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There was once a man who saw an angel. He wasn’t beautiful, nor did he have a perfect face, but he was almost as awe-inspiring as fantasy described them. He had the opportunity to behold him for the first time on the day of his death.
It was August 12, 2015. It was the second Sunday of the month, and people were rushing to stock their pantries after receiving their biweekly pay. It was 8 in the morning, and the markets had lines of up to twenty people. He was there, sitting, observing the scene.
He felt dazed, dizzy, and couldn’t feel most of his body. He didn’t remember his name, where he was, or who he was with. People sometimes seemed like blurs, and his mind could only manage to process two of his senses: sight and hearing. Although he still heard the bustle as clearly as ever, his sight was already fading, and he did not think it would take long for it to disappear completely.
It was then that he saw him. In the midst of a blurred environment, that being shone with sharpness, as if perceived through glass. He approached him with grace and gentleness, wearing a white robe and wings of a golden color that extended throughout the plumage. His skin and face were ineffable. His features defied every human standard; he almost seemed like another kind of being, like a monster. He was pale—so much so that he looked like paper. His facial features were replaced by a smooth, concave surface. His hair, of a vivid yellow, reached down to his heels. It seemed parched and neglected, yet it shone with such force that it blinded his senses.
While he observed him in detail, the angel stretched out his hand and touched his face. His fingers were soft, but at the moment of contact, the man felt an indescribable pain, as if his skin were being burned, cut, and stripped away all at once. He tried to move his hands, but he couldn’t even feel them. It was as if his body didn’t exist. Helplessness filled his thoughts as he tried to scream in pain, but not a single sound came out of his mouth.
He stopped feeling pain the moment the hand was withdrawn. The man collapsed, acutely feeling the impact against the asphalt. He tried to stand up, but he could only remain sitting and observe his surroundings. Then, as if through a magical revelation, he recovered his lost memories and the sensations of his body. A tingling sensation ran down his cheek.
He didn’t know it, but his destiny that day was to die.
After that, a man came to see him, and it turned out to be a relative who had a job for him. He discovered his own identity: Choi Jiung, 25 years old, an administration graduate, unemployed and homeless. That gentleman offered him a new chance at life, and he could do nothing but accept it.
What happened during those years was nothing out of the ordinary. Jiung forgot that angel a short time later. He lived for five years in a quiet town on the outskirts of the capital. He also worked at a nationally recognized company and lived a healthy life despite everything.
However, in the midst of the peace of his new life, strange things occurred. Many times he felt as though something were following him, experiencing an anxiety and stress that was difficult to describe. It felt like a weight on his shoulder, a hidden gaze behind him. It reached such a point that he resorted to a psychologist, but no specialist was able to treat his paranoia.
One day, in the midst of his desperation, he traveled to the capital to meet a rather expensive doctor willing to treat his case. He was sitting in the front seat of an intercity bus, along with thirty other people. That day, his delusions of persecution were more active than ever. Through the rearview mirror, he could stare at his own pale skin, and a cold sweat ran down his forehead. His heart was racing and his mouth was dry. He looked back repeatedly, but the passengers were immersed in their own affairs.
He examined the driver's seat for a moment and noticed clear exhaustion on his face. The driver blinked constantly, passing his hand over his face in an attempt to stay awake. Jiung froze when he saw the driver's eyes close for a few brief moments. The bus veered only a few degrees, but it was enough to cause a crash against a lamp post on the left.
He felt his head smash against the window and closed his eyes by instinct. Fear, combined with the force of the impact, caused his body to tremble violently. He felt his cheek burn and the sliding of blood down his face. A second blow occurred when the vehicle tilted and fell onto its side. He heard the sound of shattering glass, mixed with the crying of the injured in the back. A deadly and chaotic atmosphere.
His body paralyzed at that instant. He stayed in his place until a blinding glow reached his eyes. He turned his head with what little strength he had left and saw a celestial being approaching. He looked at him with a mixture of horror and stupor while the being extended his hand and placed it on his shoulder. All the pain caused by the accident was bearable compared to the sensation that slid across his skin. He let out a groan as he felt the blood on his face and body dry up, or rather, vanish. The pain concentrated entirely in that area of his body, beginning to disappear from the rest of his limbs. His eyes began to close while that being withdrew his hand, just as his mind turned to black and he lost contact with reality.
He woke up in a hospital room. He didn’t remember anything about the accident, but he still had remnants of his life, which already seemed diffuse, like looking through a foggy glass that darkened with every passing second. A woman entered the room and, amid what seemed like murmurs, he managed to hear what she was saying.
"It's a relief that the doctors stopped the heart attack before it got any worse," she said, holding his hand gently.
"Who was she?" he wondered, and a sudden realization washed over him when he recognized the person in front of him. It was his wife, Lee Hyeri, a housewife and mother of two children. He was Yoon Keeho, a famous businessman, owner of a multinational corporation. At that instant, those blurry moments vanished and, instead, the memories of a life he seemed to have had forever settled in.
He left the hospital after a few days of recovery and returned to his activities as a manager. He lived in his beautiful mansion with his family, and the entire environment exuded happiness at every moment. However, every morning, looking at himself in the mirror, he felt he wasn’t himself. His features in the reflection seemed, instead, those of an entirely different person. Yet, the strange events didn’t end there. He had recurring dreams of a silhouette that he couldn’t remember upon waking up, and every time he saw it, he felt more beside himself.
Day-to-day life became heavier to bear. Suddenly, an interest arose in him, and he wanted to investigate his problem. Soon he discovered that dreaming of shadows could mean that he wasn’t being true to himself, and a chill ran down his spine upon remembering fragments of another life—one he had experienced before waking up that morning in the hospital. Among all those vague memories, one in particular caught his attention: extended wings of a golden color that shone with radiance.
He remembered nothing more after that, and it was then, when that imprecise image passed through his mind, that his search intensified. He searched through every book of angelology and consulted with various demonologists. His family, friends, and employees treated him as if he were insane, but whenever he stopped searching, instead of finding peace, anxiety took hold of him.
In his search, he discovered many diverse things about angels. However, one specific piece of information among them all caught his attention. It was contained in a little-known book, one he couldn’t find in any famous bookstore, but rather at a street stall on some forgotten road in the city. In one of its chapters, it spoke of uncommon angels who intervened in the lives of humans. There were all kinds: guardian angels who watched over criminals, angels who guided countries to ruin, among many others that he didn’t bother to review. But there was one type of angel that stood out from the rest: The angel of the second chance. The description portrayed him as an overly compassionate angel who, in an effort to improve people's quality of life, gave them the option to live their life once more. But there was a major problem: he stole the lives of already existing people, and reduced the person's life expectancy to between one and five years after the possession of the body.
He felt a pang in his chest upon reading it, like a dark presentiment in the deepest part of his spirit. He had so many questions to solve: Did these people retain anything from their previous lives? What was the purpose of these changes, if they altered the entire essence of their being?
His gaze was drawn to the final paragraph, which detailed the angel's punishment:
For the meaninglessness of his actions, and the failure to comply with the law of non-intervention in the human community without a divine mandate, the angel will suffer a death in the flesh, perdition, and suffering for all eternity; just like the sinners he dedicated himself to saving. They will be recognized by their deformed faces, an analogy to the alteration of destiny and order they caused on earth.
Upon reading this, the man cringed and felt a cold breeze sweep through the room. He stayed in that position for a few moments and closed the text, realizing that he had only found data through hunches that, in the end, had led him to nothing.
One day, after months of searching, he finally found a particular article. The title read: 'Traffic accident: 29 dead, 1 missing.'
He read the article carefully, growing more surprised with every line. A particular paragraph caught his interest:
The strangest thing about this incident is that coroners assure that the injuries of more than half of the passengers were not fatal, and paramedics could have saved them were it not for the fact that they died shortly after the accident. Neighbors also declare that they saw the missing man, Choi Jiung, walk out of the bus safe and sound next to what appeared to be a bright light.
His heart stirred immediately, but looking at the photographs, he didn’t recognize the man in them either. He decided to write down everything he was discovering, and in the midst of hours and hours of fruitless work, he found something that surprised and terrified him in equal measure: an anecdote written by a girl in a paranormal blog who claimed to have seen an angel save a helpless man. The text in question was written in 2019, almost three years prior, and there was a phone number to contact the girl's parents. He called immediately and managed to arrange an appointment for the following morning, but the place was far away, so he would have to leave that very night.
He got into his car around 7:00 in the evening and traveled a good part of the way, before someone stopped him in the middle of the highway. A man he didn’t recognize knocked on his window, and he rolled down the glass slowly. From one moment to the next, the man was holding a gun, threatening him to get out of the vehicle. He abandoned the car immediately and handed over the keys to the other man standing in front of his car. He watched them drive away, and in an instant, saw one of them stick the weapon out the window and, with a precision worthy of a sheriff, shoot him five times in the chest.
The pain and weakness he felt brought him immediately to the ground. He was losing blood so uncontrollably that he knew he would bleed out in a matter of minutes. It was right there, while he begged for his life, that he saw feet as white as paper standing over him, causing him an unspeakable, burning pain. Seconds later, he felt a hand on his cheek, and as his skin burned, the memories of his past lives returned.
First, he was Choi Taeyang, a helpless beggar who stole bread to eat and who was on the verge of dying due to a virus that was consuming his energy.
Then, he was Choi Jiung, a lower-middle-class man who lived well enough with his few privileges and who only suffered from his mental struggles.
And finally he was, as if climbing a ladder, one of the most successful millionaires in his country, until his dementia condemned him to an imminent death.
The images disappeared after a few moments and the angel withdrew. The man noticed that there were two celestial spirits standing behind him. They had beautiful faces, completely contrary to the deformed face of the one who had saved him for the third time. He noticed that his wounds were healed, and he tried to get up, but his body seemed to be under a spell. There, lying in the middle of the street, he witnessed for the only time the death of an angel. The other beings pushed the angel's head with supreme gentleness, and it slid along the ground immediately. There was no blood or screams, only an uncomfortable feeling of guilt in his chest. He saw that shadow that used to appear to him in dreams, and realized it was merely the reflection of the dead one who had just departed. He was not sure if there was a punishment after that, or if he would have to suffer the consequences for the rest of eternity.
It didn’t take long for the remains to disappear. Only a single, thin golden hair remained, and the man stayed there for a moment before sitting up. He knelt, grabbed the hair between his hands, and noticed that they were rougher and more neglected than ever. He inspected the rest of his clothes and saw the holes and the dirt. He noticed the foul odor reaching his nostrils. Once again he was himself—the man he should have been from the very beginning, the man whose destiny he had to carry on his back.
But he didn’t remember much of the reasons why he was there.
There was once a man who saw an angel. Even though he wasn’t beautiful, his heart ached day after day from the memory of his death. That night, August 12, 2022, not only an angel died, but three other people as well, whose memories were lost to infinity.
There was once an angel who sacrificed immortality for a human who was never going to remember him.