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The Dark that Reaches...
chapter 1
an angel & a demon
It's been over ninety-three years since that war began. The war was almost the end of the world, and it was for that reason alone, that my kind was sent down here. We are angels; most of us anyway. There were some who turned their back on the great creator of life, corrupted by mortals and even more so than they, and for that they are demons. The world is ash now; the sky is forever red with fire and stained with the blood of so many who should not have died. Battles between the two types, angel and archangel, often break out; not that mortals notice it. They go about their business without even a clue about us; as for all the destruction that takes place during these battles, they assume it to be a normal bombing or raid of some kind.
Most cities are in ruin, though people still live there; where else would they be? It is in these streets Noame walks; dressed in black and white, bleak as what the world seems, the umbrella she holds is to keep off the ash filled air from herself and the diary she reads.
A fight breaks out, angels and archangels again. Noame stops only for a second to glance at it, and moves on past it; mortals either ignore it or stare a minute to amuse their thoughts. One is thrown into a sky tower, white winged angel or ash winged archangel, she did not take to notice or look to see; she was just glad it was not her. She was an angel, though she never wanted to be. It has been a long time since she smiled.
Atop a tower an angel lay slain, the archangel bathed in blood and now too exhausted to live himself; he falls at the cold toes of his counterpart. Night was falling close behind them; though it was hard to tell, since from morning the day bares an evening light.
"Noame!" calls a cheery voice from behind the inn counter as Noame enters. "You are safe and at home! How is our city today? Do you think the war will be over soon?"
Noame remained silent. She closed the door behind her, folded her umbrella and closed her book, setting down her umbrella after, while clenching tightly to the book.
"No Lupin, I don't think the war will ever end. Nor will there ever be a morning, only evening," She spoke about it as though she were saddened by it, though clearly for Lupin to hear her.
"Well I have faith. Yes! The war will be over, before I am old and die! I am certain of it!"
Noame stood watching him become exited over his own words and felt sorrow for him; when he finishes his speech, she departs for her room. There are about thirty other guests at the inn named "Sanctuary", though Noame rather calls it a wooden death trap. It is twenty years or so in age, and is already falling apart. As she makes her way down the hallway, she looks back at Lupin while he cleans out a mug for a guest to drink their ale. She had already known he was pushing his late forties; but did as she had done earlier with the fight earlier in the day, and moved on.
In her room, a piece of the roof is missing; branches are placed over it, as though someone had began to repair it but never quite finished. Her bed lay under it, and by the morning she will be covered in a blanket of ash; she'd move it herself, but what would be the point? It would just be moved back in the same spot by the house keeper. The cream sheets are now stained gray from the ash. The mirror over the dresser is layered in ash dust, as is the dresser itself, and the wood furnishings are beginning to splinter. Half filled perfumes and a make up or two, eye shadow it looked, stood dusted atop the dresser's surface.
Noame dusts off a spot on her sheet to sit, and reopens the diary.
"Another evening rises, the day is about to end again..." she read aloud. "My happiness is somewhere in these pages." That last thought and she began to read again
Light flickered from outside, "morning" had come. Noame had fallen asleep reading the diary, as she had for the past six months. It was not a thick book, she had read through it once before already. She woke softly to the day, and saw no reason for her to get up; rather, she went back to sleep, and dreamed.
~~~~~
"ROOKIE MOVE! He's a demon!" She cried out to her student, one she called rookie from being new to the trade. "Get out of the way rookie!" She raced over to her friend, who tried to stand her own ground against the archangel, and ignored her teacher.
She was too late, the archangel had killed her friend, the rookie, in a single motion. Her eyes widened, and tears began to fall; she ran still. "CREE!!!!!"
The archangel had flown off, leaving Noame in a pool of blood. She could do nothing now, but stare down from her knees at the lifeless face of her friend and student. Her dyed maroon hair drenched in her own blood, her tan face becoming discolored, and the hopeful spirited smile she always had was nowhere to be found.
She woke from the memory in a sweat, panting as calmed herself. She looked down at Cree's diary and closed it; a moment of silence passed.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Cree; I spent all my tears on you that day. Cree? Can you hear me? I'm so sorry. I'm sorry."
She held the diary tightly against her chest; she had forgotten where her heart is.
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