Time passed swiftly, far too swiftly, perhaps. Yet this mattered little to the Creator. There was no deadline for the wretched being, born of hate and love so deeply entwined they became indistinguishable. The seconds, turned into eternally damned cycles, offered no solace to the self-pity the nameless one imposed upon himself.
He could only listen and imagine. He imagined the groups united by their hues, and the objects offered to them by the many mother flames. He heard the false cries of joy from the poor and countless souls who had trapped themselves in the boundless organic sea. His head was on the verge of shattering. Those who had long since lost the sense of time within that infinite syncytium. Others, instead, seemed almost pleased to be trampled beneath the bare feet of the flames' children; sparks now given flesh, able to laugh, to shout, to speak among themselves, and to live through emotions that bound them one to another.
Meanwhile, the heavens had dimmed the lightning of the bonsai. A sign, perhaps, of the Creator's abandonment… a sight no longer new. As always, the angel was left to act alone.
Dark shadows, cast by the clouded heavens, spread across the "still sea," cloaking shapes and souls who were like actors upon that stage of chaos. Yet one shadow grew greater than the rest. As the angel stared blankly into the void, his eyes dim and hollow, it covered him from above: vast as a monstrous bird, wings spanning the whole firmament. But it was no bird or any other flying creature. Every voice around him fell silent in reverence, as though to behold that magnificent and dreadful spectacle painted upon the sky. And yet… the winged creature remained unmoved.
The spectacle repeated irregularly. First after days, then weeks, then mere dozens of seconds. There was no rhythm, no pattern. Whatever the cause, the phenomenon seemed to manifest by its own will; a will that commanded even the flames and their children to share a single emotion: silence.
Years and fractions of seconds blurred into one. And until the angel would raise his gaze once more, nothing would change. Until he acted again, he would remain in that same limbo, perhaps forever. Still, no movement came to him. Whether from despair, or because he had truly reached a point of no return. Around him, the festivals, the warmth, even the quarrels of the human sparks continued to echo, spread upon a bed of suffering, mad joy, and resignation.
His presence, once admired for his majestic half-featherless wings, had become ordinary. At times, some approached to speak, but returned to their kin without reply, unable even to tell what color the eyes of that mysterious being among the living dead had been.
It would take another intervention, maybe from that same enigmatic figure who once saved the angel from the abyss's grasp.
But what if…
Was it he? Was he the one the Creator had ordered to be slain? Perhaps the blade had been forged for that very purpose, to strike down one such as him. But how could he be found, if, after months, he still remained hidden? And why did he appear at the very moment the angel was to be profaned once more by the spawn of that horrid pit? And those two coffins... why did they keep returning, interrupting the nameless one's thoughts and endless brooding?
Then, as if possessed by some unseen force, he rose abruptly. The sword was brandished like a simple staff, held by one who had only just learned to wield it, without care, without awareness of its meaning or purpose. His legs trembled, knees nearly touching, witnesses to how long he had sat lost in thought and fear. He could only stand still, listening more than seeing, to what circled ceaselessly around him. But when he looked — truly looked — with his dichotomic eyes, he understood: to say the same emotions bound all those beneath the flames was folly. The torn faces, tangled in limbs and fingers amid the sea of the undead, seemed almost serene. Yet, upon closer gaze, exceptions emerged. Each had their mask. Each bore a name, a form... all false.
Their nakedness and their blood united them; from the very first day or second, they had been condemned or cast there by fate. And again, the two sealed coffins appeared in the distance, cruelly impaled in the organic ground, stained halfway up with a foul, rotten red.
"Oh… you finally stood up."
When the angel recognized yet another figure, akin to himself, seated upon a writhing carcass, he turned once more toward the coffins: gone again.
"Whether you gaze upon the sky or the earth, no answer will come. You are caged among beasts, all seemingly doomed to live and relive the same day for eternity. The cycles pass, the clouds drift, the faces change, yet the essences remain the same. So I ask myself: was it He who chose this for us? And why send one such as you, who can barely stand?"
His words carried an indescribable torment, one that seemed to have torn at him for ages uncounted. And yet his tone was calm, almost serene.
"I have always thought…" he said, walking among the speaking corpses. "No… I have always known that none of us could end this cycle. It would take another. Someone who would forbid us to despise one another, who would make us feel whole, give us hope. But that someone is not you. It is far too late for us now. Tears, blood, death... they mean nothing. Even what we fear most is useless once we understand that we stand on the same plane. So I ask again: when did all this begin? And who directs this… strange tale? Why has it no beginning, and no end? What is its name? Its title?"
Then —
"OOOOOOHHHH!" many of them shouted.
Once more, the vast shadow cast by the clouds above, twenty minutes since its last appearance, descended upon the stage so praised by the speaker. Darkness rushed in, letting the onlookers witness the divide between the gloom surrounding them and the pale light far beyond. But those were not clouds. Not a single wisp of vapor could block the radiant flashes of the bonsai's lightning. What had cast its darkness upon the unconscious actors was nothing else but… a great and vast gate. Two of them, in truth. And, as before, came that selective muteness from everyone. The hush that silenced all life and death alike. Oak, or chestnut, reinforced with rivets and bands of wrought iron. Two majestic doors, whirling in the heavens, spinning endlessly upon themselves.
Never meeting, never touching...