She sat next to him as he flipped to the first book in the New Testament and began scouring the pages until he found the 22nd chapter. She didn't miss the slight fingershake as he located the 14th verse.
"Matthew 22:14," he read aloud, "For many are...
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"Whoa..."
The sunlight became less blinding on the other side. The door swung shut behind me on its own accord, no doubt locking us into this next...section. The sun itself hung close in the sky–that's the best way I can put it. It was directly overhead but seemed far bigger than I remembered. Or maybe we'd spent too much time in dark tunnels.
Probably that.
Whoever had built the tunnel system was definitely into the large, dusty yellow bricks. They were used for everything. The ground, even though we were outside, and every single weird brick house formed a clunky circle around us. It was obvious that it had been built as a trap. The houses were large and simple with flat tops and touched corner to corner so that we couldn't see beyond them. The sides looked smooth–there would be no hope of climbing them.
In the center of the courtyard stood a well made out of the same bricks as everything else. Reed was sitting on the edge of the well, one of the books open, pouring through pages already.
"There's no way out," Grey confirmed. He hadn't waited for me to catch up, so I trailed him to the well, where Star was also going through the bible.
"Did you guys find something?"
Reed paused and looked up. "24:11 is engraved on the base of this well."
"Great. More numbers," I mumbled.
He went back to reading and I looked around, unsure how to be helpful. The other houses that lined the courtyard were open–not a single door in sight. Maybe there was something hidden in one of them?
"You guys! I found another camel," Jack exclaimed from somewhere across the courtyard.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I got the creepy feeling that I was being watched. Taking a couple of deep breaths, I spun on my heel and looked straight up on instinct, ready to be terrified. A breath of relief left my lips as I realized it was just a big brass statue of an angel standing on top of the flat roof closest to us. Or at least, that's what I thought. Until it turned its head and looked at me.
"Do you guys see this?" I asked weakly.
"We're trying to find the answers in the Books, Nyla," Star answered, obviously irritated by my interruptions.
"Uhhh, I get it. I get it. But um, I mean look at that."
She looked up, annoyed, and then the book almost fell from her hands. "That's...just a statue? Right?"
I swallowed, nodding several times before I could get my mouth to cooperate. "I...uh...I don't think so."
"We're not just seeing things?"
Reed looked up too.
"I don't think so."
There wasn't a gust of wind or any sort of sudden movement. One moment the statue was on the roof and the next he was standing in front of us. Dust swirled up from around his feet, which were unique in their own right. They looked like polished brass, along with his arms. But that's more or less where the statue-likeness ended. The rest of him sort of felt more...sculptural. Designer.
His body was partially draped in ivory and gold linens, and the parts of his torso and chest that were exposed looked like see-through, white-ish clear gemstones. His face shone brighter than the rest of him, almost like he had a selfie mirror built under the surface of his skin. And his eyes...they were deep set and glowed like embers of fire from deep within his sockets, just like the flickers of light we'd relied on from our oil lamps in the tunnels.
When he spoke, the words didn't seem to come from his mouth. Instead, it seemed to reverberate from within his chest and came at us from every direction, as if we were surrounded by many, many angels.
"I am Adniel."
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