WINTER'S SWEET EMBRACE

"–AAAHHHH!!!"

Jolting upright, Vincent let out a raw scream that tore from his throat.

"Oh, dear me. Here we go," a weary voice sighed from somewhere nearby. "It has been quite a while since we had a new arrival with this much theatricality. They normally just stand there looking all sorts of confused."

"AAAAHHHHHHH–!!! HUH?!"

As the world came into focus, Vincent’s panic only spiked. He wasn’t in his bedroom nor was he in a hospital. He was sitting on a surface that was completely weightless, semi-translucent, and moving beneath him.

He was sitting on golden clouds.

"What the?! What is this?! W-Where am I? What’s happening?!"

In his delirious retreat of scrambling backwards, his back collided with something solid. He flinched and spun around on his knees, ready to shield himself from another gunshot.

Instead, he found himself looking up at an elderly man. The stranger possessed a magnificent, flowing white beard and hair that cascaded down over a set of elegant, unblemished white robes.

"G-God?"

"God? No, no, my boy. I am certainly not God. But I appreciate the flattering assumption."

Looking past the old man, Vincent laid his eyes on a golden gate that seemed to stretch upward into infinity, glowing with a soft, ambient light.

"Then... Are you Saint Peter? Is this... am I at the Pearly Gates?"

"Still incorrect, I’m afraid. I am not Saint Peter either."

Frustrated, confused and utterly terrified, Vincent forced himself to stand up. His legs felt shaky as the cloud-matter beneath his feet yielded slightly with every step but kept him afloat.

He took a long, hard look at the old man, trying to find any anchor of reality.

"Then who are you?! And where the hell am I?"

"Well, I am what you would call The Way Guide. As for where you are, you are currently standing on the Threshold. Think of it as a place existing between life and death."

"The Way Guide? Between life and death? You purga–"

As the words echoed in his mind, the final memories of his bedroom came rushing back. The barrel. His father’s face. The click of the trigger. The flash of fire. His own dad had pulled a gun on him and his own dad had pulled the trigger.

BANG!

Vincent’s hands flew to his head. He dropped to his knees, swirling the clouds around his legs as the devastating reality of what happened came crashing down on him.

"He shot me... My own dad... my dad killed me."

Tears poured over his lower eyelids. The rejection from Hannah was entirely eclipsed by a much deeper, more horrific betrayal.

His father, the man who had raised him, had looked him in the eye and erased him from existence.

"My dad killed me," Vincent repeated as his body began to shake. "W-Why? *Sob* S-Shit! Why did he do it?!"

The Way Guide looked down at the weeping teenager and let out a soft sigh. "Ah yes. I just read your file on what happened. That whole scene was pretty sick–I mean! Unfortunate. I was unfortunate...Hey, are you listening?"

Vincent couldn’t hear him anymore.

He buried his face in his hands and cried so hard his chest ached. He sobbed out all the confusion, the heartbreak, and the terrifying finality of his sudden death. He was eighteen. His life hadn’t even started.

"Oh, dear me. I do hope this doesn’t last for too long. Crying like a baby is not sick, yo."

Suddenly, a faint sound cut through the wailing of Vincent’s despair. It was a distant murmur that traveled across the clouds, but it carried a strange, resonant energy.

The Way Guide turned his head around and narrowed his eyes as he peered beyond the gates, into the endless golden horizon.

"Hmm...? This is a surprise. What is she of all people doing here?"

The voice grew louder. It was a woman’s voice, frantic and filled with an overwhelming, desperate longing.

Over the sound of Vincent’s sobs, the words were muffled at first, but they were rapidly drawing closer.

"...vin... nny... Vinny!"

The voice finally broke through clearly, calling out his name with a breathless urgency. But Vincent was too far gone in the grief of his own murder. He had his head tucked against his knees as he wept. He didn’t hear her.

He didn’t even have time to look up before an immense force struck him.

"D-Dad! *Sob* How could you–!"

WHAM!

Vincent was swept off the cloudy floor by a soft impact and accelerated high into the endless sky.

"Whoa! What’s happening?! Help! Mr. Way Guide! Help me!!!" His tears flew wildly into the air as he looked down.

The golden gates and the tiny, white-bearded figure were quickly shrinking below him, turning into mere specks against a sea of gold.

Before he could spiral into a fresh wave of terror, the upward momentum stopped, and he was tenderly pulled into a tight embrace.

Instantly, his face was buried in a sensation of unbelievable softness. It was warm and smelled faintly of vanilla. When he realised what was happening, he found himself being pressed onto a pair of breasts.

The biggest, softest and most plush cushions of breasts he had ever encountered in his life. Not that he’d ever directly felt them before.

"Oh, my sweet boy! My beautiful, precious baby!"

Vincent, completely stunned and bright red, managed to twist his head to the side to breathe and looked up at the person holding him.

"Wha–! You–!"

Holding him mid-air was a woman of ethereal beauty. She had long, cascading hair the colour of a clear summer sky. Her eyes that matched her hair were currently overflowing with tears of joy.

She wore a simple, elegant white onesie dress that fluttered in the wind, but the most shocking feature was protruding from her back. A pair of massive, breathtakingly beautiful white feathered wings were gently beating against the air to keep them aloft.

As she looked down at him, a smile broke across her face that seemed bright enough to illuminate the entire universe.

"Vinny... oh, my baby... I finally get to see you after all these lonely years."

Vincent stared at her, completely captivated. His brain struggled between the trauma of his death and the sheer beauty of the woman holding him. Without thinking, the words slipped from his lips.

"So beautiful..."

"B-Beautiful?" A furious crimson blush erupted across her cheeks, and her radiant smile grew exponentially wider.

"Eeeee! My precious baby boy called me beautiful!"

Before Vincent could even blink, she leaned down and began planting kisses all over his face.

"You’re so cute! Oh my goodness, you grew up so handsome! I love you so much! *Mwah~* I love you *Mwah~* I love you *Mwah~*I love you! *Mwah~*"

She kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, his chin, over and over again as her wings flapped wildly in excitement.

"W-Wait! Wait! Stop! Please, stop for just one second!"

The woman instantly froze.

She pulled her head and began to tremble her lower lip. A heartbroken pout formed on her face as fresh tears welled up.

"You... you don’t like it? My baby boy hates my kisses?"

"No! No, that’s not it!" Vincent panicked at the sight of her tears.

"I mean... how could anyone not like receiving kisses from a woman as beautiful as you? You’re stunning! But... but right now, I am just confused about what is happening! I was just shot, and now I’m–"

"Eeeee! My baby boy called me beautiful again~! He thinks his mama is stunning!" she cheered. She lunged forward to plant another dozen kisses on his burning cheeks.

But as her words finally registered, the puzzle pieces in Vincent’s mind finally began to come together.

’Mama? Precious baby boy? "You might be able to meet your mother."’

Vincent’s eyes went wide.

He raised both his hands and placed them firmly against her soft shoulders, pushing them back with just enough force to stop her advancing lips. As he stared into her tearful, joyous blue eyes, his heart started hammering against his ribs for a completely different reason.

"Wait. This... this might be an insane thing to ask, but... are you... are you my... mom?"

The woman nodded her head rapidly, "Yes! Yes, Vinny! I am your mama! And you are my precious, darling baby boy! Ahahaha~!"

With a joyful cry, she pulled him right back into her chest and buried his face into her soft breasts once more, wrapping her arms and her massive white wings around them both like a protective cocoon

She then threw her head back and began to fly in ecstatic loops through the sky, laughing and squealing with a pure, unbridled happiness that echoed across the golden skies.

"I can finally hold you! I can finally hold my baby again!" she screamed to the endless void.

Down below, standing by the massive golden gates, The Way Guide watched the angelic woman fly in joyous circles while carrying the bewildered teenager in her arms. The old man let out a long, quiet sigh as a genuine smile crept into his weathered face.

"Well, would you look at that? I’m happy you finally found your smile again... after all these long, painful years. Now that’s pretty sick, yo."