Chicago

Three years earlier

Jubilee squinted blearily against the excruciating morning light as she drove back to her apartment—or tried to—from the penthouse party that had just ended at six am. Beside her on the passenger seat, her purse sat stuffed to the brim with six hundred dollars in cash, a gem-studded bracelet, and three gold rings. Her sunglasses, however, were nowhere to be found.

Losing a pair of sunglasses was worth last night's haul, but the massive hangover she had now might not be. "I'm never drinking again," she groaned.

It was more of a sentiment than a promise, one she literally could not afford to keep. People didn't let their guard down unless she agreed to drink, too. Only then was she ever able to get close enough to steal from them. A girl had to do what she had to do to pay the bills.

Then again, maybe she hadn't had to take those last three shots.

A car honked and she grimaced, taking one hand off the steering wheel to clutch her head. Why did the city have to be so loud? Still gripping her head, she sped up, trying to discern the lines of traffic and stay straight. Today would not be a good day to get pulled over for a DUI. Not that any day was good for that. The sooner she got back to her apartment and slept off the alcohol, the better.

Hopefully her roommate Alyssa would still be asleep, and Jubilee could avoid her mother-henning. Alyssa had recently quit partying in favor of playing house with her new fiancé. Jubilee was happy for her friend—mostly. But would she be able to afford rent once Alyssa got married and moved out?

Jubilee shook herself back to the present. The traffic light turned yellow, fifty feet ahead. Or maybe it was a hundred feet. Being hungover didn't exactly help with her spatial calculations. Either way, it was too late to slow down now.

She charged into the intersection some seconds after the light turned red. A barrage of honking immediately assaulted her ears, startling her. She glanced right. Cars were in the intersection already...heading right for her.

Panicking, she jerked the steering wheel left, swerving wildly towards the center island. A steel traffic pole loomed before her. Hit the brakes! her brain screamed, but in a moment of fear and confusion, her foot accidentally slammed down on the gas pedal—hard.

The traffic pole rushed to meet her. Time slowed in the moments before impact as Jubilee watched powerlessly, her mind immobilized by dread. She was dimly aware of the sound of tires squealing, car horns blaring, and a siren starting up nearby. For a split second, one resounding thought drowned out her terror...Was this the same helplessness her mother, her father, and her little sister had felt, right before they died?

Now you can finally join them, a voice too calm to be her own whispered.

Then, everything sped back up. Her car crashed into the pole, its front end crumpling like tin foil. The whole world jolted and turned on its head. Jubilee's neck snapped forward, slamming her forehead into the steering wheel. An explosion of pain seared through her entire body, and then—

Black.

A cold, distant awareness of absolutely nothing.

She no longer felt pain. She couldn't even feel her body. Was she paralyzed? Jubilee tried to reach a hand up to check her neck but couldn't...because she no longer had hands.

Or a body.

I'm...dead.

Suddenly, she hurtled across a vast, cosmic space, streaks of light and color flying past her field of consciousness. The colors dimmed and darkened as they sped by, going out like flames as she shot past.

Where am I? What’s happening?

Far ahead sprawled a dark, gaping chasm. It stretched across an endless expanse, emitting an infinite, immeasurable coldness that pierced her soul and snuffed out any remembrance of warmth. The stench of rot and decay wafted from its depths. It was coming right for her.

Panic crawled through Jubilee. What was that thing?

Then, the memories began.

She was six, crying as her mother screamed at her, her father sitting silently to the side.

She was thirteen and she'd learned to scream back, ignoring the distressed whimpers of her baby sister who watched tearfully from a playpen.

She was nineteen, sobbing at her family's grave, cold rain dripping down on her as she lay between their burial plots, a gravestone on either side of her head. She screamed at the sky, cursing the heavens for what had never been between her and her family—and now, what never could be. Then, curling herself into a fetal position on the wet soil, she whispered, "Just take me, too."

Wish granted.

The same voice from before pulled Jubilee back to the present where she was speeding through space and time. The voice was like a thought and yet vaguely audible, with a smoky timbre too dark and gleeful to have originated from her own mind. Was it coming from the blackness ahead?

Do you remember?

The replay of her life started up again.

She was at a drugstore months after the funeral, waiting for a prescription of antidepressants, running on empty mentally, physically, and emotionally. A mother and daughter were in the next aisle, arguing. Something inside Jubilee snapped, and her hand shot out to snatch several random items off the shelf in front of her, stuffing them into her bag.

The memory sped up, skipping forward.

She was back in her dorm, staring at the contents of her looting and wondering what she'd just done.

"Sweet color!" Alyssa bent to admire the makeup Jubilee had just shoplifted. "That's a good brand. Mind if I use some for the party I'm going to tonight?"

"Want to buy it?" Jubilee heard herself say. "It's brand new—because I stopped wearing makeup months ago."

Alyssa contemplated her roommate. "In that case, I'll buy all of it...if you let me put some on you and come with me to the party."

Jubilee hesitated. "I don't—"

"Come on, Jubilee. It'll help you get your mind off of...things."

The memory fast-forwarded again.

Jubilee stood amid a sea of college students, dolled up in a dress from Alyssa's closet, her frizzy hair flat-ironed and lips darkened to a deep red. The crowd laughed and danced around her, revolting her with their carefree revelry. Various frat boys thrust drinks her way, and she kept shaking her head no until one boy stumbled into her, heavily intoxicated. Grabbing onto her for balance, he gave her a bashful but not entirely apologetic grin. Jubilee was about to shake him off, too, when she spied a fat wallet peeking out from his pants pocket.

He's got enough cash and happiness to spare, she decided on impulse. And he’d be too drunk to remember her in the morning, which would serve him right. Looking up at him through heavily curled lashes—courtesy of Alyssa's artistry—she let him lead her onto the dance floor, where she put her arms around his waist, her fingertips brushing the top of his wallet.

Of course, you remember. The cruel voice cut sharply across Jubilee’s memory as she fell through the nothingness. You remember all of it.

Her memories sped up, replaying through her consciousness at a ferocious rate.

She was in bed with stranger after stranger.

She was crawling out from under a tangle of limbs in the dead of night.

She was slipping wads of cash out of the wallet she'd found in a pair of pants lying forgotten on the carpet.

She was sitting on a bathroom floor staring ahead at nothing, hands by her sides, one of them loosely clasping her open pocket knife. The blade was stained red. A slow trickle of blood dripped from the shallow gashes marring her wrist to the cold tile beneath her, but she paid it no mind. All she could feel were the tears trickling down her cheeks.

Do you remember how you were never brave enough to cut deeper, the voice continued, Even though you knew you deserved it?

Then Jubilee was at her apartment, holding Alyssa in her arms as the other girl cried. "I—can't believe I—lost it," Alyssa hiccuped between sobs. "Brian spent...so much money—" Another sob. "On it."

"I'll help you look for it," Jubilee soothed. The weight of the diamond ring inside her pocket grew heavier with the lie. "You'll find it again, I promise." Tears rolled down her cheeks and she wept along with the other girl, not knowing if it was out of shame and empathy or if she'd just gotten that good at pretending.

Her memories fizzled to an end, replaced by a sudden, awful awareness of the black chasm drawing closer and closer. The faint, eerie sound of weeping echoed from its depths. Anguished screams blended in tune with the cries to produce a chorus of agony that doubled in on itself, reverberating through Jubilee's core.

The voices all sounded like her, and yet not like her at all. They shrieked in hatred of their fate and of themselves, in resentment of life and all its misspent moments, in fear of eternal pain from which there was no escape. They sobbed with the sorrow of irreversible, unerasable shame. The cacophony grew louder and louder, stifling Jubilee's soul, suffocating her with an incurable dread.

Before her, the darkness yawned wider, like a mouth waiting to swallow her up. The putrid smell of death on its lips became unbearable. Fear, like a sharp claw, sliced its way through Jubilee, along with a horrific realization.

I'm going to hell.

She tried to fight the tide of gravity sucking her towards this black hole. But there was no way to fight. No arms to flail. No feet to kick. No mouth with which to scream. There was only a sense of utter powerlessness as her soul was drawn towards its unavoidable—and, she knew, well-deserved—fate.

Please, she pleaded, though she didn't know to whom she was pleading. Please, no. No. Help me. Help me! Don't let me die...

Vaguely Jubilee was aware that she was already dead, yet somehow she knew that the destination she was shooting towards was a place of death beyond what she'd ever conceived. It would be a death continuous and unending, of not only the body but of the soul and spirit, a place so utterly void of life that she would never again see or even remember what life or light or joy was. And there, she would spend eternity reliving every moment on earth that had been killing her from the inside out.

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Resignation filled her. Why not just accept that she'd had this coming all along?

The wisp of a final memory pushed its way into her mind.

Jubilee was fifteen, sulking in a pew, alone except for a toddler in her lap. The child's hair was thick like Jubilee's but short, pulled into pigtails that had come undone and poofed outwards. Her rosy cheeks dimpled as she bounced in Jubilee's arms, oblivious to the older girl's foul mood.

The image made Jubilee's heart wrench. Was this meant to make her feel even worse? To remind her of all the times she'd failed to cherish her sister?

The little girl hummed quietly to herself, and teenage Jubilee scowled at the tune. It was one she'd just heard during the insufferable service she'd been forced to sit through.

Her sister tugged on her sleeve. "Sing wit' me, Ju-Lee!"

Jubilee hesitated. Her sister looked so bright and expectant in that moment that suddenly, she couldn't bring herself to say no. "Okay, Jenny," she acquiesced, and began, "There's a truth that frees me, frees me..." Jenny clapped her hands and hummed along. "From the chains of all my sin."

The memory faded, but the song continued, echoing softly through Jubilee's mind as she fell through the darkness. There's a light that saves me, saves me...

Ahead the chasm loomed, its sobs pouring out to envelope her in a rising crescendo that nearly drowned out the melody.

From the darkness crowding in.

Sheer terror gripped Jubilee as the blackness raced to meet her, its sound and stench growing stronger and stronger. She could barely hear the song anymore.

If you will, then save me, save me...from the chains of all my sin.

If you will, then save me, save me...from the darkness crowding in.

Sudden desperation filled her, igniting a primal instinct to survive, along with something else—the deep sense of mourning which she had quashed for years. It was grief for the family she'd lost and the friends she'd wronged as well as for herself—for every precious moment of life she'd so recklessly thrown away and now could never have back.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry... If she'd still had a body with which to do so, she would've wept bitterly. I'm so sorry...for everything I've done.

Jubilee remembered her sister. She thought of the light that had always been in Jenny's eyes, even when their family had been at its most dysfunctional. Jubilee didn't know where that light came from, but now she desperately hoped that it could do what the song promised it would.

Please. She sent a final, desperate plea upward into the nothingness. I know don’t deserve it, but—if you will, then please…

SAVE ME.

***

Her petition seemed to hover vainly in the ether for a long moment. Then, faintly, her plea was joined by another one.

Into your hands, I commend this spirit, said a still, small voice. It sounded female but too old to be her sister. Which came from you, and now to you, I pray, will return...

Jubilee's fear dissipated for a second, replaced by confusion. Was that...Mama? But it couldn't be her mother, for it was speaking perfect English.

But in all things, and in all ways, Father, the voice continued, its tone light and soothing unlike the accusing voice from before, Your will be done.

Time slowed to a trickle, the speed of Jubilee's trajectory towards the chasm crawling to a standstill. For a few moments, there was only the immense, overwhelming sensation of still nothingness. The blackness widened angrily before her like impatient jaws, waiting.

Then, a force flung her in the opposite direction.

Lights whizzed by, colors brightening as a swift but windless motion carried her rapidly backward. In the distance, the chasm grew smaller and smaller until it was nothing but a black speck, and at last, winked out completely. Then there was a sensation of going up...up...up...

High-pitched ringing filled her awareness, growing louder and louder the higher she went. The sound was like tinkling crystals, resonant church bells, and many rushing waters all at once. It was a voice, it was a song, it was everything. It was the song of the universe.

Warmth suddenly rushed through her being and blinding light filled her vision. Jubilee stumbled forward onto a pair of legs. Staring at her feet in astonishment, she patted herself down. She had a body again. But it was...different.

For one thing, there was no sign of injury from the car accident. For another, it felt less dense, almost weightless. Her limbs looked translucent yet felt more solid than ever before. Squinting, she tried to make out her surroundings, but everything was still too bright.

What was going on? Was there a trap door beneath her, ready to drop her back to where she'd just come the moment she took a wrong step? She had a vague notion of where she might be, but was sure that that couldn't be so. Why would someone like her be here?

Heaven. If you will, then save me.

A familiar voice interrupted her thoughts. "Ju-Lee?"

Her breathing hitched. Slowly, she turned. A little girl stood a few feet away, thick pigtails bobbing as she cocked her head. She looked no older than seven—the age she'd been when Jubilee last saw her.

Jubilee stared. "Jenny?" she whispered. "Is...is that you?"

The girl's pudgy cheeks dimpled as she beamed. "Ju-Lee!" She raced over as fast as her little legs would carry her.

A sob caught in Jubilee's throat as tears clouded her vision, but, somehow, could not fall in this place. She knelt and opened her arms wide, catching her sister in her arms and hugging her tight. "Jenny," she said again, breathlessly. "I'm—you—how? Where are Mama and Baba?"

"They're here!" the little girl said. "They're happy. And safe. Just like you are now." She squeezed Jubilee and smiled up at her. "Don't worry, Ju-Lee. Everything will be okay. We've all been watching you."

Jubilee smiled back shakily. "I—I don't understand, but I'm...so happy. To see you again." Relief washed over her, along with sudden remorse. She gulped and buried her face into her sister's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Jenny. For not being a better sister. For not spending more time with you when you were alive...for how I abandoned you to run away from my problems when I left for college. I haven't been a very good example to watch, have I?"

But she'd make up for it. She'd been given a second chance, apparently, and she wouldn't let her sister go again. She'd be reunited with her parents, too, and despite all their differences on earth, they could be reconciled here. Joy overflowed at the thought and brought an all-encompassing sense of peace.

Around Jubilee, shapes and colors slowly started to come into focus. Lush greenery with a rainbow of vibrant colors formed in the distance. Something brighter than everything else stood at the center, its golden glow casting light in every direction, but it was still all a blur.

"It's okay, Ju-Lee." Jenny patted her on the head as the brilliant source of light began to approach. "He'll tell you."

"Who?" Jubilee asked, confused and yet somehow not worried, her senses intoxicated by euphoria from the luminous presence as it drew closer.

Jenny giggled. "You'll see!" She leaned forward and kissed Jubilee on the cheek. "Just remember, Ju-Lee...you'll see me again. All of us." She waved cheerfully and stepped back.

Alarm broke through Jubilee's reverie. She reached for her sister. "Wait! What do you mean, again? Please, don't leave m—"

Then the resplendent presence was before her, and whatever anxiety or perplexity she'd felt quickly melted away of their own accord.

Hello, Jubilee.

The voice was strong and soft all at once, powerful yet gentle at the same time. Jubilee felt as though she'd drawn breath through her lungs for the first time, as though she'd been blind but now could finally see. Slowly, she looked up into a face that shone with such brilliance that it radiated heat, and she could barely make out its features amid the dazzling splendor. Her mouth opened, but she could say nothing.

You are very dear to me, Jubilee.

The figure—it looked somewhat like a man, yet she knew it was so much more—smiled at her, and the love and warmth in that smile completely undid her. It suddenly hit her that all the safety and security she'd ever longed for were now right here in front of her, encompassed in this one being.

I have great work for you to do, dear one, the voice said. It will be a difficult path, but rewarding as well...if you choose to take it.

Difficult? Jubilee balked and broke out of her trance. Did that mean she'd have to endure more of the misery she'd experienced on earth? She opened her mouth to protest, but then a flood of insight and understanding rushed through her head in spurts: images of a protector guarding her from an alleyway crook as she stumbled drunkenly through Chicago, a comforter standing by her side while she mourned over her family's graves, a celestial host escorting her deceased family beyond the earthly veil and into the presence of this magnificent being of light...

Of the same glowing presence watching over her baby sister while she played alone...

Smiling upon Jubilee when she was a child...

And nailed to a cross two thousand years ago, no longer an entity of glorious majesty, but instead just a broken man, bleeding out for her.

Unexpected conviction suddenly seized Jubilee. "Yes," she said. "Anything." Then a niggling doubt wormed its way past her fervor. "But...what about how I—about what I've..." She trailed off, unable to voice her transgressions aloud before this being.

A hand cupped her cheek, raising her head to look up into a radiant smile. I know that you are sorry, the figure said gently. Your sins are forgiven, daughter. Your record is clear, now and forever, because I have made it so. The words were spoken with a perfect finality that dissolved away any doubt.

Relief flooded Jubilee. She leaned into the warm touch, and the figure stretched forth another hand and laid it across her eyes. A tingle of energy pulsed beneath the fingertips, waiting.

Then the voice drew in a deep breath and intoned, Receive your sight. Your faith has healed you.

Instantly, bright light exploded behind her retinas, and a swirl of power surged from the fingertips over her eyes, straight through her head and into her brain. In the ensuing flood of sights and sounds that suddenly burst through her consciousness in greater acuity, she vaguely sensed the voice saying more to her.

Return home...and show them what I see.

Something tugged at Jubilee, pulling her away. Her body suddenly felt heavier, as though gravity were increasing. She started to realize what was happening.

"Wait," she began, frantic. "I don't want to leave. Don't make me go back. Don't—"

And then she was plummeting earthwards.

For a moment, she clung to the feeling of a warm hand cupping her face, of her own hands reaching back up towards heaven, and of two desperate, yearning thoughts.

This is my home.

You are my home.

Then, it was all gone.

***

The moment Jubilee opened her eyes, pain shot through her skull. A million different voices in her head all screamed at once.

For a second, she thought she was back in hell. Then she realized the pain was from her physical injuries, firing off synapses in her brain and sending an excruciating sensation shooting down her spine. On top of that, it was far too bright, and something was...different, with her eyes.

Everything that filtered through her vision was sharper, clearer. And there was something...beyond. Bright flashes of color, colors she never knew existed, colors she would never be able to describe in words, flitted through the air around her. She turned her head to one side, to the protest of her sprained neck, and cried out in agony from the acute sensitivity hitting both her body and mind.

Some of the colors were darker, a description which did them pathetic justice. It was a darkness that had a smell to it, like the rottenness which had seeped from the place of death she'd so narrowly escaped. Her stomach heaved as her mind reeled.

A woman's face came into view. She was middle-aged and Caucasian, about the same age Jubilee's mother would've been had she still been alive. The woman stared at Jubilee, her expression a mix of concern, shock, and relief. Around her radiated a soft, gentle glow. Jubilee realized the woman's hands were clasped over hers.

"You're alive," the woman whispered. Jubilee recognized her voice. It was the same one she'd heard just before her soul had stopped its trajectory towards hell. Your will be done, the voice had prayed.

The woman's head snapped up to address a team of paramedics and cops closing in. "She's alive!" she yelled.

Figures of ethereal light and shadow flitted across the space. Right beside Jubilee stood one very tall, very bright figure. It had...wings. They were folded down along its back, tips resting above the ground. The more she tried to make sense of it, the more the brightness of its form scorched her eyes. She looked away in pain, but then her gaze landed on something that made her go cold.

A tall, willowy figure with onyx skin stood not six feet away. It towered at least a couple feet above the tallest human in the crowd, white tendrils of hair coiled around its head like a bed of serpents. Eerie yellow eyes glared at Jubilee with fury. Pointing a finger at her, it looked towards the winged figure and snarled, "This one is mine."

Its voice was feminine but dark and smoky...the same voice Jubilee heard right before she died and which had continued to torment her as she'd spun toward hell. You deserved it, it had told her—truthfully.

No one else in the crowd seemed to have heard it speak. The figure took a menacing step towards Jubilee. As it did, memories of the gaping chasm assaulted her senses with vivid force—the anguished cries, suffocating odor, and piercing cold all rushing through her head as clearly as though she were on her way back.

Jubilee jerked back and tried to scream. A raw, gurgling sound escaped her throat and the paramedics around her, oblivious to the advancing demon, held her down to strap her to a stretcher, murmuring meaningless platitudes as she struggled uselessly. There was no way to escape.

The figure with wings stepped into Jubilee's vision then, blocking the dark being's path.

Not anymore, it said.

Its voice sounded similar to the one Jubilee had heard in heaven, but lesser somehow, like a stream trickling out from a much greater river. Even so, it was more than she could handle now that she was back in her earthly body.

The sonorous voice rang through Jubilee's ears like a gong, staggering in its strength and volume, and her head swam with pain. Which was worse—the being of darkness that oozed all the fear and dread of hell, or this being of light that was too much for her broken mind to handle? Overwhelmed, her brain did the only logical thing to do under the circumstances.

It shut down, and she passed out.