Alex's POV
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Darkness was all I saw until the sound of waves registered in my ears. My head lay on something soft while someone occasionally patted my head gently. It was comfortable that I unknowingly brought myself closer to the individual.
"Ah, you're awake, Zivarel." An all too familiar voice called out. My face turned confused for a moment. I tried to open my eyes to see the person, but the light in my face made me squint, so the figure whose lap I was lying on appeared blurry.
The figure leaned forward, blocking the light in my face. Their hair falling like a dirty blonde waterfall.
Tears welled up in my eyes at the figure before me. My mouth tried to form words to say, but nothing came out as I became choked up with emotions. It couldn't be possible that I was seeing them. They were supposedly dead. She…was supposedly dead.
"Mo…" was all I was able to get out as I lunged my exhausted body towards the person before me, wrapping my arms around their neck. There was no way I could forget that face: those amber eyes and dirty blonde hair.
"Mom." I finally cried out, tears falling down my face. The person I believed was my mother reciprocated the hug and tapped and rubbed my back to comfort me.
"No, child." My mother's voice said as they continued to comfort me. "Forgive me. I thought seeing a trusted figure the moment you woke up would be best. I did not mean to upset you."
I froze as the tears stopped flowing, but still stained my cheeks. I backed out of the embrace I had them in and slowly locked eyes with the individual who resembled my mother.
"Then…," I paused as a sob escaped uncontrollably. "Who?"
My mother's form smiled weakly. A smile that seemed forced and filled with sadness. They raised their hands closer to my face to wipe the tears, but I backed away slightly, not out of fear but from the realization that the figure before me was nearly see-through, like a ghost.
They froze for a couple of seconds and resumed the action when they saw I wasn't scared, just confused.
"It is our first meeting face to face," they said as they cupped my face and wiped the drying tears from my cheeks with their thumbs. "But it is I, child."
Realization started to set in from the manner of speaking and how they called me 'child.'
I sniffled and wiped the remnants of any tears on my face and said, unsure, "Raziel?"
Raziel nodded with my mother's ethereal form.
"I see," I said in a disappointed tone.
"This form brings you great sadness, child. Would you prefer I take on my neutral form?" Raziel tilted their head to the side as they asked the question.
I stared at Raziel, my mother's ethereal form before me, and clenched my hands into loose fists on my thighs.
It did indeed bring me sadness to see my mother before me, but seeing my mother again, even though it's not her, does bring me a form of safety.
I've been thrown into the unknown world of the supernatural and demons one minute, and the next, finding out my parents were supposedly dead. Plus meeting long-lost relatives that I never knew I had. So many unbelievable things happened.
Yet, now there is something before me that could confirm all this for me.
Raziel, the angel of secrets and knowledge themself. The very being who once sat beside the throne of the creator and recorded divine knowledge.
"It's fine, this form brings me a feeling of safety even though she's gone. I at least can still hear her voice through you." I finally said, locking eyes with my mother's form.
My mother's form nodded, "If you wish, child."
"But…how do I refer to you? It would feel awkward to call you Raziel with my mother's face. And mom or mother would be weird also."
"Hahahaha," Raziel, in my mother's form, laughed, covering their mouth.
"Oh, child. No need to think so hard. Call me whatever you wish. We celestial beings have no gender. Sure, we might have some that may look more masculine and others more feminine, but that's just an energy thing."
"I think I'll just refer to you as Rahzi if you don't mind."
Rahzi smiled, "It shall be as you wish, child."
"Can I ask you a question?" I asked Rahzi.
I needed to know if my parents were truly dead; I didn't even seem to need to voice out my question, as if they knew it beforehand.
"It is true. They are no longer of this world, child."
My shoulders sagged at the confirmation, but I followed up with another question.
"Is Azaelia truly my Aunt? Can she be trusted?" I asked.
Rahzi nodded their head, "She is your Aunt, but demons can be cunning. Trusting 100 percent isn't wise with the ShadowKin. However, she is trustworthy to an extent."
"I find that kind of interesting to ask, though," Rahzi added, looking at me with a side eye.
"You ate a meal from them. Hug them. Bathed with them. And even turned an injured back to them. One wouldn't do that with someone they didn't trust, right?"
"Ahem," I faked coughing into my right fist, ignoring what Rahzi added. "I just needed confirmation," I said, looking over to the side to nowhere in particular.
Then it dawned on me.
Where the hell was I? Wasn't I running from a high-ranked beast and escaping death? Didn't I transform into a male version of a demon with wings and somehow finish off the high-ranked beast known as Baelgor?
Yet now I was somehow on some beach. The sand beneath me was a mix of white and black, warm to the touch. I turned behind me to the sound of waves crashing.
One side was white-gold, and the other as black as obsidian. Similar to how the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet but don't mix.
Yet the most eye-catching thing was a white-and-black three-dimensional sphere floating in the sky, casting light like a sun.
Within the dark side of the sphere, which occasionally released black smoke like clouds, was the silhouette of an infant female. Despite being an infant, they sat in a meditation pose.
On the white or light side of the sphere, something similar was occurring, but the only difference was that it released white gold flames instead of black smoke into the sky. The infant's silhouette was male and ethereal.
I could tell that it probably had to do with my bloodlines, but the question that I came out with as I stared at the sphere in the sky was,
"Rahzi…where the hell am I?"