Death is My BFFLAD Rewritten (Book 2 of the Rewritten Death Chronicles)

Chapter 7: Gabriel

That was easily the most Death ever open up to me and I was just...stunned. Stunned by his choice of presentation and the significance of his words. For a brief moment, I'd felt his sanity surface and my heart reached out to him. He joked too much and it didn't seem like it was all a big laugh to him at the end of the day. He'd saved me and protected me on multiple occasions. Was that justifying all the wrong that he'd done to me in the past? All the cruel things he'd said to me? He had so little redeemable factors about him and yet there I was, at war with myself.

We were so different. But no matter how much we pushed each other away, neither of us could, not wanted to, get rid of each other, and that much was true. I tolerated him because I could, like I was meant to, not because I was forced to, or because I was damaged. And that truth was never spoken out loud. It was only hinted between the things that we said, and the things we couldn't. It was felt in the silence that had placed us on the same spectrum. Maybe it was better left alone.

"Earth to Dweeb." Death waved his gloved hand over my features, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Did you hear anything I just said? It's time to mingle with Wizards of Waverly Place. Keep pace." Death stalked past me down the sidewalk, heading towards the muffled music. I started to follow in his footsteps, but paused as my eyes glued to a strange figure.

He was standing beneath the halo of a street lamp, a few buildings down from Ace's club, and wore a white cloak that was as thin as silk. As I stared at him, the stranger slowly pulled his hood away, revealing a too familiar face. Devin?

No, a male voice answered. Lucifer is my brother. I am Gabriel, Archangel of Heaven and Messenger of God.

There was a burst of light and an image pierced through the night, hazy, distorted, but familiar, like the lingering affects of a nightmare as it stains your mind even after your eyes are wide open. There he was in a silent vision that played before me. Devin, but not, dressed in the same white robe, except with gore and blood soiling his pure silk, like a crime scene left untouched. This was Gabriel. Snowy white wings uncurled from his back as his ice blue eyes remained trapped between terror and grief. Gabriel's hands were wet with blood as he grabbed me, but I couldn't feel anything, nor could I hear as he shouted muted words. I was trapped in someone's perspective. Deaths, the male voice answered again. I was Death, but he was different than he was now. His arms and hands were tan and bare, unmarked by black lines. His fingers violently, desperately clawed and gripped at Gabriel's bloodstained robes.

All at once, Death's hands, and the angel who was identical to Devin, was gone, and I was alone. I was alone in a golden palace that was much larger and intricate than anything I could ever imagine. When I looked down at my hands, they were my own, and there wasn't any blood or Death in sight.

Eyes wide open, I took in my surroundings. The walls were golden and decorated with art and mirrors. Past gorgeous balconies, staircases, and shelves and shelves of books, where a ceiling should have been, was night and day, which came together in a surreal kaleidoscope. I gawked up at white clear morning clouds, floating in a pool of sky-blue, and dusky stars drowning in midnight. The two times of the day twirled together in an impossible mixture of matter. And although it appeared more like an open skylight than a ceiling, at the center of the entire kaleidoscope madness, dangling from thin air, hung a golden chandelier with the finest crystals, which played with the light on the walls of the dreamlike palace.

Where am I? I'd meant to ask the question out loud and to myself, but my voice was mute.

You are in Limbo, the realm of memories and lost souls, Gabriel's voice replied, although he was nowhere to be seen. What you see now is an imitation of His Palace of Gold, on the day that Alexandru was stripped of his wings.