Ezekial's Train, Chapter Sixteen

Mordechai takes another deep breath before the machine speaks for him once more. “You must die, in the past, before the Angels have begun to use you.”

“No!” Silent no longer, Ester screams at the bear. Mordechai cowers from the power of her voice and the guilt evident even in his alien posture. He can see that she has put the pieces together in her mind and gathered the implication there.

“Please, Ester.” Daniel seeks to assure her but then hecomes to the realization too and grips her shoulder, holding her back from attempting to attack the alien even as he resists the temptation himself.

Looking quickly at Mordechai though, he calms himself and brings Esters face to his, tears running from the corner of her eyes as they lock on his. “You did not see that world. You cannot imagine what is at stake.”

“I don't need to imagine anything! You are not going to let these aliens kill you for their own crazy plans. I will not let them take you from me.”

Wresting her arm from his, Daniel thinks for a moment she is going to slap him and he shrinks back but instead she merely crosses her arms and looks at Mordechai with eyes of fire.

“Please, Ester. Let me think. . .”

Reaching out to touch her again, seeing her chest rise and fall in deep breaths of anger and fear, Daniel is torn by the words of this alien who he is just now beginning to trust and the Angel's words and visions of the future and the past. The surety he once had is gone and with it his confidence. Adrift in events much greater than they ever seemed before, the only thing he knows is that there is more here than an old man and his wife at stake.

But looking down at Ester and her looking up at him with her lips pursed and her eyes glazed with even more tears still unshed, it's hard for him to imagine sacrificing himself. Either himself or his entire life with her. Though he knows in his heart that the words of the alien are true and knows that his life is as nothing beside that of the future's fate, he knows that he cannot embrace it until he is sure there is no other option.

“But--” There is a flash of realization in Daniels eye's as he turns on the bear man, anger falling from his words as his hands fall from Ester's shoulders and ball into fists. “You say this is not the first time they have tried to take our planet. If we stop them now, who is to say this will come to pass later still? You would have me lose my life, my past and future, my everything, for nothing! So that they might do it all again, years from now.”

“Please, Daniel, there is more at work here than you know. There is--”

“No!” Shouting now, his shoulders tense, Daniel cannot stop himself. “I am tired of this life you Angels and aliens, whatever you creatures may be have put upon me. There is always more to what is going on than what I know and I cannot trust it any longer. You ask the sacrifice of me but you give so little reason.”

“The city you saw? The visions of the future I showed you, that is too little reason?”

“It is too little for me to loose what is left of my life. Too have stricken from history the life I've led until now. To lose not just my life, but my life. To lose it all, even,” he pauses and sees his wife once more. “Ester.”

Gripping her hand tightly he glances toward her eyes and sees she is crying softly and silently once more. There is an understanding there and he is glad that she is silent. If she were to speak again it would make this even more difficult than it is. Make it harder to stay even as rational as he is now.

“Listen to me.” Mordechai's words are crisp from the machine as they reach ears that no longer wish to listen. “If you can stop them now there is hope. The Host, and more importantly Enoch has already spent much resources and time on this world. They will not do this indefinitely. We can make this world more trouble than they are willing to tolerate.”

“So that is it? That is our hope?” Laughing ruefully Daniel stares into the alien's eyes. “The only hope of the human race is to inconvenience your Angels until they leave? To be pests? You would have me die a pest?”

“But there are the Watchers now, trying to stop them too, as there were not before.”

“And you all are so helpful that you need me to die. You who are so powerful you cannot stop the Angels without my help? You helpless Watchers will fix things in the future?”

“Daniel, we are fixing things right now, if you will let us.”

“No,” Ester speaks to the bear as if he is a demon appeared in their home, seeking to be exorcised. “You ain't doing nothing but torturin' an old man who needs to be left alone. Why can't you get out of here!”

“Ester. . .”

“Please humans, we must stop this, there is not much time! We cannot argue this any--”

Break

Standing before the Angel once again, its human head speaking to him first, his words sweet but with force behind them, “We have abandoned you for many of your years, and now you would work with the Fallen against us.”

Daniel struggles to speak but it's as if his mouth is sewn shut and he cannot respond.

The Lion speaks to him next and his voice is angry and grating, “You will not speak back to a God, human. That you seek to defy us leaves you worthy of destruction.”

Phrasing his thoughts as if he is speaking to the monster, Daniel coalesces them into a strong voice, hopeful that they might see inside his mind. But you still need me because you are too weak to do this on your own.

And the angel explodes in a burst of light, casting Daniel down on the floor in a heap, warm light covering him in a soft layer of pain. In the place where the Angel stood, there is now a hovering light, like a cloud of fog infused with starlight. He can sense that it is sentient and somehow he knows that it is examining him. The words are in his mind as it speaks, and they are fluent Danish, more fluent than he has heard since his childhood.

The Fallen seek to lead you astray but you are more wise than those others of your race. We did well to find you as a vessel for this world it seems. You have seen the future with the betrayer, Malachai.

The words are not so much a question as a statement as Daniel knows that they can read his memories now, even as he tries to keep his true thoughts shielded. Yes, he has shown me your plans for my world.

And you found them terrible because you do not understand. The world you saw, painted as a wasteland by that one, was in fact a paradise. After the Rapture, it will be as your people have longed for, if you will allow it.

Even inside his mind Daniel is laughing as the entity speaks to him. Allow it? As if you've given us a choice?

The cloud speaks in a single voice that holds traces of the Angel's four, but still is strange. You, Ezekial, you have a choice. Know that there is a future for you after the Rapture, in our paradise. We will record the mind of your human self as you die and store it for the future. We will bring you back, and whoever else you choose, and you will live forever.

. . .Ester? Before he can stop himself the words form and he knows they are a mistake. The honeyed words of the Angel cannot be anything but lies and he knows this, but . . .

Yes. Your Ester with you for all eternity. By the side of us, your Gods.

Gods? Daniel looks down at his hands, or as they seem to be his hands in this world, and he sees the wrinkles there. Turning them over and examining them he sees the liver spots that have begun to appear on his skin which has become thin and like leather. He sees the last few years of his life in pain as Ester watches him die, knowing that she will outlive him and move on. He thinks of the years he's spent finding those wrinkles on his hands and he remembers that Mordechai would have him lose them. Mordechai.

No. If what you say is true and this world you give is a paradise, then why the Watchers? Why Mordechai? Why would they try so hard to stop you?

The words that course through Daniel's head, coming straight from the being before him, are like shouts that wash his thoughts away. The ones you call the Watchers, and the one called Mordechai with them, are fallen from the grace we offered. They are not worthy and they are not accepting of being led by their Gods. You will not listen to the Fallen. You must not.

No! Fighting against the force of the being's thoughts, Daniel screams inside his own mind and pushes against the words of the being inside his mind.

I will listen to myself.

Shatter