A comforting warmth, laced with the delicate scent of mint, welcomed the victorious angel upon his return. As ever, the stars stirred with a maelstrom of emotions that no hymn nor celebration could ever express for the warrior's triumph. The heavens danced in restless hues like newborns, conjuring a spectacle of breathtaking wonder. Auroras of every color interlaced, joining hands in a silent waltz across the highest reaches of the skies. The winged warrior could ask for nothing more. All these marvels had been lost to him until now. This profound experience had taught him much, perhaps too much for a first trial. Not all the lessons were joyous, clearly. Pain, physical and unforgiving, had been the truest master.
And yet, he returned changed. His heart was an ocean of unfamiliar sensations. Where once he longed to race back to the Creator and offer proof of his victories, now a single, haunting thought consumed him: what had become of the mysterious silhouette?
He remained frozen as he had arrived, as though cradling something invisible in his arms. A hollow void hung between his trembling limbs. The sight of the cloud-forged floor and the mist-born tendrils that caressed his feet confirmed it: he had returned home. The pale hands that once veiled the nameless angel's sight no longer covered his eyes.
He could do nothing but behold the realm of the Creator.
Behind him, the leafless branches of the mighty bonsai cast a great shadow shaped like an outstretched hand, its fingers brushing the far edges of the cloudy soil. From the angel's feet stretched the fateful path that led back to the tomb from which he had risen. Beneath the tree, a web of roots coiled and plunged into the obsidian stone below.
But then… There was something else.
They were many, too many to count.
They formed a mound that rose like a morbid monument between the Creator and the bonsai, climbing halfway up the trunk. The angel examined them one by one, realizing they bore a familiar form, though unlike his own...
Some had four fingers, while others had two or three. Others just one. None of the countless hands littering the Creator's domain were whole. Where phalanges should have been, small, black voids opened, depthless and eternal. In that, the winged nameless one held a peculiar "advantage." Yet their meaning was utterly indecipherable. Even if gifted a voice or means to speak, it would have been futile to extract the truth from the mind of the Creator.
Above him hung one of two sights that often ensnared his melancholic gaze beneath the hood, unnoticed by most. A single branch, pale as snow and almost translucent, stretched long from the bonsai's crown. Veins like deep lacerations ran through it, and its tip hung low, mere feet from the Creator's head. He stared at that innocent branch often and for a long.
The angel stepped forward slowly, as if a single misstep might plunge him into yet another endless abyss. He tried to follow the trail of his father's ceaseless glances, and then he saw it: among the stars, one shone brighter than all the others. Those around it seemed to spin, drawn into its shimmering orbit. A gravitational core. A silent enigma.
As expected, no explanation followed.
Only the heavy breath of a figure draped in unsettling crimson filled the space, a disturbing red that veiled the Creator's fragile body. Shadows played across his robes, giving them an unreal sheen, soft to the eye yet jarring to the soul. The angel had never imagined his Creator so... broken. Weak. Near death. Sounds, scents, sensations... nothing he had known matched this feeble image. The world outside was surely darker, more twisted than this realm... and yet, it was the Creator that made this place feel so deeply sorrowful.
He pitied him. But in that sorrow, he also felt understood. Perhaps, without words, the Creator had humbled himself to become more like his son. Perhaps it was all... a gift. A cruel reward. The only one who made no sound. The stars above danced silently in their auroral weavings, composing music that lived only in the angel's mind.
And just as the first imagined note rang in his heart, the Creator intervened. His gaze now locked upon the angel, unwavering and sharp.
"Did you find him?"
Nothing more was said. It was enough to drain all life from the moment that followed. The mountain of severed hands behind him rendered the silence even more dreadful, its hidden meaning more grotesque. A thousand dark hypotheses stirred in the angel's mind.
"Did you kill him?"
Another question, this one soaked in blood. Perhaps he meant the silhouette, the one who had gifted light to the angel. Was death inevitable for all, no matter their words?
The Creator offered no further words. His eyes now rested on the clouded floor beneath him, a symbol of quiet, bitter disappointment. The angel could only hope, in time, to find the truth. Or perhaps, to find the very God his Creator once sang of.
But still, he wondered: what would become of him once the final feather fell? And how much more suffering must he endure to reach that point?
Then came a soft itch. The scent of mint died abruptly. His weakened nostrils became clogged. The Creator had nothing to do with it: he was still, buried in disappointment like a sulking child. Even words would be powerless to convey his sorrow.
Then came silence. His ears, too, surrendered to the greyness of his unkempt hair. A chain reaction unfolded. Panic flared. Reflexively, the nameless one touched his nose and realized he could no longer breathe.
And then he felt it: a single, innocent bubble of water. Then another. A third.
A stream surged upward, rising toward some distant surface cloaked in stars. In an instant, he was submerged in an invisible liquid.
Death approached once again. This time, within the realm he called sacred. Not just because it was home, the Creator's sanctuary, but because every time death found him, this ethereal place welcomed him back. Its tenderness brought him to life, again and again. Here, he felt truly alive, safe from harm. A haven he could return to forever, if only he were allowed.
But now... even his left leg rose of its own accord. And then the rest of his body followed. Though he struggled wildly, some strange force was dragging him upward, levitating, with a crushing slowness, toward a surface that perhaps held oxygen. But salvation never came.
The stellar mosaic began to dim, its auroras collapsing into a suffocating nightmare. Only the angel's tears flowed downward, colliding, at times, with the ascending bubbles. Spasms began. Desperate, fruitless attempts to reach safety... but where was it? How long until he arrived? Why did the Creator remain seated, unmoved, steeped in silent regret?
The unseen waters flooded his lungs unhindered. Ceasing to breathe changed nothing. His alveoli devoured the liquid, as if alive. His vision blurred. Vertigo and confusion engulfed him. Only the beat of his heart remained. A two-note rhythm, like the distant piano melody that played when he approached the Creator's refuge the first time he came back to life.
And then, the stars themselves joined the nightmare.
They fell from the heavens, settling like flames upon his head and arms, morphing into forms increasingly human. A whirlwind of color transformed into familiar silhouettes. They began to whisper among themselves.
And at last... all became darkness. Again.
"Jy is maar net een van die vele."
(You are but one of the many.)