Original Stories Fan Fiction / Angels Fan Fiction ❯ The Screaming of the Angels ❯ Chapter 1
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Event Horizon 
Based on a dream I had, that became a nightmare.
Why do angels cry? Why do they scream?
Warning: deals with religious subjects and contains violence.
*08/16/08 - just fixed some small errors*
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction / Angels Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 12.24.2004 | Updated On: 08.16.2008 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.2K | Visits: 443 | Status: Completed
Based on a dream I had, that became a nightmare.
Why do angels cry? Why do they scream?
Warning: deals with religious subjects and contains violence.
*08/16/08 - just fixed some small errors*
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction / Angels Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 12.24.2004 | Updated On: 08.16.2008 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.2K | Visits: 443 | Status: Completed
The Screaming of the Angels
Original characters/story
The rose blossoms were floating in a clear bath of fluid that rippled slowly in the flowers' movement. It dripped from Milla's fingers as she placed new buds. Slow, large drops, bigger than water. Heavier than water. It reflected the light like so many dissolved diamonds. She stood in front of the altar, the flowers now perfectly situated, smiling like so many blushing, happy children. The pink ones were an almost-red at their centers, and the white ones disappeared into their stems with a calm yellow smirk.
This ritual delighted her as nothing else could. It was the closest she could get to divine bliss. The altar was low to the ground, alabaster and square. She never wondered where the fluid came from to fill it, never wondered where the long rose stems she held in her hand came from, their decapitated buds serene at her feet. They were always there when she woke.
Beyond the altar was a wide staircase that rose two stories. Simply rose, never went anywhere. Some days, she would sit on the steps and watch the roses float as time passed pleasantly by. The rest of the building was made of white, unblemished marble. Everything was: the floor, the walls, the staircase, and the altar at which she now longingly gazed at. Her dress was white also, made of clean and elegant lines and which barely brushed her ankles as she walked. Everything fit together. Perfect.
A cloud passed through her mind now, as it always did, and brought a sigh of sadness to her lips. She missed him. She hadn't seen him for so long and sometimes his memory wasn't clear. It worried her more and more that she was forgetting.
And that he was forgetting her.
The roses, floating in serenity, began to glow - tiny, tiny - just at the center of the petals. Her attention focused - this did not happen everyday. The tiny orange spot of light gathered on each flower and blossomed into a sharp, small flame. The roses were burning - but how? Her heart clenched tight - what was going on? Presences gathered at both sides of her, streaming into the room.
"Is something wrong?" one voice asked. Her eyes were transfixed on the burning flowers, not looking up to see Raven speak.
"I feel... coming... something..." Shana tried to gather her thoughts, stumbling on the words.
Around Milla gathered her friends, entering the main room to try and understand what was happening. The roses never burnt. How could they, floating in that perfect, cool, fluid?
On impulse, she reached one hand down to the altar and pulled one flower out, blowing on it, trying to extinguish the fire. The flame disappeared, but the petals were already charred and ugly. All she could do was stare at it, her eyebrows furrowing in growing trepidation. All the gathered women turned and stared as the other buds burnt down to their ends. The glowing embers reached the liquid and set it gloriously ablaze. The assembled community gasped.
What in God's name was going on?
Renee put one arm around Milla, still clutching the mutilated bloom. What was there to say? They all felt like scared children, hoping father wouldn't come and see what they had done. But what had they done? The white-clad women gingerly held each other and waited for a paternal figure that wouldn't materialize.
A bright blast of light exploded from the top of the stairs that went to nowhere, and suddenly knowledge filled their minds. As one, the women fell to their feet in supplication, kneeling, knowing now that father had indeed come.
"My daughters", the light that existed on the stairs chanted, "you are all guilty of fleeing from my presence. You remember now what your punishment was for running and abandoning me in my time of need. 5000 years have you lived here in this white prison while my eyes were turned from you. Accept my forgiveness and return to me, to your rightful place at the foot of my throne. My roses are destroyed - your punishment is over. Come and return to the eternal love of my presence."
And the women wept, crying large droplets onto their clean white dresses, staring in fear at the walls that had just minutes ago been their Xanadu. False. False happiness.
Milla's tears ran down her face, copious. Her mouth was open and sobbing. He hadn't forgotten her! She gazed upon him and once again, the memory of him was fixated in perfection in her mind. She had forgotten him - oh terrible sacrilege!! - but he remembered her and came back! What love! What warmth filled up inside all of them, drawing them to stand and move trance-like towards the light. Raven began to ascend the stairs, and he halted them all with his words.
"No. Your tears are not your confession. You desire to return to me but cannot." The light paused, and they waited with baited breath. "Your earthly sins still crown your heads. They are a tax which can only keep you from me. You have all been tainted with sin. Remove your mortal locks and then, when thou have bled for me, may you return to my grace."
Confusion rippled through the waiting women. What was he asking? Was he removing the promise of absolution from them? Heaven was at their fingertips and he had put a test of faith between them and everlasting love and acceptance. Purpose.
Milla was especially disillusioned. This was not the He who she remembered. He existed in her memory as unselfish and loving and infinitely patient. Why the trials? Why after all these eons, one more hurdle to climb?
Around her, her sisters began grasping at their hair, pulling and tugging. The light at the stairs began to fade. The women tugged harder.
"No! Don't go!" They cried out. "Don't leave us, master!"
Scattered cries began to go up, as small bunches of hair were ripped from their scalps by their own fingers. "Don't leave us here!" Harder they pulled as the light began to float upwards into the great nothing that lay in the white, featureless sky above the stairs.
Frantic, they ripped harder, jerking patches of scalp out with the fistfuls of hair. Black, blonde, brown, and spatterings of crimson blood fell to the floor. Cries of agony screamed after the slowly rising light. One angel, her head devoid of hair, nothing but a mass of blood, walked onto the stairs, pain evident in her voice. "No! Father take me with you!" Devout, penitent, her feet lifted from the prison and after her maker. Jealous and pain filled cries followed her.
"No! No, no no no!!!" The angels spent themselves into a froth of furor. The pain of being left behind was more than the physical pain they would soon leave behind forever. And this time for good. High-pitched cries and wails echoed in a breathless scream. Blood spattered the walls and ran across the floor to gather at the altar. To gather at Milla's bare feet.
She stared after the light, after the few bloodied beauties that had denuded their scalps and had already floated to meet him. Something was wrong. This was not her god. Something was very wrong. Why would he ask for such carnage? Why would he force the cherubim to bring such wrath on their bodies?
"No." Her voice joined the others, screaming, crying no. "No, I won't! I won't go with you! Father of Lies! Prince of the Air!"
The light stopped its ascent. The screams around her died, but did not disappear. Renee, blood on her hands, streaking down her face, caught her by one arm.
"What are you doing? Don't you see we're going back? Don't say such... black things! Come!" She beckoned her, tugging on her elbow helplessly.
"You. You have uttered the names of the Other." The light was quiet, serious, like a pot about to boil over. "How dare thou curse at me with the names of the Evil One! Rend your sinful head bare and profess your love for me. Then, and only then, can thou join me at my table."
Milla was shaking. She was so scared, but somewhere deep inside, she knew she was right.
"Serpent! Why do you deceive the children of the one true God!" Her lip trembled uncontrollably.
"BOW AND FEEL MY WRATH!!" The light screamed, knocking her to the floor. Pain and death coursed through her body, making her mortal veins contract. The blood that pulsed through her body pounded as each vein collapsed on itself. Her arteries grew out of her skin, and the other angels drew back from her monstrous appearance. She screamed a long, loud wail of pain and misery and when she had no more breath, the light let her go, taking all the torture away. "Now, feel the warmth of my bottomless love for you, wretched creature." The light had a sweet voice now, and Milla couldn't adapt to the sudden change. A wave of pleasure arched through her body, kissing and caressing her nerves, the warm love of a creator gently stroking her heart.
'Yes,' she thought, 'this is what heaven was like! I remember it before! Oh, forgive my blasphemous tongue, father!' White blind pleasure and rapture.
The yet earth-bound angels watched her tranced body, eyes closed, yet staring at the light where the redeemed angels hovered. The ones still with hair ripped the last bits out, screaming in an ecstasy of pain - gliding to the stairs to be lifted up into the air.
The light drew his overpowering love from Milla's form. She gasped, writhing to her feet. The light and her bleeding sisters began once again to rise. Faster now.
"No, don't leave, Holy of Holies!" Her hands dropped the charred blossom that they had cupped all this time. Her fingers went for her hair, struggling to rip the curly chestnut locks and toss them to the floor. "Father! Wait! Forgive me!" She started to panic, as the assembled group was far above her head now. "Mercy! Sanctuary! Don't go! Be merciful!!"
And it began to rain.
An end-times torrent - a downpour that only grew with every passing moment. The drops generated out of thin air in the white faceless sky above, somewhere below the flying travelers, for they were not the least impeded by the rain.
And Milla screamed and scraped every piece of delicate hair from her head. Her nails scratched at the open flesh, trying to make them come back.
"I've done it, father! My mortal crown is gone! Please, please come back!" But he would not listen. She knew he could, yet he would not stop and take her with. The water began to rise, swiftly, as the white prison had no place for the rain to go. The blood washed away, turning the rain hitting the floor a light pink before dissolving. The long locks of hair swirled in the gathering water, now knee high. Milla wailed wordless and destitute. He had forgotten her after all. She began climbing the steps to escape the water, but it was just a small delay to the inevitable. She would die here, mortal and helpless, a sinner to the last. She was on the last step now, her shoulders just above the liquid death. Her eyes rose imploringly, one last time to the bliss that ran from her in the sky.
The group, which was only very tiny now, her sisters but single points in the white rain, stopped. One point became two and dropped away from the collective, falling, falling. Faster back into the prison.
Despite her dire situation, Milla couldn't help but wonder. What was going on?
Another point, this time split in three and fell. One by one the points that were her fellow cherubim were sliced apart and plummeted. The first body splashed down beside her head that struggled to stay above the water. It was Shana, her body split down the middle, each bloody piece floating near and staining the water. Her bowels filled the water and the sight forced her to vomit. God would not do that. Not him. Not the one she remembered. The other bodies. All of them. Pieces and chunks, decapitated heads and sightless eyes, detached limbs and severed fingers. Blood. So much blood. The rain turned to blood. HE sat in the air, LAUGHING, his beautiful presence beginning to ascend again, out of sight.
She was now utterly forgotten.
Original characters/story
The rose blossoms were floating in a clear bath of fluid that rippled slowly in the flowers' movement. It dripped from Milla's fingers as she placed new buds. Slow, large drops, bigger than water. Heavier than water. It reflected the light like so many dissolved diamonds. She stood in front of the altar, the flowers now perfectly situated, smiling like so many blushing, happy children. The pink ones were an almost-red at their centers, and the white ones disappeared into their stems with a calm yellow smirk.
This ritual delighted her as nothing else could. It was the closest she could get to divine bliss. The altar was low to the ground, alabaster and square. She never wondered where the fluid came from to fill it, never wondered where the long rose stems she held in her hand came from, their decapitated buds serene at her feet. They were always there when she woke.
Beyond the altar was a wide staircase that rose two stories. Simply rose, never went anywhere. Some days, she would sit on the steps and watch the roses float as time passed pleasantly by. The rest of the building was made of white, unblemished marble. Everything was: the floor, the walls, the staircase, and the altar at which she now longingly gazed at. Her dress was white also, made of clean and elegant lines and which barely brushed her ankles as she walked. Everything fit together. Perfect.
A cloud passed through her mind now, as it always did, and brought a sigh of sadness to her lips. She missed him. She hadn't seen him for so long and sometimes his memory wasn't clear. It worried her more and more that she was forgetting.
And that he was forgetting her.
The roses, floating in serenity, began to glow - tiny, tiny - just at the center of the petals. Her attention focused - this did not happen everyday. The tiny orange spot of light gathered on each flower and blossomed into a sharp, small flame. The roses were burning - but how? Her heart clenched tight - what was going on? Presences gathered at both sides of her, streaming into the room.
"Is something wrong?" one voice asked. Her eyes were transfixed on the burning flowers, not looking up to see Raven speak.
"I feel... coming... something..." Shana tried to gather her thoughts, stumbling on the words.
Around Milla gathered her friends, entering the main room to try and understand what was happening. The roses never burnt. How could they, floating in that perfect, cool, fluid?
On impulse, she reached one hand down to the altar and pulled one flower out, blowing on it, trying to extinguish the fire. The flame disappeared, but the petals were already charred and ugly. All she could do was stare at it, her eyebrows furrowing in growing trepidation. All the gathered women turned and stared as the other buds burnt down to their ends. The glowing embers reached the liquid and set it gloriously ablaze. The assembled community gasped.
What in God's name was going on?
Renee put one arm around Milla, still clutching the mutilated bloom. What was there to say? They all felt like scared children, hoping father wouldn't come and see what they had done. But what had they done? The white-clad women gingerly held each other and waited for a paternal figure that wouldn't materialize.
A bright blast of light exploded from the top of the stairs that went to nowhere, and suddenly knowledge filled their minds. As one, the women fell to their feet in supplication, kneeling, knowing now that father had indeed come.
"My daughters", the light that existed on the stairs chanted, "you are all guilty of fleeing from my presence. You remember now what your punishment was for running and abandoning me in my time of need. 5000 years have you lived here in this white prison while my eyes were turned from you. Accept my forgiveness and return to me, to your rightful place at the foot of my throne. My roses are destroyed - your punishment is over. Come and return to the eternal love of my presence."
And the women wept, crying large droplets onto their clean white dresses, staring in fear at the walls that had just minutes ago been their Xanadu. False. False happiness.
Milla's tears ran down her face, copious. Her mouth was open and sobbing. He hadn't forgotten her! She gazed upon him and once again, the memory of him was fixated in perfection in her mind. She had forgotten him - oh terrible sacrilege!! - but he remembered her and came back! What love! What warmth filled up inside all of them, drawing them to stand and move trance-like towards the light. Raven began to ascend the stairs, and he halted them all with his words.
"No. Your tears are not your confession. You desire to return to me but cannot." The light paused, and they waited with baited breath. "Your earthly sins still crown your heads. They are a tax which can only keep you from me. You have all been tainted with sin. Remove your mortal locks and then, when thou have bled for me, may you return to my grace."
Confusion rippled through the waiting women. What was he asking? Was he removing the promise of absolution from them? Heaven was at their fingertips and he had put a test of faith between them and everlasting love and acceptance. Purpose.
Milla was especially disillusioned. This was not the He who she remembered. He existed in her memory as unselfish and loving and infinitely patient. Why the trials? Why after all these eons, one more hurdle to climb?
Around her, her sisters began grasping at their hair, pulling and tugging. The light at the stairs began to fade. The women tugged harder.
"No! Don't go!" They cried out. "Don't leave us, master!"
Scattered cries began to go up, as small bunches of hair were ripped from their scalps by their own fingers. "Don't leave us here!" Harder they pulled as the light began to float upwards into the great nothing that lay in the white, featureless sky above the stairs.
Frantic, they ripped harder, jerking patches of scalp out with the fistfuls of hair. Black, blonde, brown, and spatterings of crimson blood fell to the floor. Cries of agony screamed after the slowly rising light. One angel, her head devoid of hair, nothing but a mass of blood, walked onto the stairs, pain evident in her voice. "No! Father take me with you!" Devout, penitent, her feet lifted from the prison and after her maker. Jealous and pain filled cries followed her.
"No! No, no no no!!!" The angels spent themselves into a froth of furor. The pain of being left behind was more than the physical pain they would soon leave behind forever. And this time for good. High-pitched cries and wails echoed in a breathless scream. Blood spattered the walls and ran across the floor to gather at the altar. To gather at Milla's bare feet.
She stared after the light, after the few bloodied beauties that had denuded their scalps and had already floated to meet him. Something was wrong. This was not her god. Something was very wrong. Why would he ask for such carnage? Why would he force the cherubim to bring such wrath on their bodies?
"No." Her voice joined the others, screaming, crying no. "No, I won't! I won't go with you! Father of Lies! Prince of the Air!"
The light stopped its ascent. The screams around her died, but did not disappear. Renee, blood on her hands, streaking down her face, caught her by one arm.
"What are you doing? Don't you see we're going back? Don't say such... black things! Come!" She beckoned her, tugging on her elbow helplessly.
"You. You have uttered the names of the Other." The light was quiet, serious, like a pot about to boil over. "How dare thou curse at me with the names of the Evil One! Rend your sinful head bare and profess your love for me. Then, and only then, can thou join me at my table."
Milla was shaking. She was so scared, but somewhere deep inside, she knew she was right.
"Serpent! Why do you deceive the children of the one true God!" Her lip trembled uncontrollably.
"BOW AND FEEL MY WRATH!!" The light screamed, knocking her to the floor. Pain and death coursed through her body, making her mortal veins contract. The blood that pulsed through her body pounded as each vein collapsed on itself. Her arteries grew out of her skin, and the other angels drew back from her monstrous appearance. She screamed a long, loud wail of pain and misery and when she had no more breath, the light let her go, taking all the torture away. "Now, feel the warmth of my bottomless love for you, wretched creature." The light had a sweet voice now, and Milla couldn't adapt to the sudden change. A wave of pleasure arched through her body, kissing and caressing her nerves, the warm love of a creator gently stroking her heart.
'Yes,' she thought, 'this is what heaven was like! I remember it before! Oh, forgive my blasphemous tongue, father!' White blind pleasure and rapture.
The yet earth-bound angels watched her tranced body, eyes closed, yet staring at the light where the redeemed angels hovered. The ones still with hair ripped the last bits out, screaming in an ecstasy of pain - gliding to the stairs to be lifted up into the air.
The light drew his overpowering love from Milla's form. She gasped, writhing to her feet. The light and her bleeding sisters began once again to rise. Faster now.
"No, don't leave, Holy of Holies!" Her hands dropped the charred blossom that they had cupped all this time. Her fingers went for her hair, struggling to rip the curly chestnut locks and toss them to the floor. "Father! Wait! Forgive me!" She started to panic, as the assembled group was far above her head now. "Mercy! Sanctuary! Don't go! Be merciful!!"
And it began to rain.
An end-times torrent - a downpour that only grew with every passing moment. The drops generated out of thin air in the white faceless sky above, somewhere below the flying travelers, for they were not the least impeded by the rain.
And Milla screamed and scraped every piece of delicate hair from her head. Her nails scratched at the open flesh, trying to make them come back.
"I've done it, father! My mortal crown is gone! Please, please come back!" But he would not listen. She knew he could, yet he would not stop and take her with. The water began to rise, swiftly, as the white prison had no place for the rain to go. The blood washed away, turning the rain hitting the floor a light pink before dissolving. The long locks of hair swirled in the gathering water, now knee high. Milla wailed wordless and destitute. He had forgotten her after all. She began climbing the steps to escape the water, but it was just a small delay to the inevitable. She would die here, mortal and helpless, a sinner to the last. She was on the last step now, her shoulders just above the liquid death. Her eyes rose imploringly, one last time to the bliss that ran from her in the sky.
The group, which was only very tiny now, her sisters but single points in the white rain, stopped. One point became two and dropped away from the collective, falling, falling. Faster back into the prison.
Despite her dire situation, Milla couldn't help but wonder. What was going on?
Another point, this time split in three and fell. One by one the points that were her fellow cherubim were sliced apart and plummeted. The first body splashed down beside her head that struggled to stay above the water. It was Shana, her body split down the middle, each bloody piece floating near and staining the water. Her bowels filled the water and the sight forced her to vomit. God would not do that. Not him. Not the one she remembered. The other bodies. All of them. Pieces and chunks, decapitated heads and sightless eyes, detached limbs and severed fingers. Blood. So much blood. The rain turned to blood. HE sat in the air, LAUGHING, his beautiful presence beginning to ascend again, out of sight.
She was now utterly forgotten.