They say that when you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. Decades of life condensed into a reel.
Time is somehow bent. A lifetime recounted in a flash. Yet every moment, yet every detail remains in intact.
Nikki experienced that.
One minute she was lying unresponsive on an emergency room table as the last drop of blood poured from her body.
Even unconscious, somehow she heard that piercing BEEEEEEEEEE sound as the heart monitor flatlined.
She looked down on the trauma table, seeing the doctors working on someone lying there. She watched from an elevated position in the room and heard someone say, “Code Blue.”
She watched herself. Her dead self, surrounded by chaos, yet she felt …… calm, peaceful. A peace like you have never felt in your life.
Then she realized that someone was standing beside her. A presence.
Inexplicably, somehow, deep inside she had the feeling that she knew this person. Somehow she knew. It was not a person at all. He was her protector. That he had always been there.
Nikki heard him speak.
“Hello, Nikki. My name is Ariel. Come, there are things you must see.”
For the first time she heard his voice, and somehow this voice had a familiar sound to it. Like a whisper in her ear.
Nikki turned toward him to see him for the first time. After all these years. Finally, face to face. HER angel.
Ariel stood 8 feet tall. He had wings. Giant white iridescent wings that shimmered and folded down along his shoulder blades, nearly touching his feet.
His eyes were piercing blue and kind. He had kind eyes. He had an aura. A shining light all around him. A golden light that was a part of his being.
He spoke and his voice sounded like ……. like heaven, like home.
Ariel took Nikki’s hand as she took one last look at the lifeless woman on the table. The doctors frantically working on her to no avail.
The emergency room faded to black and a corridor opened as they began to travel through time and space.
In the blink of an eye, they traveled up, through this corridor and Nikki saw her life. She watched herself, her life, flashing like watching a movie.
At one point Ariel stopped. Nikki watched, an older man forcing a young girl down a back alley. She recognized the girl. It was her teenage self.
She recognized this place. She was tricked into being there by this older man. She knew too well what would happen to her.
Nikki felt pity for that girl. She realized how dark and heavy this moment was for her. She felt the fear, the loss, the emotional trauma that stayed with her, her entire life.
She watched as the man pushed the young girl into an abandoned building.
But this time, as she watched, she wasn’t focused on the chaos inside the building. That she knew. Instead she was focused on the chaos outside the building.
Nikki watched as someone outside the building, a man, was being beaten. She watched at least twenty thugs beating this man relentlessly.
Kicking him. Laughing at him. She heard them heckling him as they beat him.
Then she realized the man was not a man at all. It was Ariel. She and Ariel stood side by side and watched this moment.
She heard the leader of the band of thugs say,
“Ariel, why are you here? This girl is ours to torture. She is our little whore.”
Nikki watched as Ariel fought them. He fought despite being outnumbered and overpowered.
Nikki watched and she suddenly realized, Ariel wasn’t fighting for himself, but rather he was fighting for her.
He was trying to save this girl, but there were too many.
The Liars were relentless.
They laughed and hissed and shot him with flaming poisonous arrows. Angels are immortal and cannot die, but they can certainly feel pain.
Nikki watched as Ariel fought until the poison consumed his body like a fire. A fire that raged and howled. A pain that became completely debilitating.
She could feel his pain. The burning fire raging through his body. His sense of helplessness.
She watched the Liars bind him then they made him watch. All the while speaking vile disgusting things.
“Where is your God, Ariel? Why has your God abandoned you?”
“Watch them, Ariel. Watch your little whore. WATCH THEM, DAMN YOU, ARIEL!” Another arrow. Another scream.
Then suddenly, they left. Vanishing into the crevices.
Nikki watched Ariel. Broken, exhausted, writhing in pain. She watched as he struggled to pull himself upright. To free himself from the bindings.
She felt his pain. First, the physical pain. The hot poison burning, searing through his body.
But more than that, she felt the emotional pain. She felt his despair. His feeling of not being good enough. His feeling of not being able to fulfill his duty as a protector.
His failure at being a Guardian.
How he wished that God would strike him dead, but angels were created immortal. So he couldn’t die
How he wished that somehow he could just vanish and be no more.
He fought, hard. Nikki watched him. Never backing down, never giving up. Never leaving his calling. NEVER leaving his post. NEVER leaving her side.
She watched as this man, this angel, HER angel, sacrificed himself trying to save her.
Then Ariel and Nikki continued up the corridor.
Nikki watched as the movie played on as they traveled.
Over and over she watched him fight. Another day. Another attack. Over and over the same outcome.
She was overcome with the realization that someone would fight for her till the bitter end.
She never knew. She never knew anyone cared.
She never knew that someone would endure so much pain, FOR HER.
She heard Ariel say, “Nikki, it wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I couldn’t save you. I was supposed to save you but I was too weak. I was supposed to protect you.”
“It was all my fault.”
(To be continued)