I thought maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe the person who was after me put a spell on me to envision things that were not true. Valeria could not be the last angel. I spent more time with her than anybody else, there's no way she could've fooled me that badly.
I follow the white wings in the distance that get further and further away. The brown wavy hair blows in the wind, I catch sight of the charm bracelet she always wears reflecting off the moon. It can't be. I'm hallucinating.
Eventually, the angel lands, and I land in the distance. I watch from behind a tree. She steps forward, it looks as if she were walking to nothing, but then I realize what it is. And once I realized it, I could see it.
A house appears. I watch her walk up the steps.
And out steps Gabriel.
My jaw clenches upon seeing him. He cursed my people. All I want is to rush forward, take his pathetic soul, and strip him of an afterlife, but something stops me. It's not a hallucination. I watch her as she turns and hugs him, and I see her face. I see her freckles and dimples and brown eyes.
They talk. They both look upset. I can imagine what it is they're talking about. The fact that they're losing, that she's the only one left.
I look at her. The girl I've dreamed of. The girl I've danced with. The girl I talk about books with. In the blink of an eye, she went from the girl I trusted most to one of my greatest enemies. Her, her people did this to us.
My father was right. Angels are deceptive. She enters the house with him, I continue standing in the trees.
I must kill her.
𓆩♡𓆪
I sit in class. I didn't get much sleep last night. I stared at my bookshelf, at the novels I had discussed with her before.
She walks in the room and I'm forced to act like I don't know the truth. That I'm not the one who killed her parents. That her people didn't curse mine to misery for eternity. My jaw is tight.
She sits in front of me. That makes it worse, but then it's even harder when I smell her perfume from here.
She turns around in her seat. She smiles at me, "Thank you for leaving that book in my room. I've already finished it."
There was nothing for us to discuss. I didn't respond to her. She's an angel, I'm a demon, we shouldn't be communicating, I should've already killed her. She looks confused when I don't respond. The girl I need to kill asks, "What's wrong?"
I can't answer. I can't look her in her eyes and tell her I have to kill her. I've never struggled to kill somebody in my entire life, but now I did.
"Nothing," is all I say.
She looks even more confused now. The bell rings, and she turns back around. I spend the entire class ignoring the board and looking at the back of her light brown hair.
Once class is over, I grab my things and quickly exit the classroom. I knew what I needed to do tonight. Valeria called my name, I ignored her as I walked down the hallway and slammed my door shut behind me.
The wait is excruciating. I think of how long I've been waiting for this, I think of my people who are dying down there at Gabriel's hands.
And as the moon replaces the sun in the sky, I know that it's time.
I fly to the area I had followed Valeria to. I should've expected it to be this spell, angels have been good at hiding, and now it made much more sense why I could never find them.
I land on the porch of the house. I debate on knocking to be polite.
But I decided that breaking it down is better.
I rip the door off its hinges, it goes flying as I enter yet another place I was forbidden from being. The angels in the house jump, they weren't expecting me, I use that to my advantage.
The angels, they begin trying to fight me off, it's no use. I'm stronger, both physically and mentally, my power is much stronger than theirs. As I've collected over 200 angel souls, their spells did not work on me the same way they would with another demon.
I begin killing them, one by one, my hands are stained with blood. I absorb soul after soul, feeling more powerful with each one.
But then I see him. Gabriel.
He shouts a spell, it hits my chest, it's painful, but I don't let it stop me. I keep walking toward him. He was stronger than most, but so was I, as I continued to absorb the pain from his spell I said a Latin word, bringing a sword into my hand.
I throw the blade, it pierces his stomach, he screams as the dead angels around him cannot help. He pulled the blade out while falling onto the floor, but it wasn't just a regular blade, but a poisoned one. I knew his blood was poisoning him from the inside out as he hit the ground.
"You've spent years saying you could kill me," I say as I take slow steps toward him as he lies on the floor, clutching at his wounds. "But I could sense your weakness from the moment I opened that door."
He cannot talk. As I stand over him, grabbing my blade off the ground, that makes me smirk.
He watches me with hate as I raise the blade in the air. He knows his fate.
But right before I can finish him with it, I hear something outside.
The familiar sound of a bracelet being played with, followed by an angelic voice I recognized shouting, "Gabriel?"
I swear to myself as I drop the blade to the ground once again. I knew this was my opportunity. Valeria was now the only angel left in this world. All I'd have to do is kill her the second she enters that door.
Yet something stops me. I don't know why. I don't find it as easy to kill her as I have the rest. I hear her beginning to walk up the steps. I do the spell to cover my face, to hide my identity, and although I do not have a heart, something inside it stops me from harming her.
𓆩♡𓆪
V A L E R I A
I get a sudden pain in my heart as my stomach drops.
I can't explain it. But it's the same feeling I get in my nightmares. I know something bad has happened, although I don't know what, but I know I need to go now.
I quickly leave the school, flying faster than I ever have to the safe house. The air feels dark and heavy and my stomach is filled with anxiety.
My feet hit the ground, and as they do, the house appears. I call out as I walk quickly up the hill, "Gabriel?"
I get no response. I begin running faster as I call out, "Gabriel?"
As I reach the top step, I freeze in my tracks.
The demon. He steps out. His face is hidden from me, but not his hands, I can see how much blood covers them, and my stomach turns in pain. I whisper as I begin to cry, "No."
"It is too late to save them now," the demon says to me.
His black wings take him up in the air as he flies away. I'm not sure why he doesn't kill me, but I'm not in the mood to think about it. I run inside the house, and I see it, all the blood, all the dead bodies, my hand covers my mouth as I begin to cry.
"Gabriel," I cry as I say his name as I see him moments away from death on the floor. I rushed over to him, trying to put pressure against his wounds, but I knew there was nothing I could do now.
"Not you, Gabriel, not you after my parents," I cried.
He can't speak he's so close to death. He reaches his hand up and puts it against my heart. My eyebrows lower, I don't understand what he's doing.
He manages to say, his voice less than a whisper, "To protect you."
I felt something go into my heart, something powerful, my eyes shut for a moment as I was unsure what it was. And when I opened my eyes, his were closed.
I begged him to open his eyes while crying. I shook his body, my tears landing on him, the tears of an angel are supposed to heal, but it's not enough to bring him back.
With red eyes and wet cheeks, I look around the room. I see all of them dead. Slaughtered. And a sickly feeling overcame me as I realized something. Every other angel in this world was dead.
I was all that remained.
Word Count: 1527