Sain had existed long before the first star ignited, and he would theoretically exist long after the last light dimmed. For him, time was a vast, open ocean. He could look at a human life—eighty years, maybe a hundred at most—and it felt shorter than the blink of an eye.
Once, this perspective made him feel superior. He thought humans were foolish for worrying so much about things that would pass so quickly. Why fight over land? Why weep over lost love? Why fear death? In the grand timeline, it was nothing but a speck of dust.
But sitting here in the void, Sain began to suspect he had gotten it all backward.
Perhaps it was not the humans who had the limited view, but him.
He thought about a candle. If you had an infinite supply of fuel and light, you might take it for granted. You might leave it burning carelessly. But if you knew your candle would only burn for one hour, every flicker became precious. Every moment of light became something to be cherished, protected, and remembered.
"The value of something is directly proportional to how short it lasts," Sain realized.
That was the secret gift the Creator gave to humans. They were mortal. Their time was limited. And because it was limited, every single choice they made carried weight. They had to choose carefully what to love, what to fight for, and what to let go, because they did not have the luxury of "doing it later" or "trying again in the next century."
Sain remembered watching an old man sitting by the sea. The man had lived a life full of mistakes. He had hurt people, he had been poor, he had failed at everything he tried. But as he looked at the sunset, he smiled. He told himself, "It was hard, but it was mine."
To an angel who lived forever, that life might look like a failure. But to the man who lived it, and who knew it would end, it was a masterpiece of experience.
Sain also saw the other side of the coin: this limitation was also the source of much human madness. Because they knew time was short, humans became greedy. They tried to cram eternity into a single lifetime. They tried to build towers that reached the sky, to write laws that would last forever, to gain power that would outlive them. All of this was a desperate attempt to escape the very nature the Creator gave them.
They wanted to be like gods—eternal and unchanging—without realizing that to be eternal was also to bear a burden they could not imagine.
"Imagine if humans were given our life span," Sain thought. "Imagine if they had to watch their loved ones die over and over again, watch empires rise and fall, watch the same mistakes being repeated for millions of years. Would they be stronger? Or would they break even faster?"
He looked at himself. He was an angel, designed for eternity, yet here he was—choosing to fade away simply because he had seen too much. If a being made of light could not handle the weight of time, how could he ever expect a human made of flesh and blood to handle it?
Everything the Creator did had a balance. He gave humans short lives so they could feel joy and urgency. He gave them free will so they could be real, even if it meant pain. He stepped back so they could grow, even if it meant they would sometimes stumble.
It was a design that seemed flawed on the surface, but perfect when you looked deep enough.
But understanding the design did not mean one could live inside it. That was why Sain was here. That was why they were all here. They understood the logic, but their hearts still ached.
Far below, a baby was crying, beginning its short, precious journey. Far above, a new angel was writing the first line of a new book, unaware that one day, he too would drop his pen and seek the silence.
The rhythm of existence continued, beautiful and tragic in equal measure.