“I’ve heard so much about you, little girl, why don’t you come for a visit? I’d love to have you over.”
It happened so quickly I had no time to think, only react. Slipping down, skin melting away as it touched the lava walls, finding myself where I, and the rest the world, fear of going, h*ll.
“Something is different about you, little girl, standing strong against such a foe as myself is nothing but spectacular.”
With a snap, this dark creature hiding behind familiar features, took away the crumbling walls and before me was a calm sea of red. He slapped his hands together and my clothes, beaten by the chaos surrounding me, and replaced it with the sick feel of silk.
“The world is falling apart around me, the man I love was ripped away from me, how else can you possibly hurt me?” I said.
Never letting my eyes pull away from his steady glare, trying to beat me down with each passing second.
Twisting what little fabric remained on the snow singed dress wrapped around me. Falling away in the places he put his smothering finger tips.
“And why would I ever want to harm such a wonderful creature? I’d rather play until the end of days, Lois,” he said.
Grinning as he let the flames lap away at the edges of my tattered clothing.
“I’d rather fall with the rest of the world, than spend my last moments with you.”
Every time he reached out, finger tips a flashing crimson; they tried to destroy another piece of me.
“Well my little peach, you do not have a choice in the matter. If I let you go back up to those monkeys that he dared to love more than his own son, they get to live and I just can’t have that. Understand?”
After finishing up another long winded speech, always filled with his suffering rather than his faults, he always pulled his bloodless lips into a frightening smile. Using another man’s muscles to do so, and knowing what was beneath the surface always managed to chill every part of me. Staring into his eyes, wanting so much to break away, and listening to his voice, like a serpent calling out to its prey, is truly what evil was meant to be.
“Taking my own life is always a choice, you son of a b****.”
The red embers that fell around him like snowflakes awakened a deep fear of the burning surrounding me, and it brought back memories buried deep in the chambers of my mind. Smells of flesh burning filled me to the top, their haunting faces coming into view, and threaten to suffocate my very life away.
“Brings back horrible memories, doesn’t it, of mommy and daddy burning to a nice crisp? Unfortunely, they couldn’t keep burning away after death with me, instead they get to listen to the dull babble of heaven.”
The only thing keeping me up right, and my voice steady among the flames that were a fireman’s nightmare was the thought, or more the hope of him. Going back to a time when his wings that had once wrapped around me like a protective shield were a chaste white rather than the nightmarish black they now were.
“Thinking of him will do you no good, little girl. Now, fallen just like they will all be, he is loyal to me and not the ridiculous notion of love.”
As his haunting laugh echoed throughout the caverns and my very soul, what little hope of Miniel swooping down and saving the day faded as the flames grew even stronger.
-
Each day I get a front row seat to the world disregarding around me, the end of days coming all too quickly, until it truly becomes h*ll on earth. The pain of the past, of burning buildings and shrill screams, faded away and surviving was the only thing to give a d*mn about. My hands and nifty survival skills were not the only things keeping me breathing in this harsh world, no, it was Miniel who could not help but protect me from the end. Whenever I can not hear the swish of his wings, those bones that he is proud of even more than of his faith, get terrified that they finally stripped him of his only chance of love.
“I can not do this anymore, Lois, I am risking my very livelihood for an invisible thing called love, a soul and hearts I can not see only feel I must stop it all.”
Instead of shying away from me, his forbidden fruit who hates hiding in the shadows, he wrapped his wings around my shoulders without thinking of the consequences that would follow such a simple action.
“Leave if you have to, I can’t stop you, but know that love may be something unseen but I’m flesh and blood, and in no way invisible. A heart does not need to be seen to know it’s there, and from the lightening fast beat I can tell that you have a wonderful one, better than all the rest.”
I laid my head on his chest, listening to the beat of his soul that was vibrating ten million times faster than any others, knowing by the way he held on to me that leaving was never going happen.
“Flesh and blood, even if it is special blood, that is the whole problem, Lois, we can not be and will not be.”
“Promise me that you will not leave until you absolutely have too, when they rip you away from me, promise me, Miniel, please.”
Leaving now would do nothing; it had been months since he was sent to me and weeks since that first hidden kiss, because they were already getting ready to strip away our very life.
“I promise you know I could not leave you even if I wished to.”
-
Thinking of him brought me nothing but making the pain of separation fresh all over again, of the day he slipped from my fingers and fell down below, and a dull ache where he would have placed his wings.
“Daydreaming of pretty boy angels will get you nowhere down here, my little girl. I believe a small kiss of thanks is in order, don’t you?”
“And why would I want to thank you, for all the pain and suffering in the world?”
The want to hurt him just as much as he had hurt me was overpowering, remembering my parents burning up before my eyes and the fact that he was one at the trigger.
“That, and the fact I brought you here when I could have let you burn with the rest of them, and if you’re a good girl I might just let you see that lover boy of yours. So how about that smooch, darling?”
The moment that I gave in, let that snake sink his teeth in me and poison me even more than I already was, placed my lips on something so wicked it left me dead inside I channeled every bit of anger I had left. Every misplaced feeling that I kept inside until I threated to blow went over to him, letting the b****rd get a taste of all the bitterness he had placed in my life.
“How?”
Those once mighty hands of him, that could have overpowered me only a moment ago, were pined down like silly putty and his fate was getting shaped in my hands.
“It was one big trap, darling, and you fell for it.”
A knife, one that was beautiful and deadly at the same time, that we had searched high heavens for slid into his belly with ease. His whole body erupted into a brilliant light, the very brightness he had tried to hard to bring down, which rubbed off on to my skin and forever stained it gold. Before another venomous word could escape his lips every last bit of him turned to black ash that went through my fingers like an hourglass. The doors of this cursed place opened wide just for me and as I took that first step on solid ground the earth whispered a heavy thank you.
“It looks like you’ll be around for a little longer.”
-
My hate for the flames that still lapped away at h*ll’s prisoners kept me from going back down into the pit to bring him back up. But there was no need for that because shortly after the ground had stopped quaking, and all the little birds sang once more, he followed me out.
“You came for me?”
My words took forever to form as I watched him shake the blackness from his body, and saw that his wings were a shining bright white like they never were any other color.
“Did you really believe I would not come, Lois? I would never forsake you for that horrible man, who as I can see is nothing but ash. And this world of ours is still in one piece, all thanks to you.”
Without speaking of it we both knew what this whole experience had brought us, the trust of those above us and a chance to love without restrictions.
“Next time the world ends and someone needs to kiss the devil it’s your turn, deal?”
“Deal.”