A grand welcome
The fall from Paradise was a long one. The first half he knew well; it was the path to the battleground where every fight between the realms broke out, but any further than that was too dark for angels to venture, beings of light threatened by the shadows that could extinguish them. Demons burned in the sunlight, angels burned out in the darkness.
The wind whipped past as he fell, wings trying desperately to break their restraints. The dim grayness of the battlefield grew darker. He gasped, spinning with each failed attempt at flight. It was only when his hands grazed the hilt of his letter opener that he remembered its existence, eyes growing wide. He took it and flipped it up, cutting into his bonds. It was menial and slow, despite how quickly he sliced the blade against the ropes, nicking himself a couple of times. The world grew darker as he struggled, until black was the only thing he could see. The moment he snapped through the rope, his body shot into water.
The shock was as cold as the water itself, unexpected and just as black as the rest of his surroundings. Reflexively, his arms moved to swim him back to the surface, but a current wrapped around his feet and dragged him further down, stronger than any opposing force his arms could’ve formed. Instantly, he thought of his wings; how much stronger they were than his body alone, and reached up toward them, grabbing hold of the rope, slicing the letter opener through it.
Despite the awkward angle, it was still much easier to cut into this one. As his wings opened, they fought the current. His arms joined in for an extra push, but the pull was far too strong. In time, it swallowed him.
After excruciating force, the current suddenly disappeared. Once he was free to move again, he swam up to the surface. Poking his head out, he saw a beach far in the distance, stretching infinitely on both sides. He swam languidly to shore, where the sand was gray and the gentle waves that lapped it were as black as tar.
Far into the beach was one single building, and behind it was an entire forest that sprouted from the dirt and followed the horizon. This was it—The Abyss. He’d made it despite everything. His chest squeezed. Deep-seated rage set his soul on fire, pulling a scream from the depths of his being, eyebrows scowling deep into his forehead, throat raw. His glory was no more.
When his voice gave out, a sob replaced it; flames gave in to sorrow. His vision blurred, his shoulders sagged, and he let himself fall apart on that beach, sobbing and crying like a child. He’d never been so miserable before.
With a dull ache in his heart and a great emptiness in his chest, he picked himself up. His wings were far too heavy to move and simply dragged behind him. Weakly, he walked to the only building in sight, a sort of mausoleum. Long ruts formed as his wings cut through the sand. The doors were twice his height, yet only half the height of the building, open just a gap, enough for an angel to slip through.
The only thing inside was a long, wide stairway with steps made of stone descending into darkness. Without a single light source, he resorted to running one hand along the wall. His skin shivered from the cold, and his heart raced with fear, but still he pushed, letting The Abyss swallow him.
The closer he got to the bottom, the easier he could see a single ray of light shine in at the very end. It happened to be a door much like the one above, cracked open just enough to slip through. He peeked in first, seeing a large portion of land where a handful of demons exercised in the distance. Behind them was a building that he could only identify as a military base, where walls came out to circle the big, vast practice grounds and, for some reason, encompass this stairway as well.
His blood promptly went cold; all he had was a rather dull letter opener and wet wings that couldn’t fly. He’d be murdered here. There was no way an angel could sneak in a world of demons, or successfully take them on. He’d seen the size of their army, and even at his best, there was still no way he’d be able to beat them all at once. With the letter opener back in its scabbard, he slipped through the gap in the door—there was nothing else he could do.
The sky was strange down here, polluted by thick clouds that traveled with the wind and covered up the sun, darkening the world even during the daytime. The brightness gave off no heat as he crossed the training grounds, dragging his wings. He’d be spotted soon enough, and a parade of demons would take turns stabbing him to death. It almost sounded better than living here for the rest of his days. He’d always thought he’d perish a hero on the battlefield.
It was one of the demons on the practice field that spotted him first and quickly alerted the others. They stopped and stared, several hundred feet away. He felt his heart skip, hand itching to unsheathe the letter opener. They were only in seven. There was no way he’d come out unscathed, but the odds of outliving these seven were still in his favor.
Instead of charging straight for him, however, the demons took flight and split up; three flew back to the center of the base, while the other four flew over. Surely, they were going to attack him. As his hand made for the letter opener, they flew over him, through the door. That bizarre reaction prompted a swarm of demons to take flight and follow the first four, seemingly coming out of nowhere, a hidden army. No one tried aiming a spear down at him while leaving. So The Abyss hadn’t settled on a date for the war because his fall was it.
The base was completely abandoned by the time he made it inside, with empty weapon racks near the walls and discarded weapons on the ground. A long, wide courtyard led to the gatehouse. He swiped a spear on the way, in perfectly good condition. His wet sandals broke the silence, kicking up dust.
Nearing the gate, he caught movement off to his right and quickly turned to point the spear at it. A lone demon kept guard up on the wall. When their eyes met, the demon raised its hands in surrender.
“Don’t move or I’ll kill you where you stand,” Nathaniel threatened, loud enough for the creature to hear him. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah, dude; it’s just me today. I changed shifts with Steve so I could have the weekend off.”
Nathaniel squinted. Keeping the spear aimed at the guard, he pulled on the lever and unlocked the gate. The demon’s eyes widened, entirely black.
“Oh, uh, we’re not supposed to open the gates, man; we just fly over. Humans aren’t allowed in here.”
“Do you see any humans over the wall?” Nathaniel asked. The demon scouted the land outside. If he threw the spear now, he could hit the man on the back and watch him topple over.
“No, not really.”
“Then it’s fine.”
The gate opened with a loud noise.
“I mean… I guess. Just be fast, so I can close it again. Duncan’s gonna kill me if he knows I let you open it.”
Ah, Duncan The Warrior; how many times they’d met in battle. How many times he’d pierced that bastard clean through only to see the man come back again with one more disgusting scar over his pale and lifeless body.
“I take it he flew out the door with everybody else,” Nathaniel guessed.
“Yeah, the semita; that’s what we call it. There’s, uh—there’s an inscription on it. I don’t know if you caught that on the way in, but it says semita mortuorum—the passage of the dead.”
“It was too dark to read.”
“Oh, shit, yeah. Totally.” The demon nodded semi-absently, glancing off. Nathaniel’s grip on the spear loosened.
“Hey, let me ask you something,” Nathaniel called, making the guy turn back around, helmet bobbing around, two sizes too big for him. “Do you know where I can find Dolion?”
The demon’s brows furrowed. “The Prince?”
“The demon in contact with Paradise. Dolion.”
“Yeah, he’s the Prince. Well, he’s not the only prince, but that’s what we call him. I don’t know why.” The soldier turned to point at something that Nathaniel couldn’t see from the courtyard. “See that golden building back there?”
The question made him walk through the gatehouse and stare out at the land before him, barren on this side of the highway, but filled with skyscrapers and buildings far in the distance. The base was miles away.
“The one that looks like a very tall castle, black and gold?” the guard continued.
“I see it. Is that where he lives?”
“Yeah. That’s where he works, too. Him and the rest of the administration.”
Perfect.
“Thanks. You can close the gate now,” Nathaniel ordered while tossing the spear aside.
“Alright, dude. Good luck out there.”
The Abyss was terribly cold. Whether or not that had to do with the lack of sunlight, or how badly his body needed it to survive wasn’t clear. He hugged himself, shoulders drawn all the way to his ears, shivering with each breeze.
The roadside had no guard rails or a sidewalk, just open fields that surrounded him on all sides and made it very easy for strong winds to blow. His wings wrapped tightly around himself, shielding it for the most part. They hurt for some reason, moving with a kind of difficulty he’d never experienced before, as if slowly freezing.
The moment he reached civilization, in the very outskirts of town, heads turned to shoot him strange looks and curious stares, a much milder welcome than he’d expected. No one immediately lunged at him. Actually, they crossed the street to avoid him. It begged the question whether he was stuck in here with them, or if they were stuck in here with him. Their sheer number pointed to the former, while their seemingly inoffensive nature pointed to the latter. Strangely enough, there didn’t seem to be any demons around, only humans, which made him wonder if the vast majority of them were employed by the military and were currently off at war, or if they simply didn’t mingle.
The architecture of this town was medieval in the most literal sense of the word, with houses made of stone, crudely paved sidewalks and dirt roads where cars rarely drove past. The very clearly modern skyscrapers and office buildings were completely visible over the shingled roofs, surrounded by a swarm of flying creatures. The further he walked in, the fewer horse stables he came across, and the more businesses welcomed him; taverns, bakeries, tailors. The first jacket he saw displayed in a window prompted him to walk in.
This was a very small local store, with clothing racks neatly arranged on each side, a long curtain in the back, and wooden mannequins in the window. He guessed the curtain led to the changing rooms. The shopkeeper was one of the few demons in the area, with black hair, light skin, and eyes that looked completely black from a distance. Nathaniel’s approach allowed him to correct that assumption; while their eyeballs were black, the irises themselves were silver, or white perhaps. He wasn’t sure. The shopkeeper had two black horns growing out of their head, which, thinking back, he hadn’t noticed on the soldier, hidden underneath that stupid helmet.
“I need a jacket,” Nathaniel announced. Taking into consideration that everyone in the area only had a light jacket on, it was safe to assume he was the problem, a little too used to the warmth of Paradise’s infinite summers.
“Okay, uh, let’s see if I can find you something, um, appropriate,” the demon started, light and friendly. They glanced him down once, then walked off to one side of the room, where dozens of clothing articles, all bright and colorful, hung from a wooden rack.
Watching the shopkeeper flip through hangers and pull some for a closer look, Nathaniel noticed the beginnings of a headache, dull and deep, on its journey to the forefront of his skull, just what he needed. It would probably have been weirder not having one, to be honest. He gritted his teeth through it.
A soft hum traveled across the store as the shopkeeper cherry-picked something only an 18th century member of French society would wear. One glance at the demon’s outfit told Nathaniel that was not what their people usually wore, but what they probably thought he’d like, based on the angelic tunic that made him a complete outcast.
“No, give me what people usually wear here. Something inconspicuous.”
With a quick nod, the demon put the outfit back and crossed the room for the rack opposite that one, where they pulled a much different look from. It was so dark and modern that Nathaniel immediately thought of Aiden; army boots, jogger jeans, a tight shirt and a leather jacket. A tight knot closed around his throat, and perhaps because of it, he brought the outfit into the changing room.
The full-length mirror showed how bad the bruises on his face had become, with the ripped skin seemingly unable to patch itself back up. Gold shone through, brilliant like sunlight. He raised a hand to touch it, making him preemptively flinch at the pain that was about to come, but surprisingly didn’t. The gold on his face was smooth, filling up the cuts around it. A brief flashback of the Oracle’s core, blood gushing over his face, burning his skin. This would probably never heal. Turning from the mirror, he got dressed.
It was imperative that he didn’t look at his own reflection once the new clothes were on. He didn’t need confirmation on how much he looked like Aiden right now, or risk picturing him under his wing like a family portrait. Nathaniel quickly got dressed, toed the boots on, and left. Tangentially, it was weird to be wearing boots again, or any closed-toe shoe when he hadn’t worn them since he was a young recruit. Zea, in particular, loathed them. The hole in his heart bled, aching almost as badly as the pounding in his head.
“Now you look like one of us,” the shopkeeper reassured him, despite the fact that he didn’t. Their optimism got a good-humored scoff out of him though, which he supposed had been the point all along.
“Thanks.” He nearly rolled his eyes.
“Are you keeping the tunic?” the shopkeeper asked just as Nathaniel started for the door. The last thing he wanted was to think about anything that didn’t belong to him anymore. The letter opener was the only item he’d kept, back in its scabbard, clipped onto his belt. It was impossible to catch sight of it under the jacket.
“No, you can keep it.”
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