Prologue — Excerpt from Him (Volume I)

Adam was moving; all of the sudden and out of nowhere. Astoundingly fast, almost as if moving through time and space at inexplicable speeds. Adam opened his pale lids that hid the senses of its sight. He can feel the cold, wispy wind pressing softly against his damp eyes. The air around him was so clean and refreshing. Adam could not recall a moment in his twenty-two years of living where the air could just, literally speaking, give him such a full chest of fresh, and almost nourishing, air. Not just physically, but it’s as if it relieves him emotionally.

Adam could feel nothing beneath his feet, and this worried him slightly. But the other feelings that comfortably surrounded him alleviated that fear. All the attention Adam could pay was so consumed by the other things going on that there was no attention left for such a minuscule thing as fear. Besides, had Adam stopped flying it seemed as if he would just keep falling for an eternity. There was nothing below him, nothing next him, nothing above him, just nothing. Nothing except an encapsulating atmosphere of the color white. Except Adam’s surroundings weren’t just a flat, empty canvas of pure white. Little pockets of shades and tints were scattered everywhere, which made the room give off a slight gray haze.

Somewhere inside Adam’s brain, questions started to arise. What exactly is this place? What is he doing here? More importantly, where is here? Adam closed his eyes and tried to focus on the last thing he remembered before he opened his eyes here. Quickly, a memory flashes by. It was the dream he had before he woke up flying through a white version of the universe.

Adam was staring at himself. A grand mirror lied in front of him. He was wearing a perfectly pressed black suit, with an almost maroon but a little bit darker, tie. Adam’s expression was beyond ecstatic, he looked the happiest he had ever looked in his entire life. Nothing could explain the emotion that he was feeling at that instant.

And that was it. Adam thought about the meaningless dream for a moment, but quickly let the memory slip away. His eyes fluttered open once more. But something was different about his surroundings. In front of him was all black, in every direction. However, unlike the white, the black mass seems to be flat, almost like an unfathomably-sized wall of just black. That fear from earlier quickly arrived once more, and hit him like waves onto rocks. Adam was seemingly flying so fast that he felt like he’d smash right into it at any moment.

One thought crossed his mind quickly. Maybe he wasn’t flying, maybe he was falling. The distance between Adam and the black surface dissipated, and that was it.

- — -

“Are you sure you want to do this?” He said.

“Of course I am,” Desmond spoke, conviction flowing through every word that fell off his tongue, “if what you show me is true, there is no possible way I could say no.”

“I needed to make sure you understood that you have a choice in this,” He paused. “There is always a choice, Desmond.”

“Then I choose him.” Desmond responded with finality. A smile appeared on Desmond’s face, composed by determination. He understood why Desmond chose him. Desmond will always choose him.

The ink was set to paper, and it was finalized. Desmond had known this was the decision he would make since the conception. The fear that maybe that certain choice was not the right one had not registered within Desmond. Desmond felt so strongly about this one particular decision that nothing else truly mattered to him. Life itself would not be worth living had he made a different choice. Desmond’s mind was swept by this realization, that one decision could impact an eternity. In all honesty, Desmond knew that this was the truth, but never did he ever think he could experience it firsthand.

Desmond was surely wrong about that.