After-Life

Chapter 34. Nothing is as it Seems

Mabel looked between the two men, speechlessly. She'd been so certain, based on everything she had heard, that the young man attending to his father before her, was the mastermind behind everything. To learn that the very person they had both come to save, had successfully tricked everyone...
Slowly and steadily, she approached the vantage point and looked down at the earth. The overwhelming feeling of being above everything and hovering in space caused a surreal sense of vertigo and she gripped tightly to the sturdy railing support structure for security. She'd left Kristoph to discuss crucial elements of a revised idea to call off the charge and save their friends, with God. While she felt peace and comfort in the room she was in, joined by the company; something gnawed at the back of her mind and Lilim's cautionary advice 'nothing is as it seems' kept rolling around her head, as if on loop.

Mabel turned around to survey the room from a different angle. In her prior life, when she'd worked in that office space, if she'd been faced with data that had been hard to pull apart, she'd found looking at things from a different angle sometimes helped. Admittedly, back then the angle hadn't been a holy vantage point, and the data hadn't been to do with the creation and destruction of mankind, but the premise remained the same.
There was the almighty's son, his face strained, his presence unsettled. Whenever he sat down, his knee would bob impatiently. Throughout his father's discussion, Mabel had seen his eyes flit nervously between her, then the door, then back to her. Mabel couldn't help but think that now they were free, God would be able to miraculously stop all of this with just the click of his hand if he wanted to, so why was his son looking so impatient, nervous, and shifty?
Kristoph laughed loudly at a joke shared by the almighty and a slight frown furrowed her brow. She was missing something, she was certain. Things seemed to be going too smoothly. How on earth could the Almighty have allowed himself to be trapped behind a simple door, which both she and Kristoph had only needed to rest their hands against to open; why had he resorted to throwing furnishings?

"Hey, Mab?" Kristoph laughed out, snapping her out of her musings. "The Lord's asked if you fancy seeing how Eden is doing?"
Mabel forced a pleasant smile, "shouldn't we be doing something to help our friends, first?" She fixed her eyes on Kristoph's, but his gaze was dopey, with a glazed sheen to his eyes.
"Besides," she continued. "I didn't think the clause signed, after our initial deaths, allowed us anywhere near Paradise."
Kristoph snorted and huddled closer to God and they both started giggling like school children. Something was not right. Mabel glanced hesitantly toward the doorway, and pondered on whether she could make a run for it and find Azrael, but something caught her attention. On a plinth, by the door, was a golden ball of the largest and juiciest looking apples, she had ever seen.

Mabel looked around the room. All the knowledge in the world was written and stored in there. Immediately, her classics knowledge kicked in and her mind entered a whirlwind of pondering. What had the Almighty said earlier?
"So, as you know, we arranged that I would allow you, Eve, to eat the apple..."
There was a reason behind the shock revelation, it had stalled them, encouraging time for lingering with back stories. Another thought came to her mind, she'd interrupted him. She, Mabel, a lowly human woman, had interrupted The Lord. No sooner had this thought come to the forefront of her reflections, another one swiftly took its place: his son had referred to him as the all-forgetting. Mabel felt a sense of panic slowly start to creep through her soul.

"How do we know you're him?" Mabel heard her voice project the words and felt the shock of their delivery silence the room. She certainly couldn't recall having given the words permission to air, but the reaction from the man who claimed to be God was all the validation she needed to have queried it.
"What do you mean Eve? Um, Mabel? I-I mean, Mab?" The man smiled sweetly and innocently, but there was something else there, something forced, unsettled, mistrusting.
Kristoph continued to giggle impishly, as his luminescent cheeks turned a faint pink, he looked drunk.
"I thought it was a simple question, my Lord;" Mabel forced herself to continue. "How do we know you're God?"
"Is this not proof enough?" The man stretched out his arms to emphasise the grandeur of the room they were in, then pointed toward the now pale and uncertain form of his son who seemed to be glowing with sweat, which had gathered above his top lip.
"I'm sorry, no;" Mabel held her head high.