After Life

Birds of a Feather

MICHAEL-JOHNSON NEWMAN (CONT'D)

"I am... The Flightless. I am... The Visionless. I am... The First. I am... Adra...Zel."

The man in the hat, whose mere presence presses the weight of the frozen atmosphere firmly against my chest, speaks and terror has somehow laced his words, though they merely introduce him. Everything around me – the frozen expressions of panic, intrigue and alarm – tells me we haven't left the auditorium. Yet, every instinct of self-preservation I possess tells me we have. This is undoubtedly the pinnacle of danger. Concurrently, and rather unfortunately, I have found myself at the very depths of crippling fear. I've told my body to move a million times now. It refuses to.

Throughout all this, Quan has not broken contact with my shoulder. The terror of what lies before us must have frozen him too. In fact, a blot of blood has now formed where his thumb has clawed into my flesh. Fortunately, I feel none of it.

The man in the hat still wears a big grin. Though he blocks my line of sight, it is only partially and I seize the chance to glimpse the shared horror on Quan's face. Unlike that night in the cane field, my only relief now is that I do not face this horror alone.

The moment I am able to see Quan's right eye, the man in the hat begins a low chuckle, almost a growl. For the first time since being stuck in this... moment, something else manages to rip my attention away from the figure before us. It's Quan and his unflinching glare. For a moment, I wonder whether he can see the man in the hat too but a quick flick of his eyes directly at the figure answers that question. And it dawns on me – Quan is not fazed. He barely acknowledges the presence of the entity and is instead directly focused on me, snarling as his eyes run from refusing to blink. Perhaps he is just as confused as I am. After all, whenever this thing speaks, his voice lingers like a hurricane trapped in your head, and you hear nothing else until it speaks again. It is certainly beyond reasonable that my friend could have, as a result, misplaced his rage. Yet, that he seems to feel that way, and I don't, confuses me. But this confuses me even more – one by one, Quan is unhooking his fingernails from my flesh, trashing my hasty conclusion that fear had paralyzed us both. I was wrong. It was just me. Quan could have moved if he wanted to.

Every second that passes here drags me deeper into the chaos of confusion. My only hope for an escape rests in the belief that all this may yet still be a dream. That's the most logical conclusion to all this – the numbers, the visions, the forgotten dreams, all of it. But, that I breathe the air of the living is evidence enough that logic cannot prevail here. This is everything but a dream.

"You may... remember," says the gruff voice of the man in the hat. At his words, a single feather swooshes gently from the bloodied wing clutched in his hand. I am enchanted to observe the swaying of the feather as it dances and ultimately settles at my feet. Then, there's a sudden and violent explosion of wind in my face.

Now, I remember everything.

That night in the cane field, a split second after I was shot in the head, Adra-Zel was there.

"Who are you?" I had asked him.

"Divine... intervention," he had said.

"Who... are you?" he asked me. But I did not answer. Who else could a dead man have been? I only was, and for the rest of eternity henceforth, that is all I will be.

But Adra-Zel ignored my hesitations. He instead swiped the bullets from my head with a simple flick of his hand. "Perfection... through blemishes," he had said as he worked. He proceeded to touch his eyes, and then touch mine. He then told me he had a favour remaining, and that the next time I see him will be the last.