The Forgotten Angel ✔️

Chapter 11: Alarming Visions

When Luke had exhausted the thoughts of demons, shelter in places, fires, and suicides, he prayed to Jesus just like Father Matthew instructed him to two nights before. After three minutes of talking, he waited in silence for three minutes and heard nothing except for the mini-refrigerator roaring to keep his few drinks cold. He turned over to his side and finally managed to get some sleep.

And that's when the visions appeared.

Luke hadn't had such visions since he woke up at the hospital. What he saw was cloudy, as if he was seeing the world through cataracts. He stood motionless on a beach cove beneath two large cliffs whose edges seemed to extend as far as they can to touch one another like two lovers being separated by the eons of wind, wave, and time. Trees grew out at weird angles from the mossy cliffs. It was hard for Luke to spot, but up in those trees were small green birds with dark green and black wings that looked like tinted blinds. Their beaks were curved downward, long, black, and shiny. The birds were probing through the bark of the dangling trees for food.

Meanwhile, three men were pulling in a canoe along the sand, far inland within the cove. They knew the tide would rise soon, and if the boat was anywhere close to where they landed, their only way off this land would disappear with the tide.

Once done, they approached Luke. One of them, an Asian man with a ponytail, stared up at what Luke was looking at.

"Honeycreepers," he spoke. "Beautiful ain't they? This type used to exist on the Hawaiian Islands."

Luke was lost in a trance.

"You know his mind is mush right?" spoke a blond man with blue eyes and a bending river scar across his neck. "He doesn't understand a word you're saying."

"Maybe he won't now, but when we save him, he might be able to recall this moment," said the ponytail man.

"Look Xyi," spoke the blond man, "we both know the chances of that are slim. So, don't waste your breath."

"Such a pessimist Jurgen," Xyi smiled. "I thought you'd be more excited for your first Garden Run, at least your first time escorting someone else."

"I'll be more excited once we get this kid the fruit and get out of this place. This place, it's like a museum. And I don't want to be a part of its collection."

"You should be honored to be counted among these creatures," Michael stepped in to grab Luke's hand. Luke stared up at him. His hand was minuscule inside Michael's young chubby hands. "This is where it all started. This place—it's the beginning. It's home."

"A home with an ADT system that will activate if we stick around for too long," Jurgen said.

"Yeah," Xyi spoke. "But we have a full day, and the Garden is not far from here. You can almost see it from here."

"All I see are open fields, and my gosh what the hell are those things?" Jurgen asked.

Luke looked in the same direction and saw why Jurgen would be concerned. Out in the field were huge creatures that walked on two thick legs, were covered in brown fur, and lacked any arms. Their furless necks towered feet above the ground. Luke felt like he was staring at a furry giraffe with only two legs.

Xyi laughed, "That's the moa. Huge flightless birds. Native to New Zealand until they were hunted to extinction after the Polynesians arrived."

"They're freaking dinosaur ostriches," Jurgen said.

"The highest are twelve feet tall and can weigh as much as 500 pounds. Enough meat to feed dinner to an entire tribe. They had no natural enemies before humans came." Xyi pointed at one of the Moa picking at a bush. "You can stand right next to it and it would go on as if you weren't even there."