The truth is, I know who you are and what you will become.

Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Gifted Ones
Current Date: December 12, 2023

Character: Gabriel Preadon
Race: Angel
Age: 26, physically about 20
Current residence: Hawaii
 

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I don’t like to think about my before-life. When I do, I end up thinking about my brother and I worry about what mom might still be doing to him. I worry about whether or not he’s still okay and alive, and doing well. I still don’t fully understand why I’m here and how I made it here, but these are all things that I know I have no control over, so I try not to think about it all too much.

I don’t know that I do dream about what life was like before. It was hell in and of itself and waking up here, and finding William not long after, was just the sweetest blessing I could ever find.

Now and again, though, I know I do dream about that before-life because I remember what I was dreaming about. It’s uncommon and I don’t much care to think about it but the most recent dream, of which, like everything else, I can only remember a snippet, has me just so confused because it felt real. Because the things that did happen in that dream remind me of a lot of what was going on through my mind when I was in that drug haze due to mom.

It was common closer to the end of my days before everything spiralled and I came to be here. In that haze, I would often see a humanoid shape, a shape I couldn’t confirm as being male or female. It was tall, slim and soft if I can even say that. It wasn’t human, I guess? The shape itself was mostly made of soft light most of the time, which is why I know my brain still thinks of it as being soft.

The voice that came from the shape was just as gentle and soft, but it was still of an unknown gender. I don’t know why I felt the need to cling to the idea of determining its gender back then; my brain was in a haze most of the time, my body was failing me, and I had nothing else to do. I didn’t want to think about what was happening to me in the real world, so focusing on what was right in front of my hallucinating eyes made sense.

The voice would often tell me that it knew who I was, and what I would become. It was the truth as far as it was aware, and it had never been wrong. I remember trying to ask questions, I remember wanting to know more about this potential future it knew for me that I didn’t know for myself. Would I be saved from this hell? Would I be with William again? Would we have our happily ever after?

Because sure, I might have been drugged out of my mind and used as a test subject, but I knew that William meant the world to me, even in that haze. I wanted little more than to be with him forever and a day. Be with him and save both myself and my brother from this hell.

The dream was fairly similar, except the figure in that dream was much smaller than I remembered it being. It was more defined with curls that felt so familiar, and I could even see those beautiful eyes and they were all just so familiar that it’s what woke me with a start. By that point, the figure had already reminded me of the things it had always told me while I was in that haze but there still had been something different.

Different, to the point that I spent a long time, after waking up, trying to understand why the figure in my dream had felt so familiar. Even now, I don’t know why it does, but I’ve come to a different realization, and I don’t know how to handle the knowledge.

I don’t remember what my brother looked like. I can look at my reflection in the mirror all I want, but I don’t see my brother in me, and I don’t recall what he looked like at all. It’s not that I’ve set him aside and forgotten all about him since I’ve come here, furthest from. I think about him every so often, but I guess that I mostly remember the hell we’ve been through and his voice to a point, but I don’t remember what he looks like at all.

Coming to this realization hurts. I don’t want to forget how he looks. However, I suppose this is no different than forgetting how anyone else looks once they’re no longer in your life for any length of time. I have nothing here that belonged to him, I suppose that this is one of those things with dying; you don’t get to keep souvenirs.

All I can do is remember the thought of him and do so fondly.

Final Word Count: 818

There’s something in that house. Something… strange. Or is there?

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Gifted Ones
Characters: Gabriel Preadon
Race: Angel
Age: 24, physically about 20
Current residence: Hawaii
Final Word Count: 845 words
 

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It’s been a year and a half, I still miss Josie. I think I would miss her a little less if I didn’t have to take care of her garden still. At this point, though, I know that it’s technically not even her garden anymore. I do know that a week or so after her passing, my boss reached out to me again with a new contract for the garden group. That contract took me right back to Josie’s house and I think that if I’d been anyone else and if I’d had my heart truly set on it, I would have told my boss that I couldn’t take that contract.

My boss knew how hard it had been for me to deal with Josie’s deteriorating health and rather sudden death. While she had been little more than a client in the eyes of everyone else, she had been a woman who had felt like a grandmother to me, and I’d seen her every week. This had been hard.

When I knocked on that door, just a week later, the young man who answered me looked relieved. He said that they’d just moved in and that they didn’t know how to take care of anything that was in the yard. I told him that I’d been taking care of the yard and garden for a long time at this point and that I would keep it exactly as it had been unless he mentioned that he wanted something different.

A brief look passed over his face, but it was gone quickly enough. He told me that if there were any changes, it would be his girlfriend who would decide but they’d let me know if there was anything that needed doing.

So, okay, sure. I went back every other week, in their case. They seemed to think that the grass didn’t need done every week and I didn’t argue. It was easier to do it every week, it was long after two weeks without being mowed and it wasn’t as though my being there once a week cost them more, they were on a monthly contract and unless there was a huge excess of work to be done, the fee was exactly the same at all times.

I only met his girlfriend about three months later. I’d been pruning one of the garden beds when she came outside. She looked like she hadn’t slept well in days. I knew that look because I was used to seeing it on certain other clients’ faces. I didn’t say anything, though. I just minded my business and took care of the flower beds until I felt her shadow near mine.

Now, part of being a good little worker bee is to not bother the clients unless they talk to you first, so I waited.

I didn’t have to wait very long, it took only a few moments before she quietly asked me if I’d ever been inside the house before. I had, but just briefly, whenever Josie would be getting me these cookies she always made. Not that I gave her those details, I kept my answers short and to the point. I almost startled when she asked me if I’d ever felt anything odd in that house.

As far as I can tell from this couple, they’re pretty much humans through and through. I don’t know whether or not they might have gifts, though. I remember that I finished the pruning and then moved to stand. I always forget that I’m actually stupidly tall. I think that it slips my mind because I’m just, I don’t know. I’m still, at times, caught in brief memories of the past when my mother would use me as her guinea pig and I felt so beaten down most of the time that I felt small then, too.

So once I realized that I towered over her—her boyfriend hadn’t been much shorter than I was—it made me blink and her eyes went owlishly wide. It made me smile a little. I’m a big lamb and once people get over the height thing, they must see it in my face or in the way I hold myself because she relaxed seconds later, too.

I did give her question a bit of thought before I found myself shrugging. I don’t know that I’d ever felt something in the house. I hadn’t been in there since Josie had passed. In a way, it made me wonder if Josie wasn’t sticking around a little but that wouldn’t have been fair for her. She should have been able to move on without any issues, is the way I saw this.

My answer seemed to be enough for the woman, though. She only sighed, excused herself and went back inside.

I haven’t really seen her since. They do still live in the house, and I do still take care of everything every other week, but I barely see either of them, in the end. I knock, he tells me to go ahead, and that’s that.

I really can’t say I know who you are, anymore.

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Gifted Ones
Characters: Gabriel Preadon
Race: Angel
Age: 23, physically about 20
Final Word Count: 718 words
 

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I’m not going to lie; I’ve befriended a few of the clients I’ve worked for over the years. In some cases, I’m there nearly weekly so I guess you could say that it makes sense that I do sort of befriend these people. In some other cases, while I’m there nearly weekly, I still would rather eat hot coals over befriending the clients in question because they’re exhausting to be around and they’re never happy with the services provided for their garden care.

Now, one of these clients was a sweet elderly woman named Josie. Josie always seemed to perk up when I’d be knocking at her door to tell her that I was there for her garden. She always had cookies to give me for ‘my trouble’ and I spoke to one of her sons a couple of years ago and he told me that she was just a lonely woman who loved to give to others so I didn’t argue.

A few months back, however, her behaviour started to change. When I’d knock on the door, she’d come but she’d look at me as though she didn’t know who I was. I would tell her I was there to see to her garden and she’d just look even more lost. It was only after I spoke with her son the first week following that behaviour that he told me that she’d been diagnosed with dementia and that her memory was slowly slipping away from her.

It was heartbreaking; I felt like she very well could have been my grandmother and to see her fade away little by little every week was hard to take. Just last week, when I went to knock, there was a whole slew of cars in her driveway and along the street. I almost backtracked but I was expected and I went. I knocked.

It was a woman I had never met who answered the door. She was all sharp angles and frowning eyes. I asked her if I could please speak with Josie and she gave me this look as though I’d asked her to bite into a lemon. Josie’s son came to the door once the woman barked for him and he took me outside. He told me that Josie had passed in her sleep, an unexpected development as they’d been working on getting her into a sort of hospice. I excused myself, telling him that I would let my boss know about her passing but he asked me to wait and disappeared off inside.

A few minutes later, he was back outside with a heavy bag full of cookies. He told me that it was likely she’d baked them just the evening prior, they’d still been warm when they went to check on her in the late evening. There had been a note with my name next to it and I suppose it might have been one of her last few lucid moments.

I know that she couldn’t really remember me anymore. She didn’t know who I was and it hurt to be forgotten but I can only imagine what her own flesh and blood must have felt like when her memory slowly slipped from within her grasp and left.

I wish I could have seen her one last time. I didn’t ask to know when the funerals would be, I don’t think there are going to be any. Not if I take into account that it seemed as though everyone was already there.

It wasn’t easy, bringing all of these cookies back home but I managed. I managed, I made it inside, I set them on the counter and I started crying so hard that Will heard me from the garage where he was working and came to see what it was all about. She was the first person I think I’d really befriended and then lost. The aching despair I felt was surreal and I’m still not even sure why it bothered me as much as it did. Though I guess that’s a lie, I know exactly why it affected me the way it did.

My mother never treated me the way Josie did and the thought of her no longer being there was hard to handle. It still is hard to handle. I’m getting better, though.

As much fun as I’m having disagreeing with you, we have things to do.

 
Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Almost Timeless
Characters: Gabriel Preadon
Race: Angel
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 600 words
 

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The life I had before I died was a mess. I’m not sure it could even really be called a life. It was a series of shots and trials, it was me being a guinea pig for my mother. At first, it was against my will, it always was. I was just a kid who couldn’t understand what was going on. When I was old enough to know better, I offered myself willingly to her but only so I could keep my baby brother safe. He didn’t deserve to feel the hell I was going through.

Had I known that, following my less than accidental death, our mother would keep on testing her things through him, I would have done everything in my power to come back from the dead and take his place again. However, the powers that be had other ideas in mind and it wasn’t meant to be. It’s not even until really recently that I learned about what she still had been doing—at least until he was swept away from that hell too. I don’t have any more news as far as my brother is concerned and it might be for the best, I would likely be tempted to try and find him, tell him that I’m fine… mostly. Because you know, dying and then being reborn as an angel is being completely fine.

This life I led, I know it left marks on me and it tends to dictate my behaviour somewhat.

I don’t like being surrounded by too many people at once and I don’t do well in the ‘talk to people’ department. I’d rather just focus on what I’m doing and let someone else have to do the interacting. That might be why I’m so comfortable working in the gardens, tending to plants, giving them all that extra love they deserve. Plants don’t judge me and don’t force me to talk.

For about three months, up until a few weeks ago, I had been paired with someone else, though. I don’t know whose idea it was or why they thought it was a necessity but it turned out to be a nightmare. I think they might have thought it would help me grow a backbone but it had the opposite effect. Dave was constantly arguing with me. That being, he was arguing with himself because I refused to argue with him. I would give him the schedule for the day and he’d complain about everything needing to be done and I’d just pack up my stuff and get going.

Every time I started picking up my gear, he’d roll his eyes, mutter something about how, as much fun as he was having disagreeing with me, we had things to do. I only spared him a glance once and that poured more oil onto his idiotic fire. He made the days drag on and on until they were over.

He up and disappeared just as quickly as he came. There were no explanations, no nothing. He didn’t show up one morning for work. He didn’t show up the following day or the one after that and so on. I changed my schedule back around to what it had been before and it’s been blissfully quiet since. I really don’t know what the whole point of that situation was but I’m glad it’s over and done with, you can’t even begin to imagine how much I wanted it all to be over.

I didn’t hide it from Will either. Not that there was anything he could have done about it but he deserved to know.

I don’t care if it looks ridiculous; you gave them to me, so I want to wear them.

Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Almost Timeless
Characters: Gabriel Preadon
Race: Angel
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 525 words

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It doesn’t get cold here, not really. There still are nights when I get chilly though so I take to sleeping with light socks. I know the sight would likely amuse quite a few people but I don’t care, it makes me comfortable, so why should it bother me what people think? Really, what if I’m comfortable wearing nothing but my underwear and socks? At times, I think it’s not so much all of me that gets chilly so much as just my toes and my fingers and my nose, too. My extremities, I guess. So wearing just my boxer briefs and my socks is nice on the just barely cooler nights, it feels perfect.

The thing is though, I don’t like shopping. I’ve never been able to shop before in my life before it ended and I was given this sort of second chance. Shopping requires some talking to people and I don’t care much for doing that either. I do it for work because I have to because it’s a necessity but for food and clothes and the rest, I just don’t like having to talk to people, it’s one of those things, there’s no helping it.

So, two years ago, after a night during which I was constantly trying to tuck my very cold toes against William’s legs, I guess he decided that it was time to take matters into his own hands and he bought me a pack of socks. These socks, they’re the cutest things but they’re sort of ridiculous at the same time. I can’t begin to really explain it properly. I call them my ‘chomper’ socks because they look like animals chomping on my ankles. One of the sets is a tiger and there’s even some blood on the lower maws. It’s ridiculous but so cute I can’t help myself.

So sure, my wandering around in the evening, in our house, in nothing but the socks that are somewhat starting to wear down and my underwear might look ridiculous but he gave me these socks and I love them and my feet are warm so I’m going to keep on wearing them. No one can stop me from that.

It’s been tempting to get him matching socks but I know that I’d end up borrowing—okay, okay, stealing—them from him to wear them because I just so happen to think they’re sickeningly cute. I’m weird like that. The oddest yet simplest of things just stand out as ‘cute!’ to me and there’s no helping it. I don’t want to help it either, I’m that way and that’s that. I’m me and I know Will loves me exactly as I am so I’m not about to change, no siree.

I’ve tried a sweater with animal prints on it before and it didn’t quite have the same charm as the socks though so I guess it really is the socks and the prints on them because I don’t see myself wearing pants with similar prints or t-shirts. Underwear maybe but I’m also not too sure if I would or not. I guess I’d have to try, mostly. We’ll see.