Afterlife: Gabriel: Finding a Friend

[k_a_webb]

Written for livejournal user wyld_dandelyon’s random number prompt.

Promising Samael that he would make an effort was one thing. Actually finding a spirit he wanted to talk to was entirely different. Gabriel looked into the mirror, at the spirits walking around the afterlife, and found himself thinking about those he’d once been close to, before they’d started a new life. He sighed. Like all the angels his life had been full of goodbyes and dealing with the pain that came with watching his friends move on, forgetting him, had been… Difficult was an understatement, but it was the only word he could think of that came close. Some were better at coping that others, while he’d pulled away from the spirits of the afterlife in the same way that Samael had.

Gabriel watched a girl walk through one of the many parks, going to meet with another spirit. Being dead seemed so easy, even though he knew it wasn’t, and he wished he’d had a chance to try living life like a mortal. Instead he was an angel. An immortal being chosen to watch over the dead and the living for as long as there was sentient life in the universe. He did wonder what would happen to him when there was no more sentient life in the universe, whether there was an afterlife that followed for him, but it wasn’t going to happen for a very long time.

With one hand Gabriel rubbed his hand over his eyes. Staring at the mirror for hours on end didn’t get any easier as time went by. No one caught his eye as any different to the others. Samael, even if he didn’t appreciate it, had always had Death to talk to, Uriel was closer to the spirit guides that he really should be, and most of the other angels didn’t seem to be affected the same way Gabriel was. He’d been called weak before and he was, when he compared himself to the others. They did their duty the way they were meant to while he hid away, because he didn’t want to get close to someone he had to say goodbye to.

The picture changed to another area of the afterlife. Gabriel loved visiting several of the landscapes, even though he wasn’t really meant to, and he knew it he was going to find someone it would be at one of them. Most of the dead gathered together in the places that reminded them of home. They lived in family groups, even though they weren’t biologically family any longer, and they clung to the life they’d had, instead of embracing what the afterlife had to offer them. He needed to find someone who embraced their new world… and there he was.

Not thinking, because if Gabriel gave himself time to think he wouldn’t act, he travelled to the night garden. He didn’t appear too close to the spirit because startling him wouldn’t be the best way of starting their acquaintance. At the same time Gabriel needed to be close enough that the spirit realised he was there, otherwise speaking would startle him.

“Hi,” Gabriel said, hoping that he was doing the right thing.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.