boy bands are in the Holy Records!” The prophet smacked his forehead looking like he was about to laugh. “I cannot believe it. I’m never going to tell her, just to spite her. Who am I kidding? Of course I’m going to tell her. She always thought these guys were the boy band you were talking about. She’s going to freak out!”

Indenuel turned his head to one side. “Freak out?”

The prophet cleared his throat again. “Anyway, weird things trickle through the translator, no?"

"Uh..." Indenuel felt like he should stay on this conversation, but clearly it was something for the future. “So where is my body? I saw it as I left.”

“You are in the perfect state of meditation. It will only last a minute or two in your world and in mine. Who knows how long this vision will last. I have spent weeks seeing the end of the world. That was long enough for me. I pity those who will be in it,” the prophet said.

“How many years has God given you?” Indenuel asked.

“I’m thirty-six. I won’t live much longer, though.”

“What? Why not?”

There was a quality of both loneliness and sadness that inched across his face. “I’ve seen my death.”

Indenuel’s face dropped. He had never thought of that. In his mind he pictured the stain glass window that had the prophet of the fifth age, and he looked just as regal as the one created for Indenuel. But with this short amount of time, he realized how very human this man had become.

“I’m sorry,” Indenuel said.

The prophet shrugged. “I form a zit right about here.” He pointed at a place by his nose. “That’s when I know. The rest of me looks about how it should when I die.”

Indenuel stared, wondering what it would be like to already know how you die. “Does anyone else know?”

The prophet gave a lame smile. “Yes. My wife does. A few of my family members do. They don’t believe me. It’s all the burden of being a prophet. People will listen to you when they like what you say but refuse to believe the things they don’t like. You’ll find out soon enough with this vision.”

“Wait, you know what we’ll see?” Indenuel asked.

“Yes. Now that we’ve established…” he trailed off as he ran a hand down the front of his strange shirt. “Yes. I know what we’ll see. The past this time, thankfully.”

“I need to tell someone about this?” Indenuel asked.

“The High Elders soon after this vision,” the prophet said, not looking at Indenuel as he studied the room. “I know it will be written down because I read about it, but just in case, make sure someone writes it down.”

Indenuel nodded, feeling strange. There was something unusual about this whole thing. “And they’ll listen to me?” The prophet gave a half-committal shrug. “They should, right?”

The room was as dark and as shapeless as ever. “Like I said, people sometimes believe, they sometimes don’t. I’m one of the most powerful prophets this world has ever seen, yet I still make mistakes in my regular life, so therefore people assume my power must be a mistake as well.”

“That seems ridiculous,” Indenuel said. “I mean, if we listen to people who have seen the future, we could probably prevent the end of the world, right?”

“No, it’d be impossible. I saw it already happen, and therefore it will.”

“Is fate really that rigid?”

The prophet gave him a knowing smile. “Alright, Indenuel. How’s this. Next time you see me, do not, I repeat, do not, hurt me. I want you to do everything in your power to stop.” The prophet gave a shrug. “But you’ll ignore it, because I’ve already seen it happen. No matter what I say or do, you are going to hurt me.”

Indenuel shook his head. “You probably sneak up on me again, don’t you?”

The prophet turned his head to the floor, a sad smile on his lips as he rubbed his chest. “Something like that. It is the sad fate of the gift of prophecy. To know the things of the past you cannot change and know the events of the future that will happen no matter what you do.” A strange look of melancholy crossed his face.

“What’s it like? The end of the world?” Indenuel asked.

The melancholy turned to deep sorrow. The prophet closed his eyes and shook his head. “If you are supposed to see what happens as the end of the world, you will. Until then, please don’t ask me to reveal it to you. Just know…” the prophet opened his eyes. “It’s a time I wouldn’t ask my very worst enemies to live through. And I have quite a few of those.”

Indenuel nodded, feeling uncomfortable. “Can you tell me anything about the future?” He asked mostly out of curiosity. The sadness seemed to drain from the prophet’s face. He opened his mouth and started talking. Meaning his lips moved, he looked as though he was telling Indenuel many things, but he couldn’t hear a word. He furrowed his brow, trying to lean closer to hear it. The prophet stopped, a sad smile on his lips. “See? The powers that be won’t let you hear anything about the future.”

He didn’t know why this angered him, but it did. “If there is nothing I can do to change the future, what does it matter if I know?”

“Because the powers that be understand you and everyone around you so completely that they know what will happen with assuredness, but you having that choice is still important to them,” the prophet said.

Indenuel shook his head. “What are the powers that be you keep talking about?”

The prophet frowned. “Powers that be?” He looked like he was thinking it out in his mind before he snapped his fingers. “Right. Translators again. We have different deities we believe in, and this is the best way the translators are helping us communicate that.”

The confusion did not stop. “So, the translators are allowing me to know things like boy bands, but not to understand the deities of the future?”

The prophet gave a loud laugh, slapping Indenuel on the back. “Most likely because the powers that be are far more important than boy bands. A sentiment I will indeed pass on to my sister.” He still chuckled. “You are different than what I expected.”

“Why?” Indenuel asked.

“You are so far into my past; we know little about your personality. Everyone mentioned in the Divine Ages has been so different than what I expected.”

Indenuel raised an eyebrow. “You’ve met everyone in the Divine Ages?”

The prophet smiled, pointing two fingers at Indenuel. “Yes! Well, no. Not… not her. Okay, sort of her. I mean I did see… technically like I saw the others so… since she’s not technically related and I… I don’t really know what happened with her until…” he waved a hand in front of his face. “Anyway, here I am. With you. Best for last, as they say.”

“Um, thank you? But didn’t you meet me before?”

The prophet smiled. “I don’t count that. It was so short I didn’t really get to know you.”

“Because I apparently tried to hurt you?” Indenuel asked.

The prophet rubbed his chest again. “Yeah. That’s when I first learned I couldn’t be killed in that plane of existence. Glad I learned that so early.” The prophet stretched.

Indenuel folded his arms, trying to think. “Um, which woman of the Divine Ages were you talking about?”

“Doesn’t matter,” the prophet said far too quickly.

“I mean, there isn’t that many.” Indenuel tried to wrack his brain. “There was the princess mentioned.”

The barest smile flickered across the prophet’s face. “Alright, so I should clarify I haven’t exactly met some of the individuals in the Divine Ages, since the others aren’t as strong in the power of sight, but I have seen them and certain aspects of their lives. Some of the ones from the past have come to visit me in my dreams. It's a pity what they’re asked to go through.”

Indenuel twisted his face. “Is that supposed to be comforting for me? Because it’s not.” He expected some sort of comfort, even if it was sarcastic. Instead, the prophet still had the barest of smiles on his face.

“Do you have any more questions for me? Or shall we begin this vision?”

Indenuel winced and let out a sigh. Yes, he still had questions, but he couldn’t bring himself to word them the right way. “Let’s start.”