by A Y Beltran
“You did not finish the tenth house,” Michael said. He was now back in his Traquus form.
We both emerged from the tenth house though we only used it as a portal.
“Do I really have to finish it?” I said.
“You have to finish your education. You haven’t learned your lesson yet,” he said in a reprimanding voice.
“I thought the lesson of the Great Riddle is death?”
His eyes darkened. “I’ve never met an angel as stubborn as you. If you don’t want to experience the thrill of being able to solve a riddle, then so be it.”
“Oh, believe me, I did solve a lot of riddles in Metatron’s dimension, and I’m not up to doing it again.”
He sighed. “Oh, well. Call me if you change your mind. Or for anything.” With that as the parting words, he flew away from me and disappeared into the ninth house. His favorite house, I believed.
As for me, I continued to fly down to the fifth house to meet someone I knew dearly.
The moment my feet touched the ground at the fifth I quickly flew up to the room I assumed his.
My heart started pounding in my ears, and the fluttery in my stomach intensified as I neared his room. The door was open. I peeked inside.
He was on the bed, reading intently while his other hand was holding his bleeding stomach. He glanced up and our eyes met. His face brightened as though he had earned an extra boost of navi and from his lips, he screamed my name.
“Ori!”
Tears flooded my eyes as I ran toward him.
“Oops, careful,” he said, grimacing.
“Do you want me to help you with that?” I asked.
He stared into my eyes and then touched my cheek wet with tears. Then with his hand, he wiped it dry.
“Don’t cry, I’m all right. As to your question, I think my task here is to learn how to stitch myself up. But you can hold the book for me as I read?” His smirk made me laugh.
“Okay, did you kill the hybrid?”
“Hybrid?”
“Yes, the beast in the fourth house. I killed mine.”
“It was a three-headed beast. I didn’t kill it, but I tricked it into thinking I was dead. That’s how I escaped.”
I noticed the wound was draining him with his navi so I made him a kalaskig juice and gave it to him.
“So what have you been doing while I was away?” he asked.
Should I tell him?
“A lot,” I said
Venir had forgotten what happened to him. Michael said it was better this way. But if the time would come that he would start to remember them, I would be there beside him. I would not lie to him. I would tell him everything. Including what I truly am.
After all, I owed him a lifetime worth of knowledge.
For our friendship.
Back on Earth, a god rose. He walked on the land that he himself created and collected the souls that were fragments of his own essence. And strong he had become from every single death of a human.
So when the Earth’s crust moved and the giant storms were brewing, the mortal mind believed the apocalypse was near. But no one knew that the apocalypse came with another name—Alter, the god of creation.
Unbeknownst to everyone including Alter himself, Thredda and Quintus, there was another god who stirred from his slumber and he, for the very first time, opened his eyes. He was the One who remembered.
Author’s Note
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About the Author
A.Y. Beltran is a licensed teacher with MA in Literature and MA in Education. She has been writing since she was in fifth grade and had sold her first comics to her classmates in high school. She is married and an Asian-American who lives in Michigan.