There are forty people in the church. Normally, there aren’t nearly this many people here on a Wednesday evening. The Reverend suspects that people have come after hearing about the school shooting. They’re here looking for peace and for meaning. Tonight, they’ll get what they are seeking.
“Today, there was a terrible tragedy,” the Reverend says. He has his sermon prepared. Membership to the church has been dwindling. Soon the congregation may die. The Reverend wants to try and pull them in. These people are part of his community, he wants to draw them together so that they can gain strength from each other.
The Reverend doesn’t get very far into his sermon when he sees something very strange enter the room. It almost looks divine. “What is that?” the Reverend asks.
The whole congregation turns to see a little ball of light float through the church. It floats down the aisle.
The ball of light is replaced by a man. At first the switch lasts only a fraction of a second, so brief one could miss it if they blinked at the wrong moment. Then the man lingers longer, walking at the same pace the orb had moved.
“I am a messenger of God,” the man says. God is the name by which Humans have come to know the purest of the light. “I am here to bring you peace.”
It’s strange for a holy man to face a direct manifestation of the divine. So long had the Reverend preached of faith. Now he doesn’t need faith. Now proof is standing right in front of him.
The Reverend falls to his knees.
“I am Petrus,” the man says. “I am here to show you the light. You have lived your lives trapped in a world of uncertainty, a world filled with change and chaos. I am here to set you free. I am here to show you the truth.”
Petrus’s energies are radiating through the crowd. They’re easy to convert. They’re here looking for the light. They want its peace. They want to be connected. They want bliss. So many of the souls are embracing Petrus.
The angel stands up in front of the congregation and starts to draw their energy into himself. Some of the souls freely flow from their bodies to merge with Petrus’s light, drawn to Petrus like moths to a flame. Other souls need prompting.
Petrus looks down at the Reverend kneeling beside him. For a man of God, he’s having a great deal of trouble finding the light. He’s trying too hard to embrace the light. You can’t force the light into your soul, you need to let go and let it fill you. Petrus reaches out and touches the Reverend’s head.
“Let go,” Petrus says. “Do not worry, peace will come.”
One by one, Petrus brings peace to the souls in the church and embraces them into his being. One by one, the bodies become lifeless shells until there’s only one body still moving. It’s a child.
Petrus walks over to the child. The little boy is screaming. His mind is in chaos, but he is young. The noise the boy is making offends him and so the angel reaches out and covers the boy’s mouth. The boy is still young and innocent. It’s easy to bring peace to his mind, but the peace is only temporary, as long as his soul is trapped inside its mortal shell, chaos is inevitable.
Petrus tries to free the boy from this world, but it isn’t working. The young soul is stuck to the body. So he goes about freeing the boy in another way.
He takes his free hand and wraps it around the back of the boys head. With hands on both sides of the boy’s head, he is able to free the child’s soul with a single crushing motion.