“Am I dead?” I ask him finally, unable to look him in the eye. “Did I die?”
Michael hesitates, as if unsure how to answer. Or as if he doesn’t want to answer. “It’s close,” he finally says. “It’s going to be up to you, I think. You have been tested greatly, Benji. But it is not over. Not yet.”
“Why me?” I say, wiping my face. “Why is he doing this to me? What does he want?”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
He sighs. “My Father.”
I say nothing.
He gestures to the chair next to him. “Sit, Benji.”
I almost say no just to be defiant, but I don’t have the energy. The glaring white of the room is starting to give me a headache, and I can’t stop my eyes from traveling to the burnt outline of the shadow on the wall. It looks so small.
I nod once and sit in the chair next to Michael. It’s surprisingly soft, and I sink into it. “What is this place?” I ask him.
“The room?”
I nod.
“It’s… hmm. Well, to be honest, Benji, I don’t know what this room is, not exactly. It exists for moments such as these, when an individual needs to hear something or learn something that may be hard for them to understand, to point them in a direction they never thought possible. But that’s really all I know. I don’t know how it came to be or why certain people are able see it. Like you have.”
“What does that have to do with me?” I ask, pointing at the child’s outline on the wall.
He watches me for a moment, rubbing his chin. “Nothing,” he says finally. “Or at least I don’t think it does. Though,” he says, frowning, “I don’t know why it’s still there. This room usually resets each time it’s used. Do you remember when I told you about the darkness rising, spilling over from another plane of existence?”
“Yes.” With people who could manipulate earth and water. Fire and wind.
“Time moves… differently over there, compared to the other levels. Sometimes it slows, other times it speeds up, but it never matches anywhere else. Guardians aren’t allowed there, at least not of the angel variety, and it’s run by a being that thinks Itself a god. Even the God, though I hope It hasn’t sunk that far. A false deity is a terrible thing and can only lead to an ending constructed of a wave of fire.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That image, that burnt image of a child, was meant for a man named Seven who might be the key to not only saving his world, but the ones on every level above and below him.”
“Who is the child?”
Michael closes his eyes. “One who has the power for great destruction growing within him. It remains to be seen what side he will choose. In the end, though, the boy will burn. We just don’t know how.”
“I don’t understand what this has to do with me,” I say hoarsely.
“Indeed,” Michael says, quirking his eyebrow. “But here we are, nonetheless, in the White Room, as it’s called. Only a few have come here and even fewer have left with an understanding of why they’ve come here. While it’s meant to show a being the way, it usually ends up offering only confusion.”
“What about Seven?” I ask, almost rolling my eyes at the name. “Did he leave understanding?”
“I hope so, for all our sakes,” Michael says. “But let us focus on other matters for now. You, in particular. Do you know why you’re here?”
I hazard a guess. “I was shot?”
“Yes, yes, but why were you shot?”
“Griggs had a gun pointed at me, and he pulled the trigger.”
Michael sighs. “There is that, yes.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Did you know this was going to happen? When you touched him? Did you know?”