Emory laid on his bed, eyes wide open unable to fall asleep. Images of what happened hours ago flashed through his mind, he thought about the strange words that came out of his mouth during his clash with the creatures, trying to figure out why he said what he said as well as the strange feeling he felt flowing throughout his body.
These thoughts kept Emory awake for a while but he soon fell asleep, his body was fatigued, he had strained it too much but in spite of everything that happened, he fell asleep and slept like a baby.
Emory opened his eyes to a dark and empty space, an endless darkness that stretched out seemingly to infinity in all directions. He tried calling out but not a single sound escaped his mouth, he couldn't hear his own voice. Emory raised his hands to touch his throat but he felt nothing, he had no hands, legs, or face. In this strange place, Emory had no eyes but could see, had no skin but could sense. He had no form yet still existed a truly paradoxical state to be in.
But Emory was not alone in the darkness, and he could feel it, the wails and cries of entities incomprehensible to him screaming and desperately begging to be let in, as to what they wanted to be let in to, Emory had no idea. The cries soon grew louder and louder, reaching into the depth of his soul and mind, thinning the line between sanity and insanity.
And then suddenly a dot appeared in the farthest distance Emory could perceive, and the dot began growing larger and larger at an incredible speed and soon it consumed all the darkness around him leaving him in a different place. Here he had his body back but encountered a different problem. He was surrounded by nothing, he was not surrounded by absolute darkness or absolute light. He was surrounded by a nothing, the nothing that was impossible to visualise talk less to look at, he had to close his eyes to avoid looking directly at the nothing that had taken away the darkness and everything else with it.
Emory soon gathered the courage to open his eyes once more and this time he wasn't alone in the nothingness, a colossal book had appeared there, or perhaps he was the one who had not noticed the book in the first place. Emory tried moving towards the book but couldn't, he had no footing to walk on. Direction was not something that seemed to be present in this place, Emory could not tell if he would be moving forwards or further away from the book.
Suddenly the book appeared in his front, the book was truly massive, Emory felt like an ant compared to it "This must be the records, its the only thing I can think of when I look at this book" he thought to himself. Emory reached out his arm to touch the book and as soon as he laid a finger on it, he got repelled from the book, he flew away at an inconceivable speed, flew past the space of nothingness, past the space of darkness he encountered earlier and he soon found himself falling in a direction that he could finally recognise. Down!
Thud!
Emory fell off his bed with a loud bang, he found himself on the floor of his bedroom.
"Ow! Ow! Ouch! What the hell was that" Emory remarked as he rubbed the spot on his head where he had landed.
"I can't catch a break with this book in me can I?" he asked rhetorically
Emory picked up his phone and headed to his bathroom to freshen up, the bathroom wasn't something too grand it was a bathroom consisting of a space reserved for showers, a basin and a modern toilet. Emory looked at himself in the mirror stationed above the basin, his hair was scattered and it looked he had just won a sleep marathon with his puffy face, but despite that he still looked good. He checked the time on his phone and his eyes widened in suprised.
Emory had a lot of missed calls from his mother, 12 to be precise and also a series of text and even worse the time read 3:48pm.
"I'm dead, she's going to kill me when she sees me. She hates when I don't pick her calls" Emory began brushing swiftly while replying her texts " And I still have to check in with Micheal today. How the hell did I fall asleep for that long!"
Emory freshened up hurriedly and began making his way to the bookstore, he paused as passed by the alley where it all went down yesterday, police tapes were used to set up a barrier around the alley, and a huge crowd which Mrs. Anderson was part of spectated the entire scene. Emory steeled his mind and continued his walk to the bookstore.
The bell atop the store's front door jingled as Emory pushed it open.
"Hello…" he called out, but wasn't met with a reply
"Micheal? Are you there?"
Suddenly Emory felt somebody was behind him and reflexively jumped away from where he was.
"Nice reflexes for a human. Well you do have the aether in you so this much is expected"
"What the hell? You scared me, don't you ever walk?" Emory sighed a sigh of relief as he relaxed his body "and that 'aether' you mentioned what is it, I found myself saying it yesterday when…'it' happened. We have a lot to talk about Micheal"
" 'It?' If you mean the little incident you had with those….things. I am well aware of it, in fact I was present when the whole scenario unfolded" Micheal said as he walked over to the counter and leaned on it, facing Emory.
"You mean you were there and did nothing?! You could have at least stepped in and I don't know…vanish them or something, we could have at least saved a life" Emory said as he furrowed his brow angrily and walker over to Micheal. Michael straightened himself up and look directly at Emory, although Emory had grown quite tall, he was still obviously shorter than Michael.
"I will explain myself but before that, please take a seat and tell me everything that happened and leave not one detail out of it"
Emory paused for a second and calmed himself down, seeing to positive side to displaying anger now, he should save his anger for the creature that caused everything.
"So i was walking home, thinking about the….." He took a seat and recounted everything that happened the night before and as Michael instructed, he didn't leave any detail out but he saved the bit about the dream he had out of it.
"So that's how it is, I see I see"
"What exactly do you see? I need answers. Who even are you? What were those things? What happened to me?" Emory fiercely questioned Michael
"Do not be impatient Emory, I will get to that bit…in due time"
"You see Micheal in order for this to work, there has to be trust between us and that can't happen if you hide things from me. The only thing I know about you is the fact that you're named Michael and you're the owner of this bookstore that I'm very sure wasn't here a few days back!" Emory flared up, his voice getting more intense with each sentence
"I see where you're coming from. Very well I will give as you have asked. It really would cost me nothing to tell you everything but would you be able to handle it?" Micheal said looking Emory dead in the eye
"I can handle it" Emory said curtly
"Okay if you insist. I am Micheal, archangel Micheal the chief of all angels and the sword of the creator"
"Angel? Like an angel angel. The creator?"
"Would you let me finish?"
"I'm sorry, go on"
"Heaven, hell, your world and all that is in between was created by the creator, and he ruled over everything equally, until one day the creator was no where to be found, missing, gone. Following the absence of the creator chaos ensued in heaven, causing disarray among the angels. Some angels took advantage of the situation to take a piece of the Creator's throne for themselves, these pieces gave them control over certain aspects of reality and thus the angels who had the pieces deemed themselves gods. I wandered all the realms in search of the creator without any luck, and in my travels I came about the heavenly records, the records made by the creator himself. If I have the records, I can find out the reason for the disappearance of the creator. And that is why you boy are so important"
"W-woah, that's a lot of information to digest, Gods, angels, heaven and hell."
"I warned you. Now that I've told you my side of the story, how about you tell me what exactly you're hiding from me. 'Trust' remember?"
"How did you know i was holding out on you?"
"I just know, now talk" Michael said sternly
"Okay so I had this dream…."
"Hmm interesting, I might have an idea as to where you were, but I'll get back to you on that after confirming it" Michael said as he pocketed his hands "As for the 'creatures' that attacked you. There are called 'fallen', they are angels who forcefully cross the barriers of space and time to enter your world. "
"Angels? They didn't look very angelic to me"
"That is because crossing the barriers of space and time forcefully is no easy feat. In doing so, they have their identity stripped off and their appearances gets burned off hence their unpleasant look"
"That actually makes sense. And what about the aether?"
"And that brings me to my next point. Aether; the essence of the creator"