Beauty From Ashes

Chapter 25: Saved Part 1

Okay, so......I told myself I wasn't gonna do this but, we have another three-parter on our hands. Though for this particular chapter believe I can justify my choice for this one. After the previous publish being almost 25,000 words, I wanted to avoid another long*** chapter for you guys. But also this is a crucial piece of the story, and I feel like I should treat it as a big deal. And as such I have given a title for this chapter:
Saved.
That title serves three specific purposes (or maybe four, but we'll get into that later) and all three parts shed light on each purpose. But what are they? And saved is such a vague word on its own. What does the context mean here?
Being saved by friends? Saved in Jesus Christ? Saved from destruction? Saved from the demons? Saved from the Conquerors? Saved from being astray? Saving a life? What exactly am I referring to by this term?
Well, let's find out!

And for starters, let's revisit Cheyenne because, she didn't even have a POV focus AT ALL in the previous chapter. 
Future POV:
It's now 6:30 in the afternoon and I've been sitting here with Sidney and Tamara in Pastor Cosgrove's office for three hours. It won't be long before I FINALLY begin talking about my history and testimony with the church, which is what they were ORIGINALLY asking me for the whole time, but I knew I would have to share these things to get my point across. 

But to my pleasant surprise, the two FirstStar reporters haven't rewlly complained or seemed bothered by my giant story. It's like they can tell that God has done a great deal of work with me. And they be been fully enraptured by me. Which is good because, it feels nice to get this out there. 

Right now, I've just finished explaining what happened at the house party. The one where I confessed who I was for the very first time, and the one with the demons and the tense confrontations. 
"So…...yeah. That was the stopping point for all of us," I concluded.

"Wow. That does......not sound like a party I would have wanted to go to," Tamara stammered.

"Y- Yeah. Same," Sidney added.

"I can't say the same. Aside from the demon possession, I didn't....really do anything at that party. And even if they say I was there, trust me, I was the pooper for the party," I said. "Which wasn't supposed to be a joke. I was just....fed up, emotionally. Mentally."

"Not to mention, spiritually," Sidney added.

Tamara shakes up a bit. "I- I've gotta say, given your background with the sex and the atheism, and even your near-death experience, going through all of that and THEN, being possessed in such a violent way? That must've been the scariest.....eye-opening revelation EVER."

I scoff. "Yeah. For all those times the Conquerors and I mocked the demonic concepts of faith, specifically......I remember claiming that it was just a severe mental illness, like a schizophrenic or just a brain-dead autistic lunatic, I was......absolutely horrified by the feeling of being taken over. I could barely move on my own and they were brutal in the ways they forced me to move. I thought my bones were gonna explode." I shudder lightly. "It's such a scary feeling. But then it s a huge rush, when you feel them being delivered out of your body. It's immediate. There's not even a millisecond with a delayed reaction. They're just....gone."

"Mm-hmm. All that control they have over you, within a millisecond it means nothing," Tamara said. "You said your demons were afraid when it was made known that the Lord was working through Albert. You had three. It just makes me think about the man who was possessed by a thousand, and how it said they bowed before his feet with no control."

I nod. "Yeah. And in some ways, that actually helped me remember how they responded to him in Hell. They knew Him before, and they still know Him now."

"Yeah, and.......I don't think I've ever heard any other story of casting out demons where that kind of sorrow was shown toward the demons themselves. As horrible as they can be...." Sidney softly said.