Marcus was surrounded in darkness, in a completely empty void. He couldn’t see anything, hear anything, smell anything, or even feel anything. He was just floating, encapsulated in a great valley of nothingness.

     But suddenly a bright light burst out of the nothingness, almost blinding him. His eyes struggled to adjust, but as they managed to pry themselves open, he saw a great, shining figure standing before him. And he realized he was in a field now, with pretty yellow flowers speckled all around, and great, endless mountain ranges surrounding the beautiful meadow, a cool breeze along his back. He didn’t feel small though; the flora that surrounded him were regularly sized, a familiar proportion to the rest of his body. He felt like he was back to his old height of just under 6 feet tall. But as he looked to the cloudless blue sky, he was unable to see the face of that which stood before him, towering hundreds of feet in the air, as the bright sun kept him from looking too close at who it was that stood with him. Until he saw the figure start to bend down, and their head moved to block the sun, eclipsing it as a giant face cast a shadow over him. And they were smiling, a radiant expression of love and joy on their face. It was his daughter.

     As he looked beyond her giant, towering face, he noticed she was dressed in all white, with a sparkling halo hovering above her long, glimmering hair, and a pair of majestic, radiant wings at her back. He recognized it was the same outfit that she had worn to the party, but this one wasn’t made of cheap home materials; it was real. The cloth that adorned her body looked like they were made out of an extravagant silk, the wings at her back seemed to breathe in a life of their own, and even the halo floated independently above her, not bound by any sticks or plastic. Her skin was still milky white, but not it was glowing, as if there was some covered in some kind of aura. She wasn’t just dressed as an angel anymore; she had truly become one.

     He watched as her fingers reached out to pick him up, but he felt no fear as he was deposited into the palm of her hand, and lifted up high off the ground and in front of her luminous, heavenly face. “Jessie?” he asked, transfixed by the sight of the being that he had thought was his daughter.

     She slowly shook her head. “Yes, that is my name, but I am not your child,” she spoke, her voice still familiar and youthful, but filled with a kind of confidence he had never heard before. “I am your guardian angel, Marcus. Sent to keep you safe, and to wake you up.”

     He was only filled with more confusion. “What?”

     “Sent to wake you up,” the being repeated, still smiling. “Wake up. Wake up.” Her voice started to lose its confidence, although her face didn’t move, staring directly at him as her lips uttered the same thing again and again. “Wake up. Wake up. Daddy, wake, UP!”