Epilogue: After(?)Math
The point of the knife had been separated from the hilt, and it felt like his whole body was engulfed in flame as the pain ripped through his nervous system along with the adrenaline. He wanted to pull it out, let the pain subside with his consciousness into a black void that was calling him, enticing him into nothingness with the green almond-shaped eyes of a girl he couldn't remember.
“Turn around, Jack, and see the fate that awaits you,” Sera called out, her words becoming faint and then blown away in a wind that blew around and through him. Jack. Was that his name? Nothing made sense anymore, he knew and remembered little of his identity; all of it was being swept away, burned up, unraveled in some way that robbed him of everything that he knew.
Memories swirled in his mind, but the names and faces in them whirled away into a black void behind him. He turned and watched as a pulsing ball of white light gaped open, revealing an empty yawning portal, and it was tugging at his mind and his body. The thread that linked him to Sera—once all silver, but now gold and shimmering—was released, and he felt himself falling with an unseen current. The uppermost room of the temple was falling away from him, as were the outstretched arms of Sera, the girl who had killed him.
No, wait. Was he dying? The girl in front of him, far away and distant reminded him of another girl, but she had no face, no name, no voice. Falling, and tumbling into a million pieces. He was screaming, as well, with unbelievable pain and anguish, but it was not the pain of dying, that he remembered far too well for his own comfort. Everything that he was, who he was, the fabric and the fiber of his being being torn and and ripped apart, as if he was nothing at all, an inconsequential piece of an irrelevant puzzle, without form or voice.
Broken.
His head was aching. Did I die? He though. His heart pounded in his chest and it felt as if he had just run several miles for the first time. The bed he was lying on felt hard as a rock, and as he pulled the sheets from his face, he remembered where he was. All around him, the stench of death and decay filled the stagnant air, and at every wall there seemed to be crumbling bones and yellowed linen. The room was dark, but tiny slivers of light crept through some slits in the wall to his left. The wall was cool and damp, and slimy to the touch. Was he dead? The dead don't have heartbeats, nor do they walk around in their tombs, his mind said. The strange thing was, he could remember dying, could remember the way it felt to have his heart stop, and his lungs quit, yet now everything seemed to be working.
The wall seemed to be separate from the rest around the slits, as if it was another piece of stone all together, and it rolled easily to one side, letting him bask in the bright light of the sun once more. The grasses on the other side of the stone wall were green, and as the wind rustled through them gently, the smell of life and a living world filled the air. He took a deep breath and strolled into the daylight. Overhead, the azure sky was filled with singing birds that floated lazily on the breeze, and he felt as if everything was going to be all right.
On the ground in front of him, a boy lay with blood pouring down the sides of his head, and as he knelt to his body, he could feel the boy's breath come in forced gasps. He turned his head to both sides and saw no one. The boy was dressed in a strange array of leathers, and he didn't look to be from this country at all, his skin was the wrong color, much too pale. As he touched the boy's head, he felt the bones of his skull give way, and he knew without a doubt that the boy would die unless . . . his fingertips felt like they were on fire where they touched the boy's scalp, and he could feel the bones knitting together beneath them. His vision blurred, and he suddenly saw silver threads stretching out across the horizon, and one that connected him to the boy. The threads pulsed with their own life, and he watched as the boy was Healed. Skin grew back against skin--without so much as a scar--bone knit against bone, and the boy's breathing came easier as the fire in his fingertips grew dim and distant, fading quickly into memory.
The boy's eyes opened as he watched, amazed, and he spoke. “Where am I?” the boy asked.
“You've had quite a fall, my young friend. This is the holy land, outside of Jerusalem. Don't you recognize it?” The boy shook his head. “What is your name?”
“I . . . I don't know,” he seemed ashamed at his own lack of knowledge, but that was not the only thing he had in common with the man who had healed him.
The man laughed, he didn't know why, but something about the situation struck him as funny. “You were on death's door, but I think you'll be all right. You've got some very strange colored eyes.”
“I was going to say the same thing about yours,” said the boy.
“You can call me . . . Jack?” It was the first thing to pop into his head, though where it came from he wasn't certain; he didn't remember ever hearing such a name. “What shall we call you? Saved from the mouth of the lion's den . . .” he mused, “Daniel?”
“As good a name as any, I suppose.”
“Daniel it is. Now how about we get ourselves something to eat. I'm famished.” He licked his dry lips as his stomach rumbled. There was something strangely familiar about this boy, Daniel, and the color of his eyes tickled at the back of his memory.
Probably nothing at all, he thought, as a hum began to fill the air. For some reason the hum reminded him of bees, although maybe it was the singing of some heavenly choir of angels. Now that's just crazy, he thought, laughing aloud. That's just crazy.
Copyright 2006