Suddenly, Alex catches me from behind before my body can roll over onto the sidewalk. For some reason, his body and his grip feel just like a regular human now.
"Hey, are you alright?" Alex asks.
"Yeah, I think so... thanks," I say, feeling mixed between embarrassed—because it is my own fault for running away from him—and also annoyed at seeing his face again after his meeting with Clara.
"Why did you run away from me? I've been looking for you everywhere," he says after helping me stand back up. "I still have a promise to help you, remember?"
I remain silent and pout, still upset with him.
"No need. You don't have to help me anymore. I don't need help from normal people like you."
"What do you mean?" Alex asks, wanting to know.
I look around for my wax duck toy, only to find it dropped on the ground. I pick it up and check, but one of the wax ducks inside has already shattered from hitting the pavement earlier. I feel like I want to cry, but believe me, being a grown-up guy, your tears hardly even come out, even if you want them to.
While standing up, my hand accidentally reaches into my jacket pocket and I realize I forgot that I had stuffed Alex's sketch in there. Did he manage to track me down all the way here because of this sketch? I wonder to myself.
I show both items to Alex, pointing at him as a gesture. "I saw the logo of the frozen yoghurt cafe where you two met, inside your bubble," I explain.
"Oh, really? You saw that too?" Alex says, looking surprisingly pleased.
"So, does this mean you and Clara... are like a thing, right?" I ask, narrowing my eyes.
For a moment, we both fall into silence.
"I can explain, but it's a long story..." Alex tries to clarify.
"No, I get it now. Just go okay, your time is running out," I say, cutting him off. "The sun is about to set soon. You should be with her. Why are you even coming to meet me here? Just forget me, okay! You don't have to help me anymore, I'm fine."
"You don't understand, Billy. My business with her is already over," Alex continues his explanation.
Huh? I grow even more confused about what he means by that.
"I promise you, I have no more business with Clara now. I'm free. I have to be honest with you though," Alex says seriously. "But it's a long story. Let's find a place to sit first, okay? Maybe in that park up ahead?" He points to a new park that I have never visited before.
"Fine..." I'm still a bit mad.
We're then walking toward our target park while still continuing our conversation.
"So, Billy..." Alex says. "Actually, I am not an angel..." he reveals. "I am someone's soulmate in the future, up from heaven."
"I came down here to find my future princess, because..." Alex pauses. "...I thought she was in danger."
What? I'm shocked in my heart. But it's clear now why his body feels like a real human just now. He must have been tricking me when we met at the beginning.
"So it's true then that Clara is really your soulmate?" I ask, while holding onto Alex's sketch.
"I thought so at first, but it turns out she isn't," Alex says with a disappointed expression, making me even more curious.
We finally arrive at the park and find the only quiet, empty bench. But there's a puddle below it, probably from the rain before. We sit there anyway.
"Okay, here we go, this is my actual story," Alex begins. "Deep in heaven, I live in a palace where my future soulmate and I are destined to live together at the end of time. I had never met or known her before. I could only ask the water to reveal what her face looked like. Her face matches your friend Clara, just like the one I sketched on that paper. I could only learn a bit about herself through her things that would keep appearing somewhere around the palace—whenever she wished for something, I assume."
"You're joking, right? You must be lying again," I chuckle in disbelief.
"I am serious now, Billy. It's up to you whether you want to believe it or not," Alex says seriously.
"I have no clue where I came from. All I know is I've lived there from day one. I have never been a baby or a kid; I have always been in this adult form for my entire existence. In the palace, my only company is an actual angel—the real one with wings—not the fake one like me. He was the one who brought me everything I needed, but I could never speak to him; he only used simple gestures. Most of the time, he just stood guard outside. He was the one who gave me the book about myself, my soulmate, my role, and all my duties in my very beginning. And because I am the one and only soulmate for my princess, he signaled for me to make friends with the water whenever I felt lonely."
"That was pretty much all of my life. Just keep waiting and waiting until me and my soulmate can finally meet. Even though there's no way for me to go outside, I learned a lot of things through my book, my angel, and the water. Well, mostly the water; it showed me so many things I could learn about, especially the world where my soulmate lived."
"Wait, hold on there, I need you to be completely honest right now." I cut Alex off. "What about God, then? You don't pray to Him? Is He ever mentioned in your book? Can everything in that heaven, in this world, even the angels and all of us exist just like that without the Creator who made all of us?" I ask, as I'm going back into this circle again.
"Well, my answer still remains 'I don't know about God'," Alex says. "I do believe that there's a power above all of us, as I myself can't even create a single cell in my body. But there's no command for me to pray to anyone in that book, so I just do what the book says."
"I see... continue, then," I say with a nod.
"Anyway, lately, things started to get worse in the palace. Day by day, the sky kept getting darker and darker. Her things, which used to appear frequently, started to vanish one by one each day. Eventually, one day, I couldn't even see my soulmate's reflection in the water anymore. Luckily, I had managed to draw her in my sketch before; I didn't want to forget her face. I really had no idea what was happening. I started to worry that something terrible might have happened to my soulmate down on Earth."
"The last time I was there, the atmosphere in the palace became so dark and foggier on its peak. From the top of the tower, out of nowhere, I saw a really big, swirly, cloudy vortex cover up almost our entire courtyard and my guardian angel was standing right next to it holding his staff, staring up at me. I wondered what was happening. I ran downstairs, grabbing my soulmate's sketch along with me just in case, then stepped out of the palace. I watched my angel step into the vortex and I followed him right in. Inside, I saw a very, very long, cloudy staircase going way down into nowhere while my angel kept walking down on it, so I quickly rushed to catch up with him. The place was completely dark; his light along with his glowing staff was the only thing I could follow."
"We walked down that endless staircase for days. It was my first time leaving the palace. We passed around all kinds of darkness. Sometimes we went through a deeply quiet darkness, and other times a darkness filled with creepy clouds and rumbling. I was just glad my guardian angel was still there with me, even though we never spoke a single word. I could only guess if this staircase was leading toward Earth. Was this my time to finally meet my soulmate? But it's not that time yet. Was she in trouble now, considering how the palace had been falling apart lately?"
"I lost count of how many days we've stayed still in the dark. Finally, at one point, we reached the last step and it led us straight to a giant portal door. Before we entered, my guardian angel handed me a device resembling a digital wristwatch, though its screen was actually just simply water. He then opened the door with his key, and soon we stepped right through it together."
Updated 06/06/2026
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