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| The King and The Calling |
Just as Obadiah begins to believe a quiet life might be enough, Heaven interrupts with a vision from the past. On the steps of King David’s palace, old wounds are reopened — and divine orders come calling once more. Scroll down to read the episode »
Episode 4| The King and The Calling| Jerusalem, in the Time of David
Steam curled from the mug in Obadiah’s hands as he leaned against the counter of his small kitchen. The house was quiet—Laric still asleep upstairs, the ticking clock the only sound.
He took a slow sip of coffee, eyes half‑closed. For a moment, the rhythm of mortal life felt almost normal.
Then the light in the room shifted.
The air thickened, rippling like water, and the kitchen dissolved into sunlight and stone.
He blinked.
The courtyard of King David’s palace in ancient Jerusalem stretched out before him, golden and sunlit, exactly as he remembered it — untouched by time. A harp whispered softly from somewhere beyond the olive trees, and stone columns cast long shadows across warm flagstones.
Obadiah’s chest tightened.
“No…” he muttered under his breath. “Not again.”
The past shouldn’t feel this real. He hadn’t stood here in centuries — not since before the Fall, before the wings, before Laric. He’d buried this place. Buried everything it meant.
His feet felt too heavy to move. He glanced down — bare, no shoes, no kitchen tile beneath him. Just dust and stone. The air buzzed with divine stillness — that breathless silence that came only when Heaven drew near.
Then from the archway, he came.
King David.
Still regal. Still familiar. Still the one human Obadiah had never been able to forget.
The king walked with the same quiet strength as before, his shoulders relaxed but commanding. His dark hair now bore a few threads of silver, but his eyes — those eyes — burned with the same fierce clarity Obadiah had seen on battlefields, in caves, in moments when kingdoms rose and fell.
David stopped a few feet away.
“Obadiah,” he said gently, as if no time had passed. “It’s been too long, old friend.”
Obadiah didn’t speak. Couldn’t. His mouth felt dry.
He stepped back, heart thudding in his chest.
“This… this isn’t real,” he whispered. “I’m dreaming.”
David smiled softly. “Perhaps. Or perhaps you’re simply being reminded of what you’ve tried to forget.”
Obadiah shook his head, voice low and hard. “Twelve years,” he said, the words scraping out of him. “Twelve years without a word from Heaven. Twelve years of silence. Of pretending I could be… normal.”
“You’ve never been normal,” David said kindly. “You were forged for more than silence.”
Obadiah’s jaw tightened. “Forged for battle. For loss. For sacrifice.”
David took a step closer. “No. Forged for purpose.”
Obadiah gave a bitter half-laugh. “Is that what this is? Heaven sending me visions now? Is this how they stir me from sleep — by dragging me through memories I’ve buried?”
David didn’t flinch.
“I buried her,” Obadiah said, voice cracking. “Kristiel. And I’ve tried every day since not to dig her back up in my mind. I gave up everything. My wings. My name. I raised her child. I became human, David. I’ve lived small on purpose.”
“And yet,” David said gently, “you still feel the pull. The restlessness. The emptiness.”
Obadiah looked away, fists clenched. The wind rustled the olive branches above them, and the harp in the distance played a note sharp and sad.
“You didn’t come here,” David continued. “But part of you knew this was coming. You’ve felt the shift. The quiet before something breaks.”
Obadiah closed his eyes. That ache in his chest… it wasn’t grief. Not anymore. It was weight. Weight that had waited for him to stop pretending.
“Why you?” he asked finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why are you the one I see?”
David shrugged, though his eyes said more than his words. “You still trust me.”
That landed harder than it should have.
Obadiah looked down at his hands. They weren’t Brian’s hands. Not here. They were his — calloused, weather-worn, shaped by war and memory. He flexed them slowly, as if rediscovering a truth he’d hidden under museum walls and coffee mugs.
“Tell me why I’m here,” he said at last.
David nodded toward the olive grove. “Come walk with me. We both know what’s coming.”
Obadiah hesitated, then followed.
They moved through the grove in silence. Leaves whispered above them. The light shifted around them, richer now, tinged with gold so deep it felt almost red.
Then the air trembled.
It began with a hum. Low. Resounding. Not of Earth. Not of time.
The wind stilled. The harp stopped.
Obadiah’s heart sank.
The light in the courtyard deepened, became sharper — almost metallic. A fissure in the air tore open like a wound, light bleeding out from a place between realms.
And then — they stepped through.
Two figures, tall and bright, cloaked in divine stillness.
Gabriel and Michael.
Their forms were radiant but solid, unmistakable in their presence. Michael’s expression was carved from stone, sharp and commanding, while Gabriel’s gaze held a calm intensity that pierced even memory.
David stepped back, head bowed. “It seems your path has found you again.”
Obadiah stood very still, the weight of two worlds pressing down on his shoulders.
TO BE CONTINUED…
🔙 Next, in Episode 5: The Rise of Antioch
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