As usual, I'm up to my eyeballs in trouble. With the fate of mankind hanging in the balance, I'm on a new mission to stop the Dark Ones from unleashing a second wave of attacks that promises to destroy the world as we know it. But first I have to fi...
I wanted to keep on running but my legs wouldn't listen to me. Everything felt disconnected. All I could do was sob like a newborn while my tears fell unhindered, landing like rain drops into an ocean full of tears from all of the people I'd failed to save.
I scrunched my eyes shut tight. Not only to stop the tears from falling, but to try and ignore the truth. The truth that Thomas wasn't the faithful Guardian who watched over the Realm of Angels, I was. Thomas wasn't the one who abandoned his post after the Dark Ones fell from Heaven to save Earth, I was. And Thomas didn't sacrifice himself by choosing to become an Angel of Darkness, I did.
I did it. I did all of it.
I became the perfect weapon of mass destruction. The perfect storm. I did it on purpose to put a stop to the war the Dark Ones were raging for dominion over the Earth. It seemed kind of funny to me now that they never even suspected one of their own kind was working for the other side. Of course, the fact that I'd refused to go along with their evil plans gave me the perfect cover. Go figure. My iron will to resist the power of darkness, my natural born stubbornness to never do anything I'm told, heck...even my crappy attitude ended up working to my advantage.
Who would've thought.
But what I still didn't understand, and probably never would, was how God could put all that faith in me to save mankind, wipe my memory clean of the entire plan when I was reborn, and then trust me enough to send me out into the world to carry out His will?
I wouldn't even trust me.
"He believed in you at a time when you didn't even believe in yourself," a male voice responded as if reading my mind. "He gave you the strength to be a light in the world."
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My eyes blinked open to find a guy around my age standing beside me on the rocky cliff. At first glance he looked like one of those male genetic lottery winners. You know, the kind free of brooding teenage angst and seemingly endless amounts of energy without a single sip of coffee.
Yeah, that kind.
He dressed simply, wearing khaki shorts and a plain, woolen tunic that was several shades lighter than his shorts. The shirt, if you could even call it that, was tucked in at the waist and open at the neck. In place of a belt, he wore a purple medicine pouch that hung from his right shoulder over to his left hip with carefully braided pieces of matching purple leather that formed a flat rope about an inch wide.
I couldn't help wondering what kind of medicine was needed in Heaven.
He was tall and slender with long, graceful hands that were naturally elegant and interesting to watch when he gestured. He had a narrow face and a strong, square jaw with a trace of softness in it. His light blue eyes that peered out from under heavy black eyebrows were the exact same color as the ocean and just as deep; filled with wisdom far beyond his youthful years. Even a head full of knotty, walnut-colored dreadlocks with wooden beads dispersed throughout couldn't hide the way he stared back at me as if looking directly into the window of my soul.
