Part 9: God's Hand

No light. Only spinning, turning, whirling through darkness. Outside everything collapses. Rain on my skin. Crying. Wailing. Turning through the stars. Lightning strikes an old tree and it passes in front of me. Alarm clocks sounding. Thunder thrusting into my heart. I turn. I keep turning.

As I flew through the darkness, I felt hands of spirits whom I loved, who loved me, reaching outward, trying to grab my hands. I could not reach. I cried out. I heard them crying. It would not stop, I could not stop falling, spiraling downward.

How could Nick ever love another human on earth when his heart belonged with a spirit from home? How could Nick ever move on? I...we...had disrupted everything. We had changed his path in a few moments of desire. He shouldn’t have chosen me, I should have been stronger.

I missed him already. I missed him even as I fell farther and farther through the stars. And finally I was thrust upon the ground and it felt as if every bone in my body had been crushed and I trembled with terror, feeling, knowing that God was close by.

*****

Nickolas was having a nightmare. He was in a desert, no water anywhere, and he was thirsty. It was dry. It was cold. It was windy. And he was here all alone. The sun was going down and his breathing was getting harder, rougher, his lungs contracting. He called out for his Aurora, but he could not get the sound out of his mouth.

Nick’s legs ached. He knew he was dreaming, but could not wake up. He needed to run but could not. And suddenly he was sinking into the sand, groping for something to keep him from falling, being ravaged by the earth, but there was nothing to stop it, and in no time he was consumed. Nick was buried alive.

He jolted awake.

A form was standing over his bed. A familiar form. “Brian?” The man was familiar, yet foreign. Malachi stepped into a beam of moonlight that peered through Nick’s window. How had Brian gotten into his room?

Nickolas was out of breath, frightened from the dream.

His friend just smiled and put a soft hand to his face, moving a strand of hair that hung limply onto his forehead. It sent an odd warmth over Nick, making his blood stop its racing.

Malachi’s spirit had been called out of his own body and he had made his way to his friend.

Nick sat up and looked at Malachi. “She’s gone.” The spirit said simply.

Nick gulped. He couldn’t speak. How did Brian know? How could she be gone? She had promised to be with him forever. Nick’s voice was scratchy when he finally spat out, “Why?”

“It was wrong.” Malachi spoke quietly still. See through, translucent, not a real form.

The boy’s eyes became wider with fear. How could it have been wrong? It felt more right than anything. It was what had always been, always would be. Malachi’s reply was not audible, yet Nick felt the answer. “Your time is here now. You must not get lost in her. You must find something in this life...here...now...”

It couldn’t be. Why would God give her to him and then take hieraway so quickly? She had saved his life, she was his reason to live. Nick raised his head and looked at Brian, swallowing sobs, tears filling his tormented eyes. “Will I ever see her again?” was all he could say.

“Some day, when the time is right, yes. Not before then. I’m sorry, friend.” Nick’s heart contracted and from somewhere within he grew defiant. He rose and grabbed his friend’s arms, but slipped through them, as they were only air. “Brian!” he called out in alarm. And with that, Malachi disappeared, evaporated into thin air, and Nickolas fell backwards onto the bed, grief stricken and taken with exhausted sleep.

*****

As I lay on the ground I could feel his sorrow. My face was against coarse wet grass. It was hailing in the darkness that surrounded me and I was naked, being pegged with icy rocks that tore into my soul. My spirit began to burn and I felt His presence, as if I was being electricuted. I began to scream.

“WHY?” I kept repeating the words, over and over, wondering why Nick and I both were doomed to this suffering, why we were being kept from one another, why I couldn’t be there with him. Even though I knew the answers, even though I knew exactly why.

Everything became immediately quiet, eerily so. I could hear my own breathing. I had become so human.

“Father?” I called out. I was answered with his voice in mind and a strike of lightning. I should have been scared, but I was not.

I could not apologize for what I had done. I knew it was wrong from the moment I began, yet I could not stop. I knew I would not see him again for a long time. Time became real for me. I could not apologize for loving him the way I did. That had been a gift God had given to the both of us, and I would never take it for granted, never apologize for it. But I did atone for my actions, for making it harder for him and myself.

God understood. “Thank you.” I said quietly, awed by His presence. I felt His large hand sweep down upon me like a rush of warm water and he picked me up. He held me there in his hand and there I stayed until I healed.