Ezekial's Train, Chapter Fifteen

After speaking the words, Daniel can see the sigh of relief that Mordechai lets out and sensing it, he wonders if maybe there was a choice to be made after all.

Speaking quickly now though, Mordechai sees the weakness in Daniel's resolve and pounces. “Ezekial, Daniel, whatever name we call you by, you are the key to stopping what you see.”

“Yah, I know! But how do--”

Shatter

The world literally falls away from Daniel in a way it never has and he feels plucked from the sky as if by godlike hands. The world in its pulling away from him is replaced then by flashes of blinding red light arrayed in long straight lines which form into complex geometric shapes around him. Surrounding him on all sides, moving through him even, there is a seeming rationale to the lines which coalesces and then is lost, repeatedly, moment to moment. His eyes searching, Daniel knows he cannot find Mordechai and as he looks down he realizes that he cannot find himself. It is as if he is a floating intellect in a sea of chaos, alone and afraid.

But then the world is all a sterile white and he is standing on a bare, pale gray plane. A perfectly flat surface stretches in all directions and Daniel knows for once that this is not a real place, but a construct within his mind. A vision in the truest sense.

The Angel standing before him though, is as real as himself as it howls in rage at him with all four heads, mouths agape. A screech of pain leaps from its human lips and roars and bellows from its other heads, all screaming together and bathing Daniel in a cacophony of rage, anger, and pain. All four of its wings flap furiously behind it and Daniel is pushed back by the force of the wind as its screams form into a single word which splits his head apart.

“No!”

Break

* * *

“Daniel!”

Ester is staring down at him as he realizes he is lying on their couch once more, the familiar room around him and the lights dim as he looks down to see that he is shirtless and covered in a thick layer of sweat. His head pounding with the fury of a migraine, he looks to the room to try and spot Mordechai but they are now alone.

“What happened? How long?” “The words break loose from his throat with a tinge of pain and desperation.

“You were gone for hours, honey.” The tears are mostly dry on her cheeks by now but he can see that new ones are forming as she pulls a damp cloth from a bowl beside the couch and wipes his brow once more. Just gone.”

Struggling to stand, Ester pushes him back down and holds him there, his body too weak to fight her. It is so like the times so many years before in her father's home, when he had nearly drowned in the visions and then in the Atlantic. The faces, his and hers, the same as then but older and even more creased with worry. “They got to stop doin' this to you! You can't take it like you could then, can't take it anymore like that. I can't take it anymore like that.” She grabs his hand and brings it up to her chest, clutching his fingers so tightly that they begin to feel numb. “Please baby, are you alright this time?”

“Yah.” He smiles gently through the pain and exhaustion, remembering again the times when she nursed him back to health, her gentle touch shocking him when it came from such a stern and powerful woman, her gentle words and voracious curiosity winning his heart. “I am fine, though my head, it is very much in pain.”

“Well, lay back baby. Y'all be okay, alright.”

“And where is our friend, the bear?”

“He's gone,” Ester tells him, wincing at the mention of Mordechai. “Done left when you went under, and ain't seen him sense. Don't worry now, you relax.”

“Yah, yah. You are right my dear but,” Daniel closes his eyes as he whispers to her. “He will be back.”

* * *

It is late in the night when the bear returns, though Daniel is awake to meet him. Unable to sleep since returning from the broken vision, the pain lessening with time, he sits in the study, having washed away his terrified sweats and changed into his bedclothes. Ester, refusing to leave him, lies beside him and he pats her hand gently as she rests, gentle snores drifting towards him in the silence as the alien arrives, his image forming slowly. As he comes together, he stands across the room with his shoulders slouched but he perks slightly as he sees Daniel is awake and well, if haggard. He speaks immediately, the worry coming through the chatter of the translator he carries once more. “You are okay? The Angels broke into our--”

“Yes.” Daniel interrupts him with a nod. “So I gathered.”

“They broke through and I was afraid, the Watchers were afraid that you might have been harmed by them. The breaking into one projection from another, it is . . .”

“Yes, I know. You can trust me, I know better than anyone.”

“I am sure. They did not kill you though, so they must still need more of you in this time, or they do not know the breadth of our plan.” The bear looks around as if to sit, but perhaps realizes mid way that he is not physically in the room. His face, even under the alien fur, is haggard and stressed. There is a distinct wobble that Daniel notices in the beast's left paw as it paces the room, silent. “As ironic as it may seem to you, we haven't much time.”

“I think we have had enough time, these last few hours.” Daniel laughs at the though, after having gallivanted from the past to the future with the creature so much and so recently, the idea is absurd. “Tell me though, could they have really have killed me?”

“Yes. They could have extinguished you through the vision. It would have been a stroke to outward appearances here. But that is not important.”

“Not important! That I could die?”

“Yes. Now please, bear with me.” Daniel laughs at Mordechai then, the stress finally breaking into his calm, ignoring the puzzled stare that he sees as the creature goes on. “You have to know, now that Enoch is interfering, things have changed. Our hopes are thin, but we must go forward.”

“Forward into what? All of this posturing and explaining, but still you have not told me what I am to do.”

Ester stirs beside him as the voices finally wake her, looking up to the bear and then to Daniel through groggy eyes. Looking down at her, he can see the questions in her eyes but he wills her to be silent. In the way of two who have spent so long together, she understands and sits up, watchful but quiet.

The bear's pacing increases as he walks in lanky strides from one corner of the room to the other, ignoring Ester all the while until stopping in front of Daniel and looking directly into his eyes. “That is because it difficult. It is not something you will do lightly, and I had hoped we could discuss it in the future vision, with the world we are preventing before you, as inspiration.”

“Mordechai, or whoever you are, sir Watcher, so long I have been at your whim. Please, tell me what it is that will stop that horrible place from coming to light. You said I must come with you, to stop me from doing what I did then. You said there was a cost as well. What is that cost? What do you need of me? Tell me now, finally.”

“Yes, there is a cost.”

There is a long pause before Daniel stand and breaks it, anger in his voice even as he suspects the answer he will receive. “And what, god damn you, is that cost?”

“Ezekial,” Mordechai pauses again until he senses the anger rising in Daniel once more. “Daniel, to save your world from that future, you must die.”