I explode into pain...

Endlessly the crows dive at me.  Cutting me.  Shredding my shirt and skin.

I fall to the ground again, ambushed, attacked.  

Murder by Crow.

The Angel Michael strides ahead of his host.  He is beautiful, like God himself.

"The pain you feel is nothing compared to the agony in our hearts since you left us, Samuel.  Come home."

I stammer out the word "why?"

Why is this happening?  Why am I being attacked?  Why this hill, why this man?

"Samuel, come home, send this man and come home.  Take the Flame..."

Michael extends the sword to me again.

I reach out for the hilt just as a large crow hits my elbow square.  Sinew is exposed.

I try to reach again and a larger bird lands on my back driving me into earth.  The birds attack my naked shoulder blades, pecking and devouring.

With one last breath of energy I lunge toward the sword.

I make contact with the hilt and my pain leaves.

The crows cry fury and all stream toward me.  My back is covered with feathers and talons.

As I rise, with ease, the voices of the crows are silenced one by one.  They melt and combine.  Bubble and form.

They are my black wings.  Dark and with a thousand eyes.

I am Samu-El, the Angel of Death.  

I lock eyes on Micha-El, my brother.

"Yes, Samu-El, complete the ritual, take up the flame and send that soul to us.  Reclaim your rightful place at my side!"

I step to the man.  Every step is lighter than air.  Every breath is the deep drink of a million souls.

I hear a millennia of pain and relief.

The man is crippled with age and a degenerative muscle disease.  As I see him shaded by a grand oak, I can see him in a hospital bed surrounded by family.  

Tears.

I lay hands on his shoulder and I receive his memories.  Thirty years locked in the prison of his body.  Every year he loses more of the man and becomes a diagnosis.  

Micha-El comes next to me, "Cut him free.  It is our Task.  You will be my Lieutenant, proud and dutiful when He shall return.  Already the signs are in place.  Brother, it will not be long.  Come home and serve me."

I remember too many years and centuries and eons at this point.  Micha-El is begging me to return to him.  To cease being who I am and become a servant.

The memories return so fast.  It is a grand thing to serve under the Light and He Who Shall Return.  It is my Task.  My compulsion.  

My memories and the memories of the man, mingle in my brain.

I turn to face Micha-El, I will return.

Suddenly one of the man's memories penetrates the battle in my mind.

"Don't accept what they say you are.  Be who you dream you will become..."

"Michael," I look him dead in the eyes, "go fuck yourself."

The crows awake and rocket from me, clouding the sun.

Everything goes dark.