Azriel Henley Eternity

Azriel, meaning ‘angel of god’. God, meaning ‘that which lies above’.

Azriel’s mother had always been praying.

The sand is soft, and everywhere. It’s in their hair, in their shoes. It blankets the expanse of ground from here to the horizon. The sun is setting and the world is golden. A breeze blows slowly over the dunes, passing gently across Azriel’s skin. It feels like their mother’s touch.

In the silent darkness, Azriel had always wondered who their mother was praying to, and what for. Not long ago they had feared that it was to bloodthirsty rats, or cloying darkness. That they had spent their childhood following someone who was already lost. But it was clear now. There was no single god for her—not a great rat nor a shadow nor anything else.

No. Their mother had been praying to all of this. For all of this. The blue of the sky, the warmth of the sun. The glittering grains of sand, the caress of the wind. For everything between those things, and everything beyond them.

Azriel’s throat tightens. They wish they could reach back through time and embrace her. The woman who they had thought to be nothing more than a mysterious comforter in the darkness had actually been a reflection of themselves. But even curled up together, so close that they could hear each other's heartbeats, Azriel had never known that they dreamed of the same thing.

Their mother had dreamed of daylight.

But she had also dreamed fearful dreams, dreams of a gun to the back of her head.

Azriel sighs bitterly. The memory is still sharp to the touch. The way she had died had been much more painful than the swiftness of a bullet. Her own body had pushed her out of herself, boiled her essence away, and left nothing but a hollow residue. All that had remained were words, familiar but nonsensical.

“Just a little farther,” she had whispered. Azriel’s heart twists. She had been right. Just a little farther, just a little deeper, and all will be revealed.

Her voice echoes thinly in Azriel’s memory. “My angel… My Azriel… Your name is so special. Did you know it means you have help from above?”

Azriel did know, now. They were guided by visions of grass and sky, of moon and sun and wind and sea. They were helped by a force that sent them stumbling through tunnels of dirt and grasping at flowers in darkness. They were moved to cloak themselves with shadows and run towards the bullet that their mother had fled from. They were moved to leap beyond that bullet, into the sun.

The sun, now glowing gently across pale waves of sand.

This is above. This is what called to them both. This is what helped them keep going.

Azriel holds up a photo in their hand. There she is. Sinead. Mother. Her hair is as red as Azriel’s, and she looks brighter and healthier than ever.

After a moment, they turn their mother’s face to the golden horizon.

“Now you’ll get to see it all, too.”

Written by Ameal W.

It’s time for one of those boring school trips, to a museum, and what’s more to a museum about stuff from over 100 years ago! Who would care about that? Well this little girl definitely doesn’t. She slowly inches further and further to the back of the class, who pay various levels of attention to the tour guide droning on about some old vaccine, something about rats, or a dull princess robot. She doesn’t know, she stopped paying attention ages ago, when she saw that strange flower in the room the group passed.

Now she slips away, using the same plan that she always does to sneak away from the teachers. The corridors and artefacts fly past as she glides down the corridors to that strange room with the strange flower.

1. Riathella - A subterranean flower native to the area. Discovered by Azriel Henley and Ash Burrows in the first Chasm expedition.

There’s two of them, actually. Side by side. She feels the flower in her hair, wondering what it would be like to find such a strange flower, and not just in some boring old chasm, but in a capital 'C' Chasm. She wanders across the room skipping several display cabinets, picking a new one at random.

17. Cypher - Case notes from Harrier Humboldt’s last case. Replica. Discovered by Azriel Henley in the Director’s office. Would later prove instrumental in implicating Director Avgust Kovač in the murder of Harrier Humbodlt, and prove the safety of the Overground.

There’s the name again, discovering something else, something new. The case notes look confusing, detailed. Annotations, scribbles, and strange symbols fill every page, making them seem important. There’s a translation on the glass to the side, and an interactive code-solving puzzle for kids just underneath it. But she ignores that, as there’s something much more interesting just next to it. And anyway she’s not a kid, she’s almost 9.

18. Expedition Photograph - Photograph of the second Overground Expedition. Pictured from left to right: Alexis Knight, Ash Burrows, Azriel Henley, Elias Shaw, Clouseau Jacques, Mirax Caspian.

There’s the name again, and there’s the face, with their red hair, and such determination. The person who found all that new stuff, who was the first to explore the Overground. Maybe she wants to go find some new new stuff as well.

And so the little girl thuds back down the hallway, forgetting about her previous attempts at secrecy, to the voices of all her classmates, her footsteps echoing off the cold marble floors. Now with a new Idea in her head, now with a call to adventure.