OR - Ocean

`The wind ripped at his clothes, slashing his skin, roaring in his ears. Engulfed in the skies hand, he thrashed with an ancient anger bubbling through his body. He peeled his eyes open against the wind. Water left his eyes as he plummeted and his eyes began to burn. It was too late now. He knew that much. It was too late. Too late. The orange sun, clear moon, and grey Earth twisted in his vision before he succumbed to the pulling darkness.

In the shadows of an Oak, a demon clad in flowing black attire waited. His gray eyes pierced into the sky as the angel fell. The evening sun rode in waves across the ruffled feathers of the falling boy’s wings. And yet only the demon’s eyes who cast the spell could see through the shadows that engulfed the angel. It was a sight indeed.

The angel plummeted toward an abandoned country cul-de-sac, his wings doing little to slow his fall. The demon winced as the angles body crashed into the asphalt road with a roaring crack, the impact busting through the ground forming a contained crater. Though the demon’s containment spell saved the neighborhood, it did nothing to prevent the force of the impact from bouncing back to the angel. Rock and wings and body battled before settling, bruised on the ground. The angels wings spread out as if pinned revealing the boy’s body, bruised and bloodied.

The containment spell finally snapped and the demon watched as the rest of the force blew outwards, scattering rock and dust around the angel. Finally, the demon moved from his position. He walked briskly toward the fallen angel, the long tail of his jacket rolling in the soft wind.

“hmm,” the demon hummed, standing over the bruised body of the angel. “What a vessel.”

Blood poured from wounds across his body. The boy regained sense of self and pain washed over him. He groaned as he opened his eyes only to find the wings that had tugged against the air before had dirtied from white to a grimy grey, with his blood soaking into the needle feathers. With another wave of anguish he fell into unconsciousness.

“Go ahead and sleep then,” with a twist of his fingers the angels body was lifted from the ground as if drawn on a flying carpet, “I’ll do the heavy lifting.”

The angel drifted above the road, his wings dragging against the asphalt, growing darker and darker as they dirtied into a deep black. The demon pulled the boy to the side of the road, splitting off into an open wood. An abandon plot of land, forbidden to be remembered by any passerby.

Through a part in the trees, the demon guided the fallen angel into the woods. Shadows stretched across the ground as the orange sky was engulfed in darkness. Just as soon as they had reached the point where the forest seemed to stretch in infinitely in all directions, the trees parted into a clearing. Here, standing silently in the clearing, was some sort of abandon temple. It was open at the front, with coulombs holding a stone roof. In the middle, a platform resembling a closed coffin or perhaps a bed, jutted from the raised, cracked stone floor. The Demon guided the fallen angel with a swift movement of his hand, and the angel drifted to rest on the platform. The angels wings spread out, falling with their tips resting on the ground.

A soft warmth filled the fallen angels body, as if a spark of a fire lite inside him. His body, his wings, were cold and sore but the warmth took over. This warmth, so close to the feeling of love, the feeling he knew well, was different. Strange. Dangerous. In his slumber, he invited the feeling of warmth as it filled his sore body with life. He was a creature of love and he craved anything that would fill him just the same. But as the flame grew, he grew restless. With a startle, he awoke, the fire within him boiling, burning his body. He flung himself from the platform, unfamiliar territory becoming clear in his dizzy eyes. The trees, a figure in the distance. Fear pooled in where the fire had yet to take, but instead of easing the unsettlement it only served to cause more unrest inside him. He had to do something. He had to move, run, go home. His home. He burst into action, his wings stretching and shaking the dirt from their feathers though they remained a sickly black. The fallen angel poured the fire and fear into his wings and pushed through the air, rising above the ground. His heavy wings pulled his body upward, faster and faster until he breached the edge of the trees. All his energy became dedicated to one thing—Getting to heaven again. One thought, one goal, one motive. With every heavy push from his wings he shot higher. He wanted revenge. He wanted the fire to escape, for it to burn something other than himself. The fire spread to the crown of his head—or was it the fire, he couldn’t tell. A sharp pain grew on two sides of his skull, growing with every downstroke of his wings, but fueled with a passion of revenge he continued onward.

The pressure broke, and the sharp pain on the crown of his head burst into an excruciating ripping as if something were bursting through his skin. The fallen angel felt warmth pouring down his scalp to the back of his neck and into his eyes. For a moment, the boy lost control of his wings and he felt himself falling. His stomach dropped as he picked up speed, plummeting once again to the ground but in too much pain and too blinded by the blood pouring down his face to keep going let alone break his fall.

Instead, he plummeted downward, aware only of the fire, the pain, and his failure. The wind ripped at his back and his feathers, the fallen angel falling once more. Immersed in his pain, he had no notice of the time he spent falling though the searing yet slowing pain made the passing seconds feel like an eternity.

Unbeknownst to him, another had entered the clearing in the moments of pain after he awoke. A man by appearance though not by nature–a species name was never created for such a beast but the common man knew him as the devil, though the story of his origin was mixed and muddled with time and theory. Was he Saten, Lucifer, another entity entirely?

The devil had watched as the young boy stumbled from the temple, as he seemed to writhe in pain before bursting into action. Cautiously and curiously, the devil approached the clearing feeling pulled to the new individual. As the devil stepped into the clearing, the boy pushed himself upwards. With only a few strokes of his massive, stained wings he was dangerously high.

A harsh maternal concern seized the devil as the boy made an unsteady assent into the sky. He rushed into the clearing, ready to fly up and catch him if something were to unsteady the boy. It wasn’t long before an exclamation of pain echoed from the sky and the sound of a thousand feathers being pulled downwards thundered into the clearing.

The falling angel cried out once more, the pain rising into a crescendo as the fire dwindled. With no warmth to distract him, his hopelessness in the face of the approaching Earth and of the pain in his head weakened his limbs till static branched across his breaking body. Before he could let go entirely and commit to his own lack of self worth, he felt something heavy crash into him from the side. His body was being carried, he noted, as he felt arms wrapping around him. Startled into awareness, he could hear the heavy wind of the large wings now carrying him. The fallen angel felt himself being carried down gently.

He cleared his vision, blinking through the pain, focusing on what now held him. Wings blacker than the night sky stretched out, slowing their fall. They were magnificent–large and inky, the feathers lean and long. He followed the curve of wing to find himself in the arms of a human-like figure. Shaped like an angel but with black, stained wings.

The fallen angel was struck by fear in the sight of what he knew to be the devil himself. He had never seen a devil, but stories had built a dark memorial to the creature that brought pain and misery into the world. The pressures of evil and cruelty seemed to press down on his chest. He pushed himself from the arms of the devil, unable to bear being so close to such evil.

He stumbled to catch himself but exhaustion and pain swept him from his feet. Before he could reach the ground, the devil’s arm catched him, holding him upright as he caught his balance. 
“Let go of me,” The fallen angel demanded, once again pulling himself from the arms of the devil. The devil said nothing but watched and waited for the angel to make a move. A moment of silence passed between them. The angel studied the creature in front of him.

The Devil looked like an angel, with the body of a human and large, elegant wings. Though his inky feathers fell to the ground, the tips resting in the dirt. No angel would disgrace their wings by letting them fall. The devil’s body was like any humans, but his was particularly tall and muscular.

Far more striking were the black horns bursting from the devil’s skull. They stretched, thick and wide, from where an angel’s halo would have rested, and twisted around the devils body. They pierced and tore through his human body, in a gruesome display of dried blood and ripped flesh. The astonishing sight was pulled together in a steady, stern yet calm stare as the devil himself studied the young angel.

Now so close, the devil noted the boy’s appearance. He looked young, and though his body was as healthy as any angels, he didn’t appear very strong nor battered until his fall. The brutality of the fall was apparent across the boy’s entire body, with gashes and bruises wounding his now unprotected flesh. His wings too, though not as pitch black as the Devils, were dirty and damaged. Yet in all the recent upset, so much youth was apparent in the boy’s face. Although angels do not age like humans, their humanoid physical forms, when they choose to present them, slowly progress through the stages of life in experience rather than age. Each wrinkle and lengthened hair is a token of the angel’s devotion to God and a gift reminding them of the protection of humanity. Their angel forms, when in God’s realm, have similar patterns of evolution but are too complex to describe in such a diluted language. The Devil’s physical form has made no change since falling to Earth so long ago–not a single hair had lengthened nor nail extended.

Just as the Devil suspected, though the blood and hair peaked two small horns atop the fallen angel’s head. The boy was, like the devil, no longer an angel but a sort of demon–a prince of Hell and a new Devil.

As the boy noted the devils long, piercing horn and watched as the devil’s eyes gazed above his head, he let his hands travel upward though every inch brought waves of fear with it. He let his fingers fall to his scalp where the pain had built and now throbbed. A cry escaped the young boy as he felt the rough surface of the small, sharp nubs that had escaped his scalp. His fingers traced their outline, the wide base building in rough rings to pointed tips.

His body shook as pools of tears welled and fell. “Why?” He breathed—”Why?”

An urge to comfort the boy took the devil by surprise, but when he moved to fill the air with comforting words, his tongue fell heavy in his mouth. Instead, he watched as the demon pulled an arm softly around the boys shoulders and guided him back to the temple. “We have been expecting you.”

“You have?” The boy nearly whimpered.

“We have.” The demon stepped back as the fallen angel sat on the temple. “Do you have a name?”

The fallen angel stumbled at the question. “A name? Yes. Yes, I have a name. I have. . .many names. It. . .well, I’m. . .”

“It’s alright if you cannot answer right now.”

“No, no, no. I should—I know this.” The fallen angel’s hand reached to the horns peaking from his curly hair now pushed down by the weight of the thick blood. He traced the new points, dragging his fingers atop his matted hair until they were stained red and pink. “I don’t know this.” He nearly whispered. He felt his body begin to grow hot, flush in the face and warm in the chest. His mind raced with thick, deafening streams of silence. He could barely move his heavy tongue, compel his weak breathe, and move his pressed lips yet still he pushed, looking to the demon for guidance. “What did I do to deserve this?”

Before the demon could respond, the devils distant glare became flamed. He stepped forward as to approach the fallen angel. “You do not deserve this; This is my burden! My life! My suffering!” His voice thundered, though his words were trimmed with weakness. “You will not be forced to comply to the evils God has in store for you.”

The fallen angel stood to meet the devil, “What evils?! What burden?!” He challenged. “It is my duty to adhere to God’s will. I am an Angel!”

“An ‘Angel’ with horns,” The devil pushed, “Is it not the horned devil who refuses the will of God? Your role has changed—you are a useless shell of an Angel.”

“I am an Angel!” The boy repeated, “I will fulfill my duties.”

“You will not!” The devil’s voice strong enough to instill fear in even the strongest of mankind. The devil stared down at the fallen angel with burning embers of eyes but what he saw was much softer. The boy had endless eyes seeping oceans, the pouring waves the only movement of his stony face, breaking past the soot and blood creating winding trails down his cheeks.

“I must, I must, I must” the fallen angel muttered. “Ophioneus.”

“Ophioneus,” called the strength of God’s will, “You have yet to fulfill your role to the living, you have failed time and time again.

How do you explain yourself?”

The devil turned away from the fallen angel, moving into the temple. “If you are truly an angel, Ophioneus, than you have no place in my Hell.”

Ophioneus watched as the devil motioned to the back wall of the temple, seeming to will the wall to break away. It crumbled as it parted, like being curtain being drawn, first to reveal the flame to burn any mortal flesh then to reveal a dark path made vague by the conflict in the entrance. The devil stepped through to the other side, the wall building itself as quickly as it had fallen.

As the entrance closed an echoing emptiness expanded at the devils leaving. Ophioneus looked back at the demon.

“It has been good to meet you, Ophioneus.” The demon motioned, taking a handful of steps to the back wall of the temple, keeping his chest open to the fallen angel. “I wish you the best.”

“You’re leaving?” Fear filled Ophioneus’ chest.

The demon sighed, “I am but a follower of the Devil. He. . .dislikes you. I must do the same.” The demon paused. “You will have to find your own way. Just as he himself did. It’s a shame really—if only he would overcome his ego.”

Ophioneus stood as the demon made to leave, reaching out with spirit if not hand, “Find my own way to what? Why am I here?” Just as the devil did, the demon opened an entrance within the temple. “What burden am I meant to carry?!”

The demon glanced back once before stepping through the entrance—“don’t lose your way, Ophioneus.”

“My way where!” Ophioneus yelled as the entrance closed. The fallen angel, still weak on his feet, stumbled toward the back of the temple. His fist fell into the hard concrete with a painful thud. Nothing. Anger and fear shot through the boys body as his hands traveled the rough surface of the closed escape. Ophioneus turned to the expanse of trees behind him.

There was nothing left for him here. Cold, scared, alone, the fallen angel made his way back to the cul-de-sac he had fallen into.