Malakhim Volume 6: The End of Everything

It's been too easy to get comfortable. Too easy to pretend that what we have will always go on the way that it is. Too easy to get complacent, too easy to lose sight of what's important. Old pains and new ones ache to remind us that everything ends. We do our best to keep that wisdom at bay.

There's someone out there who has never had that luxury. Someone who has no comfort, no room to pretend. Someone determined to put an end to everything, the moment he gets the chance. Someone for whom these years have been torment unending, who intends to visit that torment upon those who set it in motion. Fate is closing in on Ben. His time is running out.

Ben is faced with terrible realizations. Answers come unbidden, to questions Ben never wanted to ask. The impossible dream is ending, and Ben is confronted with just how impossible it was. It's hard to tell what's real anymore, in the pale light before morning. It's hard to face the rising sun, when it may be the last light you see. Did Ben really believe this could go on forever?

It could, though. With a little help, it could. There are blank pages left at the back of Ben's book. There's a chance for Ben to rewrite its end. Heaven can't always see Ben. It can't always predict him. It can't always stop him. Not when he's in the grips of the power he's been trying so hard to escape. That power will keep him alive at any cost. Any cost at all.

Ben's soul. An angel's immortal life. Are they too high a price to pay for an eternal, impossible dream? Can he convince himself that it's worth it? Do the ends really justify these means? Ben isn't sure. But there's something inside him that is. Something inside him that knows what it wants, and will do anything to make it happen. No matter who gets hurt, no matter what's destroyed. No cost is too high to a creature that values nothing. Nothing beyond what it wants.

Right now, what it wants is Ben.