Disappear: Into Shadow

- CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE -

At the middle of an elusive paradise, gathered in a circle on the worn, cracked marble floor, the four souls glowed with bright white light. Azrael's light bore a silvered rippling aura similar to a pool of mercury. In that light there was the smallest hint of the silver's shade darkening.

Michael and Raziel listened as Azrael spoke of a journey, a safari, an expedition. The journey was one of learning, experiences and tests. The potential of the journey was limitless, the ending unknown. Such a journey would have trials and obstacles. Learning to identify those obstacles, the troubles of living as humans were part and parcel of the journey.

"Those obstacles were your tasks to overcome and master." Raziel said. "Together you could help each other from becoming stuck, lost or worse. You would be able to return here with another lifetime's worth of experiences and information to add to the collective knowledge. The journey would not be over then, Azrael told them. It would change and each of them could return to the world as a Watcher and a guardian of life." Raziel said to Michael, "You and your friends became Azrael's first class of otherworld souls. Before your circle returned to the world, Azrael offered each of you a choice of the different lives you could lead."

As Michael watched these three pale figures talk and laugh with the younger version of himself, he found himself speechless. These were the friends he had been told about and had struggled to remember. Did he really like them? Did they really like him? Most importantly, who were these people? Michael's thoughts were spinning.

Raziel started laughing. "Michael, Michael, Michael... stop. Of course they like you, they love you, and you love them. Dagan is your best friend and also your greatest rival. You two compete in life completely unlike the others. As for who they are? The next lives each of you chose will help tell you something."

Azrael created images in the air much like the ones Michael saw while floating on the Styx. She showed the souls flash frame moments from different lives, offering each soul a choice.

Simon and Susan chose a simple life together as farmers. They would meet as children and marry when they had grown. They would have many children and would die together in their sleep as happy grandparents. Their other choice offered involved torrid affairs, broken hearts and separation. It would be a troubled life for tender hearts, one they wanted to avoid more than anything.

Azrael showed Michael's earlier soul his choices as his present version looked on from the background.

Raziel leant over his shoulder, "After being murdered, you felt uneasy about killing. You chose a life as a healer, a physician who some even called a witch doctor. A medicine man who helped many people during his life."

Michael could not believe the choices being offered in such a manner. One or, the other and choose now. He knew as a soul, if he had acted in the way he conducted his last life, this would have been an uncomfortable moment.

"Your alternate choice was a soldier, a charioteer who would see many terrible things. In your life as the healer you still saw terrible things, but your hand would not help create the horrors found on the fields of battle. You would not become party to the abandon with which men threw themselves into the fray." Raziel said. A subtle darkness crept into his eyes and a quiet intensity filled the Angel's voice. "The battle lust, the fury that grows in every man's eyes as the smell of the field and the electricity of the impending moment courses through the air. Thick with anticipation, that sense of dread hovers in the moment before metal and flesh crash into one another."