Lifeline of an Archangel

I was running. I was sweating. You couldn't tell, though, due to all of the rain pouring down on me. What was I running from? I don't remember. Was I running from someone? Something? Myself...? A memory I wanted to forget...? Or was I running from the inevitable, something that would happen no matter what actions I did to try and prevent it? I don't know. All I remember is that the puddles in the middle of the road were deep, muddy, and annoying.
Oh, that and the other thing. What other thing? You wouldn't believe me if I told you. You want to know anyway? Okay then. As I reached the bridge, the sky cleared. Yes, that's right, it cleared in a matter of secconds. And there, in the sky, was a light brighter than the sun. I stared up into it, and then died.
That's right, I died. How am I here talking to you? Well...That is what I would like to know.

Chapter 1: Machiavelli

"Wait, wait..." The bartender chuckled, "You seriously believe that you came back to life?"
"I told you that you wouldn't believe me." I said in frustration.
"Kid, when you die, God don't just let you come back." he stated, while cleaning the used shot-glasses and stacking them underneath the bar. I was wondering something, though..."God. Yeah, him. I don't know if it was God."
"Hey, in my opinion, the only one who can give life is the one who takes it away." Yeah, that's logical. But...
"When I saw the light, I knew I died. It was the light. The feeling it gave me, it told me I died. God can't give you that feeling..." I was angry. At myself. What was that light? I can't see it in my mind, not clearly. What was it?! I couldn't stand it, not knowing what killed me and brought me back from the dead, all in the span of what seemed to be a few secconds. I hastilly got up from my bar-stool and walked briskly torwards the door. On the way, a man who was walking in from the door walked into me, bumping my shoulder hard. I didn't take much notice of it, that was, untill he turned his head and said something to me.

"Watch out where you're going."

I could almost see his face, if it were not covered by his rain-hat and his long, dirty scarf that warmly wrapped around his mouth and chin. All I could make out was one eye, and that one eye intrigued me. As if I needed to know this person. After what just happened, though, dying and all, I tried my very best to shrug it off and walk to the door.
Outside the bar, I glanced up and saw the sky was still as dirty as it was when I entered. And it was still raining harshly, however the sun still filtered through the clouds making everything clearly visible. While walking down the sidewalk, I kept on thinking to myself, what am I going to do next? What is there to do next? I don't understand anything anymore. Maybe I am just crazy, maybe that's the answer. Or, was that just the easy answer? 'You're crazy', yeah, it seemed like a real good answer right about now. My mind kept telling me that it was the best answer, but my heart kept telling me that it wasn't the real answer. At that moment, I wondered how many people who were crazy were just using the easy answer?
Hair on the back of my neck stood up. I instinctively turned around and looked back torwards the bar, where I saw the man, the man with the eye, exit. That eye told me that I needed to know that man. He was walking away from the bar, in the opposite direction I did, and my feet started to move. I started to walk torwards him. I don't know why, my mind wasn't telling my feet to move. Maybe my heart was telling my feet to move? Maybe it's the same, maybe my brain was telling my feet that that person wasn't any good, and that I shouldn't approach him, but my heart was telling my feet that I needed to approach that person.
Soon enough, I'd gotten directly behind that person, and I was reaching out my hand to give him a tap on the shoulder. I was hesitant. It wasn't easy, but I did. I'd given him a nice, easy tap. He stopped walking, and so did I. He hadn't turned around, though, to acknowledge me, but I'd wondered if he really noticed me or was just stopping for some reason. "Hello?" I wispered, as if I couldn't muster any more. My throat had become dry and my mind was racing. The rain was not helping it. It was still beating hard on my head. My dirty brown hair becoming soggy and messy, and was probably starting to stink like rain as well. And my normal, brown sweater was also getting wet, and sticking to my body. I didn't know what to do, or what to say, other than "hello". So I didn't say anything else untill the man started talking.
"Who are you? What do you want from me?" He said in a monotone voice. I didn't know how to reply to that. What did I want from him? I didn't know what I wanted from him. Maybe if I told him what I told the bartender? But then would he think I was crazy? Maybe I was crazy? Maybe if I told this guy what I told the bartender, he could tell me if I was crazy or not? But why should I trust this guy? Too many questions, racing through my head. I didn't know what to do, what to say, how to respond. "Who are you? What do you want from me?" He said again, in the same monotone voice. I took a gulp that was in-audible with the rain beating down all around us, took a deep breath, and started.

"I died."

I felt like slapping myself. Why did you say it like that? Now he would surely think you were crazy. No matter how open minded he was, he would surely think you were crazy. This was it, he was probably going to call the police or something, have you put in the crazy house. Well, that's what you wanted, right? For him to tell you if you were crazy or not, and if you were in the crazy house at least you would have some peace of mind, knowing that you were crazy.
I took another gulp as the man who I spoke to started to turn around. He pulled up one of the sleeves on his raincoat, showing a huge scar on his wrist. Using he hand that was attached to the scarred wrist, he pulled down his scarf so that it was no longer obstructing his mouth.

"So did I."

My heart jumped out of my throat. This guy...he was also killed, and then brought back? This was great! Now, this guy would have to believe me. Maybe he could tell me what happened? Maybe he could tell me why I saw death, and then was brought back from it? This was excellent. So, throwing all of the previous anxiety aside, I started to ask him questions.
"How did you die?"
"I killed myself."
"How did you come back from dying?"
"I just did."
"Wait, that doesn't make any sense..."
"It makes perfect sense to me."
This guy was making me angry. How could he just say stuff like that? He didn't want to know the answers, he was content knowing what he did. He was content simply knowing that he died and had come back. Well, that wasn't enough for me, so I told him. "That isn't enough for me, though."
"Oh, okay."
I had then just remembered that I didn't even know this guy's name. So I asked him. "What's your name?"
"Machiavelli."
Wait, that was an odd name. Was he foreign? "Are you sure that's your name?"
"I think it's my name. Do you know your name?"
Now this was odd. I didn't. I didn't know my name. It was lost to me. Just the same as most of my memories. I couldn't think of my name. This was driving me insane. Who was I?! What was my name...? "I don't know my name..." I said, quietly.

"...I think your name's Solomon." Machiavelli responded.

"Solomon?" I replied. I was puzzled. I had never heard that name before in my life, how would this guy know my name if I didn't know my own name? "How would you know that's my name? Who told you?"
"Nobody told me." he said sternly. "I knew your name as soon as I'd seen you. It seems as though we are connected...two dead men. Walking on a road to salvation, or a road to destruction?" Machiavelli extended his hands out to the heavens as if he were preaching a sermon. This guy was really beginning to worry me.

"Mr. Machiavelli, what do you suppose we do then? We cannot just sit here in the rain, two dead people, talking about death and how we didn't die when we did. That won't get us anywhere."
"Mr. Machiavelli, that is not necessary, you may call me Machiavelli alone since Machiavelli is not my last name."
"Machiavelli is odd for a first name."
"It is not my first name either."

Machiavelli had a determined look in his eye, as if he knew just what to do but enjoyed watching me pry it out of him. Or, maybe he was testing me, to see if I myself was also determined enough to get that information. And I was...oh yes, I was plenty determined. I couldn't just leave, you know, I have nowhere to go, this is all I have. Machiavelli is all I have. This chaos of non-death and talking to dead people. I do not have a house, if I did I wouldn't know it. I do not have a familly that I know of, I do not even know my name, only the pseudo-name that this man has given me, which like Machiavelli was probably neither a first name nor a last. A middle? I joked. No, that's just silly now isn't it? Machiavelli needs to tell me what I need to know.

"Enough of the small talk, Machiavelli. I do not care about your name, you don't need to care about my name neither. We need to do something about this, right?"
"If you wish to, I don't care either way."
Oh, shit. Content. This is not what I wanted.
"How could you think this way? You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking that this fucking sucks."
I started to get angry. You could see it, in my mannerisms, and wild gestations that heavilly exaggerated my anger.
"How could the dead know such things?"
"Listen asshole, I ain't dead."
The strings snapped, the strings that binded me together. I wasn't scared anymore, I was determined.
"I ain't dead and I need to know what the hell I'm supposed to do."

Machiavelli rushed at me.
He pinned me against the brick, mortar wall of a building, a brick wall shimmering from the rain. He was shaking. He leaned in, close enough as if he were to wisper sensual, sinful (sinful?) words into my ear. But he did not.

“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."
I was awestruck, and I couldn't move. I wouldn't even look at this man, his body quivering against mine, his head rested on my shoulder, his lips still shaking from that last verse.

Then I realized it. Exactly what the next step was, what we needed...what I needed...to do.

Chapter 2: Yloh

"Yloh..."

Isn't that Holy backwards?

"Yes. That is it. Exactly."

"What is it though?"

"It is our name, we our the Unholys. Our path is to the churches that recognize us, of which there are seven."

"The Unholys are the Yloh."

"Of course."

It was then that I recognized exactly what he meant.

Machiavelli and I walked, for what seemed like secconds, although it was probably hours. Not to a dead man, to a dead man it seemed like secconds. But, I'm not dead, or am I? Machiavelli was starting to have an effect on me, his way of thinking was starting to rub off, or was it because now, I know my true name, now I am more acceptable to believe that I am truly dead?

We reached the Church, we weren't in the city anymore. We were somewhere, it was rural. The church was small, and made of wood. Whatever. All that mattered was what I saw when I looked up, past the church, I saw the word: "Yloh". I was above the church. It looked as though it was written on fabric that made up existence. It was above the church. Ths chruch recognized us.

I walked up to the door of the church, but I couldn't get through. I tried to open the doors, but they were heavy. They weren't locked, or barricaded though. Something was wrong.

"Even though some churches do recognize the Unholys, they will not allow entrance. That is why we must persuade it to open."

Machiavelli walked torwards the door, in a nochallant manner, as if he was about to do something he had done many times before. He reached into his pocket, and grabbed a KNIFE. It was sharp, a sharp KNIFE. However, he was not going to use it on the door, for that would be silly, because no matter how sharp the KNIFE was it was infinitely small compared to the door. Instead, he lifed up one of his sleeves and cut his own wrist, right along the scar that marked his death. And out came blood, and it poured onto the door in a fantastic shower, like a morbid garden sprinkler. The door was soaked, and I standing next to the door was also soaked in the blood of the Unholys.

Some landed on my lips, and it tasted bad. It tasted like body odor, rotten eggs and death.

I still watched in awe as the door now was slowly creaked open by Machiavelli. He motioned for me to go inside, and I did, still soaked in blood. I walked down the center of the aisle, which seperated the two rows of benches in which men prayed to their god.

I then felt a feeling. I felt like I fell a great distance. It was a feeling in my head and in my heart.

I looked forward and above the altar I recognized a faint shape of a man, who had been impaled through the heart. The spear that had impaled him was sticking into the wall. He was hanging off of that spear. Or was it a man? I couldn't recognize. It was too fuzzy.

Then it started coming back...the memory of my life. Or, should I say, A memory of my life.