Candles and Visions

Do not read this if you are fearful of dark prophecies. You have been warned.

One late afternoon last month, I was invited to a post-outreach dinner by the organizer and his childhood friend. At 5:40 they were chatting with and/or texting me it would be at 6PM. Not wanting to be the cause of delay (God knows how moods change when one's hungry!), I prepped up in just a few minutes and asked my mom who was also leaving to do some shopping to drop me off at the church.

Mass had started when I arrived. I stayed there and just informed them I'd be attending mass. Wise decision because I would learn later on that the organizer's car was affected by the color coding scheme and so he will only be able to travel past 7PM.

I don't know why I stayed. I had turned on my mobile data connection to chat with a fellow volunteer who lives nearby and he advised me not to be a martyr, get my ass off where I was seated and go home. I was complaining to him then about how boys are jerks because they always make girls wait. Okay. Scratch that. They always make THIS girl wait. Soon enough memories of boys asking me out and they'd be the ones to be late filled me with contempt for the opposite sex. They know how preoccupied I am with a lot of stuffs and they couldn't even respect my time.

Then again something pulled me to an area in the church: the candles. 

In one of my travels for cultural heritage, a fellow volunteer told me that when it's your first time to visit a church and you make a wish, that wish will come true. That gave me hope, for all my naiveté and all too trusting nature, I visited as many churches as I could to wish for the Light to be healed.

Another volunteer told me that it's always nice to light up candles where the flame has gone out, for the prayers of those who originally lighted them to be sent to the Heavens. So that time, while waiting, I watched the candles glow and flicker as the final electric lights were being turned off until it was dark save for the light from these candles.

As the winds picked up and were putting out flames, I contemplated about what would happen to the world if the lights are gone? Then a vision, of flames going out, "like an army falling one by one by one" (to quote Linkin Park). 

Yesterday I learned of a scary vision. And I immediately thought of the images that flashed before me while I stared at the candles that time.

And then there was the number 24... (but I cannot go on further. This is the biggest clue in the puzzle.)