"Me? Mom? Pregnant?!" Eli's thinking short circuited. That came out of nowhere!!
No, it came from somebody! And that somebody was the Creator himself!!
"Errrrm, are you sure you are thinking about the right plan, yeah? For this poor woman's soul and her child, yeah???" Eli slowly and carefully questioned the Being that had just blurted out something she couldn't comprehend.
"I am not mistaken, my dear child.. I need you to be a mom in her place," the Great One calmly replied.
"Will it not just be easy to just directly resurrect her soul ahhhh? Why me ahhh??" Eli went crazy.
Of course she wanted to become a mom in the FUTURE.. in the near future, with her going through the process of knowing a guy being in love and married. Not a straight away baby bump!!
She remembered a passage in the holy scripture about the birth of the Savior. It was said that the Savior was not conceived by union of man and woman but his spirit descended directly from heaven into a woman's womb.
But what in tarnation!!!
This time, it is the mother's spirit that will descend directly from heaven to conceive a child??!!! She, Eli will be the one descending to conceive a child!!!
"My child, hear me out.. This poor child here is named Elise, she came from another world that I created, just like your earth." The figure explained.
"Another world?! So parallel worlds exist? Or is it another planet? So humans are not alone in the univeeeerseeee?!''
It is fortunate that Eli is in soul form right now. For if she had a physical body, her expression would be exactly like the famous painting named 'The Scream'.
The Great One chuckled at Eli's shock and continued explaining, "Hahaha! Yes indeed my child. My creations, especially humans, for whatever world I put them in, I made them fearfully and wonderfully. I crafted their destinies and the plans I have for them, I know them by heart."
"I created them, you, in my own image and likeness. You are the best of all creations I did. That is why I gave you my very own life, my very own breath." The Great One's tone was so loving and gentle.
"However, the evil continued to rebel and did his very best to take you away from me. For every world I created, he found a way to introduce evil and spread it to those worlds," heartbroken, he continued.
"He knows that the more humans succumb to eternal death, the more it will hurt Me. That is why the evil always did many things to corrupt people. He confused people, deceived people, orchestrated them to kill each other and made them believe that I didn't exist. His works were so evil that there was almost no way to save mankind from this vicious cycle..." the Great One's quivering voice continued as the two orb souls listened.
"Thus, I made the grand move to protect mankind... I sent a Way for them to be saved. But still, it's every man's choice to believe or not. For the roots of evil run deep and that, I have created mankind with free will. I am able to save multitudes of my people, as they have chosen to follow the Way that I sent to them."
"It has continued for generations now, and I hope that every mankind will choose the Way... However, the evil will never give up his way of doing things. He went on and on to continue destroying mankind. He directly stole and destroyed the human soul. He even started to distort their destinies. Just like what happened to the both of you," the Great One's voice turned solemn.
"I know some of this you were already aware of, now, but these were still a lot to take in for you. These are heaven's secrets, but these truths say a lot about the things I wanted for you to do," he told the two souls.
"Elise my child, as you know, your soul had been directly corrupted by the malevolent evil, not allowing your spirit to both directly enter the paradise and spend eternity with me, nor go back to your world to be resurrected. Your soul was so badly injured, that I need to let you undergo healing first before you enter paradise." The Great One addressed Elise, the woman's soul orb.
"And for you Eli, my brave child. If I, here, have used Elise's soul to resurrect, the evil residing in that world will detect his aura and will surely come back to take away both Elise's life and the little one for sure. However, if a new soul, clean and without a wisp of the evil's aura was used, you can live and safely conceive the little one," this time the Great One, for the first time called Eli by her name.
"You know, my children, the moment you called my name when you were both at death's door, I heard your lamentations loud and clear. It was at that moment I decided to let your souls meet Me and hear your pleas." he continued.
"Eli, my dear, this time I'm giving you a new life. For you deeply regret how you have lived the first one. However, I just have one additional task for you... and that is to become a good mother for the little one." The Great One coaxed Eli.
"And for you, oh pitiful Elise, your soul has been badly damaged. Thus, although I can do resurrection, your soul could not handle it. This will bring you more damage than good. Thus, I decided to grant the deepest desire of your heart instead, and make a way for your child to live, while you recuperate and enter paradise," the Great One said while turning his head and gesturing his hands to Elise's direction.
"Both of you, my children, this is the plan and the choice I am giving you.. think about it well.." The Great One's voice slowly faded, went back to the giant desk and started working on the files that magically appeared the moment he sat on his chair.
While this was happening, the two 'Elies' found their souls slowly drifting outside the hall. The doors closed and they found themselves back to the pathway where they both gained consciousness.
"Sniff sniff.. Lady Eli..." Elise the woman called out.
"Hmmm?" Eli, in deep thought, absentmindedly replied.
"Will you be merciful and go to my world in my place? I know that there is no way it is nice to ask you, nor convince you. But, if I could, I would go back, but only you can do it. For my little one," Elise started sobbing while pleading.
"..how old are you in your world supposedly?.." Eli asked
"It.. is my twenty-fourth year... I have been pregnant for about five months," Elise replied.. still in a pleading tone.
"Well.. I'm already twenty seven in my world.. Sigh.. you know, I have pretty much lived mechanically all my life and all I can remember about was how hard I worked." Eli told resignedly.
"The Great One, out there, earlier clearly knows how many tasks I have accepted in my life during those times I am practically a 'yes woman'. In fact, I actually died because I just mechanically accepted a task that wasn't really mine to accomplish.." She continued, self mockingly.
"So this task, in my personality, I knew that I would have easily accepted it just like those countless tasks I accepted while I was alive. But it is just so weird.. I don't know how to be a mother Elise.. It even feels weird to know that I will suddenly be a mother, a biological mother MAGICALLY.." Eli voiced her concerns.
"And are you even alright with that? Knowing that some random woman from another world will replace you as a mom to give birth to your little one??" she asked with concern.
"Lady Eli, believe it or not, it doesn't matter to me as long as I know that my child will have a chance to live. Well... I can't really put it into words, but maybe because I came to understand what it means to become a mother.." Elise softly answered.
"It doesn't matter what will become of me.. as long as there is a future for my child. I can take the fact that I am not the one who will physically give birth to the little one... Maybe when you actually become a mother, you will somehow understand what I am saying and feeling right now..." Elise said with a smile in her voice.
"Lady Eli, in truth, the little one was not conceived out of love, it was due to my careless drunken mistake.." Elise dropped an unexpected bomb.
"!!!"
Eli, all the more was baffled. If it was a mistake, why all this planning? Why all this thinking and pleading?!
"Well, back then, all I thought was I would want to once in my lifetime experience the... taste of a man.." feeling that the other person was baffled and shocked, Elise bashfully explained her reasons.
If souls could blush, she would definitely blush as red as a tomato.