One more soul left to go - and yet it didn't matter, for my presence was immediately called back to their realm. The sensation was still new, as I felt myself get pulled out of my body and dropped into a field of golden flowers.
BLK: Why was I called here earlier than expected..?
Gabriel was the only one present with me, as he sat a couple of meters across on the same patch of flowers, smelling them and running his fingers across their petals. The golden blooms swayed without wind, each petal catching light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. This place existed between moments, in the spaces where time forgot to count.
GBR: You fulfilled your duty, old friend.
His gaze was calm as always, as he rested his hands on the ground and pushed himself onto his feet, before reaching his palm out and offering to help me get up. There was something different about him now - a completeness that hadn't been there before. As if finding the souls had restored something he'd lost long ago.
BLK: We're still missing one more virtue, aren't we?
He pats my head, as if I was a student to him, and not the other way around, but I suppose that's how things are when you ascend to godhood. His touch carried warmth that had nothing to do with temperature, the kind of comfort that reaches straight through to the bones.
GBR: No need to worry about her.
BLK: Her..?
With a fluid motion, Gabriel waves his hand across the air and a faint vision washes past me, an image of a stunning and gentle figure with the soul of a saint. She stood in what looked like a hospital ward, tending to the dying with hands that glowed with soft silver light. But her eyes held depths of sorrow that spoke of bearing every pain she'd ever tried to heal.
BLK: I see, the soul that is worthy of being the virtue of compassion still hasn't descended into our world.
GBR: Precisely. She exists in potential, waiting for the right moment. The right circumstances. Compassion cannot be hunted or collected - it must choose to manifest on its own.
BLK: In that case, what'll I do now?
GBR: You can return to your previous life, but I doubt it'll be the same as you left it, 74 years ago.
Seventy-four years. Nearly a human lifetime had passed while I chased souls across continents. The world I'd left behind was ash and memory now. Everyone I'd known, dead or aged beyond recognition. The places I'd called home, transformed or demolished. I was a ghost returning to haunt a world that had forgotten my name.
BLK: Time flies.
GBR: Even more when you're on a fuse.
BLK: You know about that?
The question slipped out before I could stop it. My condition - the slow leak of existence that made every moment precious because there were only so many left. I'd hidden it well, but apparently not well enough.
GBR: A father should know all about his children.
There's that part again, and I doubt he'll stop saying it anytime soon, but I don't blame him - The strongest being in the universe sees everything as his children, even if they're older. Even if they're dying by degrees, unraveling like a poorly woven tapestry.
BLK: I'll stick around as a wanderer once more.
The words came out steadier than I felt. What else was there? I'd spent so long defining myself by the hunt that without it, I was just a fading echo looking for something to bounce off of.
GBR: You won't regret it, phantom judge.
BLK: Still calling me that?
GBR: I have a feeling you'll grow fond of it.
BLK: Is that a prediction, or a statement?
GBR: Whichever you like.
BLK: sigh Can't stand you future-seers.
I let my legs fall as I aim to drop back into my body, but before I could, Gabriel grabs me by the collar and hands me a journal. The leather was worn smooth, edges softened by handling. It smelled of ink and time and something that might have been regret.
GBR: One more thing before you go.
BLK: Another favor?
GBR: Consider it more as a payment.
BLK: Give me that.
Snatching the journal from his hands, Gabriel lets go and I fall backwards, but also forwards, again the feeling I'll probably never get used to, as I find myself back in my own body, with the journal in hand. The transition was jarring - from the timeless perfection of the flower field to the weight and limitation of decaying flesh.
BLK: A book as payment, they're sure getting cheap.
It's bland, and not really worth a whole lot. The binding was simple brown leather, unmarked except for wear patterns that suggested frequent handling. Nothing ornate or obviously valuable. Just another journal in a world full of forgotten stories. Brushing the dust off the cover with my hands, I gently open the first page of the journal and read the title inscribed in careful script.
BLK: A gift from an old future to a new past.
Very philosophical title, but I still didn't get it... until I did - A journal from myself of a further time, a warning not to repeat the mistakes he did. What a fitting gift for a ghost with a leaking hourglass. The handwriting was unmistakably mine, but older somehow. More careful. As if each word had been chosen with the weight of experience behind it. The ink was faded but still legible, and as I turned the pages, I caught glimpses of entries that made my blood run cold. I closed the journal quickly, hands trembling slightly. The future was supposed to be unknown, unwritten. But here it was, laid out in my own handwriting like a roadmap to inevitability.
But endings, I was learning, were just beginnings wearing different clothes. The hunt was over, but the story continued. And somewhere in that journal was the blueprint for everything that came next. The golden flowers seemed to whisper agreement, though they were worlds away now. The real question wasn't what came next - it was whether I had the strength to change what my future self had written, or if I was doomed to trace the same paths he'd already walked. Only time would tell. And time, unfortunately, was something I was running out of.