She is humming, softly, and swaying, slightly, as she scribbles in her notebook, just aimless brainstorming that circles back to the same points oftener than not. Either way, she isn't paying much attention to her surroundings, even as the door closes behind her, and almost bumps into a table that wasn't supposed to be there before she looks up.
There's nothing immediately noticeable in her vicinity, but there's a lot of telepathic yelling getting broadcast to whoever can hear it.
Hello? !?!?!
What?
Help? We are so alone
Holy holy holy is the Lord of Hosts
Where is everyone?!
Praised be the One to Whom our praise is due?
Where are we? Where . . . am I?
What??? We're scared? We're scared
Are there not normally humans where you are? she asks the one who said, "There are humans here!"
My name is Christina, she tells the one who asked, "Who are you?"
What was the light like? she asks the one who asked, "Where did the light go?"
How is it quiet? Everyone's talking, she asks the one who said, "It's so quiet."
Can I help? she asks the one who said, "Lonely. Alone."
Gradually the chaos of voices resolves into a few, coming from very different directions, each more coherent and somehow larger than before.
We are not where we were. We were in Heaven, and then everything was coming apart, and now we're here, and the humans who were with us in Heaven are here too, but they aren't singing.
We are the Archangels. We used to be the Host.
The light was Heaven. The light was the LORD. The light was everything.
The Song has stopped. We hear the other Choirs but we are not one with them. We are the Thrones only.
We don't know.
A brilliant streak of light shoots across the sky and vanishes into the distance. People are staring off after it in awe.
Christina considers this for a fraction of a second, then teleports back to the door, steps through, and gestures for Bruce to close it.
He closes it almost before she's done gesturing, and looks at her like he really wants to ask for updates but also doesn't want to interrupt anything.
"God is dead and the angels are super freaking out."
"I can't really blame them." No, useful, say something useful. "Anything I can do to help or should I just wait until you want the door again?"
"Uh. Maybe? Do you have any idea for how to productively handle the angels."
"Uh, you probably know more than me, I've never met an angel. Except for Yours in the bar here and they're probably different. What are they freaking out about, are they just--sad He's dead, or are they worried the universe is going to cease to exist or anything?"
"Well, uh, they used to be one hive mind, and then they weren't a hive mind, and now they are one hive mind per kind, and it's freaking them out."
"Yikes. That sounds . . . yikes. I don't know anything about--hive mind brain surgery or whatever . . . can they talk to each other at all, the kinds?" Also he kind of wants and kind of doesn't want to know what happened to the dead humans, but one thing at a time.
"I think so? They were all talking in a way I could hear, and I think they could hear each other."
"I'm trying to imagine suddenly being a bunch of smaller people and it sounds really weird and unpleasant. Wow, I hope they didn't get the angel equivalent of one of them having both eyes and one having both legs or whatever. At least they all got the ability to talk."
"Also wherever they are now I think the dead humans also are and it probably isn't Heaven so it might be Earth? And the dead humans were previously, uh, I think, just--doing nothing whatsoever besides singing."
"Yeah, that's--the saved have eternal bliss and sing praises to God. If they're not experiencing eternal bliss anymore I would guess they're very confused."
"I like singing as much as the next Messiah but nothing else forever does not sound that blissful to me."
"Yeeeah. I don't know how them not getting bored works. Worked. I think being in the presence of God is supposed to be infinitely blissful and the singing is separate? But it's not like anyone was able to ask them, before."
"...Was this God's idea of Heavenly Bliss just...wireheading? F-, bad God, a fucking naked mole rat would be more creative than that."
"Sorry, what? I don't know anything about naked mole rats. Or what wireheading is except from context just now."
"Naked mole rats are a random animal I picked out of thin air. Wireheading is the practice of overstimulating the pleasure centers of your brain so that you perceive literally nothing but bliss, so called because the idea originated in science fiction stories where it involved sticking wires in your brain to run electric current through it."
"Okay. Thanks. I had wondered for a while, if people in Heaven were, well, properly people. Do you know what happens to people who die now? I guess with the door closed nobody's dying now, but if someone did before that."
"It might be a good idea to find out before we open the door again? Just in case they all go to Hell now or something."