Song - Prophecy of Divine Judgement 

Artist - Critical Mass

When I next opened my eyes I found myself desperately clinging to the edges of what looked like a podium, I had survived the fall and was alive! Not wasting any time to catch my breath, I hauled myself up onto the small patch of ground practically gasping for air as I lay flat on my back, I didn't know how, but I'd somehow cheated death. I blinked, once, twice, I was OK. I looked at my limbs and checked to see if they were all still there, they were. I let out a heavy sigh of relief as my heart slowly returned to its normal pace, which sadly only lasted about 2 seconds before it started racing again.

"Oh dear I am quite sorry about that, I had no idea it would be this violent today." I looked up to see Victoria, or rather fake Victoria who was also standing on a podium of some sort. It had all happened so fast my mind was now just a blur of images and movements, I wasn't sure how much more I was going to be able to take.

"Oh well, the show must go on as you humans say." She clapped her hands twice. "Let the eternal judgement rain down and expose the truth!" She boomed down at me.

"Wait, what's happening now!?" I shouted up to her but she couldn't hear me, she was busy reciting some sort of prayer or was it a ritual? All I could do now was watch in anticipation for what was to come, my stomach churning as I felt like I would be sick.

"Aste kalei suvip interwind overl kami dond e iwch all ichaban se te ist!" She was speaking in a language that I couldn't understand nor had I heard of before but as she was chanting I felt my body begin to change, it felt lighter like I was floating on air. A bright light enveloped me and my world was plunged into white.

I couldn't move, I couldn't think, my mind was blank as I was floating ever so gently suspended in the middle of the nothing, all I could see now was white, snowflake white, beautiful, pure white. I had lost my sense of balance and couldn't figure my up from my down or left from right so I just lay still, not daring to move. I couldn't breathe yet I was still alive, the only thing I knew was that I was conscious. The atmosphere around me was different from the one I was just in, it gave the feeling like I was underwater though I could still feel a cold breeze against my skin.

"This is it." A voice echoed coming from all directions. "It is time."

Then suddenly, those two images appeared again but, this time, I could see clearly into each one. The first one with the boy and the girl fading away, and the second with the boy and his mum. As I re-watched them, the faces and pictures became clearer and clearer until I could see them properly. The people in them didn't just look familiar, they were familiar. For a start, the boy in each of the pictures, was me.

I watched both scenes with terror, my brain refusing to believe what I was seeing. The girl in the first image fading away, it was Victoria. I watched in fear as she slipped out of my fingers her body turning into dust getting carried by the wind. I had to watch myself scream as she crumbled in my hands and her last smiling expression as she left me for good. 

"Victoria Nooooooooooooo!" 

I don't know how, but I somehow regained my voice and screamed at the top of my lungs thrashing my hands and feet in a failed attempt at saving her. That had to be the bad one right, the life of despair, how could I live with myself knowing that I'd eventually lose a person so close to me? I couldn't, I wouldn't. I was still busy kicking and punching the air when Victoria faded completely and I was left weeping on the streets cold and alone. 

"No, please no." I whispered. I didn't know why I was feeling so angry, Victoria was just a friend. One I didn't know that well and one I had only known for a few days, yet I felt so lifeless, like life just wasn't worth living if she wasn't around. 

"Why? Tell me, why?" I shouted.  

With tears streaming down my face I watched the second image. I was even more horrified with what I was greeted with. My whole body shut down and I went from twisting wildly to a complete stand still. The woman in the second image, was mum. I watched in a stunned silence as her life painfully slipped from my fingers under the moonlit street on a cold, snowy winter day. I was forced to look at that distressed expression on my face, forced to see me cry as people just walked past not caring. Forced to look at Mum's body, so drained as the snow and cold slowly ate away at her. 

Then both the scenes froze and I was left confused and irritated. You had got to be kidding, those were the two futures I had to choose from? 

"You have witnessed the futures that await you. Now choose!" That same voice roared once again.

No. I didn't want to. The tears pouring down my cheek refused to stop and found myself getting angrier and angrier by the second. My blood felt like it was boiling and my chest heaved as I somehow regained being able to breathe. Why did both my futures involve a person I cared about dying, was I just destined to be alone? It didn't matter which future my soul chose, my life would always lead to the death of a loved one. Who decided my future anyway, this wasn't set in stone was it? No, these were just two possible outcomes and I wasn't about to accept anyone of them. If those were the only two future I had to choose from, then I'd rather die to save me the pain.

"No." I began, "no, no, no, no." I cried starting to shake. "NOOOOOOOO!" I screamed at the top of my lungs feeling this sudden rush of adrenaline. The two images shattered and a strong torrent of wind swept me up as I was throwing a fit, engulfing me in a violent hurricane of shards from the broken scenes. 

"NO! I WON'T EXCEPT IT, I WON'T!" I raised my eyelids and instead of there being eyes, there was now two beams of light shooting out of my sockets, the same for my mouth as well. I screamed again kicking out at nothing and though I was trapped in the centre of the tornado I wasn't being swept up in the current of wind or being hit by any shards of the broken scenes, it was like there was a barrier protecting me. My voice had suddenly become very deep, it was like I had no control over my body.

The bright light surrounding me quickly started to crack and break away like the images, revealing the countryside landscape I was sitting in before. Then just as suddenly as it all happened, it stopped abruptly, the tornado vanished leaving me to fall flat on my face. As my body hit the ground I could definitely hear the crack of bones in my body as they broke and I screamed in pain. The white glow had disappeared and soon everything came tumbling down, the broken image shards, dirt, and debris, everything covering me. Eventually, it all withered away leaving me coughing and panting as I lay on the grass. 

***

I didn't dare move for about 10 minutes, I felt so tired and sleepy I almost couldn't find the strength the talk. About 5 minutes in I had lost all feeling in some of my limbs which didn't look good for the rest of my body. Soon I had lost almost all the feeling in my joints, and I wasn't sure if I was actually still alive, all I wanted to do was sleep, sleep and never have to wake up to my reality. The idea of it all seemed so appealing my heart almost gave out on me, but despite all that, I somehow found the strength to speak.

"What in the name of-" I began but a fit of coughs and wheezes stopped me mid-sentence. They continued showing no signs of stopping until I coughed and looked down at the lovely new shade of red I had just turned the grass. 

"God must really hate me, yep any chance of going to heaven has officially left me along with my dignity." I thought as I made and attempt to stand up, and failed. I came crashing down to earth again crying out as my body hit the floor. 

"What happened to my body? Since when did I become so weak all of a sudden?" I thought, panting blood trickling out my mouth and down my chin. I was just about convinced I was going to die alone in an open field when I heard something. 

"What." I heard a voice from behind me after a while. "How, but that's not possible."

I made and attempt at sitting up instead, this didn't fail as horribly as my last attempt but it did take me a few tries until I was able to support the weight of my body. Wincing in pain, I turned my head around to face where the voice was coming from. Over in the distance, I could just make out fake Victoria, like me, had also taken quite a beating, her arms and legs were severely bruised and the right side of her head was bleeding. She forced herself up, but it looked like it was taking all her strength to do so. She was standing still, a stunned look stretched across her face as she stared at me in what looked like disbelief from far way.

"How did you- No human should be able to-" She stammered. 

My eyes squinted as I strained to see her over in the distance, my vision was a bit blurry and the world around me wouldn't stay still until I focused hard enough to be able to see clearly again. I didn't know what had happened to me but whatever it was had zapped my body of all it's energy, making even breathing a task. 

It was so weird when I looked back on it, all I could really remember was me seeing those images, I didn't think I'd be forgetting those anytime soon. People I cared about left me in both of them, so whichever my soul chose it wouldn't change anything. But as I thought about it, which one did my soul choose? Would I still be here if it had chosen the wrong one, how was I supposed to know if it was still dying? 

More question grew in my mind as little bits of what had happened came back to me, the scenes shattering, the tornado, the lights coming out of my eyes, it was all slowly coming back.

Fake Victoria, despite being a stuttering wreck a while ago, had regained her composure and was walking over to me, well limping. She stopped right next to me and knelt down to my level as I looked up at her in confusion. 

She sighed and hung her head before suddenly taking a hold of my hand. Before long I felt my hand start to tingle and it felt warmer. I looked down at her hands to see that they were glowing, a small green beacon of light was shooting out and covering my right hand. As she continued I felt like the energy I had lost in that hand was coming back. I was too amazed to say anything so I just enjoyed the warm feeling which was slowly creeping up my arm to my neck and then my head, it was slow but soon my whole body was covered in this green glow and it wasn't long before I felt normal again.

"You are a very rare human indeed aren't you." She coughed as she stared down at me with an expression I couldn't label. The silence between us went on for quite some time as she seemed to study me as if checking for something. 

"Aren't you gonna use that light thingy on yourself," I asked. 

"Oh don't worry about me, my kind are more resistant to these types of attacks than you humans are. I'll be fine within a day or two, you, on the other hand, are lucky to still be alive. You should really thank me, if hadn't been here who knows if I would still be talking to you right now." She chuckled.

"Look, lady, I'm sorry I don't mean to be rude after you just saved my life and all but, what are you? And how did you do that? And what was that back there?" I asked after a while, clenching and unclenching my fists which were as good as new. 

"First of all, it isn't lady, you may know me as Celeste. As for the rest of the questions, I can't answer them right now, like I said, you humans just aren't ready. Oh, but don't worry, it seems like we will be seeing a lot more of each other now, Mr. Josh Carter." She smiled again. After that, she got up and started to walk away from me and into the distance.

"Wait, come back! You haven't given me an answer yet." I shouted getting up and running towards her.

"As I said before I'm afraid what I've told you is all I may say, orders from my master." She continued to walk off not looking back.

"Celeste? Master?" I repeated puzzled still running, though no matter how fast I went the distance between me and her didn't get any shorter.

"I have run out of time, I must go." she said.

She walked even further away and then all of a sudden a white light enveloped her and before long  two golden things started to grow out her back. I watched in amazement as a pair of golden feathery wings sprouted out of her. Like that of an angel, their glow was so blinding I had to look away for a second, soon they began to flap even so gently creating a soothing, calm breeze around us. The flowers and grass seemed to dance in the wind as she began to fly upwards into the sky and out of reach.

"Goodbye, Josh. Until next time." She said as she ascended into the sky.

"Wait, does that mean you're-" I started.

But I was cut off as a ray of blinding light covered the area plunging the place into a white abyss...

Keep reading for the next chapter...

Chapter 8: Victoria