by J. D. Lander
“I didn’t ask to fight. I was fine with my life before this,” Jacob replied.
“You will no longer go on hunts. There is a greater purpose the architect sees for you. When a spirit infects a person’s soul, they often cause harm, even death, to those around them. We are unable to intervene. You, however, can possess a person and help them in their actions to defend themselves and those around them. You would co-exist inside of the person and give them an advantage in resisting the spirit.”
“Do you mean kill the person infected with a spirit?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“What about redemption? Isn’t that taking away a person’s right to work toward redemption?” Jacob questioned, feeling unsettled.
“A person who is capable of being infected is far from the edge of redemption and, once infected, will never seek that path out.”
That night, when the sun had barely set, John and Jacob flew from the forest and into the nearby city. They stood atop a roof and looked down on the passersby. Jacob felt like Batman, looking for injustice on the streets below. Then, suddenly, John was on the move. They flew to the other side of town and landed outside a small convenience store. At first, Jacob was unsure why John had brought him there. They entered the store to find a man in a black ski mask, his gun pointed at the cashier behind the register.
Jacob could sense the infected spirit’s presence inside the man and could see the red in his eyes. No one else was in the store. He could hear the hum of the refrigerators behind them and the sound of police sirens even farther in the distance. The cashier was a bald old man with sweat beaded on his brow. The man in the mask was tall, dressed in a black long sleeve t-shirt and jeans with brown work boots peaking out below. To Jacob, the man seemed like a statue, his gun hand absolutely steady.
“I said fork over the cash in the drawer, old man!” the gunman yelled. The scared old man reached slowly down to the register and hit buttons with an unsteady finger before turning the key. The sound of the draw opening seemed to echo. The old man grabbed a plastic ‘thank you’ bag and started moving money over. Blue and red lights flickered through the glass now. The police had arrived.
“Jacob,” John whispered, pulling Jacob from his focus on the situation. “A young police officer is going to come inside. This gunman will shoot him and kill him. The police officer has a newborn at home. I need you to possess the old man. He has a gun under the register he is too scared to reach for. When the door begins to open, I need you to grab the gun and fire it. GO NOW!”
Without thinking further, Jacob ran to the counter, slid across its top, and landed next to the old man. He grabbed the old man’s thin arm and fused with him without a thought. The bell chimed over the door as Jacob reached with his fragile, aged hands for the gun. He raised the gun, pointed it, and squeezed the trigger, as if programed to do so. BOOM.
That night was the first time Jacob had taken a life. His fragile, gentle soul was now being asked to be a defender of the innocent by being not so innocent himself. On his subsequent outings, Jacob did not always have to take a life. There were ways around it. Figuring these ways out was not without its failures. Most of the time his strength was lent to cops for perfect accuracy. Other times to the victimized who needed strength to escape. His possession of these people, really more a fusion, always left him with their feelings in him, as if an aftertaste. They always faded over the next couple of days, but the sadness and fear took a toll on him. His dreams played like flashbacks of those he had fused with. They weren’t always of the situation he had accompanied them through. The dreams were the memories that scarred them the most.
The angels were not emotional and could not help him cope with his feelings. This fact didn’t matter much, as he was now on solo missions and rarely met up with his original flock of angels. He missed Connor and understood how loneliness and sadness made the world feel.
One lonely night, when Jacob felt truly defeated, Adam appeared. He was not alone. The Architect had asked Adam to create more like Jacob to assist him, as his endeavors had been a great success and he should not be lonely anymore. These new angels were named Mary and Neil.
Mary was a tall brunette with a contagious laugh. She thought everything was humorous and brought a sense of joy to any conversation. Neil had black hair and was average height. He was much quieter than Jacob and Mary, but listened well. These angels made Jacob feel a part of the world again. They provided an outlet for his concerns and fears. Any situation they encountered with him, they always had a plan. Jacob knew they were designed for this purpose and were even better than him at his own job. They did lack one thing though: the human experience. Jacob had grown in the time he spent with Connor and had learned what it meant to be human. There was no teaching this.
CHAPTER 16
Reunited
Connor’s life, for the first time, finally felt normal. The depression he had been experiencing at the time he met Adam now seemed almost silly. He was excelling in his math and biology classes. Life seemed full of opportunities. A couple of students in his classes even became friends, but he refused to let himself get close to them. There were days he would forget about Adam and Jacob. Throughout his life, he had suppressed his sexuality, so keeping Adam and Jacob from his mind seemed almost too easy of a feat. However, stories on the news of death abruptly reminded him of the past. He could not think of death without thinking of God’s existence — the Architect. For the first time in his life, he was comforted knowing someone was watching over him.
Weeks passed by between the times he would allow himself to see the lights. At times he was scared to check if he could still see them. If he couldn’t, did that mean he was crazy and imagined everything? However, the light was always there and his sanity remained intact. When he turned on his ability to see the lights, he would always look at his reflection in the mirror. His light was always a mixture of green and blue. Neither light faded in brightness but lived in complete harmony as equals. He realized his light would never return solely to green, the change was permanent.
Connor often dreamt of Adam, Jacob, and Alice; though there had not been a time they were all together in real life. In the dreams, they were all friends. Friends that would never turn on each other like Adam had turned on Jacob. There must have been a way for Jacob to stay or even go into Adam’s world. Alice had done it, why couldn’t Jacob? These dreams were not something he could suppress like his thoughts of them during the day. The dreams seemed so real and full of laughter and joy. The sun was always shining on them as they explored the forest and surrounding fields. When he woke, he was always happy until reality set back in and feelings of betrayal caused him to suppress his memories.
After a day of classes, Connor returned home just as the sun was beginning to set. He was exhausted from spending the last part of his day in chemistry lab, agonizing over each intricate step of the reaction they were performing. He never realized how much of a perfectionist he was until that class. His mother was in the kitchen still working on dinner so he decided to take a nap.
The dream started out with him talking to Alice. They were in homeroom, back in the high school, as if senior year hadn’t completed yet. Looking around, he saw Adam and Jacob sitting at the desks adjacent to him. He felt content knowing friends surrounded him. When the bell rang, the last of the students scurried in the door, trying to avoid being marked late. Everyone had just taken their seats when the lights lost power. The room quickly darkened. Connor looked out the window for an explanation and discovered a total eclipse. All of the students ran over to the window to see, but he remained seated. He stared at the door, waiting for the teacher to march in. Instead of the teacher, the Devil stepped into the room. Connor gasped and turned his head to find his friends. They were all gone. The room was empty except for him and the Devil. The Devil approached him. Closer. Closer. He had no glasses to remove this time, and his light was no longer solely green. The Devil arrived, raised his hand, and reached fo
r Connor.
Connor woke suddenly with sweat drenched into his sheets. He looked around and remembered he had decided to take a nap before dinner. Rising from the bed, he wiped his face on an undershirt that was lying on the floor. He slowly walked over to the window and found the sun was almost fully down, with only a small pink strip remaining on the horizon. Footsteps made their way down the hall. Dinner must be ready, he thought to himself. He walked over to the door to unlock it and greet his mother. As he finished turning the lock, something inside of him felt wrong. His stomach panged, like he was going to be sick. He turned on his ability and looked down at the floorboards. Seeping in under the door was the red light. He must still be dreaming. Wake up, wake up, wake up. He stood at the door, frozen in fear. The door creaked open. He took a step back as red light reflected in his eyes.
Jacob immediately felt a pain in his gut. He knew something must be wrong with Connor. Mary and Neil were with him, on their way back to meet up with John and the others. They were coming from a special assignment on the other side of the country. They had never traveled so far from Connor. The pain was strong. Jacob yelled to Mary and Neil, “we need to get to Connor!” They flew with urgency through the night, not stopping for breaks.
Landing down the street from Connor’s house, they were exhausted. Never had they felt so weak or flown so far without a break. The limits of their energy had never been tested. Over short distances their speed was miraculous but for the first time their energy felt almost finite, needing to be used slowly. They huffed and puffed continually until finally catching their breaths. Neil sat on someone’s lawn with his head between his legs, feeling nauseous. Jacob wasted no time and transformed himself into a college boy wearing a hoodie. He raised his hand and signaled Mary and Neil to wait for him. As he approached Connor’s front door, he noticed it was ajar. He headed up the stairs, moving with purpose, and entered Connor’s room. A trace of red light was barely visible on the floorboards. It was so dim, those not looking for it would have missed it. Slowing, he crouched down onto his hands and knees to be certain it was, in fact, red light when the sound of a police radio in the hall entered his ears. Before he could make himself invisible, a policeman was standing in front of him, gun drawn.
Not expecting to run into the police, Jacob had not prepared answers to any questions. In his hurry to discover what had happened to Connor, he did not think to check and see if anyone was home. Being invisible most of the time made him careless on the rare occasions he became visible. Connor’s parents could not identify him. He suddenly became a suspect with no alibi and no way to use his abilities. The rest went down like a police procedural drama on television, and Jacob found himself in a holding cell overnight at the local police station. He had failed Connor, the one person he was created to protect. Mary and Neil, undetectable, watched everything before heading to John to let him know what had transpired.
When Adam handed Jacob over to the Architect, he was given a reward. The Architect started to send souls to live in Adam’s world for a second chance. The souls were carefully selected; people who wanted to have lived a better life and would. This gesture allowed Adam to not have to spare energy on such an exhausting feat as creating a soul. Expanding his world to have enough land and food to sustain them was exhausting enough. Adam’s energy was now spread so thin, he could barely manifest himself as a physical being. Because of this fact, he rarely appeared. His energy was in everything in his world. There was no body to prove he existed, but Alice and his family knew and kept faith along with the others.
Alice took charge of accepting the souls of the people coming into Adam’s world. Not many souls had come through, only twenty so far, people of all ages and races. Alice’s job was to explain to them where they were. Most were delighted and thrilled to have a second chance at life. Others were not joyous, but an alternate option existed for them. The Architect would not force anyone against his or her will to live life again.
In the basement of the house that Adam had created was a small door that was locked with a key held by Alice. She wore this skeleton key on a silver chain around her neck, never taking it off at the risk of losing it. Behind the door was the most beautiful and peaceful place ever created: Heaven. Anyone that chose to keep moving on and be reunited with his or her loved ones could proceed through this door. This meant the door connected Adam’s world with a world created by the Architect, much like the portal Adam once used to travel between his world and Earth. Adam did not have enough energy to create two worlds at once, so the Architect let Adam use his heaven for the time being.
Alice often stared blankly out over the lake, lost in her mind. She would fiddle with the key between her fingers, thinking of going through the door herself. She was always a dreamer, so the thought would naturally enter her mind. What if the happiest place in existence was only a small door away? She knew her purpose in Adam’s world was too great to leave behind, so she stayed.
Suddenly, Adam manifested before Alice. Alice knew there must be a great cause for the appearance. “Alice, I sense something is wrong in your old world. I need to go now.”
“Is it Connor? Is he hurt?” she rushed to say before he disappeared.
“I’m not sure, I’m too weak to sense fully. It may be Jacob. Either way, I must go,” Adam said as he glanced at the key, hanging lonely from her neck. He then disappeared.
Adam knew if the attack was on Connor, he wasn’t dead yet. He did know, however, why the Devil would go after Connor. If the Devil found out about the door in the world he created, he would use Connor to travel to the world to get to the door. Every light leaves a trace and is connected to everything made of the same light. If the Devil succeeded in killing Connor, he could use the moments before his death to infect him with red light. The blue light would be weak and vulnerable to infection, like a living organism. The Devil could then open a gateway directly to Adam’s world and from there break into the one place he most desired — Heaven.
Adam appeared in the woods directly behind Connor’s house. He immediately noticed that he felt much weaker, as if his world was actively sucking his energy from him. From the side of Connor’s house, he noticed a police car parked in front with red and blue lights spinning on its roof. Out of sight, he transported directly into Connor’s empty room. There was no evidence of Connor’s, or anyone’s, light in the room anymore. He was too weak to feel Connor or Jacob’s whereabouts. Had he lost this much strength?
Remaining invisible and feeling exhausted, Adam used all the energy he could summon to break the laws of the Architect’s world in a way he had never attempted before. He painfully broke a small window in the time stream to see if the red light was there earlier. His hand grabbed the air above the floor as he peeled the fabric of time away from the doorway. He felt the world resist his pull but overcame it to feel a pain like fire in his arm. Never before had his abilities caused him pain. Only a few seconds of the past were visible in the short interval he could keep the time window open. The window had stayed open long enough for him to verify the one thing he was most afraid of; red light covered the floor. The Devil must have arrived in his true form and transported both of them somewhere. Adam began to realize he had no way of knowing in his weakened state where they were located, so he decided to seek guidance.
Slowly, he headed over to Connor’s bed, knelt on the hard wood floor, leaned his forearms on the soft cotton comforter, and began to pray, just as he had the other times he spoke with the Architect. This time, however, he did not hear a reply. When he opened his eyes it became apparent the room had gone white and lost all boundaries. Standing next to him was an older white haired man with a short beard and mustache. He wore a robe of white, as if to blend with the white radiant room. The Architect began to speak.
“I thought it better we meet face to face. You see, there is a crisis occurring that is bigger than yours. As an architect, you must learn to focus on the whole rather than any one, or you will lose the whole along wi
th the very one you are protecting. The fact is, another Architect, older than even I, has arrived on a nearby mountaintop.” The Architect spoke low and soft, like a doctor delivering bad news. His head angled slowly, as if trying to read Adam’s expressions.
“Another architect? Did he come here for the same reason that I did?”
“I’m afraid not. He is one made of purple light. When I first started learning about what it meant to be an architect, I heard about this purple light. He is an architect that spreads himself extremely thin, taking over planets and eventually entire galaxies, absorbing their energy as his own. You see, this architect is not like us. Once he outgrew his energy, he became a parasite and started feeding off other architects until overtaking them completely.”
“So he is here to absorb the planet?”
“Not just the planet but my energy specifically. I have spread myself thin over the past millennium. With every birth, more of my energy is taken. He must have sensed that I am too weak to defend myself.”
“I never realized until recently how much energy it took to create a world. The world expands at such a fast pace. I have trouble manifesting myself.”
“I haven’t manifested myself in quite some time. Even now, I am not manifested; I merely created an image of myself in a room in your mind. If I was to manifest, who knows what destruction could result from pulling energy from Earth and Heaven.”