Ariel watched.
The room was buzzing with activity. The emergency room doctor giving orders. The nurses scurrying around. Blood was ordered. An IV was started.
Ariel could feel her pain. He could hardly breathe.
He stood there in the trauma room with one overpowering emotion flowing throughout his immortal being. He was overcome with his own sense of failure.
He was a guardian. His name meant, “the Lion of God” but he was no lion. He was a failure. And he had failed this girl her entire life.
She was a treasure of the Most High. She was made in HIS image, and like all guardian angels he knew that one day this woman would sit in judgment of him.
He was supposed to be a protector. But he just didn’t measure up. Since the very beginning he had never measured up.
She had been under attack her entire life. They were relentless. The Liars, the backbiters, the fallen ones.
Like a murder of angry crows, they swarmed and harassed him like a gang of thugs.
The leader of this band of Liars was a Captain of the fallen Watcher’s, named Asmodeus. Once, a long time ago, a close friend. Now a bitter enemy.
Asmodeus and his band of marauders sought him out. It was personal. An old grudge. A score to be settled. Now it was simply torment for the sake of it. For the fun of it.
They beat him and shot him with fiery poisonous arrows. He fought. He fought with all he had, but there were too many.
His whole life over and over and over, he was beaten and maimed. He had endured searing pain thousands of times, only to be defeated.
He was made to watch. It was all part of the emotional torture.
He was made to watch as she was taken down a dark back alley.
He shouted out to heaven and pleaded for her. He prayed. Afterwards he wept tears and tried to comfort her.
He watched her life.
He watched as his failure bled over into her life. The wrong guy, the wrong turn, the wrong place, the wrong decision. Over and over.
Even today. A car wreck. Instigated by Asmodeus and the Liars. He couldn’t stop them. They heckled and laughed at him. They said vile things about him and her.
Her whole life, he had watched her spirit being broken. Hurt, degraded, dejected. Until she believed the Liars’ lie.
He watched as her life became a revolving door of self-medication and self-inflicted wounds. All intended to cope with the pain of the past.
Whiskey, drugs, and men. The wrong men. Over and over.
She saw herself as unworthy. There was nothing left to save. Nothing left to love.
Her innocence had been taken.
If she only knew.
To Ariel, she was beautiful. And Ariel knew she was beautiful in the eyes of the Lord. Being made in God’s image meant something. Something sacred. Something divine.
Ariel knew. He was the one unworthy. He was the one too weak. It was all his fault.
He deserved to be judged. She had every right to judge him. He had failed her.
Ariel heard someone say, “ She’s lost a lot of blood.
Then more urgently,
“We’re losing her!!!”
Then he heard it. That steady high-pitched, piercing sound as the heart monitor flatlined.
(To be continued)