From the outside, Angelo's childhood seemed perfectly ordinary.
But behind every smile, behind every family photo, lay a string of moments where he should've died.
It started early.
Age 2
During a family picnic near the woods, Angelo wandered toward the edge of a small cliff. A fall from there would've been fatal.
But a sudden gust of wind — strong, unnatural — knocked him backward just before his foot touched the edge.
His parents scolded him. They never noticed the way the leaves below the cliff twisted upward, as if disappointed.
Age 3
He grabbed a fork and tried to stick it into a power outlet.
The power, for the first time in years, went out across the neighborhood — for three minutes.
By the time it came back, he was playing with toy cars like nothing had happened.
Age 4
He slipped in the kitchen, flying toward a boiling pot of water. His mother screamed.
But the pot toppled away from him, not toward him — as if someone invisible had nudged it mid-air.
The scalding water hit the floor, inches from his skin.
Age 5
A bookshelf toppled over in his room during an earthquake tremor — a heavy wooden thing, tall and sharp.
Alex heard the crash and rushed in.
He found Angelo sitting inside the empty space the shelf had somehow missed.
Everything around him was crushed — but not him.
Age 6
He was nearly hit by lightning.
Playing in the yard during a summer storm, he held up a metal toy, pretending it was a sword.
The lightning struck a tree right beside him — not him.
The bark exploded, wood raining around him, but not a scratch landed on his skin.
Age 7
He got lost during a school field trip to a forest reserve.
The search took two hours.
They found him calmly sitting in a clearing, surrounded by a circle of mushrooms that hadn't been there before.
He said he followed a voice.
No one else heard anything.
Age 8
He fell through ice at a frozen lake — he shouldn't have survived even two minutes in the water.
But when pulled out by emergency divers, he wasn't shivering. His skin was warm.
The diver who found him swore he saw a pale hand in the water, letting go of Angelo before vanishing.
Every time, there was no explanation.
Every time, someone said, "He's lucky."
But it didn't feel like luck. Not really.
Alex, his older brother, was always there — or always came for him.
A constant. A shadow. A protector.
But even Alex didn't have answers.
Their parents lit candles.
They prayed.
They thanked God.
But Angelo… didn't.
As he got older, he stopped believing in divine hands.
"If there's a god," he often thought,
"He doesn't catch me. Something else does."
What haunted him most was that he never felt afraid.
Not when he fell. Not when he choked. Not when he sank into the frozen dark.
There was no fear. No pain. No warmth.
Only silence… and then Alex's voice pulling him back.
And somewhere in his growing heart, a seed took root:
"Maybe the only god who ever answered me… was him."