There was no beeping heart monitor, but I knew I was in a hospital bed. I ached all over and could feel needles in my arms. There was something else… I felt something warm in my hand. I slowly opened my eyes and saw Angel’s beautiful face. Her eyes were filled with sadness and worry, but her hands were wrapped around mine. Her arm was secured in a sling and her shoulder was bandaged up tight, just like mine. I looked to my right and could hear the whirring of the large machine next to me. It was connected to my arm by several tubes filled with blood.
“Oh shit.”
It was a heart-lung machine. It was no wonder that there was no heart monitor; I had no heartbeat. The pump was keeping my blood flowing.
I looked into Angel’s eyes. “What is the verdict?”
Angel took a deep breath and it was evident that she had been crying. “One of the robbers managed to aim his gun at you and fire before bleeding to death. The bullet pierced you through the middle of the chest. It didn’t stab your heart directly, but it did cut through the muscle and rupture one of the chambers. You were leaking heavily into your chest cavity. Luckily the police were there with an ambulance and they were able to close the wound, but every time they let your heart beat on its own, the tear opened back up. They’ve already sutured and even cauterized the wound twice, and if the tear opens one more time, it will be beyond their ability to repair.”
“So my heart is too wounded to work properly and this machine is the only thing keeping me alive?”
“Yes, but it was never intended to be used this way for an extended period of time. The doctors say there are inherent risks for use, even if it’s just during surgery. Your parents are doing everything they can to find a donor heart, but on such short notice…”
“There is very little chance of me actually getting an organ transplant, let alone a heart,” I groaned.
There was no way this machine could keep me alive long enough to finally get a heart. Before long, I would either get a new heart or I would die. It was a shame none of the men I killed were organ donors. I looked to Angel and saw that her original fear was gone, and the look of sadness on her face was replaced with a smile.
“Marcus, I’ve already offered to give you my heart for the transplant. We’re a complete match.”
While this would be good news under normal circumstances, I was completely horrified.
I tearfully grasped her hand. “No. No, I cannot do that! I can’t take your heart! You are all that is keeping me alive! I cannot take your life just so that mine will be extinguished without you!”
Angel slowly pulled her hand from my grip and instead reached up and cupped my cheek, immediately calming me. She spoke without any fear in her soul. “The last time we were here, you said that as long as my heart was beating, your heart would beat as well. That’s why I’ve asked them that instead of disposing of your damaged heart after the surgery, they implant it into my chest and allow it to start. They don’t expect me to survive, but they are willing to fulfill my wishes. Marcus, as long as my heart gives you life, your heart will give me life.”
“But what if it doesn’t work? What if you die? If I wake up and you aren’t with me, the first thing I’ll do is kill myself.”
Angel leaned forward and kissed me. “I won’t die, I promise you that. I was born out of a miracle, and so too shall I live through one. I told you that I would bring you a lifetime of happiness, and I have no intention of breaking that promise. Marcus, do you trust me? Do you have faith in me?”
“Yes,” I replied with a raspy voice.
“Then have faith in yourself. You’ve sworn your heart to me so many times since we met, and it has kept me alive all this time, just as it will keep me alive when you truly give it to me. No matter how damaged or wounded your heart is, I know that it won’t let me die, just as you never would. Have faith, Marcus, not just in you or in me, but in us, and the future we promised each other.”
Angel and I were in the surgical room, both on beds while the surgeons prepared to operate.
“Angel, no matter what happens, remember this: you are the one that took away my pain and I will love you forever,” I whispered, trying to hold back tears.
“Tell me that after we walk out of this hospital together.”
Respirators were secured to our faces and we were both given drugs that put us into the realm of unconsciousness. The last thing I saw was Angel’s beautiful face.
I opened my eyes and found myself hovering in space. I was completely naked with the eye of God directly above me and Earth below. The bullet wound in my chest was gone and my shoulder was fully healed.
“What is this?” I asked, looking up into the black hole as it eternally consumed the star around it.
Angel appeared before me. “As you so very fittingly called it, it is the eye of God, the Source, and the end of all reason. It is the point in which matter and energy exchange and life and un-life converge. This is the heart of everything, the space in which beginning and end are one in the same.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s time, Marcus. The day has come when I can finally explain everything to you.” She floated over and embraced me with our naked bodies pressed together. “Tell me, do you know how souls are formed?”
“No.”
“Through the subconscious thoughts and desires of the living. Through the instincts of animals and the wishes of mankind, souls are shaped within the Source and then meet their physical forms upon the birth of infants. Animals following their instincts to reproduce, parents dreaming of their developing child, and even loners with broken hearts wishing for the one to save them; they all shape the energy of the Source and turn it into souls for the next generation. Every soul on Earth is a mix of the hopes for good and fears of evil in the people who came before it. All over the world, children are being born with their souls shaped by the thoughts of the people around them. Then when they die, their souls return to the Source.”
“So God doesn’t create life, humans and animals do? Then that means that every sentient being is basically a god. There is no God, only the people that shape the souls of the unborn.”
“Close, but not completely right.”
She stopped talking, and slowly, we were pulled up into the fiery deluge and absorbed by the black hole in the center. Just like when I tried to kill myself, we found ourselves hovering in a vast spinning vortex of violet energy, stretching infinitely.
“This is the other side, the afterlife that you believed in. Here, the souls of the dead rejoin the Source and become one, fusing together into a single mind of limitless proportions. It is a sentience beyond comprehension, a collection of every thought, desire, instinct, and personality within life. In this sea, everyone is made whole and you don’t know where the spirits around you end and you begin. This is God, the progenitor of life. It is us and we are it. It is the mother of us all, and the thoughts of the living are what impregnate it and allow it to give form to more life.”