Draftiness, condensing and raw, surrounded me—from the barbed ground, the concrete wall that curved my back. This atmosphere was riddled—different auras waltzed. Something was dripping, and its putrid smell amassed beneath my nostrils. Blood. My eyes flickered open, but the cached redness lay heavy atop. Rusted chains wedded my wrists, yet fixated I was on the demilune puddle of blood. It was coming from my mouth. This wasn't my blood...
As if the air had flicked my chin, I looked up. There was a metal table to the left, low enough for one to surveil. A maroon flower, shrivelled up like retracting fingers, yet the domed pod in the middle remained a bold red—opened. My eyes went annular. A blood bloom, begotten from the blood of a fallen angel once they had splashed over the ground. How did they get that?
"Oh? You're awake! I'm so sorry for not realising earlier. How...rude of me," a voice taunted, leaving not a body for my eyes to tie anger to.
I spat out the metallic fluid, gritting my teeth at the agape steel door as the voice sunk in my ears. "Where are they?!"
"All ready to fight! Even though you haven't seen me. I guess that's why he liked you!" My focus slid to the weathering wardrobe, sharing the same fate. Where were they? "So ready to fight for everyone else, but him!"
"But him? I fought for him the most!" I exclaimed loudly, though the words returned as a harsh slap—I didn't understand what Mammon had to do with this. Were they doing this on purpose?
A sharp laughter rained over the barren room. Ringed hands crawled over the bloodied door frame before incandescing red eyes, and locks of hair too blue to forget, peeked out. "Remember me?"
"Sabrina..." My voice faded away, like they were enticed by the twirl she did, her body sheathed in tight black leather. By the Lord, she was not a demon. She couldn't have been. However, these eyes that I stared into, belonged to none but a beast.
Had she been...possessed?
"But, you're human..."
"I told you to call me Bri." The woman frowned, and her arms crossed. "We're friends, aren't we?"
I shook my head. "You're no demon."
"You're right," Bri drawled. "I'm something much worse."
I shook my head again, "No, you're hurting."
As I uttered, I could have sworn that a gout of her hazel awoke.
Her shoulders braced, chin heavenwards. "You talk like you know everything! You really are like him."
"You want to torture me, kill me." The browning chains jangled, as though knowing she could not give a rejoinder herself. "To get back at him, right?"
"You- have no idea!" Bri began to laugh madly, wan fingers haste to clutch her stomach. "You angels are just, so silly. You know, I always wanted to be one. So pure, and sweet! But you're no different to humans."
The woman strutted over to the metal table before holding the decaying flower. "My Zalgiur got this for me. I never thought I would use it, but here we are."
Blood blooms could not survive long after its roots left the dirt, let alone on Earth. It was written like that—a shard of hope for demons that pined nemesis. It was never supposed to touch an earth-dwelling angel.
"You're a throne, aren't you?" With her long heels, Bri stepped towards me. "Of course you are! Those green eyes of yours are so pretty!"
"Do not," I hissed at the scent of it. The blood had diluted my abilities; I needed them to unearth Marie and Sol.
"Did Mammon listen?" Before I could act, she plunged the languished flower into my eyes and I groaned, clenched teeth daunting a scream. Iron bound hands surged to them. It burned terribly—the sizzling sound of my conjunctiva made me cringe. Forthwith, her fingers twitched back, for whatever reason, as I laboriously inhaled and exhaled.
Tears swam in my eyes, working to dout the pain whilst her devilish features tweaked.
"Sometimes sacrifices have to be made, in order to get what you want." Bri dawdled around the room. "But you know that! You sacrificed everything for Mammon."
She stopped. "Though I suppose, I can't blame you! Your mother did the same!"
Both ears perked up; the searing pain in my eyes didn't matter anymore. Who was controlling her? "What are you talking about?"
"Shiloh!" the woman exclaimed. "The first angel to fall in love, with a demon."
"My mother is Leilani, not Shiloh!"
"Leilani? Awh. How much of your memory did they change? It seems the King...isn't so trustworthy after all."
"Who are you?..." I croaked.
Whoever it was, they were lying—I knew they were trying to get hold of my core. But, pieces began to fall in place. The nebulous memories.
"You look so, so confused. I'm sure the others would love to see this!" Bri's arm unfurled at the wardrobe, the two doors blowing open. Out fell Sol and Marie's bodies, agonisingly flaccid.
"No!"
My hands shot up, the wheels with wheels zapping towards them before mantling their comatose bodies in gold.
"That's no fun. I was waiting for them to splat!"
A waxing shock accosted me the further I gaped at the floating pair. Their bodies bent around each other, cherry red veins coursing down their paling cheeks.
I was unable to feel their aura...
The blue-haired woman tapped her finger on her lips. "Hm. What was I saying again?"
Fury was syringed into every particle of my making. Things kept piling up. The lies they had told my entire life. The King, one of valour, erasing my memory. This Hell they assigned me to for not a reason. Mammon. The bodies of my friends.
Every inch of me quaked.
"Right! Your mother was a warrior, shooting all the demons climbing up to Heaven with her jewelled bow and arrow!" Bri spun around, giggling. "But then she saw Kozaruth! And she leapt right out of Heaven! How funny is that?"
Cracks started to burgeon in the chains.
"Your father had your memory altered. He couldn't stand the thought of you following in your mother's footsteps! But look at you now..." She crouched down. "Just another disgusting, demon-loving bitch."
I couldn't take it any longer.
An ear-piercing scream left my mouth. The restraints sundered as my hands clasped my hair, green eyes shut tight. Every power I whet, radiated from my skin. Bands of gold threshed like tentacles. Eyes surfaced all over my body, sending forth moons made from abrading water. Emerald ivy shot out of my sides, an intent to ravage clear in my mind.
Had my friends known about Shiloh all along? Did Ezekiel?
Why did my father do this?
Why did the King follow through with it?
Had the Lord not seen this injustice?
Did I...deserve this?
I heaved, palms yet bonded to my temples and a sting in my throat. There was a quiet—as if I was the only one present. An earthy smell flapped around me. I opened my eyes slowly, lashes obscuring the greenery. The way the ivy swathed me and this room, it was as though I was in a pod. Was I poison?
I pushed away the dangling ivy ahead my face, but I wish I hadn't. There her body laid, her own red ivy pooling under and the tips of her blue hair dyed. Oozing gashes became her clothes. My core quivered as I crawled through, a broken scream vacating from my twinging throat. A hole, too circular, too empty, had her chest. I wretched at the sight—I could spy the veins, her cleaved lungs. "I- I'm..."
I...did this?...
"So...sorry."
I found a thin thread. I followed it, only to see her cut out heart a couple feet away. The demon was leaving! I scrambled closer, my hands cupping her face and her blood did the same to my knees. I could still save her!
"B-Bri! I know you're still here!"
With my eyes, I raised her lightly beating core before settling it in the hole. The other wheels neared from my hands and around her heart as limitless tears with shaky breaths showered her. My palms built a protective dome on her chest, and my forehead plunged against it. "I'm sorry...please..."
Although I couldn't see her eyes open, I felt it. The relief I had felt the second I looked into her hazel eyes, was ineffable—but transient. "B-Bri!"
"Luka?...," she whimpered. "I'm...sorry."
"No...I am. I didn't mean to! I just- I-" My voice had broke. "I couldn't...take it anymore."
"I know...I f-forgive you."
"No! Don't forgive me until I save you!"
"Y-you can't. What's a life...without Zalgiur..." A fluttering smile materialised on her face.
Her head began to drop—the thread was dispersing! Panic revolted from the tartarus of my stomach. "Bri! Tell me the demon's name."
"He's sorry..."
"Bri!"
"He- loves you."
"No...no, no!" I screamed, the rounded roof returning to the sides of my head. Ivy pelted from my fingertips into the hole, trying to reattach the veins, fill the ribs, inflate the lungs as the blood on my hands sank in deeper.
I...killed her.
I killed her!
Suddenly, besieging hands overwhelmed my shoulders, hauling me away from her body whilst I thrashed. I was an angel! I sobbed vehemently as my head was pushed into one's chest. She couldn't die! I gripped their shirt, so tight I could feel it stretch. Their arms stretched around me, seemingly covering my entire torso.
"I'm...sorry..."
Their scent of pine enshrouded me, and I imagined myself streaking through forests of them. I didn't deserve the secreting warmth I felt from this; like Heaven, in the form of a person.
But, it was Mammon. The one who had grated my core to shreds, he was the one who had came for me.
"It's okay, Luka," he answered, fingers raking my dishevelled hair. "Everything will be okay."
We stayed like that for a while, until I peered up at his grey eyes, where I found my home, and the raven-haired nestled me against his neck.
"Victor!" he yelled after covering my ears—could someone like that really not love me?
In my peripheral vision, I saw the distraught demi rush in, ripping away the ivy as the sight of his sister ripped him. "Marie!"
I lowered the rings, but my eyes rapidly vaulted back to the black shirt. I let his sister and Sol get hurt. A tear evaded sealed eyes. After they had taken me in, this happened because of me. If only I wasn't at the café. If only I had went some place else.
Mammon's arm slunk under my legs, and he lifted me up with facility. "I'm...gonna' take him outside."
He walked with me in his arms. I felt numb, though, it was better than feeling pain. I didn't think I could face Victor ever again, nor yet the angels. I took to Mammon's face, his expression balmy. I wondered what he thought about me, about...what I did. And even more disgusted I grew by myself. "Let me go."
The raven-haired continued to walk, leaving me a glimpse for an answer. "Mammon...please, let me go."
Mammon battled with himself over it, though didn't argue. Slowly, he put me down on my feet, but I sat down on the green-veined floor of the hall.
"Why did you come here?..."
"I came for you."
"Why?" I nipped at the ivy. "After...breaking up with me? Running back to...Andrea?"
"Don't say it like that."
"Say it like what? Say it like how it is?..."
"Ezekiel...made me do it." He clicked his tongue, hands stuffed in his pocket. "He's in love with you, Luka...the same way I am."
The pawl of my jaw fell, and I looked down at my lap. I couldn't believe it. In love with it me?
"So, he did something to me. I'm not sure what, but it hurt like hell."
When the raven-haired clutched his chest in sheer pain, that was Ezekiel's doing?
"It's true I made the others...fall for me. But it isn' like that with you." Mammon took the place down next to me.
"But Andrea..."
"I tried to get over you. I needed to, but nothing worked. Every time she said somethin', I wished it was you." Our eyes didn't leave one another. "You're the one I fell for, and you're the one I wanna' fucking love forever."
He drew something from the pocket of his black jacket before his fingers outspread. It was a cube made of resin, with a familiar red carnation inside. I mused it with surprise; the ripped petals, and shortened stem.
"You...kept it?" I asked feebly, taking it from him.
"Since the day you put it behind my ear. It was supposed to be your Christmas gift..." His hands caged my body to the wall, as his face proceeded closer, his breath on my lips igniting a fire within. "I love you, Luka."
Our lips connected, after being apart for sore long. My core started to beat faster—it had felt like the first time we kissed. I could hear the water ripple, and the blades tickling our fingers. Ivy coiled around our entwined hands as our bodies closed. Just two beings in time. In a world home to billions, we were nothing special, but what we had, was one in a billion. I was never perfect, and neither was he, but I was okay with that. We had finally seen each other—not for our mistakes, and not for our past. He had finally seen me as Luka, not the overbearing or brash throne.
Just, Luka.