We walked for a long time after the car crash incident. I found the road that would lead me back to my home, which was just a long 40 mile stretch. Obviously, Raphael followed me, but her face wasn't fierce like it was before. It seemed like she couldn't shake off that tiredness.

So I asked, "Do you get tired?"
"I don't need sleep," she replied.
"Yeah, but what about rest? You don't look... good..."
She looked like she had no desire to respond.
Guilt crept up into me. I'm not even sure why I felt guilty, but I did.
"Is... is there something I could do to help?"
She opened her mouth, much like how she attempted to speak to me for the first time.
But this time, no noises came out. She just closed her lips again.
"Let's keep going," she said.

For about ten hours we walked in silence. I only knew it was ten hours because I had the mind to check my phone.
It hit me like a truck to realize my feet weren't achy after walking for such a long time.
I thought it may have been something about being near Raphael, but I wasn't going to disturb her.
She looked even more tired than before.
The sun began to set deep into the horizon, and instead of body pains, I was first met with exhaustion.
I didn't want to think about trying to sleep in the wilderness without camping gear.

We ended up finding an abandoned car, a little gray sedan.
I really didn't like looking at it though, as it looked very similar to one that was part of a massive pile of cars from the incident earlier in the day.
Raphael reassured me in a monotone voice, "It is safe. There is no danger here for now."
I nodded and slowly approached the car. I found that it was unlocked, and the interior was not in a foul condition.

I got within the driver's seat and sighed all the stress of the day out.
I kept my eyes closed for a good minute before realizing that Raphel never stepped into the car.
Was she just waiting outside?
I opened my eyes to see her sitting on the passenger seat, looking blankly out the windshield.

"I didn't even hear the door open," I said. "Can you teleport too?"
She looked down before staring back to the windshield. "No, I get to places in a different way."
Confusion hit me senselessly again, but I've gotten tired of asking questions.
I prioritized closing my eyes and trying to drift to sleep.
But after some minutes Raphael spoke without any preface, "Do you wonder what it is like to walk the Sahara desert without water?"
"I think it would be torture," I said after a second of contemplation.
"What if you couldn't die?"

"But I would die," I said frankly.

Raphael kept silent for a long time after that, but then continued with a different topic.
"Angels cannot die."
This didn't make any sense. We had a whole conversation about her dying ten hours ago. She said she was the last one.
"Then, why are you scared of dying? Where did the rest of the angels go?"
Raphael sounded even more tired and drained, "I don't know..."

"An angel can feel the whole of existence.
An angel can feel the crashing of waves, the radiance of the sun, and the heartbeat of a newborn child all at the same time. Even if the sensations are slight.
Angels can feel each other's presence too.
One by one, from great distances, I felt their presences disappear from the world.
I searched for them throughout the surface of the Earth, and the depths of the oceans, and the expanse of the cosmos."
I never found them again."

I layed on the seat, eyes wide open staring at the ceiling of the car. I did not have any words to say. I don't think anything I could say would compare to the things she just told me. But I couldn't stop thinking about the one thing she probably wanted to tell me, but couldn't. That perhaps her angelic kin abandoned her.

She took a long moment to say anything else. "Please do a task for me," she said calmly.
"Okay."
"Please close your eyes."
I did as she asked.

After a moment she said, "Tree." And did not speak for some time after that. I was confused.
"Why did you say tree?"
"Please don't speak," she said.
"Fine." I could see a quick shift in brightness behind my eyelids.
It was likely one of her strange bright flashes again.
"Tree." She repeated. I accepted her strange chant.
"Tree... Tree... Tree..." She said with the same dull tone.
"Ant... Ant..."
I was intrigued by her sudden shift in words, but I stood silent.
"Ant... Ant..."
I wondered if she saw me as an ant.
I saw another subtle flash of light.
"Bread... Bread... Bread... Bread..."
Bread sounded delicious. In my mind I could almost taste the delicious gluten webbing of a good slice of white bread.
I could envision myself slowly tearing a single piece of white bread while analyzing each strand of baked dough split apart.
I became confused as to why I was imagining bread so vividly.
"Waves... Waves... Waves... Waves..."
I saw the churning of ocean waves crashing and sounding out across the expanse of a beach.
I saw light waves emanating from a light bulb, with each speck of light dancing and singing its own specific tune.
I saw the little fluctuations between the metals of two tuning forks. The first was sounding off while the other wobbled down before ricocheting at the base back up to the prong only for the next sound wave to meet up with that same travelling force of power in perfect timing.
I had this strange feeling that my thoughts were being observed.
"City... City... City... City..."
A metropolis bounded before me. Skyscrapers were built on top of other skyscrapers. They stretched into the sky so far that they were reduced to points of zero size. I could hear the ambience of walking, exhausts from cars, and the footsteps and occasional clamor of people nearby, but when I looked around, the streets were completely empty.
Then I felt this strange sensation. It was like a high pitched buzzing in my head that had been there for all my life was suddenly changed. The buzzing's pitch dropped from my head into a deep hum within my abdomen.
"Void... Void... Void... Void..."
I was surrounded by nothingness.
It was a vast expanse.
In the absence of everything, only echoing murmurs could be heard.
I felt my thoughts slowly drain away from my head. Then suddenly...
There was nothing...



"Small wooden stool..." Raphael's voice sounded out within my mind. I saw a small wooden stool. In fact it was all I could think about.
"Please sit on the stool."
I suddenly had a body. I walked from a random spot from nowhere and sat on the stool.
"Golden, Vermillion Door."
A door with a rich, red-orange color was there. Maybe it was always there. It had beautiful, elegantly carved crescents, symbols and borders.
I felt like I had seen the patterns before.
Then the door creaked open. Out spilled vibrant light, both full of color and pure white. I couldn't explain the view if I tried.
The door opened more before my vision was flooded with this spectral vibrance.
Then it closed. My sight had a blind spot within the center of my vision.
The blind spot obscured most of what stepped through the door, but I could sort of make out Raphael's conical shape.
I couldn't see more than that, no matter how much I tried.

A small stool manifested from the nothingness as this blurry rendition of Raphael sat on it.
"Hello," the blob said.
"Hello." I replied back, but in the most neutral voice I could imagine. I'm not even sure if it was my own voice. I wasn't even physically saying it. It was more like my thoughts were being made audible.
"Do you know me?" Blob Raphael asked.
"Yes."

The blob kept silent for a long period of time, but I thought I heard a strangely soft, high-pitched noise for a split second.

"Why are you here?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"Where are you?"
"Nowhere."
"Will you return?"
"No."

Then after a very long time of silence, the hum in my stomach resonated louder.

"What is your name?" she said. Her voice somehow echoed out through multiple dimensions, but it was clear to understand.
The question forced me to use my brain. I had to struggle to pull the thought out of my mind.
"Jonah..." I said correctly.
She sat there behind my blind spot for a lingering moment.
"I will ask again, what is your name?"
It was Jonah, wasn't it?
I tried pulling information again. This time, my efforts reached into information from somewhere different. And something unexpected came out of me.
"F-Fyodor"
I felt a presence reach out towards me. I kept imagining it like a hand outstretched. It twisted the thoughts within my mind.
"Young?" I said hesitantly.
Another twist within my mind, this time it hurt like an aching piercing into my head.
"Roman!"
Then the voice flooded every part of the space surrounding us, speaking with a sacred power.
"What is your real name?"
I knew immediately that the question is one that was never meant to be asked.
That feeling deep in the pit of my stomach resonated more and more and rose up and out of my throat.
I kept my lips shut. I didn't know why I didn't want to say it, but I knew I couldn't. It wasn't meant to be said, the words aren't supposed to be heard.
She wringed a final twist on my mind and a final pang of pain seized my will, my lips slipped open and I said A-


∃∃∃∃∃∃∃ ∃∃∃∃∃∃∃ ∃∃∃∃∃∃∃ ∃∃∃∃∃∃∃ ∃∃∃∃∃∃∃ ∃∃∃∃∃∃∃ ∃∃∃∃∃∃∃


I found myself staring upwards into the clear sky. I was laying on smoldering dirt.
I'm not sure how I got here, but my head was being held in Raphael's arms, like I was the main character dying in a movie's final scene.
She was looking at me, with absolute concern, like she was the one that killed me.

"Raphael?" I asked quietly.
"I-" she couldn't start a sentence. Her mood and expression didn't seem to fit right for someone who had been so stoic and monotone since the moment I met her.
"Are you okay?"
It was unsettling as she stared straight at me with a growing frown, very unlike her usual scowl.
"I'm sorry." Her voice remained absolutely flat.
"What?"
Tears like golden ichor quietly and freely flowed from her tightly shut eyes down her pale face.
"I had to know," she said quietly.
"Know what?"

All she said was, "I'm so sorry."