An angel. Yes, he has snake bites and an eye brow piercing.

<< Previous: Chapter 2

3

Again into Alaska. Plants weren’t made for this kind of weather. The flurries have turned to chunks of ice since I was away, huge flakes that are lowering visibility quite a lot. I’m very thankful because now it will be more difficult for the angels to track me, however I fear for the lives of commuters today for low visibility and cars just don’t mix. All of the people look like penguins, all puffy with their insulated coats, hands stuffed in small pockets waddling about in stiff plastic boots. I imagine that if I pushed one of them over a domino effect would occur and a whole line of them would all fall over across the sidewalk. It’s surprisingly crowded for such a day.

The noise of penguins recedes as I duck into an allyway. Through the winding in-between paths, there is an abandoned walk up ready to be demolished. The cityscape gives way to more desolate buildings, a maze of architectural skeletons, all marked for destruction.

Somewhere in this little blocky labyrinth is an 18-year-old idiot with a gun, anxiously preparing to rob a bank and cause a whole mess of problems for himself and for her. Her prayers suggested he would go at three so I figure I have enough time to find him. Caution tape crosses doorframes with thick plastic coverings labelled “asbestos.”  I’m greeted by broken windows with snow gathered on their edges, thinner plastic shredded by time wavers in the wind. Some of these buildings look lived in even with all of their perforations; I notice a box of dead vines in one sill.

“You love her.”

I jump, startled by the voice. It’s another angel, this time a younger one dressed not in plain clothes but proper robes. Perhaps he’s an arc? He walks toward me, but in the midst of his rippling robes his walk looks more like floating. I stiffen my posture and wait for him to pass by me, but when my airway collapses with the grip of his left hand, all of the courage I’d saved up for this moment flushes right out of me and I writhe helplessly against his strength.

He just stands there, silent. His oceanic eyes examining me, every nook and cranny of me like he’s reading an intricate manuscript held in the depths of my soul. I am still as he locks me in his gaze and wince when he moves, expecting him to smite me after his own judgement but no. He releases my neck, tossing me to the ground.

“I’m the only one who knows of this,” he says finally, backing away as the winds press him, “However, I will not stop you, for I understand.”

He leans down. I’m still sitting on the ground, waiting for an opportune moment to run. Calmly he reaches toward me, and one by one the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end telling me I better get out now, yet I can’t move an inch before he snatches my chin in his hand, pulling my eyes to his.

“You understand,” he states in neither a question nor command.

I don’t dare close my eyes for fear that any moment may be my last to see. Though the fear that comes with staring into those near bottomless blue pits in his skull fights my need to keep them open. Electric pain shoots through my teeth as his fingers dig into my jaw. I scour my mind trying to figure out what he wants from me.

A nod, maybe he wants me to agree? With what!? I understand that he knows, so will he smite me now? No. I know, he doesn’t want other angels to know that I know that he knows. I nod frantically as I feel fingernails gauging my flesh. He releases and disappears into the void where angels come from.