Hello, Everyone! Okay, this chapter is dedicated to a recent reader of mine -- @alisa3232! Thank you for all of the reads and votes to the very end. I do greatly appreciate it.
And now, the conclusion to Flashback!
Abraham could not understand what was happening. Who was this stranger who had come to his shelter offering unthinkable ideas of 'power' and 'importance?' What did that mean?
Abe knew his life was different. He compared himself to the other children in town. Billy Robinson had a complete family, with two parents and two wonderful sisters, Judith and Penelope; Joe Young was strong and mighty, and could hit a baseball farther than anyone else in the neighborhood; Rebekah Thatcher was the smartest, prettiest and richest girl in town. They all had advantages, attributes and experiences he did not have. He accepted it though. He knew that his life was less than perfect.
I am nothing, Abe thought. He did not go to school anymore and did not know many of the other children. Most of what he learned was from television or helping Mr. Baldredge with handy work around town. On occasion, his foster parent would bring him to church service, but otherwise, Abe felt unsuitable in every other circumstance. And yet, not every foster kid found placement.
Power? Importance?
"What about Mr. Baldredge?" Abe asked the mysterious stranger.
"Foolish boy!" the menacing figure thundered.
To Abe, the stranger appeared even taller now. Darker. More threatening and imposing, in the way that he stood over and circled him, like a predator eyeing its prey.
"Have you no common sense? No gratitude for my offering? Stay then! Live in your poverty. The world has no need for your miserable little life. Live alone! Die alone! Afraid and forgotten!"
Alone? Forgotten?
Abe was overcome with thoughts of desolation and missed opportunity. "Forgive me, Sir!" he called out. "I don't know anything!"
The mysterious intruder smirked unseen. I have you now. He extended an arm and motioned for the boy to come closer.
Before Abe could do so, the heat in the room magically dissipated. The air became easier to breathe. The youth's shirt and pants became clean and were made whole. His grungy bed cover changed into a soft, silken blanket.
The boy looked about his changed room. His eyes were wide open and his mouth even wider. He held his hands at his chest, as if what he saw was not real and that he dare not touch it. Who was this strange gentleman that could take him out of his poverty so easily?
"Join me, Abram, and everlasting power can be yours!"
The boy smiled in wonderment and nodded in acceptance. He reached for the ominous figure.
The old man took off his hat and opened his arms. Like a shepherd finding his lost sheep, he welcomed the boy to a new life. He hugged him in a gentle, extended embrace.
I am loved, Abe thought and forgot everything else around himself.
Out of view, however, the sinister stranger opened his mouth and exposed his sharp teeth. He plunged them into the base of the youth's neck.
The boy tried to pull away, but the stranger's grasp only tightened. Tighter and tighter, like a boa constrictor, until the boy lost resistance and his stature weakened. A draining coolness came over him, and he felt dizzy.
The dark figure abruptly released the boy to the floor.
Reeling, stumbling, he fell. Abe looked at the cloaked figure with foggy uncertainty. He could not speak. He reached up at his neck and felt the pain of an unfamiliar injury. Blood at his fingertips.
The dark stranger tore open his own wrist, creating a bleeding wound that dripped and ran down the extent of his arm. He offered Abraham a taste of eternity.
The boy stared in horror, transfixed at the stranger's cut wrist. Bright red blood pulsated with life.
Again, the dark figure encouraged the boy to join him and drink.
The boy took the stranger's forearm and bit into the open wound. Immediately, he became submerged in a warm intoxication of red wine and water. Blissfulness.
Out of nowhere, a second figure -- surrounded by a blinding white light -- burst upon the repulsive scene, interrupting the transfiguration.
"Be gone, bastion of Hell!" the second figure commanded.
The second stranger was a magnificent winged man, beautiful, with curly blond hair. He wore a long, flowing white gown, tied off with a golden rope around his waist. He carried a gleaming silver sword, and held it high in the air, as if holding a torch of light and hope in the darkness.
The villainous old man regressed into a lesser being, darker and thinner, hissing and screeching. His hat, cloak and outer clothing disappeared, leaving him near-naked and exposing his stick-like frame. So thin, he looked like a skeleton in skin, with a revealing skull and deep-set, sunken eyes. A pair of black wings unfurled from his back in a ferocious display. He spat at the second stranger and hissed once again.
"You are too late, archangel!"
The boy, fearing for his life, closed his eyes and covered his ears. He rolled himself into a ball.
The archangel floated into the room. He pointed his mighty sword at the evil creature, and without taking a swing, forced the creature away from the boy.
"Too late, too late!" the evil being gloated. He stepped lightly and jigged about in open space. "He has already drank my blood and chosen eternity!"
"Wretched demon!" the angel declared. "Have you no meaningfulness but to prey on the young, the innocent and the poor? Be gone now, or feel the finality of my sword!"
The hellion snickered and looked at the boy with puckered lips. Without a moment further, he turned and disappeared out of the room in a cloud of heavy smoke.
The angel lowered his weapon and turned to the sobbing boy.
"I am lost!" the boy cried.
"Do not despair, young one. God will take care of you."
The angel turned the boy's face aside and examined the boy's wounds. Dual punctures still bled from the creature's bite. He looked into the boy's crying eyes.
"God has a purpose for you."
A purpose?
"Arise, young one," the angel commanded. "From henceforth, thou shall be knownst as 'Alessandro,' Defender of man, Protector of man."