Fires from the Fallen
When a fire burns so bright that it becomes invisible to the human eye, it is almost too hot to imagine. Such a while hot flame sears the flesh before the fires come near, the pain starts immediately, the burning heat. The extremities are the first to cry out, but they cannot do it through words, only boils and blisters that will quickly rupture. He can’t cry out, what words would there to be said? It’s all over for him now, nothing left but to watch as everyone he knows is burned asunder.
The arms and legs melt away as the fat continues to burn. His face is a frozen sculpture of horror until the skin melts away, leaving only the bone of the higher skull. While tendons burn through and lose their hold, his mandible splashes down in the puddle of flesh and melted fat boiling below the kneeling human candle.
If the candle sill had eyes there would be no speaking to the terror falling from the sky. Rocks set aflame by the Earth itself. Hurdling from miles above and smashing the charred dirt with a sonic blast that topples building as easy as the dust floats and clouds the sun from the sky. There are hundreds more burning the land before they land and destroy everything in their path and all the while a man stands to watch it all, watch the hundreds of people burn to a silent death and suffer until their bodies are blown apart by the falling stone and rock.
“Sinners,” the being says while watching his handy work fall. Standing atop a rock face and looking down onto the village formerly wrought with sin and pleasures of the flesh so great that babes were hardly children before they were pregnant with new life to pollute. “It is as was foretold, the fires from the heavens would cleanse the earth and all would then be re-made.”
“This is not right,” the being sighs, “not right for us to pass judgment, the Lord hath not spoken.”
The others’ eyes burn with a red glare, “Call it, proactive, then. You shall feel better, when it is over.”
“So be it,” the being says as his white hair billows in the hurricane force wind as though it were only a breeze, “you are the host, it is for you to decide these things, not I.”
The other smiles, “Very good, you’ll learn to enjoy it. Understand you’re still new at this, you’ve only just fallen from grace, there’s more for you to know than just the suffering of humans, wait until you taste a woman’s flesh.” He snapped his first four fingers in and out of his mouth, suckling them as though they were the teats he once fed from as a child, “exquisite, you just can’t imagine.”
Leathery wings take the being into the air, as the hot winds carried him above the New Village, if only to inspect his work, to ensure the suffering of the sinners was finally complete. His eyes fall upon the smoking bones of a woman cradling her children, some of their flesh still remains as the body of their mother attempts to hide them from the fires, such a quaint gesture, to protect the young. The Lord gave them wonderful instincts; sadly, their free will had also brought down their doom.
His wings beat and then he glides down to the ground, a grace known only to that of an Angel, where he then took a knee to study the faces burned into the ash that was once human. “Could this be?” He spoke breathed a sigh that carried away part of the woman’s shoulder. The being sifted through the crumbling ash and touched the flesh that was left cool by the mother’s embrace, her protection. The being brushed her away, as there was little use for her anymore and kissed the forehead of the tiny girl that held tight to her brother, just barely two years her elder.
He stood back to let it all happen, the flesh to spread within an instant, climbing over the bone and brushing away the ash as though they were mighty beetles left behind in an aftermath of war to clean up the mess made by man. Her eyes returned and filled with an unknown liquid, as the water had long ago burned away in this land, and her fingers filled to crimson with the blood of life itself. Her screams filled the air as that same air filled and emptied from her reborn lungs.
Tossing away her brother, she stood in the winds, naked as the day she was born but twenty years older. Only the former Angel to look on at her. “I am to know physical pleasure,” the fallen angel spoke, “This is your purpose.”
The human girl looked aghast at the destruction and followed the command as though her mind had no control of her body. The White-haired and perfectly formed angelic figure laid down atop of the woman and he did as the Other suggested and sampled her flesh. The heat in the air had nothing on the friction that bubbled inside her; white hot light filled her body and she found it an absolute joy and wished for only more.
To his sadness when he was finished he decided there would be others and as he stepped away, leaving fluids to flow out of her, an emptiness consumed her that should could not comprehend and blood started to flow in the place of tears. Terrified and abandoned the reborn woman ran across the terror lands, searching for safety, and feeling cold amidst the flames, she sought the warmth that only He could fill again.
Her body would soon crumble to the earth, as the discarded pile of rubbish it had been prior to his experiment. The woman had satisfied the hunger that once dwelled within and there was not a further use of her, it was time that she died. Again.
“Suffering,” the Other spoke, “Is much like beauty, as it is in the eye of the beholder.”
The Fallen nodded, and the other continued, “we do not bring anything onto them they do not deserve. We are not evil, we are not good, we simply are facets of their imagination, brought to life by forces they’ll never understand. We are their creation, and we’ve come to stake our claim, this is our world now and we shall make it so.”
“Amen,” the Fallen spoke aloud. Filling his lungs to their capacity and then screaming for all the world to hear: “AMEN!”
This was a shocking opening, much like an eighties horror movie. It sucked me in and left me wondering what was going to happen next.
With the many other things I’m going to post here, this is one of the false starts that I wonder the most about to where I’d take it.
Wonderfully vivid images full of sensory description here. I’ve probably mentioned this before and if I haven’t I should have: your original fiction has a freedom of imagination that I honestly feel you stifle in your fan fiction. I hesitate to suggest you expand this as it’s nice and tight the way it is. Matter of fact you should submit it to 365 TOMORROWS http://www.365tomorrows.com/about/ check it out. I think it would be a perfect home for a piece like this.
Thanks, D! I was thinking about the reason as to why I still wrote fan fic recently and one of the reasons I feel I should leave that arena is due to the restrictions that I feel are on me when I write other people’s characters. I have had a lot more fun writing here than writing for fan fiction for quite a while. Thanks man. And Just a little side note, I’m slowly rebuilding Sleepwalker into an original project that I’ll begin posting here soon as well!