No Church in the Wild - Ryder & Michael
Ryder shot to his feet at the voice, heart thundering his in chest. He hastily wiped at the tears in the corner of his eyes with the ends of his stiff sleeves. It was his principal that stood before him, someone that Ryder admired greatly, and looking like an idiot in front of him wasn’t exactly on his list of things to do. “I thought… I thought he was supposed to hear all of the prayers,” Ryder said, but to be honest- Well, he hadn’t expected much, anyway. Half-sane and sixteen years old didn’t exactly qualify him to be God’s first priority. Ryder started at the next words, stepping back a little. “You…?” His heart beat a little faster. But this was Mr. Campbell, someone he saw every day. What could he possible have to do with heaven? …. Or even hell?
“Michael?” Ryder said. “Like the angel?” The back of his head itched. No, not the back of his head. The back of his brain. It itched and burned and he longed to scratch at it, or to cry, but it stole his mind away and he struggled to breathe. “But that’s… why…” He raised his hand to cup the back of his own head, fingers tangling in his own hair. He tugged slightly, reminding himself what was reality, and took another deep breathe. “You’re an angel. An angel is my principal…” His eyebrows furrowed. “Why are you my principal then? Shouldn’t you be upstairs with your… with God, doing things?” For some reason, that was what he had always imagined would be true, even though Ryder knew other angels existed on earth. Michael, though… he shouldn’t be here. He just shouldn’t.
“And… ” That was another thing. The two had talked, of course, but even though Ryder liked the man- angel, now, he supposed -just fine, he hadn’t thought that Mr. Campbell -Michael, god, this was hard -felt anything towards him at all, except maybe a little goodwill and annoyance. “Why show up here anyway? And tell me who you are? It… doesn’t make any sense.”
There were a lot of questions right away. That’s how it always was. It’d been years since the last time he’d interacted with humans on such a truthful level. Michael wasn’t quite sure if Ryder was human though, but most people seemed to burst with questions when they found out what he was. Sometimes it was because they didn’t believe in angel’s or God. Others, like Ryder, were curious what the prince of heaven was doing on Earth.
He listened to Ryder, nodding in understanding to the confusion but didn’t answer right away. he knew there would be more questions and he didn’t want to be bombarded with more as he was trying to explain. When he felt the questions had died down, Michael was ready to start answering. “Yes, Ryder. I’m Michael, the archangel actually. The Prince of heaven. God’s first son.” He tilted his head slightly, considering all of the questions for a moment.
“My Father is not in heaven. He hasn’t been for some time.” the seemed like the best start to answer a number of those concurs Ryder had raised. “After my brother Lucifer fell from heaven, God left. We did not ask where or why, that was not, and is not, our place to ask. Therefore I am not in heaven with God because he is not there. However, I am on Earth for a reason.” He paused, wishing to keep that bit of information secrete from Ryder for a bit longer. It was a lot to process, adding the apocalypse into the mix wouldn’t help that much.
The last question, well he wasn’t quite sure. “You’re prayers was prominent.” he said simply. “I can hear many prayers, ones specific to me, and others that are to my Father, but yours was… different. familiar.” He stared at Ryder for a long moment, trying to figure out exactly why the boy was so familiar to the archangel. “And, not to frighten you, but I can manipulate your mind to forget this encounter should you react badly.” Michael explained. More people in Lima had found out what he was than many realized. No one remembered though. Poor humans.
