Fire and Smoke

American Nightmare

A fun little one-shot featuring, upon their request, my take on one of Lewamusprime2016 oc's. Not really plot driven, but I had a fun time writing it!

She was laying somewhere wet. That thought was the first thing to enter Alex's mind as her eyes flickered open. How long had she been laying there? The dampness had soaked through her clothes, leaving her chilled to the bone, and Alex shivered. A while, apparently. With a groan, she planted her hands against the ground, wincing at how the wet dirt squelched between her fingers as she heaved herself up onto her trembling feet. She was in a forest, surrounded by thick, towering red pines. The ground she had been laying on, she noted with a grimace, was little more than a shallow puddle clogged with dirt and fallen needles. "Gross." The spoken word rasped in her throat, but even it seemed too loud for the silent woods. She shook out her wings to chase away the damp chill, eyes turning upwards towards the sky; judging by the sun, it had been hours — perhaps even a full day — since Rowena had cast her away.

Rowena. The name sat on her tongue, sharp and sour, and Alex tried to spit onto the ground, but her parched lips produced no moisture. Her legs trembled underneath her, and she leaned up against the nearest tree, her tattered wings scratching against the red, flaky bark. It wasn't just her legs that shook, she noted bleakly. Her whole body felt as weak as a newborn lamb; even her grace was weighed down with exhaustion. Her strength faltered, and she dropped down into a crouch in the dirt, one hand planted against the soft pine litter to keep her steady as she closed her eyes. That spell that Rowena had used ...

Alex pried a stick out from the mud, and she began to scratch the sigil into the dirt, frowning at the unnatural twists and curves. It was unlike anything she had seen before, baring only the faintest resemblance to the angel banishing sigil she had become acquainted with. The adjoining circles gave the appearance of a tilted figure eight, its exterior decorated with a variety of small, evenly spaced runes.

With a sigh, Alex tossed away the stick and picked herself up off of the ground, using the tree as a momentary crutch as the forest seemed to spin. The land off to her right sloped steeply upwards, its peak disappearing into the canopy above. Heading up means a better look at your surroundings, a small voice nagged, and Alex's shoulders slumped. That hill looked like a long way up. If only Lucifer ...

"Lucifer?" She spoke the name out loud, eyes turned up towards the cloudless sky as a sudden jolt of adrenaline coursed through her veins: how had she forgotten? She scrubbed at her head, digging deep into the fog that obscured her memories. "Are you — are you okay?"

No answer came, and Alex closed her eyes as she felt for his grace. It took a moment — she wasn't sure if it had been Rowena's spell or that power behind Lucifer's grace as it had surged through her system that left her own grace numb and floundering — but she was able to breathe a sigh of relief to find his presence within her. It didn't move as she prodded it, and the hooks that it had used to latch itself to her felt stretched thin; wherever Lucifer was, it was far, far away.

A crow cried its warning call somewhere over her head, ripping Alex free from her thoughts, and her eyes turned back up the hill. A climb like that would be exhausting, but if it could give her some sense of where she was ... With a sigh, Alex started up the slope, her wings dragging behind her. The trees grew straight and tall, seemingly untouched by human hands, and the higher she climbed, the denser the forest got.

She wasn't sure how long she had been walking for when she reached a clearing. No more than an hour, surely, but her feet already hurt, and the cold weight of weariness in her bones only added to her body's aches. She paused beside a dying tree to look out at the land behind her, and her shoulders sunk at the expanse of wilderness that lay as far as her eyes could see. She was in the middle of absolutely nowhere.