“You will be judged with the rest of the human race… when the End comes,” Michael said. Fire from Heaven descended, setting a ring around the cell.
“May you consider what you’ve done and repent, for only El can help you now.” The last words were spoken, not to give the Watchers hope, but to make them understand that with the free will they’d been given, came dealing with the consequences of choices made.
I couldn’t handle watching the story unfold. I felt like I was reliving the most horrible experience of my existence.
Seth cleared his throat. “Watch, Athena. There is more.”
Michael, Raphael, and Uriel stood in the middle of the earth. Their eyes roamed around.
“We will watch over them,” Michael said, turning to his brothers.
“An abomination, yet still living. What shall we do?” Gabriel said as the Nephilim slowly crept out of hiding.
“They are living, breathing beings, but not normal. We give them the choice, Brothers. We let them choose, just like El lets us choose. Their destiny is not ours to decide.” And then Michael did something I’ve never seen him do.
He wept.
I felt a solitary tear slip down my cheek, the memory finally coming back to me after so many years.
I observed myself letting go of my mother’s skirts and walking slowly to the menacing-looking angels. Everyone watched in awe as I approached the weeping angel and lifted my arms. He knelt down to face me.
I took his beautiful face in my hands, and with tears streaming down my young face, I said, “I’m sorry.”
I was so very young still, but as Nephilim, we grew extremely fast and were able to speak within a few days of being born.
“Little One, the choices of those around you are not your fault,” Michael said, then he reached for my hand, and with little effort, pulled me into his arms.
“Brothers,” he announced, still holding me. “We give them the choice, for Light is always stronger than Darkness.”
Nodding their approval, the three angels began walking through the camps picking up the Nephilim.
I watched the angels continue to visit us. Time passed in the room as I watched my life on fast forward: the first meeting with Adonis, the training with the other Seekers, and then…
The day that changed the battle between good and evil. Forever.
Chapter Ten
I could feel Seth watching me. I didn’t know if he was gauging my reaction to the next part of the story, but I mentally prepared myself for the visions soon to be in front of me.
Trying not to clench my hands any harder into Adonis’s side, I continued to watch. Seth was silent as the story continued.
“The Nephilim started to take sides. Many of them began where the Watchers left off, sleeping with human women. As you are now aware, they had been having children who were even worse abominations than the first. For these children were taught at a young age to satisfy the lusts of the flesh.
“They became carnivorous, consuming the flesh of other people and drinking their blood.” I bit my lip in frustration as I watched them seduce and take the lives of young women around the earth.
My father appeared again, this time looking more beautiful than before. Animal fur covered him from head to toe, and on his head was a crown of rubies.
“It is time to choose,” he said.
The Nephilim split down the middle. Half of them went to the side of what we now call the Phantoms. The other half stayed on the side of the angels as Seekers.
Suddenly the sky turned black.
Rain began to fall; everyone scattered, even the Phantoms, but it was too late.
“The Great Flood was sent to punish mankind for their evil, not that it did anything to those who possessed gifts like the Nephilim; nor did it keep the Sons of Man that survived the Abyss from continuing their campaign against the Light.” Seth reached out, and everything vanished.
I could feel the salt of the water as if I was experiencing the Flood again, even though I’d been put into a deep sleep during that time, awakened only by Michael.
Like I said, he had been like a father to me from the very beginning.
I didn’t want to ask Seth the obvious question, so I looked to Adonis. Understanding the question in my eyes, he cleared his throat “So we fight the Watchers? Or as humans know them, the Titans?”
“Yes.”
“And how many are freed?” Adonis asked.
“All of them.”
“I was hoping that was an exaggeration,” I said, finally understanding why the archangels had looked so upset. “So we fight against the Phantoms and the Watchers? Who is going to help us?”
The question hung in the air. I looked from Adonis to Seth. Seth didn’t seem to want to answer my question.
The room turned black, and the stars disappeared; I was falling into a pit of nothingness, and then his voice came to me.
“There is no us, Athena.”