“Need more friends with wings,

All the angels I know put concrete in my veins…”

I awoke in a world quite unlike my own. The buildings were like stone trees with no stories etched into their bark, just ages and ages of rain and snow to tell tales of. Everything was cement, no marble, pearl or limestone to be seen except in dilapidated artwork outside ‘parliament’ buildings and ‘museums.’ I was stared at, gawked over, but I think most regarded me as a freak that decided Halloween had come early. I encouraged the thought, making my wings stiff and brittle, lifeless.

A patch of earth stood like a stark outcast in the center of this massive city, trees and benches where old folk played chess standing like sentient creatures. I walked the small square of wood, this ‘park’ they’d reserved for all things green and living and beautiful. It was so strange, with the city pressing in on it from all sides and suffocating out the pure air. Everything about this world was disgusting- it’s lack of beauty and life, the futility of any life existing. Just walk to work to earn paper bills and go home to your three-room flat, a prisoner like he had been. Was it any better than Heaven?

Yes, it was, and I loved it. The suffocation of life and the density of everything existing in this city were revolting but I was free to roam it as I pleased.

I explored the tiny space of forest, touching trees as I passed them by and smelling the different smells. Evergreen, cedar, marijuana, pine, cigarette smoke, bad cologne- all mixed together like a bizarre witch concoction.

I stopped in my tracks at the sound of voices and deliberately loud sniggering. I looked up, curious, and was met with three faces, almost identical- all hairless except for thick eyebrows like caterpillars threatening to merge into one giant brow. Dark eyes like beetles stuck under them. I suppose they thought they looked quite threatening that way, or they would have grown their hair, done something about the tears in their clothes. I, with only white, draping pants and a thin, silver chain around my neck bearing the symbol of the Dark Ones probably looked no better.

“Wha’s with this here cocksucker, mates? Do you fancy he thinks he’s an angel?”

I blanched, wondering what he meant by the crude names and accusations, though the latter comment couldn’t have been more ironic. I didn’t answer, nor did I move, which seemed to anger him.

“Nice costume. Izat some kinda new fetish, or somethin’ goin’ ‘round? Care to enlighten me?”

I felt my heart’s pace quicken as fear began to gnaw at me. What were his intentions anyway? I remained silent. I’d never spoken before because I’d never had a reason and still I saw no logic in opening my mouth now. What was I to ask them for? I didn’t even know what they wanted to take.

“Oi, I’m talkin’ to you, bitch!” Temperamental didn’t even begin to describe. The boy who’d addressed me stalked forward and it was then that my eyes fell upon the instrument in his hand; a sort of blade, small, barely noticeable but sharp. His eyes glared darkly at my wings, bloody from their fall and aching from where they’d been broken.

“How’s them things work? They look alive? Izit some kinda machine, whatdeye reckon’ boys? This here one looks broken, though, may wanna fixat.” He stared at me with a feral grin and I couldn’t tell whether he was being friendly or intimidating. “Wha’s wrong, my angel, cat got your tongue?”

I simply stared, waiting to see what he would do before I chose whether to run or not. He watched me closely, watched my wings and I think he could read my fear like an animal.

“Not much of a talker? Tha’s fine, just don’t say I didn’t warnye,” and he brought the switchblade down on the wing joint protruding from my shoulder blades, the pain lancing through me like a javelin. The cry escaped me before I could stop it, before I had time to realize the strange intensity it would have on Earth and the ethereal air it would exude- inhuman. I could feel the wound bleeding. I could feel his eyes on me, wide like a deer in the headlights.

“Iz real. Iz bleedin’, that means iz real,” the thug stated. His friends looked stupefied, unsure of what to do.

I never understood the logic of human nature, not even after my teachers attempted to guide me in its every virtue, as though humans functioned like clockwork. They told me that fear drove humans to do things they normally wouldn’t, normally couldn’t in all physical, mental and emotional attributes. What they did then was driven by fear, and I couldn’t blame them.

The boy with the switchblade leapt and cut at my wings like the abominations they were, trying in vain to sever them with his tiny knife. His friends joined, hanging on the primaries and tugging out fistfuls of feathers as they tried to remove them, as though begging some god there was to prove that what they saw before them wasn’t real.
            For a second they relented and by then I was gone, fleeing through the woods like a bat out of Hell (and what a strange analogy that is). Never had the city’s compact quarters been so desirable as then, while I fled the humans and their irrationality. I found a street threaded with apartments and clumsy houses, bare and with so many dead street lamps that the darkness could shroud me in its shadowed cloak.

I found a shed in someone’s back yard used to keep gardening tools. I stole a sharp spade and escaped unseen, returning to the stench of downtown and its gutted alleyways to do the work I knew needed to be done. I began to remove my wings.

The pain stank like burnt skin for miles, making me wretch as I continued to dig around the nearly severed wing joint with the gardening spade, letting the blood flow a little and then clot before I worked some more. It was disgusting work, but I managed.

Suddenly it became very clear to me that I was not alone. Shadows shifted, betraying the stillness that accompanied the solitude I knew so well. I looked up through the tall rooftops and at the crevice of sky. Perched atop the building opposite me was a dark shape and even before his face was elucidated I knew who he was. He must have smelt the blood, or else he would not have come.

I was silent, holding the spade guiltily in one hand and sitting beside the severed corpses of my wings. It hurt to have to let them go, the things that were such a huge part of me, but they would only bring me death here. They’d grow back…

He leapt with agile grace and landed softly before me, moving like a shadow would- in a sanguine, silent manner. My breath stopped as he lunged forward, gripping my throat and pressing me to the wall where brick scraped my skin, leaving red spots. I hacked out a cough, his finger hot and unrelenting against my cool throat and pressing ever closer, making oxygen so much more precious.

“Angels don’t belong,” he growled, the ferine simper he bore making my blood heat despite the intimidation and open threat it bore. I couldn’t help but be fascinated by his every movement, which seemed to scream sex in its every aspect. The sight of him had taken my breath away even from Evanescent, and here where I breathed his scent and could see each pale freckle and hear the steady sound of his breaths- I was enraptured.

His lips cracked open in a savage expression and he bent to investigate me, smelling me, leaning so close that a tendril of hair snaked over his shoulder and brushed against my arm. He growled low in his throat, a warning to me, as though he could perceive my thoughts. His fingers tightened and I emitted an inhuman sound of protest, struggling to loosen his hands that were as strong as wisteria. Had I expected him to act any differently? I didn’t know why I was so shocked at his brutality. Demons were known for it. He abruptly stopped in his investigations, a primordial growl rasping through his parted fangs, realization seeming to shift into the Hell-bound orbs.

“Who are you!?” he snarled. He sounded like he already knew. I wasn’t sure whether to answer or not, my mouth gaping open as his fingers tightened. I waited for them to loosen, gazing with plea in my eyes into his strangely coloured orbs. “Who are you?” he repeated, lips curled so that the curved fangs were exposed. I continued to pry at his fingers, unable to breathe, let alone speak. He loosened only a mite, but it was enough.

“Kian,” I hissed out through the constrictions on my throat, spots forming behind my eyes. I was dropped abruptly, choking and coughing as I felt warm liquid in my throat. Probably blood. The demon turned tail and ran and it was then that I heard the sirens shrieking and the red lights scouring our dark alleyway. He leapt, and his jumps were such that it looked like he was flying. He had hardly reached the rooftop when a sepulchral noise, like chains snapped tight with each link grinding against the other, interrupted the still and he was jerked back earthward to crash into the concrete. The pain ripped through me in an instant before it vanished, but I could still feel tingling remnants in my bowels from where it had lanced through me. Never had anything burned with such a fire, never had I felt such pain as I had in that second, but it was gone and only left my absence of breath as proof of its temporary existence. My heart hammered as I stood shakily, unsure of where to go or what to do or if I should run and leave him or stay and suffer the consequences. I was blinded as dark figures shone flashlights down the alleyway, screaming something to their partners.

I ran forward to the fallen demon, shook him violently and tried to wake him. I would have cried and made noise just to scare them but I was afraid they might pull out guns and shoot. If they were anything like the boys I’d met in the park, they would.

Suddenly the demon’s eyes opened, startling in their contrast and shifting around for the source of the disturbance and the sirens. He grabbed me by the arm, claws ripping into me carelessly as he roared in animalistic rage, leaping upward and dragging me along. He hopped each roof in one stride, while I did my best to gain my footing at each interval instead of skidding across. The spots in front of my eyes became almost too much to bear, and then my memory faded as I blacked out entirely.

I stood in a dimly lit room with the demon boy, watching as he slept as though I were a surreal entity watching through the roof. Like I was in Evanescent. Quite suddenly he snapped awake and his eyes darted to his wrists. He squinted, pinched two clawed fingers around something glinting silver against his tanned skin and began to pull. A chain, thin and dripping scarlet over the white bed sheet slithered from his wrist’s artery like a pale serpent and, horror struck, he began yanking at it. It kept coming, a never-ending chain. He began to choke and grasped his throat where his fingers found yet another chain. He tugged at that too, trying in vain to remove both as more appeared. Soon he was surrounded in maliciously sparkling chains, dripping in his own blood, never ending. I cried out for him, reaching to him, hoping that I could help. He just snarled and snapped at me, continuing his futile tirade against the chains that bound him…

I awoke on a rattling subway car, the cushions plastic and uncomfortable beneath my already bruised person. The demon sat across from me, I recognized his bare feet.

“Imbecile, you haven’t even been here a day and already you’ve been caught…” I didn’t answer, curled my knees into myself and watched him with a flip-flopping stomach. I loved the way I felt around him and I couldn’t ever begin to tell you why. I think the mere sight of me made him want to wretch.

“You’re a Dark One, so what are you doing down in this Hell Hole when you could have lived the high life? Never mind, stupid questions deserve stupid answers. Here’s a better question. Why are you here?”

I felt more like vomiting than answering his question and I felt my lip quiver while the bile tossed in my stomach. I’d never felt so sick before in my life, disgusting, like a slug. The loss of my wings was making me ill.

“Do not throw up in here,” he commanded. I shut my mouth tight and swallowed it. He seemed surprised at my obedience, but quickly recovered his hostile demeanor. Outside, in the blackness of this mile long tunnel, the world spun dizzyingly and I had no conception of where up and down were, only that my stomach was threatening to be ill again despite the fact it was hollow.

I heard a snicker and glanced up at the demon, wishing I could beg for his sympathy and have a hope of receiving some. I knew it wasn’t feasible. I should have believed it when my teachers told me that demons had no emotion other than bloodlust and greed.

“Are you done?” I wasn’t sure how I could be, I hadn’t yet emptied my stomach after all, but I nodded anyway. I was, for once, glad of the teachings I’d been made to endure all my childhood, at least I wasn’t completely oblivious to the human world and its machines such as this subway. I might have looked more the fool in front of him then…

I never ever felt the need to speak, but right then I could have talked for ages and asked so many questions while I looked at him. He was intoxicating, leaving me drunken and unlike myself.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” I asked hoarsely, looking away. I didn’t want to see the scorn on his face at my questions and my actions.

“Can’t say I didn’t try,” he answered with a sneer, padding over to me with the same grace that had entranced me so the night before. He raised his hand abruptly and brought it down and I braced myself for the rake of nails through my face. It never came. I looked up and saw that his hand glowed a little, stopped inches from my face by an invisible barrier. “Unfortunate, isn’t it?” He drew his index finger down the side of my face now, making me shiver uncontrollably. “I can only touch you without ill intention.”

I wanted to ask why he’d taken me with him then but the need to throw up returned and I was fighting my gag reflexes with all my might, which wasn’t much. He seemed to have known my question without me having asked it. “Not only can’t I kill you, I can’t walk more than ten paces away from you without feeling as though my innards are being sucked out my ass. So if you please, don’t get any fanciful ideas in that stupid head of yours about my kindness and sympathy because there is none.”

I pulled my feet up on the chair, curled my arms around myself in a fetal position I’d mimicked since I was a child. “What are you going to do?” I whispered, watching him from the corner of my eye, afraid of his answer.

He looked stricken by the question and began to pace, eyes wild as he slashed randomly at the air to vent his frustration. “What am I supposed to do!? I’m magically bound to an angel.” He said the word with such revulsion that I flinched in my seat. He saw and seemed pleased by my reaction. “Cerberus would murder me if he found out,” he hissed, glaring at me as though this were my fault. I was painfully aware of my own guilt in the situation and I was also begrudgingly aware of the grief just the thought of this demon’s demise brought up in me. Did all angels Fall this hard or was I just lucky? I didn’t care what he planned to do with me anymore; I got to stay, even if it was against his will…

“What’s your name?” I asked quietly, trying to remember the last time I’d spoken so often. There was a simple answer to that, I never had.

He blanched at the question, as though he’d never heard anything so abnormal. For a moment, I thought he’d softened, but his voice was cold enough to deter the thought. “Raiden Ares Fiachra Damon Chandra…”

“Ok, Rain…” I wanted to call him by something no one else would… I wanted him to remember me. I was the one who called him ‘Rain’ instead of ‘Raiden.’
            “Rain?”

“Rain.”

Donnie Darko- Mad World

All around me are familiar faces

Worn out places, worn out faces,

Bright and early for the daily races,

Going nowhere, going nowhere,

Their tears are filling up their glasses,

No expression, no expression,

Hide my head i want to drown my sorrow,

No tomorrow, no tomorrow,

And i find it kind of funny; i find it kinda sad,

The dreams in which i’m dying are the best i’ve ever had,

i find it hard to tell you, i find it hard to take,

When people run in circles it’s a very very,

Mad World, Mad World…

Children waiting for the day they feel good,

Happy birthday, Happy birthday,

And they feel the way that every child should,

Sit and listen, Sit and listen,

Went to school and i was very nervous,

No one knew me, No one knew me,

Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson?

Look right through me, Look right through me,

And i find it kinda funny; i find it kinda sad,

The dreams in which i’m dying are the best i’ve ever had,

i find it hard to tell you, i find it hard to take,

When people run in circles it’s a very very,

Mad World, Mad World

Enlargen your world

Mad world.

Author’s Note: Once again with the songs. This is actually by Gary Jules, a song made for the movie Donnie Darko (one of my faves). Also, the ‘I’s are not capitalized for reason. The songs all seam to be something from Kian’s point of view, and thus a Fallen Angel would probably not even be awarded with a capital at the first letter of his name. This makes sense in my head… -.-*

 I have an obsession with mythological and Irish names…. Thanks for all the bloody wonderful reviews, they really mean a lot to me.

Special thanks to: ola, Weeping-Tenshi, The Fondue Pot, Dlyope, Devil Dragon of Pain, Daft Fear, and Color Me In Dark.