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Epilogue

  This is my story.

  It might seem unbelievable to you and completely unreal, but it happened to me. I reached the flickering light of my soul, and I found love in the most extraordinary and peculiar place ever. I found Elizabeth.

  In all my time back in the real world, I only ever sinned once, but only because I felt compelled to keep my word to Malcolm. I had sworn to him that I would do this, so I had no choice and he had done so much for me.

  Jack found him in a hospital somewhere in Colorado. The day before Elizabeth and I left the country, I paid Malcolm a visit. I saw his full face resting on a pillow seemingly unconscious, his eyes closed. The machines were working at monitoring him and stabilizing his breathing and heart rate. I had secretly slipped into his ward managing to avoid all doctors, nurses and security. I found myself standing bedside the man who had given me another chance at living; he had given me a second chance.

  I put my hand on his forehead and brushed his gray hair back. He didn’t flinch at all, there was nothing, he just lay there completely still, in his vegetative state.

  “It’s time to pay you back Malcolm,” I mouthed. I carefully looked around his room. His uniform hung over the back of a chair, his medals pinned to his green shirt.

  Malcolm was a national hero, but to God he was just another murderer who didn’t deserve a place in heaven. I can only imagine the horrors he had inflicted during the war, how many lives and families had been destroyed by his, and his army’s, actions. But in the end he had repented.

  Slowly I reached out towards the apparatus that was controlling his breathing and flicked the switch off. It began beeping loudly, but I stayed, looking down at Malcolm fondly, but determined to see this through.

  I imagined him sitting in the café of that hellish town and drinking his favorite shit. Suddenly he would feel something boom from within him. He would look at his palms, taken aback for a second, and a smile of delight would spread across his face. His hand would become transparent, and he would be able to see the table through his palms; then he would become aware that I had indeed kept my promise to release him from his body. With a last big gulp he would drain the glass. Standing up, he would quietly leave the café, taking one last look at the town in which he had almost spent an eternity.

  He would wander along, his insides fluttering with delight until the connection to his body was broken. He would then disappear, vanishing into thin air, leaving no trace nor reminder of himself behind. One more house would shudder, and vanish into the ground.

  I sighed, looking at Malcolm for the last time, “I hope you’ve found your peace,” I said as I swung round leaving his ward and the hospital with great haste.

  Elizabeth was waiting for me in a car in the parking lot. As I opened the door and got into it, she stared at me questioningly.

  “It’s done,” I said.

  “Fine,” she replied sadly. “This is what he wanted Jonathan. You did him a favor.”

  “I know,” I replied, but deep inside I still felt guilty.

  Elizabeth hit the accelerator and together we started off into our new life.

  I now live somewhere in Europe. Please understand that, for obvious reasons, I don’t want to mention my current place of residence.

  A year has passed since I farewelled Malcolm, but almost every night I see that town in my dreams. It’s calling me, it’s stretching its arms towards me–the demons, the devils, those doglike animals, those horrendous residents are mocking me. I wake up in the middle of the night, startled, crying loudly until my eyes adjust to the darkness in our bedroom.

  Every now and again Elizabeth too screams in her sleep, but we will get through this, we have to outlive our pasts and keep moving forwards.

  I’ve given half of my property to my daughter and her mother. The last time I saw her was in court. Melissa had been much older than she was in my visions; she was fifteen. She had cut her hair short into some kind of hard rock-style–one side was dyed jet black and the other a fiery red. She wore ripped jeans, trying to be fashionable, but to me she resembled more of a clown. I have gotten used to her hating me more than anything else in the world, but it had been that town that made me realize my weakest point–I will always love my daughter, Melissa, even though she despises me.

  Also, I finally figured out the meaning of that town’s name. ‘Morsfinis’ is a Latin word combination; ‘Mors’ means death and ‘Finis’ means the end. I was at the end of death, at the very edge of a phenomenon where the two realities–life and death–are crossing.

  I can’t change my past, nobody can. I can only make my future better.

  But my new future doesn’t include my daughter, only Elizabeth and the new baby we’re expecting.

  Don’t hate me, I tried to win my daughter back, but in the end, the best thing I could do for her was to let her go, to let her live her life on her terms, and so I left.

  Fate has given me a new start, and I’m not going to waste it in vain.

  I will change, Elizabeth will change.

  The End

  From the author

  What can I say? Jonathan is a man who realizes his mistakes afterlife and gets a chance to fix them. Among the fights, supernatural power, love and passion there lay more than just a fiction. Just reason for a second what you were and what you’ve become. Is this what you dreamed in your childhood as the child’s dreams are the most lucid, clearest ones? Hasn’t money changed you, haven’t you lost yourself in the big world washed by aspiration for power and wealth?

  The idea of the book came to me with a man finding himself in abandoned town. I mused why he had appeared there, what he was seeking, what his aspiration was. Then light shed on me. I didn’t want my story become just another fiction, I wanted something deep and I daresay I’ve managed that.

  Man who is able to change everything. He’s not special, he’s one of us, he’s one of you. Everyone is able to change the world. Start it by fixing the world within you. I don’t mean that everyone is bad, but everyone sins, at least for once, deep inside everyone realizes, there is more within him/her, and we wait, wait for that light to shed around. It won’t come itself, you have to help that light to crawl out, to make the things better. Everything in your hands, remember that.

  About the author

  Born and raised in Yerevan, Armenia. Suren has been interested in mystery and fantasy stories and movies from early ages, that's why in his created books and short stories there is always an unpredictable mystery.

  Suren doesn't like stories with unreal and predictable happy-endings. The end of any story should have sense which makes the book better and real.

  Suren has started writing when he was sixteen. His first novel, called "He" is only in Armenian and is free in internet. In 2011 he decided to translate his writings into English for bigger audience. Translation isn't easy work to do, it's more difficult, then writing in English at once. In 2013 Suren gave up translating and began to write in English at once. Now he writes the same book in two languages.

  Every time watching a new fantasy or mystery movie, or reading a book, Suren wonders how far a human's mind can go. Every time he feels that there is still a long place to reach, a long way to pass. The world out of Earth is much bigger.

  Don’t miss Suren’s romance novel Touching the Freedom.

  Youth International Meeting is organized to gather over hundred teenagers from all over the world in one place every year.

  Twenty-two-year-old Isabel left for Munich for summer holidays to take a part in Youth International Meeting. She's going to be absolutely on her own for two weeks, without her bossy father around. Coming here she doesn't expect her life is going to change entirely, because she is going to meet someone who will see through her.

  His name is David. He's definitely older than the other guests. At the first sight of him blood rushes all over Isabel's body and cold sweat covers her. She has never experienced such feeling to any guy before. Every time seeing h
im around her legs drag her to him as though he is her spatial drug. But to gain him, Isabel has to face the secret lurking behind his dark and cute eyes and she has to confront his night life.

  For the first time in her life Isabel gets to know the real taste of freedom.

  More books from this author:

 

  To learn more about Suren and his books, visit SurenFant.com or follow @surenfant on Twitter.

  Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Suren-Fant/289872801030031