Warrior Nun: The aftermath

Chapter 12

No one dared to talk and just stood there, waiting for someone to say something. That's how hard Ava fought against not just rushing up to Beatrice and hugging. Unfortunately, there was still a lot unresolved and not the right time. 

"Hello Beatrice."

Everyone starts back and forth between her and Ava.

"Hello Ava."

"She knew?!" asked Yasmine, horrified.

"Of course she knew, or what do you think could have hurt her again?" 

A lump stuck in Ava's throat. Since their last meeting, she had deliberately given Beatrice time and space to let everything sink in. It had been clear to her that it would not be easy for Bea, but the thought of having hurt her again hurt like hell. Nevertheless, the surprise of the others was proof enough that Beatrice had said nothing and trusted her at least a little bit.

"How long?" Lilith wanted to know.

Beatrice replied with a bitterness that broke Ava's heart a bit.

"Too long."

"I suppose there is a special reason why you are revealing yourself to us now."

It was difficult to interpret emotions of Mother Superior. Apart from the obvious disappointment in her voice, Ava had no idea what she was thinking. 

"There is. But in order to explain everything, I have to start from scratch and not here."

"What are we supposed to do here?" asked Beatrice snappily. 

As Ava slowly walked past them into the hallway, she began to explain the first rather trivial things. "I learned a lot during my time in the other realm and received a mission. But I can't do this alone, I need your help for that. But before we do anything, I have to enlighten you as far as I am allowed. This is the perfect place to unobtrusively prepare for what is to come."

"What exactly are we facing? I mean, what's the mission?" A voice behind her, which she could clearly assign to Yasmine, spoke up. 

Ava did not answer and instead walked with great quick steps to the former lecture hall. Once there, she waited until everyone had sat down somewhere. Lilith leaned against the wall on the far right, the others sat in the first two rows directly in front of Ava. Beatrice leaned against tables on the far left. Her expectant look was close to unbearable. The feeling as if Ava is about to present her doctoral thesis.

"Since everything is not very easy to explain and I have to go far, this will take me a while. With what I intend to do, nothing will be the same after that and it will be dangerous until it happens. After I was against it through the portal, there was nothing at first." Ava paused for a moment and looked at Bea, who was just staring in her direction with a neutral emotionless expression. "The time there is something completely different from here. It's as if it doesn't exist. For what felt like an eternity I just lay there, alone. At some point, people took me to an incredibly bright city. No dirt, no garbage and always light. They healed my wounds in seconds and gave me new clothes. It took me a while to really understand everything. Nothing is as we have always believed. The Father, or God, is not what everyone thinks."

"Wait. In what way?"

Beatrice, like the others, looked at her skeptically. 

"He's not directly a he. For the sake of illustration, I just say it. There are two possibilities. One is how everything is seen at the moment and the other is how it should be. In his eyes, he is something different for everyone. Basically everything at the same time and yet only one at each moment. He is, as correctly described, omnipotent. Its range is greater than one could imagine. However, limited. Originally, he had twelve, one could say children, around him. They form the backbone of his power. Everyone responsible for something different. But as they gradually become fewer, they are in danger." 

Now Yasmine spoke up: "You are disappearing? I mean, if everyone who died lives on the other side and they can't really die, how can they disappear?"

That was a really good question, which obviously asked several in the room.
"You already know some of them. Jesus, Reya, Adriel..."

"Stop!" Beatrice took a step closer and raised a hand. "Adriel was one of the twelve?"

"Believe me, it was just as hard for me to believe all this, but it is. To return to Yasmine's question, there are two realms. A big one, called the City of Light, and a small one, called the City of Darkness. The decision-making process you get into is not based on your led life, but on the honest will of your heart. That means I lived there with a serial killer. No matter what you've done, it depends on what you want to do. One of the twelve did not only want the good and gave all darkness and evil a home. So he built his somewhat smaller, but ever-growing empire. He has turned away. I have to say honestly, it's hard for me to believe it's much worse there than where I was."

"What do you mean?" Beatrice had a look that Ava couldn't quite identify. 

"What I mean is that I have a task. There is a reason for everything that happened to me, why I died and still live again. There I was more or less trained for a task. My job is to make this universe what it should always be." 

"This universe?" asked Camila.

"And how exactly was that supposed to be?" asked Mother Superior.

"The balance of power is not as it should be and people's faith is scattered and misguided. As an example, women have exactly the same power as men. There are countless different universes and worlds whose origin I still haven't understood. All have the same value, but different meanings."

The confusion did not want to disappear from the faces. Comprehensible. Ava herself had taken a long time to understand it.She didn't know everything. As she went on, she noticed a pain that she couldn't define where it came from.

"Ours is of enormous importance, which is why Adriel spread his mischief here as well. Basically, with your help, I will carry out the will of God. The Bible is flawed, as are social ideals. In reality, there is no other religion, no difference in power between the sexes, no regulations for the conduct of our lives, and no direction of love."

The pain grew stronger and stronger with every sentence she said. Still, she looked at Beatrice when Ava uttered the word love. With a lot of effort she tried to explain reasonably understandably how the dying worked, how the other side worked and a few details about the actual reality. It had been going on for about two hours until everyone understood it for the most part and didn't ask any more questions.

"There has always been this one plan to save everyone, with few exceptions."

"An exception lies ahead of us." Lilith probably had no idea how right she was.

When Ava objected, Beatrice was alarmed again.

"Ava? What does she mean by that?"

"Everyone should have a free, carefree life. Most can determine their own destiny. A few very few like Michael and I don't. His life was focused on getting me to this point where I..."

As much as Ava wanted to finish talking, she couldn't. The pain suddenly became unbearable and made it impossible for her to continue the conversation. She collapsed and writhed on the floor, screaming in pain.