post rapture short story [There Is Only One] WIP

Anika’s perspective

The last I remember of using my voice was before the plummet. A shrill scream that shook the heavens with its force but wasn’t enough to stop the hand from snipping it off. As if it was nothing more than paper. Then the fall came. The long tumble towards the burning ground below that I had watched fall into devastation. I had been so arrogant as I watched it happen, comforted in my distance from the flames. They lapped up everything below us and I never paused for one moment to think that maybe one day I’d be headed straight for them. But there I was, left on my own and unable to even let out another scream.

I had been too confident, I suppose, as I look back on it now. My wings were not enough to save me from the harsh impact, breaking just as quickly as they had been made. It was a crushing experience; falling from grace in such a violent way. Onto a planet now turned to ruin at the hands of an evil I knew far too familiarly. An evil I could call to by name if only my voice wasn’t stolen from me. An evil that brushed through the very halls I had slept in just hours before, leaving the stench of crushed roses in its wake. 

But the fall was only the start of my issues. I had much worse problems to worry about besides the broken wings that hung limply from my back like they had been tranquilized. 

As I rose from the ground, flames licked at my bare ankles. For a moment, I tried to lift from the ground in hopes of escaping the flickering light. The pain shot through my form like a lightning strike, bringing me to my knees in a position all too familiar to me. As if, even now, I had to pray. After everything, the only way I could twist my broken form was in a position to ask for forgiveness. My hazy eyes refused to even aim towards the heavens above my head, the broken shards of my halo would only fall into my eyes that way.

Instead, I looked around. 

The first thing I could see was red. The kind of red that burned to even gaze upon; hot like fury and unforgiving. The kind of red that symbolized everything unholy, everything sinful. A shade of red I had forgotten. As my milky eyes adjusted to the sudden hatred, more things came into view. A rusted playground, a boarded up school. And.. a pair of brown eyes boring into my own.

I reared back at the sudden life, surprised and frightened by my first human. I scared the girl too, it seemed. Her eyes went wide and she stepped away quickly, staring at me for far too long. The mud across her nose and the rips in her clothes made my chest ache for her. There was something so melancholy in her eyes; the fear of something unknown. Something even she couldn’t name. The girl standing in front of me couldn’t have been older than 16, her stature small and her stance wary as she eyed me.

“What chapel did you come from?”, her voice came eventually. It had been very clearly weathered by time and trauma, any semblance of a teenage girl hidden beneath a layer of soot. Her words found my ears but I couldn’t answer. Even if I could speak, the language I knew wasn’t one comprehensible by any human created. They had made sure of that.

As my lips formed useless words and my body seemed to creak beneath me, the girl seemed to grow more curious. That brought me some sense of comfort, knowing there was some shred of hope that we could be saved. If I could communicate with this child, I could warn her. Warn her of the horrors that were to come. Try to delay the terror. If she would let me in, I could teach her the language of my people and plead with her for help.

She approached me slowly as I sat there, useless words escaping me silently.. A wordless plea that stuck in my throat. “You can't speak?” The young lady asked with a cautious tone, her twinkling eyes catching on the broken wings that hung from my back.

I knew she was in awe.. Most humans never had to see the ‘elite beings’.. Let alone in such misery. As for her question, I simply nodded. The pain rushed to my temples at this movement, sending me reeling. They had really cursed me on the way to such a place.

As if being here wasn't punishment enough.