The Invitation Read Online Free PDF

Stranger.
    â€œIt’s so loud. And it hurts!” Tim clutched his head, squeezing it hard, trying to push out the pain.
    â€œYour pain is only the tiniest fraction of the pain that brought forth all that would become all. Time. Heat. Life. Everything.”
    â€œEverything?” Tim repeated. As intensely and immediately as it had invaded, the sounds and the pain stopped. Tim lowered his hands and looked around. “We’re really at the beginning of everything?”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking. We are here as observers, not participants. Now, child, look upward. Do you see the silver city?”
    Tim saw tiny sparks of light all around him. He was floating among the stars. He had no idea what was holding him up, or how he could breathe, but that didn’t seem to matter. In the area the Stranger had indicated, there was a beautiful cluster of lights, swirling, moving, but all contained, like the most extraordinary constellation. He thought he could see castle like structures, but it all kept moving, coming together, dancing apart, then coming together again.
    â€œWatch closer.”
    Tim kept his focus on the constellation. Suddenly, there was a bright flash, a burst of light, of new colors raining down, scattering, breaking up the cluster. He wondered what had happened. It seemed that something exploded inthe midst of the sparkling lights. Was it some sort of supernova?
    â€œWow! That’s wicked,” Tim said. John Constantine wasn’t kidding about the special effects. “Like Star Wars .”
    â€œA strange analogy, child. But indeed there was a war in heaven and you see the vanquished now, burning as they fall, like stars. In the darkness before dawn, theirs was the first folly, theirs the first rebellion.”
    â€œWhat—What are you talking about?” Tim asked. “Whose rebellion?”
    Some of the sparkling lights streaked past him, and Tim gasped. They weren’t meteorites or spaceships—they were winged figures!
    â€œThey look like…angels.”
    â€œPrecisely,” the Stranger said.
    Tim watched the angels fall, one after another. The Stranger named them as they dropped down: Lucifer, Uriel, Raphael, Michael, Saraquel, Gabriel, Raquel…
    They looked so powerful, masculine, muscular. Tim felt puny beside them. He had always thought of angels as chubby little Cupids on valentines, or as Christmas ornaments, not anything like these creatures.
    â€œThey’re so big!” he said.
    The Stranger brought his face closer to Tim’s, his white eyes glowing like the stars around them. It struck Tim that those white eyes were energy, and that the Stranger’s human flesh was merely a container for it. “That is your perception. But, child, space is large, and there are many planes and viewpoints and dimensions.”
    â€œSo you’re saying they look big to me, but in the whole scheme of things, maybe they’re not so huge?” Tim replied, trying to piece it together. “It all depends on your point of view?”
    â€œPrecisely.” The Stranger straightened up again.
    Tim felt as if he’d passed a pop quiz, and his forehead unfurrowed.
    â€œLet’s examine your world,” the Stranger said. “See that star? That’s your sun. Or it will be, eons hence.”
    This is unbelievable , Tim thought as he and the Stranger strolled through the night sky toward a glowing red sphere. Is this really happening to me? Or is this all some wacko dream, and I’m lying in the gutter after being clonked on the head in a skateboard accident? Dad’s always on me about wearing a helmet. I’d hate to prove him right .
    Tim once again felt a swirling, dropping sensation, his stomach leaping to his chest and backdown. The skin on his face pressed against his bones, and he was certain anyone looking at him would be able to see his skeleton through his flesh. He could sense images, feel darkness battle light,