Godless
by Myth Spinner & Brutal Dreamer

"...but I don't want to die."

"Hello?"

"Are you listening to me?"

"I said I don't want to die."

"I'm afraid."

"Please, answer me."

"I have no decision in the matter."

"You have chosen your destination and now is the time."

"I never chose anything."

"You chose the life you lived now you fear what awaits you."

Carin Baxely sat within the light. She peered down at herself clinging to life. She fought and willed her life back. Her life rested with a higher being not in herself.

A faceless angel accompanied her in a cool dampness emanating from the murky fog that bled into the room. She quivered briefly, on impulse, and then realized the crystal touch upon her pale skin gave off no sensation.

He, as the entity appeared to be only in body, sat quietly beside her, looking down upon her struggling being. He watched the battle for life as it slipped slowly from the young woman.

Carin turned again to the angel. "It is true?" she pondered as her soul brightened.

"Yes." The angel responded as his essence radiated in a blinding silvery splendor.

"You can read my thoughts." Carin stared down at her soulless shell.

"Yes, I hear and see what you do."

"Do you feel what I feel?"

"Please don't ignore me."

"It is not proper," the angel turned to Carin. His face gave no shape but radiated a light, like a ball of illuminated gas. His ghostly eyes were dark andhollow. Carin could see what no human of flesh and blood could see and feel.

Carin peered from the corner of her eye and noticed the bright intensity from the angel. The blinding light was to great that even in her state she could not lay eyes on his face.

"What is not proper?" She questioned, before looking down at herself on the hospital bed bemused.

The eternal silence of death filled the room.

She watched for a moment, ignoring the words the angel spoke as her body writhed in its last moments of agony.

"Why do you ignore me? Why is it that you sit beside me and offer me no comfort?"

"Why do you treat me so?" Carin's eyes began to swell as her death became more evident, and her eternity less crystalline.

"you are to be judged." The angel concluded.

"I don't wish to be judged, I wish to live." Carin said, before turning her attention to her weeping
mother.

Her mother sat beside the lifeless body blanketed in a deathly cold ashen hue. She rubbed her warm fingertips over her daughters' pale hand.

"It's not right,"

"Take her." Carin whispered quietly, whilst the angel sneered amongst the glimmering light.

He waved a hand, a stream of light flashed as dust sprinkled like downy over Carin's body.

"Ma'am?" a nurse called, placing a comforting arm around Carins' mother she lead her from the room.

"Thank you."

"Why must I die?"

"It is your Father's calling."

"…but what will happen to me?"

"You will be judged."

"No, what will happen to me?"

The angel said nothing, only gazed down with Carin as the last of her life slipped away.

"Am I."

"Look at yourself." The angel placed a hand over Carin's leg. Her head dropped down with her eyes opened wide; his hand glowed, and then vanished in the brightness of her own leg. She eyed the angel who glanced back at her.

She could see now, the angel, in his true form. His hollowed eyes, black hole mouth, and flaming tongue as it darted from the pit of his face as he spoke. Gradually, the face contorted back to that of a humanly persona of what it once was. A man, as she had presumed, a man with ordinary features and less than striking aura.

Carin slid back slightly. The angel, as he had morphed into a beast, be it only for a moment, frightened her.

Nevertheless, his normalcy brought her back to him. He was an angel after all, a man of God and the messenger of His word. He held the key.

"Can I return?" She asked.

"No."

"Why? I hear all the time about people dying then coming back. Seeing a tunnel or a bright light, yet they are allowed back to the living."

"People talk about seeing a bright glowing white light, about seeing angels. They come back all the time." She spoke most emphatic.

"You are the glowing white light. You are the light that they speak. You have laid eyes upon me, upon heaven and you shall not return."

"Why?"

"Willwill I go to Hell?"

"I do not judge."

"Can't you tell me? Surely you must know."

"Is not for me to say."

"You are an angel, have you no mercy?"

"We speak too much child, we must begin our journey."

"I am scared."

"If you love our Father, you will have nothing to fear."

"But, I didn't and you know that."

"Yes." The angel replied nonchalantly.

"Then send me back. Send me back so I may try to understand. Give me another chance to love him and to understand the way of his life, and what I must do to belike Him."

"No." The celestial creature spoke and still he peered down at the shell of God's child that rest peacefully beneath the ivory white linen that embraced her upon the gurney.

Her father entered the room with his eyes red and swollen. He knelt beside his daughter weeping as Death whisked her away. Sadness enveloped the room, sadness she could not feel. But remorse she could..

"Come," the angel called as he rose, moving deeper into the void.

Carin went with him but not of her own accord, she followed the angel deeper into the unearthly darkness. She gazed about her only to understand a vast emptiness that engulfed her. Like deep space, all was black except for the glowing light of the angel and her own. Like two stars, they shot like a missile through the blackness of space. They travel the void between the worlds to a place where judgment awaited.

Weary and solemn they glided through the emptiness with an icy breeze blowing in their face. Carin's wintry-tears froze upon her eyelashes with beaming shards of icicles dangling from them. The luster from their ghostly bodies soared though the void.

"I'm scared."

"You tremble."

"Yes."

"Comfort me."

"I cannot. Only Father can comfort the soul."

"…will he comfort me?"

They travel. She looked about the deep blackness. Beacons seem to glow far off into the distance. She felt herself drawn to them, while the wake of the angel carried her forward.

"What?"

"They are the souls of those who love you. They are your Grand Parents, your family and friends; they are the essence of your being. They are your comfort, your Heaven. It is Abel who will send you to them."

"Or not?" she gasped.

The angel halted. Carin reached for him as she soared by him, the ball of light that was in her hand stretched for him, as he faded into the blackness of the void.

Ahead, she could feel the warmth rushing in on her like waves lapping the shore of a river. She felt her emotions return. She felt more than just fear and uncertainty now; she felt the pain that accompanied the emotions. Her heart ached for the first time since her death. She felt for those she has left behind, though she didn't know why. There was an unexpected greater feeling, sorrow for the choices she has made.

Regret.

Before her on a nimbus a massive gate sat. They were not as she imagined. The gates were grim wrought iron extending ominously into the darkness. The bars to the gate were dark massive spirals barbed with hundreds of small spikes. An evil darkness befell her as she moved closer to the gates that swung wide before her.

"Angel, why have you forsaken me?"

The void filled with inaudible whispers. Hundreds and thousands of tiny voices whispered in the darkness.

Carin noticed the light from the angel who led her had faded into the void, as did the others. Blackness surrounded her, leaving her is utterly alone. Her heart raced as the undertone of the atmosphere submerged her into a panic. She swallowed hard, but continued further into the nothingness.

Carin reached out her dimly lit arms that melted behind the engulfing darkness. She felt a chill race the length of her soul. Gradually, she slowed and lowered to the surface of the nimbus as the darkness retreated. She could hear the gates moving behind her.

They came to stop in a thunderous clatter.

"Come." A gentle voice called from ahead.

Carin's steps were uncertain but gentle as she went forward. She felt the cloud beneath her feet; it gave and cushioned her steps. She drew toward the voice that continued to call to her.

"Come to me, Carin."

As she walked, the radiance moved with her, lighting her way as that in her wake fell again into darkness.

She went in the way accompanying the voice that washed gently and warmly over her. The warmth comforted her as she felt her soul relax and bliss overcome her.

The beat of her heart nearly burst through her chest, while she breathed in the comforting warmth that welcomed her sweetly into the portal to another world.

She stopped as she felt she should. She looked up and watched an angel slowly floating by. The angel illuminated the shroud that embraced it. In the angels' hands was a large bowl. From the bowl poured a radiant light that flowed over the nimbus.

"You have been judged," the angel called down to her.

Carin stepped forward beneath the radiant light that poured from the bowl. The light bathed her in warmth.

The beacons she had seen in the void were all around her now. Closer the light came as the radiance enveloped her soul. Carin felt a comfort as the warmth touched her. It was a fleeting stroke of kindness.

"She who does not believe, is Godless." The angel said.

Carin fell to her knees before the angel, as the light raged to flames and the beacons around her wept.

Beneath her, the nimbus opened wide to an inferno.

Carin slipped through the clouds, the rush of light vanished in a void of blackness and her radiance subsided. She fell, faster with each moment as she felt the loneliness and anguish she has brought upon herself.

As she tumbled through the darkness, witnessing again a beacon of light. From the light, she interpreted the word, "Godless." It was he, the angel who brought her here.

Carin moaned as she extended her arms out to the warm and comforting beacon. "Forgive me."

There is neither comfort nor forgiveness for the Godless.

"You are a God."

"I am."

"You are evil. You led me astray. You took the light from my soul and used it to guide me to this place. "

The darkened creature that directed her to the judgment stood erect, beaming with sarcasm.

Carin's face took on a contorted appearance; resembling the evilness that brought her to this void.

She saw beneath her, as she tumbled, a great fire that consumed the void and exploded towards her.

"Won't you please?" She called out as the inferno engulfed her.

"Forgive me." The empty word "Godless," hushed beneath the rage of flames.

©2002 Myth Spinner & Brutal Dreamer

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