CHRONICLES OF THE FOURTH HORSEMAN

PALE

I have always felt death creep up to me, and currently I have been struggling with the concept of heaven and hell, but I never thought so much about anything and everything in between.Everybody like to think that in some way they are an Angel in disguise, or even think that their little ones are.My mother was one of the later.She named me Malaika which in my local dialect means angel.Sooner, my name changed Azzy but I have got to tell you about that latter, for now you can just call me Azzy or Mall.One thing I will tell you though, I just discovered I am the Angel of death,crazy! I know i haven't wrapped it around my head yet.And this is how it happened.

About nine months ago, I started having these headaches that wouldn't go away, not even with the pain killers.At first I thought they were just stress headaches and waited for them to go away.But they didn't .They kept getting stronger and stronger with every passing day.After about a week, the headaches were soo strong that I couldn't even think straight whenever my head started pounding.It was my eighteenth birthday week.The one and only birthday I had hoped to celebrate in peace.I tried my best to hide my pain since if I went out telling my stepmother I was in pain she would just say I was faking it so that i didn't have to do anything.You see my stepmom was one crazy b***h but I will also tell you all about that later.

I was outside the house preparing some veggies for dinner when it all happened.At first it was really bright flashes.The kind that could make anyone go blind in an instant, then memory flashes of everything I had ever done or gone through.Showing me things I would have done differently, things I never deed, at least not in this life, some of them were old and they felt like they were from other lifetimes.Memories of war, pain, world ending or defining events.They were too much to handle, it was an infomation overload,driving me to an edge of insanity.Then my head became heavy, way too heavy for me to support and I could feel myself dropping to the ground face first as I was trying to reach for something to hold onto."This is it...this is finally it," I thought to myself.The last thing I heard was someone yelling and then the siren, then everything went dark and for a moment it remained that way.

I could feel myself fall but it was never stopping.I was just falling and falling and all around me was just darkness.I was scared and I thought that was my drop down to hell.I was going to finally know whether the thing I have feared for the whole of my life was real.My sunday school teacher had taught me about heaven and hell ever since I was little, but back then and even through my childhood and my life as a teenager I never really stopped to think about it.Until it was probably too late or so I thought as I was falling deeper and deeper down.It was a bit confusing since at somepoint it stopped and I felt like I was floating around in nothingness and in as much as I was well aware of that, I had no control of anything.

After what seemed like forever, I woke up.To my surprise, there was no fire or sulphur or demons or mr big bad devil.It was a rather peaceful place.A place i can't describe or explain.There were things there that I would have never thought or even imagined of.I was staring at my face on the crystal clear water.Admiring the new me that seemed much more brighter than the abused and tired me that I had left behind.On my hand was a little scroll with my name written on it and I was in a pale white robe.

I was still admiring my looks when this being appeared to me from the water.I couldn't really tell what it really was for it seemingly had four different faces.One of a lion, one of an ox ,one of a human and one of an eagle.It had two magnificent white wings,there was this light that came from the being surrounding it and it reminded me of the aura theory, and that gave the being a heavenly look.I was scared and the light that surrounded it made my eyes go partially blind.I couldn't look at it directly no matter how much I wanted to.I had too many questions in my mind but I dismissed all of them by convincing myself that the ocean was the gateway to heaven and maybe I had to be judged before I went in.I just stood there waiting on total silence.

The being seemed to have been waiting for strictly the right time he never seemed impatient or in a hurry and it felt as if he was stalling me, more like when someone is about to give one some really bad news but they don't know how to.When the time Finally came, he held my arm and I suddenly I was standing in a room full of even more beings I couldn't even begin to describe.There was one though standing in front of some sort of a throne, I could not see very well since there was this light also it was not my place to look around.Everyone in the place and believe me there were thousands among thousands of them, were kneeling and saying things loudly.There were three others like me only they looked soo different.

One was a beautiful lady dressed in brilliant white robe, her hair was also very white and her skin was flawless and shiny she had a beautiful bow with some engraved words I couldn't read.The other one was in a red robe and on his hand was a one of a kind sword, it reminded me of how I imagined the sword of Arthur you know, the Excalibur.The guy stood all tall and strong but behind his handsome face mask was an ugly real face that scared the fear of God out of me.The third one was a middle aged guy.He was really skinny almost as if he was on the last stage of starvation but he wore what seemed like a disguise body that seemed all healthy and normal.He had a pair of scales on his hands and a smile that clearly showed lust.He was dressed on a black robe.

I was of course the fourth one and from the looks of it I was the one everyone was waiting for.The one who was standing in front of the throne came close to me.I still could not see him clearly and I can't honestly describe him to this day.He had a key that he used to open a door and from it came souls of the dead.It was supposed to be the most scary moment but I found myself laughing out loud.It was almost as if I had waited for that moment my whole life.My evil laughter echoed through the place and the other three joined me.We were there still laughing when a deep calming voice called upon me.I was given the dominion over the spirits and the other three.The party was over and us the words"go fourth and await the day" hit my ears I was flying down the dark hole that never seemed to end ones more.

I woke up in a bed with pipes down my nose and wires stuck onto my chest.My friends John and Tom were standing there yelling for a doctor.I was in a hospital and the doctor came in just as I woke up.Apparently I had been in a comma for the last two weeks.I could not remember much from the other side except for the falling and the darkness.I sat upright and listened as the doctor explained how they didn't have an answer to whatever was ailing me.He however made me go through some serious medical check ups.During the MRI scanning, I had a flash of light go through my mind.Some sort of a memory relapsed but I could not explain it and I just thought it was just the machines light.I was to stay in the hospital a little longer to be monitored and I was permitted to go home a few days later.I was pale still but I felt much better and the headaches were gone.I had some tablets to keep the pain away but I didn't really need them.

That week went by soo fast and it was sunday already.If there was a day I loved , it was sunday.The fact that I was free on sundays and my bossy step mom was away all day, made sunday the best day of the week.I went to church for the first mass and in only two hours I would be on my way back home to relax and enjoy my short lived freedom.This sunday was different but it started pretty much normally. I woke up in the morning to a two hours of my step mothers yelling, she loved doing that a lot.She was furious because I had overslept with some twenty minutes and she had woken up to find that I hadn't prepared breakfast yet.I barely survived her crazy talk without cursing her back.She was too much sometimes but I was still holding on to my mothers last words.She wanted me to never curse out of anger or pain or anything else for that matter.She also taught me that saying bad words back to someone older than me was bad.I intended to stay her little angel years after her death because it was the only thing that made me feel close to her.

I just sat there listening to my stepmom yell and when she was done I went on to prepare myself.I never missed church not unless I had a really good reason to.For every argument with her, it meant I had just lost my ticket to the next meal.I had to go to church without breakfast, not that I cared that much.The church was only a kilometer away and it took me only twenty minutes to walk there.As I walked, I was thinking about the mysterious book of revelation.I had always felt drawn to it for some reason.Lately I even felt like I related to it in a personal level.

I had read it for over twenty times but still couldn't understand a thing.My papa used to tell me I will understand when the time was right but that was many years ago.I had waited for the right time and since it never happened I gave up and only remembered about it occasionally.I wondered whether the apocalypse would happen magically.Whether death would actually come as a dark figure in a black cloak and a long sharp scythe that would probably scare people to death.The thought of that made me laugh to myself sometimes.

The morning was warm and the sun rays felt good on my face the tiny clouds in the sky seemed cool and every ones in a while I thought I could see cool tiny figures form on the white wooly clouds up above.I hadn't slept enough for the last four days and the sweet sunshine made me feel sleepy.The thoughts on my head however kept me going and before I new it I was already at the church's gate.I took a quick glance on my watch and I was still a few minutes early, just about enough time to settle.I loved staying hidden, I think I still do.I had a favorite spot at the corner where I would almost be invisible.But when I entered the church, someone had already taken the spot.The only seat that remained empty was at the very front.Right behind the choirs bench.

I couldn't understand why the church was soo full.Usualy, not many people liked the first mass since it was an english service, most people preferred the Swahili mass and the church was only half full at its best.The Mass started as usual but the priest stood to minister a whole half an hour later and he started with apologizing for being late and thanking everyone for availing themselves and accepting a single Mass.I would later learn that the priest had organized a single mass sunday for Bible study.The book to be studied happened to be the book of revelation."Quite a coincidence," I thought to myself.

That was when the day started becoming strange.The priest asked us to look at our left and right neighbor and say what we see when we look at then.I took that time to look around and realized most of the people around were youngster's.I then came around to looking at my neighbors.They seemed soo familiar.I had a feeling I knew them but I didn't know from where.I looked to my right and there was this lady in a white dress and a ruby necklace, about twenty five years of age.She looked so pretty and strong.I think an iron lady would perfectly describe her.She had a band on her head that looked like a crown of some sort from where I sat.She was dressed richly and her look was simply sophisticated.She looked at me and for a moment there she looked as confused as I was.She however broke the eye contact and said a somewhat respectful and casual hello.I turned away to the other neighbor and so did she.

On my left was yet another familiar face.He was soo, well ,weakly that his eye glasses looked oversized.His nose was pointy and his thin body was what that stole the show.He was dressed in a shiny black suit that looked really expensive.He was about thirty five years but he looked soo much older.One look at me and he smiled." Hello my lady," he said with a calm deep voice.He sounded like an Angel."Have we met before?Because I feel like I know you," he concluded."I very much doubt that," I answered.Remembering we were in church and we had a different task.I turned back towards the priest and as expected I joined the unison "God,"...we all answered.we had all learnt that God made us in his own image and likeness.That had to be the answer, right?"Wrong" said the priest almost as if he was hearing the one way conversation in my head.

" People wear masks, sometimes to hide pain, sometimes to hide fear but most of the times to hide who they really are.Death walks amongst us, and so does evil.And we put on masks to hide it from others.Today we will be looking in depth at the book of revelation and we will hopefully understand why we are the ones who will bring about the last days.The hour is upon us brethren and it is time," he added.

His voice echoed on my head and i remembered someone had told me to wait for the time.I couldn't remember who or when but I knew in my being that the time had come.Half of me wanted to laugh soo badly but the other half was fighting back.I ended up with a smile.Looking at my neighbors, they were also smiling and it felt soo familiar.The priest went on giving his teaching.The one thing he should have known then was that he was the person to break the very second last seal.The one that said to the four riders that it was time.He had awakened the last phase of the plan.Deep down I just realized who I was.Who I always had been from the very beginning.I was born a natural leader,but my step mother saw to it that would never happen she had tarnished my name, beaten me up stressed me like crazy until I was all sickly.She even burned me on the face and for a long time I was the girl with an ugly scar.The girl who was feared and hated.The girl who hated what she saw every time she looked in the mirror.But that week in the hospital cured me.The scar on my face just disappeared and I woke up a new girl.

While the priest was going on about hades and the son of man and the beast, I felt like a punch had hit me right at the center of my chest, forcing my heart out then the darkness. When I came to, I was standing over my still seated body.from the looks of it, the empty body was seated there listening and doing stuff like a zombie.For a moment I tried to get back into it but I just couldn't.I was still trying when I heard someone chanting in a crazy language it felt like they were calling me, it was a language I sure had no idea of but crazy enough I understood everything last bit of it.I was trying to protest but it felt like I was being bound or wrapped tight being forced to answer to the call.I closed my eyes and in an instant I was in some kind of a trap.The guy who was chanting introduced himself as Danson Duke he knew I was the big mummy reaper and he thought that binding me would stop the end of the world.At that point I was sure of what he was saying until he showed me the walls of his house.They were filled with photos and newspaper bits.He started to explain himself and he had this huge scythe which he explained was a believed to be the only thing that could really wipe me from existence.I was just there wondering what he was saying and I was begining to think I was going crazy in my head I thought I was asleep and having the worst dream ever.

He went out to get what he mentioned as the cleansing materials.I was trapped in some sort of a drawing that I could not get out of.I couldn't understand a single symbol drawn inside a circle.There was no physical barrier but I could not walk or even float out.I waited for him to come back until I go bored I then realized my eyes could see everything and anything around and with enough concentration I could see feel and hear anything all around the voices and noises inside my head would be enough to drive anybody crazy but for some reason I could handle all of them.I especially felt the people in extreme pain and people whose bodies were too worn out to keep going.I saw little visions of people involved in fatal accidents and those whose hearts would stop beating.I felt the urgent need to touch them and relief them off their pains.I couldn't understand how or why but it felt like of i touched them their pain would go away for good.When I couldn't do it my head went all crazy and felt like it was about to explode.To stay away from hearing people yelling , I started scanning and analyzing the writings, paintings and newspapers pinned on the wall to pass time and lock out the voices.They said a lot.

The guy had been stalking me for a really long time.He had quoted word from the books believed to have been written by a witch back in the 1780's.Books I had never even heard of .Some words he had quoted from prophesies.He was however not sure until three months ago when strange weather phenomenal was reported all the over the word.Things ranging from a storm from nowhere, tornados, snowing in the middle of summer.He believed those were as a result of the seals being broken.He also believed they meant that something really bad was to happen.In this case the Armageddon.He also believed that he was there to stop it.So when the crazy weather subsided, he started looking around for anything unusual that could have happened and that is when he realized that in our village a lot of animals were reported to have died of a disease that even the doctors could not possibly explain.Three tourists and a local girl,me, had gone into an unexplained coma, and they have woken up different, that gave him the idea of what was going on.My pale looks while waking up had made him believe I was Azrael,the angel of death.

I thought that would make a lot of sense.Everybody back at home called me Azzy I don't know how that name came to be but I had accepted and it felt good answering to it more than answering to my mums given name.It turns out I loved the God given name better.This guy seemed to know me better than I knew myself.There was something that made me remember a little about my visit to the silver city.The other three guys.You know..the tourists.The guys I was seated next to at the church."Heck!, my empty body was still in the church," I said out loud.Maybe somebody had noticed it and probably rushed "me" to the hospital.I needed to get back there ASAP! From the cloak in some 200 plus miles away, I could see it was a bit past midnight.Who knew how long I could survive outside my meat suit ?and even better question ,how the hell did this crap work? Do I just jump out and come back when I felt like it or was there something more? I was still following the guy who was going around a convent asking for the bones of saint John.You know John, the JOHN, Jesus's friend.He had a plan to powder them up and create some paste that was supposed to wipe the angelic being Azrael from me binding him away and the world remaining with no big mummy reaper and that meant no apocalypse.He thought he was better than everyone and he was killing everyone whom he felt was standing between him and his noble course.

He was not about to find the bones since I knew exactly where they were and he was nowhere close to getting to them.He was looking in all the wrong placeHe was following rumours and stories from the craziest market in the world, the dark web.The place where one can buy or sell anything legal or otherwise.Romours had it that the bones had been circulating from one rich guy to another through the centuries.However, they had been missing for almost half a milenia.He had traced them and he thought he had found them.So far he had shot and stubbed a mother superior in a convent, two nuns and was on the way to hurt yet more people including an antiques dealer.But there was something wrong.They were all still alive even after he had stubbed them several times.They were there crying in pain but death wouldn't go to them.I still didn't believe I was death, I was just a mare mortal.Don't you think I had tried to avada kedavra on my stepmother hundreds of times but she was soo much alive and healthy.The last time I got angry I wished wings could pop out of my back but the last time I checked I was still walking on my two like everybody else.Azrael sounds like great and super strong angel I was a weakly duckling with stupid ugly scar for eighteen years, eighteen years! wishing I was someone special.

At this point I missed Tom.He was not the best friend over but he was a good friend.He could always tell when something was wrong with me.My whole life he had been my right hand guy, my muscle.He fought for me when need be and protected me like the big brother I never had.He had ones told me I smelt and behaved like something accient and misunderstood and looking back the I could understand that.I wished he knew about the stuff that were happening now.He would probably go looking for me, or at least take care of the zombie me that annoyingly enough I couldn't trace even though I could trace everybody and everything else that was alive.

Duke was giving up, I could feel it.He was also a little bit angry and scared, scared of me.There was something deed in his thoughts that he was trying so hard not to think about.It was a way I could break free from the invisible prison he had put me in.I started digging deaper forcing him to think about it.I never knew I could do that and I hadn't the slightest clue how I was doing it.He was fighting hard but at last he let it all out.I could summon my friend seeing to it that the trap was only effective for me but not for any other being or even humans.The only problem was that humans could not see me in that state, "or was it really a problem?" all I had to do was confuse someone to come to the place and break the paint drawn circle and I would be free without them even knowing what they had done.

I figured it was somehow not right but I went on ahead and tricked some kids who were playing nearby and I was free.I floated aimlessly around trying to get back to by body but the voices were too loud for me to ignore.They were knocking me off balance, their pains way too much strong for me to bare and I found myself answering to their desperate calls.for a split second I felt like I was everywhere and nowhere in particular, the feeling was intoxicating and satisfying at the same time.I barked a few orders to no one and finally I traced my lonely cold body asleep on a hospital bed some thousands of miles away.I had traveled all across the world from africa to the UK in split seconds.The knowledge in my head was a bit confusing but lots of things made sense.

I had no problem getting back in and settle in my warm cozy position.It was a morning already and soon as I woke up the heart monitor went rogue for a moment getting the attention of the doctors who came in running.They were a bit surprised to find me awake and well since the line on the screen was flat.The machines were of course checked and they showed no fault.Fortunately no one is ever ready to believe in the paranormal and for that reason they agreed the machines would be taken apart to determine the problem.

Ones again Tom and John came in to help me get home.Tom knew there was something off about me but he didn't talk about much.We went back home in silence and at home my step mom was waiting with her usual cold impression that made the pit of my stomach twitch with hate.She never even bothered to go check on me in the hospital.Were it not for my health insurance bill...

Tom had a lot he wanted to say but he just stared at me as we walked into my tiny room out of the main house that my step mom made me stay in when my papa was not around you know being a soldier and all that meant he was not home most of the times.John couldn't even wait for me to sit down before he went out to ask questions.

"What the hell happened yesterday? why were you behaving like that? Does your head hurt?" at that point I realized I had a lump on my forehead.The truth is, I had no clue how it happened ,when or even why."oooh! hell yeah my head hurts like son of a b**ch", i said realizing the worried looks on Tom's face." It is probably nothing big and I know I will feel better in no time, yesterday I was just a little bit off my game but its probably nothing major," I went on in an attempt to ease the air around.The looks on Tom however never changed and he went on to ask."Do you even have any idea how you got that bump on your head, or the wound on your left leg?"

At that point I lifted my trousers to find a not very big wound on my leg and Tom was right, I had no idea how I got the wound but I had a pretty good guess.I had to go on ahead and ask how I got all that bumped up and John explained it in all the tiny details.Apparently after mass my empty shell got up and was on its way home.Being just but a soulless body it had no way to decern feelings or reason and when my step mom told it something bad it probably just rushed out and for the first time in forever i gave her not just a piece of my mind alone but also a little beating in the process hurting myself before dropping unconscious.

That explained why she was a little bit much cold than usual.My stomach twitched a little, this time round not because of hate but a mixture of pain, pitty and a little satisfaction.My father would probably get furious and I know my step mom had already told him.He was by now half across the country ready to flog me crazy.My 18th year was getting crazier by the day.

I tried to tell Tom and John my story when they kept asking about my wellness and I thought maybe Tomorrow would understand.I gave them the story of my soo called destiny.John laughed himself out of breath while Tom just stared at me probably waiting for me to say I was kidding.When it didn't happen, he started off by telling that mental illnesses were real and it was best if I went to get myself checked up.The following day the two guys took me to Metah mental hospital where I checked myself in and went straight to getting myself tested I was also starting to believe may have been going crazy.