Present day
Emma had always been fascinated by the vastness of nature. Miles of land adorned by trees so tall that they reached the sky surrounded her. Their trunks danced with one another, mingled in a curved embrace. The bright light of the sun peeked through their crown of leaves, bathing Emma in a golden beam, dazzled with shining specks like gentle kisses of warmth.
She breathed in the floral scent and listened to the whispers of the waterfall murmuring behind her. How could it stay so graceful while falling so abruptly?
“I was looking for you.” A male voice sounded next to her, rough with age and worry. He sat next to her on the bench, in that round stone pavilion covered by branches upon branches of greenery.
“I was hiding from the ruckus,” Emma admitted, closing her book and turning to face him. “Got tired of my name being called.” She blew away a wild hair strand which escaped from her meticulously tied bun. It wasn’t a pretty sight- such a mass of blonde curls strangled by hair ties and pins- but it kept that mane out of her vision while fighting.
“The downsides of being a general, eh?”
The past decade had a busy time in store for her. Most of it was a mess of blurred lines between bloody battles, loss, killing and very few quiet moments. Emma had been little more than a machine- attending to business, fighting against the demonic invasions, protecting humanity and climbing the ranks while doing so. She, a mere nameless soldier became the the commander of Caeles’ army.
The rays of the sun peeked through the arches veiling the pavilion, spilling over the watchful statues and reflecting Emma’s armour. The golden plates securing her sholder blades were crafted to resemble angel wings. She had received them once she climbed to the rank of general. The wings were attached to the breastplate at the front, enriched with countless carvings depicting both battles and symbols of peace in an ironic oximoron.
Despite her imposing air, Emma felt too young to be wearing the armour of a warrior.
“I’m grateful for my post,” she answered, mechanically.
“Never said you weren’t, kid. Loosen up,” Zachriel patted her head twice, just as he used to do when Emma was a kid. She offered a strained smile, too tired to move her facial muscles any more.
“I’ll be leaving again soon.”
Emma merely sighed and said not a word. Zachriel would often take mysterious trips to unnamed places. He offered a concrete answer. “I’m looking for something,” is all he would say.
“I left you the tasks you ought to do in my absence.”
Emma nodded. “Understood.”
Silence veiled them and their unspoken concerns. While Emma worried of absence and the state their troops would soon find themselves in, Zachriel’s mind was overtaken by his own anxieties.
Pinning her stands back in place, Emma clasped her hands together while bowing slightly as a sign of respect, and left.
A plethora of missions waited for her, so she hurried to the human realm. Emma made her way over the stone bridge, held high by the long stone pillars piercing the sand beneath the water’s depths.
The people around had no idea what kind of danger attached itself to the world. Its venom poured like acid rain over people’s heads, urging them to feel the burn, but stay blind to it. Just enough to feel the eeriness of it all. To slightly tremble out of nowhere, to shake in fear, to suffocate on the illusion of hot and thick air in the middle of winter.
Or at least that’s how it started. Something mild, barely noticeable.
Over the years it grew in size, just like Zachriel had predicted. It made its presence known day after day. The evil coating the Earth and beyond.
Emma’s steps quickened- one foot rapidly touching the ground, just barely, to take the other’s place in an attempt to gracefully slide in between the people who weren’t moving as urgently. Gracefulness didn’t always show up in time and shoulders ended up being bumped, earning a few looks that long ago would have made Emma feel regretful. Those used to be different times. Now, she had no time at all. Time is precious when lives are on the line. And lives are always on the line when evil is near.
The old building reeked of old wood and death. The rain hit the windows like arrows aiming for her head. She quickly scanned her surroundings, taking note of how many people were in the room and taking a wild guess regarding the total number roaming around. She’d been standing still in the middle of the room, like a lost child, with people passing by her looking both confused and too consumed by mundane problems to care.
She took a harsh intake of breath when her efforts to get her thoughts in order failed her again. The unbearable ticking of the clock subtly urged Emma to smash it into the wall just to stop it from the never-ending sound it made every beat. Normally, she wouldn't even be aware of those sounds, especially with all the chit-chatter coming from all the people. Now, it felt like the loudest noise Emma had ever heard.
It was a nasty sign.
Her mind was already in a completely wrong place and those things were making it even harder to think. Her senses melted into a puddle of uncertainty; her throat burned and drops of sweat formed in the creases on her forehead.
She felt them.
They were roaming around.
Puddles of black liquid revealed a path. The humans couldn’t see the beasts crawling right under their noses. Mortals didn’t have true sight and their minds couldn’t fully comprehend neither angelic nor demonic beings. While this kept chaos from unfolding, it put them in immense danger. Angels bore the task of protecting them.
An employee, frowning slightly, took three cautious steps towards her, hand raised in a friendly manner indicating she was about to ask if Emma required any help. She rushed down the hall pretending to head for the bathroom while scanning her surroundings to find a specific friend who’d save the day: the fire alarm.
The fire alarm was the easiest way to evacuate the building before hell would break loose. She continued to look around. Nothing more than wooden walls and a few somewhat old, dark brown doors decorated with no more than a few scratches and a couple of papers glued on some of them. Thankfully the hallway conveniently lacked any people. She went to the fire alarm and set it off, disappearing from the crime scene a second later.
The people shouted alarmed questions, cuss words, and complaints. Some ran to the exit and some were taking their time, believing it was some dumb prank.
Emma wished it was.
She cautiously checked for any sign of life remaining in the facility. Praying no one would interfere, she headed for the staircase.
Demon attacks weren’t new. In fact, demon attacks have been a regular occurrence since the war started. As a child or even teenager, Emma had never seen another demon besides…Evil. Evil was the only representation of a demon she got. When they were little, she stupidly wished she could befriend demons because she believed them to be as nice as her sister was.
As she grew older, she started understanding why the demons received the title “the rotten ones”. They were rotten to the core. Born to do bad, to cause distress and sorrow, and all for their selfish need of evil. How could little Emma have expected to bring the good in a creature designed to crave chaos?
Training and living with the angels taught her how cruel the world could be- especially to those who don’t deserve it. Ten years ago, a part of her died. Even with that part gone, she promised herself to save as many people as she could. She became a soldier in the Angel Forces and swore to exterminate every one of those parasites. The balance had been broken for a long time and nothing in this world could ever bring it back. But she would rather live in a world free of leeches with people complaining about how boring it gets to never have anything bad happen around them.
Emma felt the disgust build up inside her. She clenched her fist to feel the sensation of her nails penetrating flesh. The pain brought her out of the vortex of thoughts. She realized that she had reached the second floor where the demonic energy was at its highest. Nothing out of the ordinary. Or so it seemed. With demons and their filthy tricks, nothing was as it seemed.
The old floors creaked under her weight. Insignificant screams muffled by her foot. Her chest raised and fell rapidly with short intakes of air. Her shoe met a gooey substance splattered across the end of a hallway. A mixture of black and green, viscous and tacky at the touch. It sat in puddles, widely spread, linked by rows of tiny driblets, just like the ones she had seen before. The liquid, if you could even call it that, led to a wide-open door. Another office, a spacious one.
When Emma entered she was met with a series of muffled screams.
A woman was plastered to the wall, covered head to toe in goo. It spread on the entirety of the wall just as a spider traps its victims before devouring them. The huge mass seemed to be pulsating, radiating heat from below. The woman’s face and neck reddened just as much as her teary eyes. Her mouth, glued shut by the hardened liquid, tried helplessly to shout something, tell Emma something.
Emma’s eyes widened at the sight. She hurried to help the woman only to hear her scream again and for Emma to be met with an abrupt force throwing her body across the room.
She grunted and blinked, trying to see what had hit her. Her vision became blurry making her curse her lack of attention. A tall, deformed figure, triple her size stood about four meters away from her. She could only hear a high-pitched ringing, not sure if the source was the creature or her concussion. She shook her head, biting down on her lip to stop another groan from coming out at the sharp pain, and got up on her feet.
Another round of screams came from the woman.
The creature appeared in front of her, grabbing her neck. Emma channeled an energy wave directed at the creature. The creature let out a high-pitched scream, reminiscent of wounded animal. She sent out two other attacks to distance the monster from the woman.
As Emma’s vision started clearing, the figure began to take shape. Although, even with her vision back, the shape didn’t make much sense. The monster was a walking lump of goo. Its body shifted every few seconds, forming arms and legs that would then be retracted to form other ones. No eyes, or any human-like features. Only a bigger lump of goo was situated at the top of the body with a hole drilled right in the middle. The mouth, from where the screams escaped.
Her attacks broke two of the monster’s limbs which regenerated in the mere two seconds Emma took to make up a plan in her mind. Her head was throbbing and the floor moved under her feet.
No good.
A goo-arm extended four meters, closing in the distance between them to grab Emma. She jumped to her right and then to the left when the arm did a ninety-degree turn. She pushed a table in front of herself to block another abrupt turn.
Two house plants lay on the ground next to the window among fragments of their broken pots.
She could work with that.
At her raised hand, the stems elongated enough to wrap themselves around the monster’s body ten times each. She flicked one finger and the plants hurried to obey, tightening around the monster.
This gave her a few spare seconds to think the next move through. The stems wouldn’t last forever. She had to be quick. It had to have a weak spot somewhere.
What was the one body part that hadn’t been retracted into the body?
The head.
It couldn’t protect its head. It couldn’t regenerate.
The problem was avoiding the goo and getting stuck like the poor woman who must’ve passed out some time ago since the screaming stopped. Emma grabbed her angel blade and wiped the blood off her forehead. The stems started to break. There was no other option.
She ordered the leaves to grow in size enough to hug the monster’s body just right. With the last bit of energy left, she sent out another wave right to its head. The monster let out another scream, piercing Emma’s ears.
She threw herself onto the monster, grabbing the stems for better support. Without wasting another second, she sliced its head right off.
The body melted into the same liquid that coated the building. Emma’s back met the ground with a loud thud, sending another round of pain to her right side. The room was spinning so quickly, that it was hard to make out any shape other than blurred lines merging with each other.
Ignoring the heaviness in her limbs, she got up on her feet. The woman had long passed out from shock. Emma’s shining blade met the cocoon. . Part of the gelatin came off and fell on the floor in a sad and somewhat scabby blob. The woman fell limp into Emma’s arms.
“Let’s set you down ma’am…”
She examined her wounds with the utmost care she could muster. Her head was bleeding and her arm was bent in an abnormal way. That was fine. It was fixable.
Suddenly, Emma’s hand touched a slimy, bloody spot on her leg. Deep, raw holes punctured her calf. Emma frowned, examining the wound even closer.
Dog bites?
But no ordinary dog.
A canis inferorum. Dogs from the Inferno.
No sooner had she made the connection when a deafening howl broke the silence. Not one, not two, but three hounds cornered her, baring their fangs. They were as big as a human, with teeth that could break boulders. Saliva pooled in their mouths, dripping down their muzzle with the eagerness of a starved predator.
Emma’s grip tightened on her sword. Sending a steady flow of energy, the sword grew double in size. From the handle, a pair of wings spurted, wrapping themselves on her wrist for extra stability.
The dogs growled ferociously, barely holding back from ripping her appart.
But why were they holding back?
The crease between Emma’s brows deepened. Hiding in the shadows was a figure clad in black, holding a dagger in one hand and a whistle in the other. It was tall and lankly, presumably a male, with washed up features that barely peeked through his head of black, slick hair.
“You may want to call your dogs back.”
The figure took a cautious step closer. His long legs stepped effortlessly over the debris, while his hand toyed with a whistle in a subtle display of power. He titled his head in an uncanny manner, way lower than a human would be able to.
But Emma already figured he was a demon. A humanoid one.
“You’re lucky I don’t have orders to kill you.”
The vein on Emma’s forehead pulsated with anger and pain from the concussion. She gathered the last bits of energy left to summon a blinding light. Rapidly rising to her feet, she swung her sword in the direction of the hounds.
No sound came. The blade fell pathetically, slicing only the air. Before she knew it, the dogs along with their owner were gone.
“Emma!”
Strands of white hair dangled above Emma’s face and a pair or bright blue eyes analyzed her rapidly. The person who called her name ardently slid beside her in an instant, bending over her to determine her condition.
“Moon.”
Moon made a sound between a relieved sigh and a frustrated groan. “Why did you come here on your own? You’re already exhausted! Are you out of you’re mind?!"
A small smile appeared on Emma's lips. "Might be." She tried to look around without moving her head too much, although her pain was already subsiding thanks to her healing abilities. "Did you come alone?"
Moon shook her head. "Roman is handling the people outside. What-“ She stopped when she noticed the massive body of green gelatin lying in a pile of giant leaves and wrapped from head to toe in stems. “What is that?”
Emma sat down. “Some…demon-goo thing. Nevermind that, help the woman please.”
“Oh my…,” Moon approached the unconscious woman. “I’ll get to you in a second. The lady had it rough.”
The absent nod Emma gave went unnoticed by her peer. She was already bothered by the multitude of attacks as of late, and now she had to decipher the words said by that demon. I don’t have orders to kill you. Orders from who? Why would they want to keep her alive?
"I'm making the report for this," Emma announced.
"That reminds me, Zachriel wants you to take care of the others. Analyze them and come up with a hypothesis, because no one has a clue what's going on."
"The demons took their pets out to play. What else can be deduced?”
"Didn't Zachriel tell you about missing people cases?"
"Other than the usual casualties?No."
Moon pursed her lips and avoided Emma's gaze, concentrating on returning the woman's arm to a human form. "The circumstances are very bizarre. You will understand when you read them. Thing is…,” she added as she worked on fading the bruises on the lady’s face. It looked like a badly done smokey eye. "They’re all children."
***
Emma found herself sitting on the floor surrounded by piles of paper sheets, pens, and highlighters, squinting her eyes at the text illuminated only by the light coming from the small lamp near her. She placed her head in one hand, rubbing her eyes with the other.
The coffee had long gone stale and Emma wondered if it was worth chugging the remaining half of the cup or draining it in the sink and making a fresh batch. This dilemma was gnawing at her for at least half an hour, during which the coffee became more stale. At the end of the day, it was for the better. Enough cups of coffee had been drunk. Six different cups stood one after another in a row as if in an exhibition of chronic insomnia.
She grabbed a pen near her and started scribbling over a sheet of paper, then placed the top of the pen between her front teeth and started chewing on it. It didn't have any particular taste; kind of bitter.
The reports could be considered a serious cause of insanity. The text was structured in interminable paragraphs with words too pompous to be understood by an ordinary individual. Such formalities were unnecessary and drastically reduced the practicality that was crucial to a report.
Emma's report on the case of the monster made of goo was ready two hours after she got home and reviewed by Zachriel the next day who replied with a simple "good, thanks" before he left again. The gloom on Zachriel's face had become a distinctive feature. Emma hoped with all her heart that he wouldn't join those raisined angels. It was Zachriel who gave Emma the opportunity to make a change. He was the one who offered a helping hand to her at the lowest point of her life. He was the one who offered her the chance for a new life in which the old Emma was just a ghost of the past that came and haunted her at night sometimes. The absence of Caeles affected every single angel, and indeed, too much time had passed since she had disappeared. Demons are far ahead of angels, but what are angels without hope?
With a red pencil, she connected key information written during the examination.
A large number of institutions were attacked, more than half of which were orphanages, nurseries and kindergartens. Emma assumed that it was nothing too unusual, considering the fact that demons target institutions where there are many people until she realized that schools, high schools, and universities were left out of the equation.
She remembered Moon's words.
So it was not a coincidence.
But what does it mean?
She had to put the data together to tell the story. She moved to the missing persons files. All children.
Not a single adult missing after the attacks.
Only a few bodies of children were found and returned to their families for the proper funeral rituals. An insignificant number. The rest of the bodies disappeared without a trace.
What could the demons want with those bodies?
***
"Up so early dear?"
Moon took a mouthful of the hot coffee mixed with a generous amount of milk and vanilla. She was about to pour another cup when Emma raised her hand in protest with a nauseated look.
"I can't stomach any more coffee."
"I thought so too. I came to your room in the morning and half of our cups were scattered in all corners." She delicately sat down on the chair next to her, pulling her own mug closer. "Are you okay?"
"Far from it," Emma sighed, rubbing her eyes. The skin around her eyes was swollen and had taken on a light purple hue.
"Found anything?"
"Nothing that was not already in the reports.”
Her hands tensed, moving to the hair they were pulling mindlessly in search of a distraction. "I wouldn't put it past them to find mutilating children a fun Sunday activity but it's been happening too frequently, I mean-"
Moon reached out to grab Emma's hands and gently pull them out of her hair before she could pull any more of it out. The red cheeks signaled Emma's frustration. Zachriel had put all his trust in her.. Emma was always eager to do her job as per book, being the team leader and all. She was terrified of disappointing anyone. Nevertheless, not even her drive could cope with the circumstances.
“They hide too well,” Moon said sternly. “They’re sly creatures. We need to investigate more, dig deeper.”
“Moon, it’s not enough!” Emma raised her voice. Moon didn’t flinch. It was normal for the frustration to build up. Too much pressure put on a single person was more detrimental than imagined.
“I don’t know what to do! So much information that leads nowhere, I-“ Emma placed her face in her hands, seemingly hiding the tears forming in her eyes. Moon scooted over next to her and embraced her, resting her head on her friend’s back and rubbing circles on her arm in a soothing manner.
“We’ll find a way to stop them-“
“But the more time is wasted, the more people die!” she sounded exasperated, but the aggression in her voice was gone. All that was left was sadness.
“What did Zachriel say?” Moon tried to ask, her voice coming out a lot quieter than intended, surprising herself. Subconsciously, she tried avoiding any emotional outbursts Emma might have had in this state.
Luckily, Emma answered in the same exhausted manner. “Same as always. He’s just as clueless. I could try to talk to him again but… fuck, Moon, we’re on our own. Zachriel is on edge all the time and now he doesn’t even try anymore!”
Zachriel lost the spark he had many years ago when their team just began taking shape. He was eager to help people, exterminate the demons, and end the war. Now, however, his light barely flickered, like a broken bulb, hanging by a thread.
“I’m used to being on my own Moon, I always have been, but… I don’t know how much longer I can go on.”
“You have us, Em. You aren’t alone, and never will be.”
Emma looked like she wanted to argue, but decided against it. Her gaze was fixated on the wooden table, barely peeking over her arms. Her sclera caught a pink tint, quickly turning into a deeper red. Tears pooled in her eyes, but none were daring to slide down her cheeks yet.
Later that day, Moon repeatedly tried to convince Emma to take a break to no avail. She was as unmoveable as a mountain. The third chair, next to Roman and her own, sat awfully empty.
“I’m worried Roman,” she repeated, fifteenth time during their ten-minute conversation.
Despite her frustrating display of nagging, Roman kept his composure and more so, nodded understandingly each time. “It is a tough one.”
Moon played with her tea, swirling the hot beverage around in her cup. The lavender smell invaded her nostrils and the warmth of the cup hugged her palms just enough to feel a calming sensation course through her body, fighting the chill outside. A white vapor escaped her lips as she sighed, and she followed it silently until it became one with the atmosphere. The moment of silence stretched a beat too long and settled heavy on both angels who had no clue how to escape from it. Everything they could have said was either wrong or just not enough .
“Emma… feels very alone,” Moon hesitantly broke the silence. “What more can we do for her, except be here?”
Roman seemed to think this through for a moment. “Nothing,” he took a sip of his tea, “being here is enough.”
“Em has been through a lot,” he continued. “Even when her family…when they were doing well, before everything, she had to be the brain. Had this inner belief that she had to help everyone and… be the glue, ya know? And even if what happened next wasn’t her fault, she blamed herself. Thought she could have done more to prevent it, or something,” he took another sip, carefully thinking of what to say next.
Roman had never been the guy to handle serious talks. As smart as he was, his goofy persona often pushed people to misjudge him. Moon mostly handled heart-to-heart talks, while he busied himself with helping people forget their worries with his natural charm. He was trying his best to put Emma’s feelings into words.
“I guess she’s… carried this burden for so long, this responsibility, that she has lived under this impression that she has to take care of us. And…”
“That’s why she feels so alone,” Moon finished the thought for him. “She doesn’t see us as a team, she sees us as people she needs to protect.” And she doesn’t want them to be taken away, like her family had been.
Moon doesn’t voice the last part, knowing Roman was thinking the same thing. Her heart broke the more she thought about Emma’s continuous struggle. The pressure she must’ve been under was eating her from the inside.
Emma first met the two ten years ago, when she had barely turned fourteen. Ten years...sounds incredibly long, but it felt like ten seconds. Their first meeting is as vivid in Moon's mind as it is vague. She distinctly remembered the unimportant details, such as the redness of Emma's hand squeezing Zacheriel's so hard that his circulation stopped. She remembered the layer of improvised bandages through which the blood tried to escape, and she remembered Emma's expression that still gave her chills today. Such a mixture of grief, shock, and pain could not be put into words, but it would haunt Moon's memories until the end of her life.
She remembered how Zachriel pulled Roman and her aside to tell them about Emma. How he offered her help with her powers. How a girl so sweet and eager to do good lost her entire universe in just one evening.
Everything she considered dearest was taken from her hands in the most monstrous way possible. Caeles was long gone even back then, but little Moon couldn't help but wonder how cruel she could be for it.
Zachriel took Emma under his wing and raised her as his own child. But the place of a parent cannot be replaced.
Emma's family was a forbidden subject. Zachriel did not have to say it explicitly, because even a teenager knew what not to bring up in a discussion. Moon and Roman decided not to ask questions, and to wait for Emma to open up to them.
It took a long time until Emma admitted her pain, and Roman and Moon listened to her. After, she seemed more reconciled, but never reopened the topic.
Emma changed a lot in the last years. Not in a bad way, but if she could change anything, Moon would have prayed day and night to Caeles to turn back time and not choose pain as a mentor for that little girl.
“If Zachriel won’t help us, we need to come up with something ourselves,” Roman mumbled, mostly to himself.
"Do you think we should talk to Emma?" Moon whispered. Her words were uncertain, and her attention was promised to some grains of sugar that had fallen on the table. "About…"
"Her family?"
"You know what's in a few days," Moon gulped. "It gets worse for her this time of year."
"I know it hurts, but what can we do? If she doesn't want to not talk, we can't force her."
"But we can't lose her either."
And with that, silence settled over them again.
***
Emma struggled to drag her feet through the mud. The wind was merciless- cold and sharp, blowing her hair in her face and attempting to snatch the flowers out of her hands. Emma swallowed against the tightness in her throat, plastering a pained smile against her scrunched features. She sat beside the grave decked with flowers, now wilted by the bad weather, and ran her fingers slowly along the stone, feeling the shape of the letters carved into it.
Here lies,
Ophelia Halcyon.