it would only hurt a little
1404 Words
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"The Last Morning Star"
The hospital room was still, save for the occasional hiss of oxygen and the faint rhythmic beep of the heart monitor. Outside, the sun was rising slowly, a soft glow spilling through the blinds. Marcus Hale lay propped against sterile white pillows, skin sallow, body weak from months of battling the cancer that now claimed nearly every corner of his once-strong body.
He was thirty-three.
Not a smoker. Not a drinker. He used to run marathons. Yet here he was, with two nurses tiptoeing around him like they were afraid he'd turn to ash at the slightest touch. The doctors had stopped offering hope weeks ago. All that remained were painkillers and time.
Marcus hated pity. He’d stopped letting visitors come. No mother. No sister. Not even Claire, the woman he’d loved but pushed away when things got bad. He wanted to go alone, unburdened.
That morning, the pain had dulled into something distant. A strange clarity washed over him like a breeze through an open window. He stared at the ceiling, his mind drifting to odd things—his childhood dog, the smell of wet earth, the time he’d gotten lost in Paris for a whole day and ended up at a stranger’s dinner table.
"Funny," he whispered. "What you remember when you’re dying."
“That’s not the end of the story, you know.”
The voice startled him.
He turned his head. A man sat in the chair by the window, someone who hadn’t been there a moment ago. Tall, composed, dressed in a simple gray suit. He looked like he could be in his forties, though something about him shimmered with an ageless quality. His hair was silver, but his eyes… Marcus blinked. Were they glowing?
“Who the hell are you?” Marcus asked, his voice raspy.
The man smiled gently. “Well. Not hell, for starters.”
Marcus’s brow furrowed. “Are you—am I hallucinating?”
“No,” the man said. “Though if it helps, you can think of this as a hallucination. But I assure you, I’m quite real.”
Marcus didn’t speak, watching him warily. The stranger leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“My name is Adriel,” he said. “I’m an angel.”
Marcus scoffed. “Right.”
“I know how it sounds. But I was sent here. For you.”
“To do what? Save me?” Marcus coughed, a dry, ugly sound that rattled his lungs. “Little late for that.”
Adriel’s expression didn’t falter. “No, not to save you. Not in the way you’re thinking.”
He stood and walked slowly to Marcus’s bedside. The air around him seemed to hum faintly, like a violin string drawn by an unseen bow.
“Everyone gets one visitor in the end. A moment of grace,” Adriel said. “Some get their grandmothers. Some get old pets. Others… well, they get someone like me.”
Marcus looked away, uncomfortable with how calm he felt.
“Why me?” he asked.
“Because you asked,” Adriel said. “Not aloud. But you did.”
A silence fell. It wasn’t heavy—it was soft, like snow.
“I don’t want to die,” Marcus said finally.
“I know.”
“Can’t you stop it?”
“No.”
Marcus turned his head back to him. “Then what the hell are you here for?”
“To walk with you. For a little while. Until the end.”
Marcus stared at him for a long moment, then muttered, “Well, that’s useless.”
Adriel smiled gently. “You’d be surprised.”
---
That day passed strangely. Adriel stayed, unseen by others, sitting beside Marcus, talking to him like an old friend. He didn’t preach. Didn’t quote scriptures or threaten hellfire. He simply listened.
They talked about Marcus’s regrets—how he’d never learned to dance, how he never called his dad before he passed, how he wished he’d married Claire when he had the chance.
Adriel never judged. Only nodded, occasionally offering memories Marcus had long forgotten—his father sneaking him candy at midnight, the way Claire had once cried while laughing too hard at a joke.
“Why are you showing me these?” Marcus asked.
“Because they’re still yours. Death doesn’t erase what mattered.”
Later, when night fell and Marcus drifted in and out of sleep, Adriel stayed beside him. He spoke of things Marcus couldn’t quite comprehend—silver cities beyond the stars, songs that wove the heavens together, a kind of peace that couldn’t be described.
In the quiet, Marcus asked, “Do you ever envy us?”
Adriel tilted his head. “Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because you get to feel it all. The sharpness of love. The ache of longing. Even your pain—it means something. It shapes you.”
Marcus chuckled dryly. “Never thought of pain as a gift.”
Adriel’s gaze was distant. “You will.”
---
The second day came like a whisper. The nurses moved with increased urgency, sensing the end was near. Marcus’s body was failing faster now—his breath shorter, his speech slurred.
Yet his mind felt clearer than it had in weeks.
“You’re still here,” Marcus croaked.
“I will be,” Adriel said. “Until the last breath.”
“Most people get a nurse with a morphine drip. I get a celestial bodyguard.”
Adriel grinned. “Would you prefer a harp?”
Marcus laughed weakly, then groaned. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
“Then I’ll sing.”
“You sing?”
Adriel leaned in. “Every angel does.”
And so, for a few minutes, he sang—not with words, but with tones that seemed to ripple through the air, weaving a sense of comfort, something deeper than lullabies or hymns. Marcus closed his eyes and imagined a beach he’d once visited in Greece, the way the water had shimmered like liquid sapphire. That’s what Adriel’s voice felt like.
“Adriel?”
“Yes?”
“Will it hurt?”
“The leaving?”
“Yeah.”
Adriel thought for a moment. “Only a little. Like a splinter being pulled. After that, it’s only light.”
“Sounds cheesy,” Marcus muttered.
“It is,” Adriel admitted. “But true.”
Marcus smiled faintly. “Thank you.”
---
By the third morning, Marcus could no longer speak. He couldn’t move his arms or blink without effort. The nurses whispered outside the door. Someone—Claire, maybe—called his name and wept for a moment before walking away. He wasn’t sure. Everything was fog.
But Adriel was still there.
When the machines started to slow, Adriel stood.
“It’s time,” he said softly.
Marcus’s breathing grew shallow, a few ragged gasps between long silences. His fingers twitched once, and then—
Stillness.
Then, in the blink between one moment and the next, Marcus opened his eyes again.
But this time, he was standing.
He looked down at the hospital bed and saw himself lying there—thin, unmoving, a shell. The machines beeped flat lines. A nurse stepped in, froze, then moved quickly to call for the doctor.
Marcus stared.
Adriel stood beside him, now shining slightly with a golden hue, faint wings of light stretching behind him.
Marcus raised a hand to his chest. He felt… nothing. No pain. No fear. Just an overwhelming quiet.
“So… that’s it?” he asked.
Adriel nodded. “Yes.”
“But it doesn’t feel like I thought it would.”
“How did you think it would feel?”
“Like falling.”
Adriel smiled. “No. It's rising.”
They walked, the hospital fading behind them like smoke on the wind. In its place came something new—a horizon that kept expanding. Marcus didn’t know where they were going, but somehow, for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t afraid.
Just curious.
Before they disappeared into the light, Marcus asked, “Will they be okay? My mom. Claire.”
Adriel touched his shoulder. “They’ll hurt. But they’ll heal. And someday, they’ll have their own visitor. Just like you.”
Marcus nodded.
Then, together, they stepped into the dawn.
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