Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 

Kieran had picked up Johnny’s limp body that cold night and walked through the cemetery. He had no control over his own body or what he was about to do. He walked all the way to the town’s hospital, a small brick building with a few doctors.

The sight of him covered in dirt carrying a dead Johnny in his arms passionately, as streams fell from his red eyes, was startling. He walked in as the nurses rushed to him. He didn’t speak. He kept on crying, not letting go of Johnny.

He told them how someone stabbed him in the cemetery but didn’t know who it was. He didn’t know why he didn’t say it was David, maybe because David was the sheriff’s son and no one would believe him. He just said how it was too dark and they went there because they were visiting Kieran’s mother’s grave, which was a lie, somewhat. They went there to visit the graves, yes, but mainly to finally be “together.” To make love for the first time in both Johnny and Kieran’s favorite place to be. To hold each other and never let go was what they had planned to do. But that didn’t happen…

Kieran wouldn’t leave the examining room area. He had his face pinned to the window, watching a few examine the corpse. His eyes were so red and a red-tinted tear fell down his cheek.

Ms. Beckman had finally released my hand and now was holding Bobby in her shaking arms.

Death.

I always gave it much thought as to how or when I would perish into the depth of the darkness. Many people have fallen into their deep sleep with me as their witness. I don’t seem like the type of person to hold such morbid thoughts, but it began at a young age. And, besides, one should never judge a book by its cover.

When I was a child I was so fair skinned, with blond waves that fell straight at the ends, and gray-blue eyes. I would hate to enter the sun’s rays, afraid to be burned. So one would be shocked and quite frankly disturbed to see a doll faced child ripping the heads off her own dolls, laughing while doing so. People, older women in particular, would horde around me saying how angelic I was and how they were so certain I would grow up to be a beautiful actress in Hollywood. I didn’t speak then. It’s not that I didn’t want to because, believe me, I did. I wanted to yell at those women and say how they had no idea what I felt like or what I wanted to be. I wanted to cry out for my mother and father who had died when I was three. I wanted my brother who had died with them in the car accident.

I was the only survivor.

I wanted to speak.

I just couldn’t. Whenever I tried, my throat would close up. When I was about five, entering kindergarten, I started speaking because I befriended a boy named Simon who wouldn’t stop talking to me. He was so happy. All the time he was so cheerful. All I could do was smile and joke with him.

We went to the same school for elementary and middle school. After that he moved away with his family. So, I was left alone once again. I had to face a world I hated. I had to face my aunt who was my adopted mother… alone. I hated Simon for leaving. I hated him as a child for moving away but my hate changed into rage from learning the truth about Simon. I was furious because he never told me he was abused by his own parents, and to have learned that Simon was also now dead, murdered by the very beings that brought him into this misery called life.

 How blood was everywhere. Blood was at the tip of my tongue. I craved it all the time. I wanted to run wild and slaughter randomly whoever came before me. If I didn’t watch others’ lives for entertainment, I would have been probably, no most definitely, a murderous hound.

I focused my mind on Kieran’s memories of what happened just hours before Simon’s funeral had started. How could I have been so careless and do such a thing as to let Kieran hear me?

The noise of the blood rushing in Kieran’s head made him moan as he woke up to the dullness of his cell. He had been out for days thanks to the medicine the medics had given him to calm down from another breakdown he had a couple of nights ago. He laid face down on the dark stone ground. His eyes didn’t blink once for a while as he replayed Johnny’s death in his mind. Kieran didn’t even know how long he had been in the prison.

He blanked out.

Johnny’s death had replayed over and over in Kieran’s mind every night, every day. There was no rest for Kieran.

“Why are you doing this?”

Back in his cell, Kieran bit his lip and tasted the blood in his mouth from the memories of Johnny’s death.

“Why, Kieran?”

“Leave me alone!!” Kieran shouted at the imaginary Johnny, who still haunted him. “You’re DEAD!”

With those words Kieran burst out in a hard sob. Johnny then disappeared.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

Kieran was still puzzled at Johnny’s departure and was pondering his remaining sanity.

Clink.

A pain Kieran had to accept as pain, and not relief, came to him in a matter of an eighth of a split second. His poisonous eyes couldn’t open from the weight of the chains sinking into his flesh. The coldness of the metal burned into Kieran. It was a brief horrendous suffering and Kieran had to bear it for some reason alien to him.

Kieran was somehow transferred to a darker, more disturbing prison cell, bigger than the one he was in before at the prison near Perk. The cell he was in had a wall-sized window, not iron bars like Saint’s Prison, in front of him. People smiled at each other, laughing, crying. They walked in and out of Kieran’s sight. Some vanished in the thick, smoky air that surrounded them. The air smelled like stale smoke from a long burnt fire.

“This is your spirit, Kieran.” A voice came from all around him.

Kieran shouted out and rattled his fists in the thick chains that held him to the brick wall behind him.

“Kieran!” a recognizable voice came, my voice.

He glanced up as if he knew who I was. It was almost as if he was seeing me, but that was impossible.

Kieran woke up back in his prison cell covered in sweat from the nightmare that morning. He didn’t remember falling asleep. His wrists and neck burned from the chains. The blood that poured from his body from so many nights ago, due to his self inflicted tortures, stained him and his cot.

This was my life and my life was a very bad drama.

I had never been able to project my thoughts to another person. So, when I had heard my own voice in the present vision of Kieran at Saint’s Prison earlier that morning before Simon’s funeral I froze. Sweat ran down the back of my neck, making me cold. With my impact on a stranger’s life through some supernatural mind power, it may have affected Kieran’s life in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

Kieran heard me. Could Kieran know that I was watching him? Would he kill me if he had ever found out? This, I worried over in the church for a brief second. Would I die by a stranger’s hands? Kieran’s thoughts were muddled, but he was coming for me. But would he kill me?

Then maybe I could reunite with Simon.

I was thinking about death and reviewing memories associated with death mainly because I was staring nonstop at a dead man lying in a brown open casket. This man looked to be asleep. He was my age, twenty. He had light brown hair and deep brown eyes that trapped my soul long ago. He was my childhood friend. He was so happy, so full of joy.

We all spoke to each other. Ms. Beckman and several other teachers crowded around me. They all wore dress clothes of black, same as me.

“Will you take this?” Father Berni more said than asked me.

In my hands he dropped a crucifix. I looked at him in question.

“It was Simon’s,” he said. “He gave me this two nights before… he died. He told me if anything were to happen... he wanted you to have this.”

“Two days,” I muttered.

He could have told me he was worried and felt death coming for him. Why did Simon always keep things to himself? Why couldn’t he just tell me his worries… his thoughts?

The silver rosary was the kind one could wear as a necklace if they chose. The silver beads… I gave Simon this at the end of eighth grade.

Simon’s death happened because of me.

I had contacted Simon two weeks ago, a week before his death, convincing him to return. It had been over seven years and I hadn’t seen him. Right after I sort of ordered him back to Tallahassee by phone call to his parents’ trailer in Clearwater down south, he took a bus and came to see me.

He was coming home to see me.

I hated myself for many reasons but solely due to the fact that I always saw what was to come. That’s why I hated Simon. I never saw him in my head, in my dreams. I never knew what he was going to do or where or when or why. The one person I had wanted to protect was protected by my visions.

I was home alone when Simon came buzzing the intercom roughly on my iron door at the gates. I ran from my porch to unlock the gates manually and to hug him tightly. He made forced jokes about my Halloween decorations still being up. I had left them up in memory of Johnny’s death, but I didn’t think of trying to explain to Simon how I could see people in Perk, Georgia. He came in and looked around nervously as if knowing he was being chased by death. We sat on the couch and didn’t speak, which was awkward.

 “What’s wrong, Simon?” I had asked him.

“My parents… they don’t want me here.”

“SO?” I snapped. “Why? You’re twenty, you can do what you want, right?”

“… That doesn’t matter. I’m still living with them.” He blurted out.

“Then move out,” I had said easily. “Live with me!”

But his situation wasn’t that easy at all. Later, I learned that.

“It’s not that simple, Wren,” he said and shrugged his shoulders. “If I leave, they will just follow me. They’re crazy. I don’t want to risk the chance of them hurting you...”

“What are they? Psycho?” I laughed, oblivious to Simon’s pain.

“Yeah… They keep saying how I killed Emily.”

“Emily,” I said, “The girl your mother lost, at eight months in her womb, years ago?”

“Yes,” he said. “They say how I’m responsible for her death. I don’t know how… they want me gone but want me to stay with them because I am their only child. Since my mother can’t have children anymore due to her miscarriage.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I demanded in a harsh voice. “Like back when we were kids? You were ten when your mother had the miscarriage. Don’t tell me you’ve been treated this way for ten years?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Ever since I can remember, Wren. I was always treated like their slave. I just want to know why they saw me so evil? Why can’t they see me as their son and not some demon sent to them by the devil?”

I yanked Simon up so hard that he grunted.

I had panicked. “Live with me. Live here!”

Simon was going to live with me in my house from then on. My aunt would have been so contaminated with glee to see Simon living with me. Then she would have been over at my house twenty-four-seven. At that thought I felt like heaving a week ago, but after Simon died I wouldn’t have minded seeing Aunt Eudora everyday in my house.

“Wren?” A man cried out to me as I left the chapel. “Wren Sparrow?”

He was tall, and very handsome, but who was I to care? I only cared about one boy in this life, Simon.   

“Can I speak to you for a moment?” he asked showing an FBI badge.

“About what?” I asked sharply, sending daggers into his eyes.

“I’m Leonard Frost.” He said to me, ignoring my glaring cat eyes. “I have reason to believe you are a target for a convicted felon headed for this town. He left Perk, Georgia, about six hours ago, but he’s most likely still hitchhiking or walking here. We estimated a couple of days until he arrives in town.”

By human custom it would take him a day or two to go from North Georgia to North Florida, but he didn’t meet human standards at all. He ranged much higher.

I couldn’t react to his talk like how I really wanted to. I wanted to laugh and throw things. He was coming, and it finally had registered. I was finally going to meet Kieran Cross. Here I was, standing on the stone steps leading to the Episcopal Church staring down at Frost with a twisted smirk on my face.

“And who’s this felon?” I had to ask in a cynical tone.

“His name is Kieran Cross. He’s heading down here from Perk, Georgia.”

He had already said Perk, Georgia. Does he think me stupid? I had to let out an annoying sigh. I’m certain it was annoying. It sure as hell bothered him so it had to be annoying. Lovely.

Still, I wanted to be a bother to the agent. So I played the blonde I was born to be… right? I walked next to him and smiled up at him considering I’m five-seven, and to him I was extremely short.

“Why is he after me?” I batted my eyes at him and smiled my southern belle smile that I learned from growing up in Tallahassee.

He cleared his throat.

“I don’t know why. He was yelling out your full name in Saint’s Prison. The guards ignored him. They more like feared him. Do you mind if I smoke?” He asked, and I shook my head.

He removed a cigarette and lit it when we got under the shade of a tree.

 “He was tried for first degree murder last month. He escaped Saint’s Prison this morning, around seven. Don’t know how.”

He had broken the bars on his window open, leading outside. You dumb s**t!! I almost said it, too. I really needed to learn how to control my verbal expressions and issues with anger.

“This morning at seven?” I asked him. “My, aren’t you on game. You must have sped triple time to get down here.”

He didn’t say anything. I knew by his look he was hiding something from me. From Perk to Tallahassee it took around eight hours, give or take. It was only eleven am.

“Are you telling me it only took you four hours to get here?” I asked him.

“I was already near here when my partner called,” he said.

There was no lie to that. But Leonard’s mind was hard to read.

“How did you find me if all he said was my name? It could be another Wren Sparrow?”

He paused.

“Aria said Kieran was very detailed with your description. He went into detail and described you to the full; five-seven, female, blond, straight hair with slight waves underneath, fair skinned, eyes same as him �" blue green with gray, lives in Tallahassee, Florida… address is off of Call Street and-.”

”Okay!” I grew annoyed with what I already had known.

I didn’t need someone to tell me something I could very well see. Aria Daniels was in Perk, trying to further look into Kieran’s case, unsatisfied by the previous trial. She happened to be there when Kieran was screaming out about me. Aria had left Kieran’s cell only briefly in order to get the guards, but when she returned with Roger Cope Kieran had broken out through the iron bars of his window.

“-Franklin,” he finished his sentence and puffed his last puff on the stick of death, then smashed it into the tree.

“Don’t hurt the tree.” I hissed before I could even decide not to scold an FBI agent.

“Excuse me?”

Whatever…

“You burnt the tree,” I said, sounding very insane out loud. “Apologize to her and leave me alone.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me.

“I can’t leave you alone. You are a target-.”

“I refuse any sort of protection… from someone low enough to vandalize Mother Nature.”

With that I pushed him away from the tree and wiped the ash from her bark. Call me a tree hugger. Say whatever you want. I tossed a glare at him and walked off down the sidewalk from the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church towards my house not even two blocks away.

I used to live in the apartments off Call Street, Silver Club Apartments, for a couple of months while my aunt and I shopped for the house I had bought. After graduation from high school I purchased a light blue cottage-like mansion directly across from Silver Club Apartments. It was beautiful… It was perfect, a two-bedroom, two-bath one-story house with a underground garage hording cars. A huge surrounding yard, and an iron fence surrounding the property hid the house from viewers and brought me tranquility. It reminded me of a mix of a modern house, an old gothic mansion, and a fairytale cottage. It had the elaborate plants and flowers that surrounded country cottages, but old statues and structures from gothic architecture.

My house was a couple of houses down from the intersection of Call Street and Franklin, on the left. I bought it with money I had in the bank from my parents’ death. A fortune of billions-plus I inherited due to the tragedy of when I was three. My parents were wealthy, mainly my mother. The house I bought was actually a billionaire’s masterpiece. The man I bought it from had turned many houses, more than six, on Call Street into a huge one-story mansion, with an underground garage. He was really into Batman. The house itself took no more than three of the old houses’ space. But then there were trees on all sides of the blue mansion.

I would trade every penny for my family to be back living in this world with me.

“Wren,” Father Berni said, coming out of the double doors in the back entrance of the chapel building.

I swear, for an old man, he really does walk fast. He was in the church building talking to everyone just moments ago and here he was zooming out of the chapel, an entirely separate building joined to the church by a covered walkway with hollow spaced brick walls. There were two courtyards, one in the center of the buildings, not seen by outsiders, and one leading out to Call Street where Leonard Frost was still standing lighting up another cigarette. Where I met Father Berni was on the sidewalk along the side of the chapel, my back to Frost.

“Yes?”

“We are having dinner tonight at six.” He reminded me. “Not five.”

“Okay, thanks Berni.” I smiled, ignoring Frost and his glare towards me.

 

I never forgot how alone I truly was in that peaceful blue house downtown. I was reminded each time I walked through the door. This world was so tiny and fragile. Even I could break. I just didn’t know how I could break and crumble to the floor with no hope. I didn’t know that the person able to make me fall was someone to whom I was so alien to but knew so much about. To a degree, I hated myself for seeming vulnerable, and I had made fun of others for falling into this sort of helplessness.

I thought Simon would be the one to make me fall.

On the floor of my house I was perched upon my oriental pillow from Japan. I was facing the blank television working at my marble coffee table with my white leather couch at my back. To the left of the television was my elevator that led to my underground garage, and on my left was the front door, to the left of which was a glass wall separating the open living room from my dining table. The east wall was behind me, which held the hallway that led to the bedrooms and bathrooms. The southern corner of the hallway contained a swinging door that led into my kitchen.

My black peasant dress circled around me in its lacey way. The lace ribbons I wore in my hair, wrapped around a low ponytail, fell down my back and woven into my blond hair which reached my tailbone. I clutched tightly the doll I was making with black-laced gloved hands. The doll in my arms was bare. She had no hair yet. Strands of doll-making hair laid to my left. It was black. I was to give her straight black hair and paint make up, finely, upon her fair porcelain skin when he came barging through my locked door.

All I did was ignore him at first. He kept repeating my name like he was the predator and I was the prey.

“I’m busy. Please check back tomorrow at nine in the morning. Thank you and have a splendid day,” I said dully and stared at the now half-haired doll. “And, Kieran, try not to kill anyone in Tallahassee when you’re visiting this city.”

I placed the remaining hair into her head. I was a very fast doll maker. In fact, my spare bedroom was covered in dolls from all shades to all races. The originals I kept and rarely sold for a high price. These, which I made on the floor, were for sale in the new doll store of the mall, Eden, my store. People never get too old for dolls. I made all types, from pretty and frilly to dark and morbid. This way my store attracted every type of person. Even men came to purchase my dolls. A person could even walk in and tell me what they wanted and I would have it done within a week’s time. Impressive, no?

I felt him strike me. He didn’t get to me though. His punch was returned to him. He had looked surprised, like that wasn’t supposed to happen. Not even possible, he thought so loud it echoed in my head.

“It’s very possible.” I laughed at him as he repeatedly threw useless punches that were reflected by my invisible shield.

“Who are you?” He ordered of me.

“Your watcher and number one fan.” I smiled and picked up the brush to brush the hair I placed into my doll.

“What are you?” he corrected his voice and his immature temper.

I mean, come on, all I did was peep in on his life for the past sixteen years. It wasn’t like I was spying on him since birth. Get real man. I was four and he was six. See, I didn’t watch him be born. Although, I do have his memories of long ago from infant-hood, ones that he doesn’t even acknowledge.

“I didn’t mean to have you hear me. I didn’t know I could make the people I watch hear me, okay?” I said and placed the brush down. “So, I apologize… you can go home now.”

He hunched over like a deranged animal.

“Aw,” I whispered and glanced up at him. “Tell me, why is such a beauty like you cannibalizing?”

“What are you?” he asked firmly. “I heard your voice.”

“Then you broke the bars off your window and followed your nose to me like a faithful dog to his owner. Aw.”

He didn’t like that analogy.

“I had flashes of you, of where you were. I knew you when I saw you in my head. I couldn’t control myself. I ran all the way down here like… some �" I don’t know, not human!” He said in a frustrated daze. “All I wanted was to rip you apart and I want to know WHY?!”

I picked up the black thin brush and painted on the eye make up with a swift movement, and then placed the doll on the marble table in front of me to dry.

“You think I have the answers?”

“You know something,” he hissed.

“You and I are different. I want to know why too, okay? I don’t know why we both can do what others can’t, and why we crave to kill and eat raw meat.” I simply said, and then shrugged. “I don’t know if we’re the same. But we both hold a similar dark power, and the urge to eat… others of our race.”

He just stared at me, speechless. He was sitting on my carpet, facing my low marble table and me. How he was sitting so casually now would shock anyone that knew he was trying to kill me just seconds before.

“I have learned to live normally with my odd gifts and way of life.” I smiled sheepishly. “I eat raw steaks.”

The expression he gave me was classic.

“You prefer eating human to raw steak?” I asked.

He pondered on that.

“You’re right, but… just… what the hell is going on?” he hissed out the words.

 

When things don’t go as planned and the world abandons you, you starve for love, for attention, for acceptance. I felt this way my entire life. I loved Simon and he loved me. But if he had known me, would he have accepted me? That is what made me jealous when I saw Johnny accepting Kieran for what he was, a monster.

I wanted acceptance.

The Beatles were playing on my stereo as Kieran stared at my drawings of Eden. I sang along to the lyrics of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” I sat in my oak rocking chair that a man at church, Francis, made for me. He was a janitor at Leon High School and sold furniture. Janitorial work was his part-time job until he could live off of selling just furniture. My chair was a gift for Christmas a couple of years ago.

“I don’t understand what I’m trying to see.” He said.

I tapped my fingers on the armrests and ran out of patience so I jumped up and floated towards him, irritated. I pointed at the picture and said, “It’s Earth you moron.”

He was stunned.

“How can such vulgar and rude manners come from such a dainty person?” He asked me with a slanted smile.

Was he flirting with me? If only I hadn’t been so oblivious and denied his emotions back then, I might have flirted back to the beautiful monster on that winter day.

“One learns by watching others,” I snapped at him.

He looked pained by my words like I was talking about watching him.

“Idiot, I didn’t learn from you. Don’t forget I became a demented leech way before you.”

He looked relieved. Was he really that curious about me? He looked at me like he knew me and loved me for so long. I just didn’t see it then.

“So.” He cleared his voice in embarrassment because he was staring at me, and all my glory. “This is Earth? I thought you said this was Eden from the Bible? You are way more religious than me. In fact, you beat Perk by miles. You beat all Catholics probably. Why are you not even Catholic?”

“I’m not anything.” I lowered my eyes, speaking to myself. “The truth beats all faiths and practices by miles.”

The painting Kieran was staring at hanging on my wall in a silver frame was of a planet exploding. It took me a year. I had people wanting to purchase the original but there was no way I’d sell.

“It’s a myth not known by many,” I said and traced my finger along Kieran’s neck, tucking his tag in, giving him goose bumps.

I walked to my oak Victorian bookcase and picked up a big wooden tome that looked like a textbook. In fact, it was a very old journal, a source that led to the writings of the Bible.

“Our universe contains more than a billion worlds. Most have no actual life, only energies drifting about.”

I stared at the book. I walked into my dinning room, and looked up through the glass wall at Kieran heading in after me.     

“This is The Angelic Diaries,” I said and placed it on my stone dining table, from the Middle Ages bought at an auction in London, with a light bang. “An immortal peasant thousands of years ago, before Christ and other great prophets, wrote this entire thing. He wasted his life away to tell this story only to seal it away in a silver chest at the bottom of the sea in the Atlantic Ocean east of Jacksonville. He said in the Diary that the one who has fallen to the dark curse and bears the ancient spirit would find this.”

“Where did you get this?”  He asked. “I bet it’s one of a kind.”

“I found it,” I said. “I was deep-sea fishing and came across it.”

“Your hook got it?” He asked, not believing I caught it with a mere fishing hook. 

“…” I bit my lip, and then remembered he was like me and I had nothing to fear from him when it came to judgment. “I saw a shark and put my scuba gear on-.”

“You jumped in to swim with sharks?”

“Yes.” I hissed like it was normal. “Anyway, I was ready to swim with the great white almost half way to the bottom but the chest caught my eye, stuck on a reef and covered in seaweed.”

“What’d the shark do? Didn’t it want to come after you and eat you?” He asked, really into my story.

“No,” I said like he was an idiot. “Sharks love me. All predators do. They, like, know what I am when I don’t.”

And I just eased their minds anyway. If they even thought about attacking me, I reassured them I was no threat. Nor was I lunch.

I sat down on one of the eight silver stone chairs that had velvety blue cushions, modernized to comfort the person sitting on it. Kieran took a seat to my left. I always sat at the head. Duh, it was my table. I owned it, like how I owned Kieran now.

“The peasant had no last name. His name was Cain. He was named after a God’s son.” I paused. “You may have heard other tales about him from the Bible.”

“The tale of Abel and Cain, the first two sons of Adam and Eve, that’s real?”

“No,” I said, “not the Bible’s tale anyway. Well, the Bible’s close, but its stories changed through the ages. I mean, come on, you can’t blame the writers. Things change after hundreds of years. There are rewrites and then one gets confused and combines two stories and wa-la you get the Bible.”

I opened the book to the first page.

“This diary has seven thousand pages… it took Cain a long a*s time to write this. But then Cain was part Angelic so he had a long-lived life of thousands of years.”

I stared at Kieran. How was Kieran going to read this? Could he do like I did and just touch it and see the story like a movie? That’s way easier than reading seven thousand pages.

“Give me your hand.” I sighed. “And follow me.”

“We just got to this room… and I like it. Can’t we stay in this room?” He asked me like he was a kid. “The chair was so soft.”

I then tuned Kieran’s continuing questions out and led him to one of my bedrooms, the one where I slept in. We entered it and, again, I ignored Kieran’s admiration towards my room and its emptiness. I had kept my room white painted and the carpet was like the living room, pearl. My desk was dark red oak with a silver chair from Italy. It was placed left of my walk-in closet and right of the door we had entered. My king size bed had a silver comforter with blue and silver pillows that I had gotten from Romania when I was sixteen on a trip with my aunt, still brand-new looking.

 The master bedroom was much bigger than my living room. I never knew why they made a room so enormous. It was like two living rooms stuck together and, ta-da, you got a ballroom. That was all I had in my room, a bed and a desk, and yet this sight bewildered Kieran.

The bare wall, opposite from the entrance where we stood, had double doors that led to my ten-foot iron-fenced backyard with numerous trees shielding outsiders away, bringing me privacy. The doors were more than thirty feet away from my bed. No one could ever guess how big my house truly was by just glancing at it from the outside. The trees that surrounded my property made it seem smaller.  

“Why?” he asked and pulled me to a stop.

I froze. I was so stiff when he held me from behind. Johnny. Kieran was thinking of Johnny.

“Do I remind you of your beloved?” I asked, hiding my nervous reaction to his touch.

In a way, Kieran reminded me of Simon. The height and his manners… Simon was slightly darker, and had deep brown eyes and light brown hair though.

Unlike Simon, Kieran knew my secret. Did Kieran accept me, or did he still want to kill me? He wasn’t yet sure what he thought about me.

“There’s a knife in my desk if you wish to use it,” I said as he breathed down my neck. “If not, I would very much like to show you the diary as I read it, in sight.”

He backed up, letting go of his passionate hold on me. I gritted my teeth together and sat down on the bed. I motioned for him to sit beside me. I wondered how he’d react to what was to follow.

He sat down beside me.

“What I’m about to do to you will let you see The Angelic Diaries as if you were actually there.”

Pain, sadness, torment, and loneliness … the feelings rushed through me, as I was about to begin for the second time to have someone else see my visions. I knew how to make someone see, but never had I liked it. What it took to make someone see was very personal and energy draining. I learned how to do this when I was nine. I feared it, loathed it, and couldn’t wait to do it again.

“Close your eyes,” I said, beginning the ancient ritual I had done years ago to Simon.

Simon had been sleeping one night long ago. I’d wanted to see if I could show someone what I saw. I’d known it was cruel of me to test it out on the one I loved. But it worked. The next morning Simon told me about his dream of me running in the field at Tom Brown Park alone at night when I was nine. I had been running to the picnic the church was having at the park at five in the afternoon. I saw Simon smiling at me from a bench.

Simon had told me he felt what I felt in the dream, happiness. He’d said he then saw his own face through my eyes and felt wonderful. The dream had bewildered him. Of how real it felt. He had believed he was actually there as me.

I shook my head from the memory of Simon.

Kieran stared at me, knowing but not knowing who he was. I didn’t know who I was either. I was blinded from the truth of my being and who Kieran was in relation to me. All I held were The Angelic Diaries Cain had written.

Then the end came to Kieran’s sight when Cain slew Abel in the field where Lucian once ruled over.

“I am not your God’s child,” Cain roared.

“Cain,” Abel said before he died. “We may meet again in the future of lives. And if we do, I will seek my revenge.”

Abel touched his deep wound and a red tear fell from his eye.

“Abel,” Cain said, tears falling from his own eyes. “It’s the only way. My love for you grew to hate. Brother, we will face each other again in the future of lives, and I hope you do slay me in cold blood.”

Abel smiled, before he fell to his death.

You see, Cain and Abel loved the same woman. This woman loved Abel, and Cain grew mad with rage. Though the woman, too, loved Cain and wronged both of the brothers by sleeping with each of them.

Abel had once looked up to Cain and respected him, and Cain returned the respect. But a strange mortal woman had come between the brothers, leading Cain to kill Abel. Only that of Angelic blood, half or more, could kill one of the Angelics. And both Cain and Abel had half Angelic blood in them for Eve, their mother, was an Angelic.

Eve was created from Azazel, the sun, by a tree on Adam’s land after the dinosaurs left and the two-legged race first began, evolving from two ancient lost races, the Zyula and the Katani. Eve was a light, almost silver, color and stood seven feet tall, as Adam, a villager of a cattle village, was inches shorter and fair skinned. The eyes of Adam, a gold tone, took Eve’s heart. Adam was an offspring of a Demonic and a Zyula Human. After Adam’s mother gave birth to him, she died from major blood loss. His father, a full-bred Demonic, fled earth to an unknown place.

Adam and Eve were immortal. They couldn’t die and the people of the many villages over the one giant land feared and honored them as living Gods, though they were really of two ancient races. One with half or more blood of Angelic or Demonic were immortal. Though Demonic beings died every one hundred years, they would always come back as a grown being and live on forever, repeating their endless cycle of death. They were like the mythical phoenix, but they didn’t burst into flames. They turned a dark purple and fell to ash in seconds when the time came to die.

“Do you see?” I asked Kieran as I hovered over him with my hand on his eyes and his hand on my breast, over my heart.

“Yes,” he answered.

“The Angelics and the Demonics were the first races of the Gods. They, too, know not of the Gods and are just as lost as us Humans.”     

I closed my eyes and then felt the urge to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze. I wanted his blood to stain my flesh.

“Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. They bore no other offspring. Orphans had come to live with them, for Eve was kindhearted and wanted to help humanity’s growth.” I gritted my teeth. “Forget the stories of every other religion. Concentrate on what you see because what you see is the truth of the creation of Earth and our existence, but no truth about any sort of God.”

Shapes of all sorts filled my visions as I listened to Kieran scream. I never told him how horrible the truth of our existence really was. Religion mixed with science… evolution and spirits. How would others feel if they too knew this truth that I held? Would they become numb and give up on existence and slowly fade away into the stars, or would they combust and burn everything out of rage?

“You’re,” he screamed. “You are… what are you?”

His scream seemed sweet and comforting. I wanted to scream in that moment of glee.

He was watching Adam and Eve kill each other after Cain killed himself by draining his blood with a Cherubium blade in the river. That was the other way to kill an immortal. If a Cherubium blade pierced an immortal being, then they would perish like a mortal. There were only two Cherubium blades. Eve was the keeper of the blades. They were born with her from Azazel, the only known creator of the creatures that call Earth their homeland. How Cain wrote this part after his death, I didn’t know.

Cain had stolen one of his mother’s blades and laid himself to rest in the cold water on that spring day.

 Adam and Eve stared at each other, shrieking. Their cries pierced the winds, causing floods and major volcano eruptions to occur. They killed the other by ripping out each other’s steel heart and smashing it in their hands. Eve’s silver blood mixed with the reddish bronze blood of Adam, and the amalgam stained the ground while a huge flood was on its way.

“Who are you?” Kieran asked me.

“I am Wren,” I said. “You s**t head, did you forget? I gotta go.”

He shook his head, as if trying to recall what he just saw. I pushed myself away from him and left the room. Kieran followed me, snapping out of his trance.

“I came all this way down here to find you and you’re leaving?” he said after a moment of silence.

“You were trying to kill me!” I turned around and our faces were inches away. “So, don’t try to butter me up!”

I stormed for the front door, away from him.

“Stay here if you want,” I shouted back at him. “I need to go to church. I need to confess in silence at the pew.”

And I almost forgot dinner at the church. Time went by fast having that mad dog there. I wondered what we were eating. I hoped the meat wasn’t too well done if we were eating meat. I narrowed on the front door.

He stepped towards me.

“I wouldn’t follow me if I were you Kieran,” I smirked. “The FBI’s lapdogs are staking out my house. I’m surprised they didn’t see you come in.”

“I’m just that good.”

I rolled my eyes at his grin.

            “No, you were just extremely fast when you ran down here like some cheetah on a jog.”

            I didn’t have time to deal with Kieran’s childish questions. All I needed was one thing right then.           

            Blood.

            That was all that mattered now. I really wanted blood.

 

Sadness,

-A memoir of Eden-

 

Eden was once a home for all. This beautiful planet was ruled by the Angelic race. Each being roamed this land in peace. They were created, not born. The Angelics knew not the reason for their existence or if death would ever come to them. They didn’t even know what Death was until the dark matter came to Eden.

The myths the Angelics believed in said nothing about darkness. The Demonics, according to their stories, were holy, and not evil. The Angelics’ very own king was rumored to have political affairs with the leader of the Demonics. But those were only rumors, none of which had been proven to the Angelic race.

The dark matter was not there before. Eden had never been without their light. The space around Eden was a never-ending peaceful glow.

 So when this darkness came to the land of the Angelics, panic arose in each of the beings. They cried out for their Gods to hear. Some even flew from Eden to face the dark energy flowing into their light. Those who flew were sucked into an endless hole, a new darkened rip in their endless bright sky. The Angelics on Eden watched their brothers and sisters “die.” Several, who were not swallowed by the dark rip, fell from the sky with burnt wings and scorched skin.

The Angelics then fled from Eden into the remaining light of space to go to their second home, their sanctuary, Heaven, in the next universe.

The few who stayed behind, refusing to leave Eden for their love of their land was enormous, became immune to the darkness. They dwelled on the now dark Eden, feeling sadness for the first time. They didn’t dwell for long though. Eden shattered when all the light was gone. The planet went everywhere in the new darkness of space.

Nine rocks were the biggest shards of Eden. The eight Angelics that had become tainted with the darkness cried out for their home, now gone. They then started to leave the universe of Eden to go to Heaven, but when they reached the portal that held the light on the other side they were rejected. They were trapped in the darkness.

The bright rip to the universe where Heaven existed was closing, and closing fast. The Angelics tried over and over again, but their newfound darkness kept them chained to the new world of worlds. One, named Azazel who came to life from a silver fountain, managed to gather some light into his hands before the rip fully sealed. He held the light close to his hollow silver chest. His skin was silver like the fountain of Eden that had created him. His eye sockets used to be full of silver light but now they were full of darkness. So were the other Angelics’ of different skin shades.

They flew to the heart of Eden, a semi-small rock formation, and stood tall in a circle. Azazel raised his hands to his chest and prayed. He was their king, the first Angelic to have been “born” from the silver fountain. He was also the only one to be born of the grand fountain of Eden. He was Eden’s proud child; the pride of their race was within him.

The others, like rainbows, started reciting the lost words of their prayer to their Gods. Light came out of Azazel and the others stopped chanting, for they just realized Azazel was sacrificing himself to save their race and Eden’s space. The light from the other universe emerged through his hands and combined with Azazel. The silver Angelic smiled genuinely at his allies and became pure light of silver, yellow, and all the other shades of color. The energy he had become raced over two rocks and settled in the silent space.

Shards of Eden flew to the light of Azazel and mixed with the energy. It then formed a rock of light. Hot, bright flames swirled around the gigantic star. It was greater in size than the other nine rocks. It was hotter and brighter.

The seven Angelics that lingered on the heart of Eden, three rocks away from the new Sun, stared at Azazel and his light. Soon a faint glow came over them and the heart, giving them a sensation of peace. The new invisible shield, which surrounded the heart, forced the chaotic energy of darkness from their bodies, which then drove the Angelics into a hypnotic state.

Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, Azrael, and Ezekiel were the names of the seven that remained. 

Lucifer and Michael were born from the rock of Lucael Desert, south of Shighi. They were both the second born of the Angelics, twins of hard yellow skin. Their skin, tough as metal, shone like the summer sun that chases the blue sky away, leaving only a pale yellow sheen in its wake.

Gabriel, the third Angelic being of Eden, was born from the waves of the Gail Sea, which bordered north of the city of Shighi. He had light blue skin that was hard like metal. His skin was the soft blue found just outside the bright ring around the sun, where the blinding yellow bleeds into pale, pale blue.

Uriel was born of the tree of life in the Url Forest, far west of the Lucael Desert. He held a beautiful forest green shade for his strong flesh, if forest green came in pastel and if bark could withstand the harshest punishments.

Raphael was born of the highest mountain on Eden in the Rahe Plains, south east of Shighi. He had white skin so smooth that one would think he was cotton. But the solidity of his stone skin countered that.

Azrael and Ezekiel came from the Marshes of Aziel, south of the Lucael Desert. Azrael was slightly older than Ezekiel, but they both were shiny as new pennies and as tough as ancient ruins.

These seven stood very tall of the same height. They were the children of Eden. The light of Heaven was so beautiful and soothing, but it wasn’t the same as Eden’s light. The color of the Angelics’ skin started to fade and the remaining seven then understood this new sun, which was Azazel, was not at all like their old light.

The other race born on Heaven was different. They were called the Demonics, a race slightly taller than the Angelics. The Demonic race was older than the Angelics. Again, according to the Angelics’ myths, the Demonics were the first creation of the Gods. But no Angelic had ever seen a Demonic on Heaven, save for that rumor of their King.

Each Angelic had gone to Heaven once every seven times the silver fountain of Azazel glowed brightly over Eden. Azazel never went to Heaven. He was the king of Eden, so he remained there no matter what. The others of the Angelic race went to Heaven to pray to the Demonics, the ancient race of myth, and to the Gods. Neither Gods nor Demonics were ever spotted in the temple of Heaven.

The seven turned from the great sun of Azazel and stared at a flock of dark beings, which were covered in shadows that hovered over the heart of Eden. They were taller than the Angelics. They were beautiful with their pale flesh and empty eye sockets that radiated dark light.

The seven Angelics were cautious and stood prepared to face the newcomers of the unknown race. The beings of dark descended onto the heart and stared at the beings of different shades. They, the pale skinned, looked up at the sun. Their eyes turned dim in horror. They let out screeches of torment for reasons unknown.

“Who are you?” Gabriel asked in fear.

“We are the children from Kanar,” a female being hissed. “We were rejected by Nao, though our male counterparts were not. We use to be a fabulous gold tone, but have digressed to this white. You and I are opposites. You are of life as we are of death. We are similar, yet not. Our Goddess has told us about a parallel realm of a one world called Hell. We are waiting to enter this world where we will be accepted. All we know is death. ”

“Death?” Azrael asked. “What is death?”

“Death is what we are.” One of them said, with long wavy hair. “Every so often we perish to ash and come back to life to replay the horrors of Death.”

The seven didn’t understand.

“The Gods feared us, though not our men. After Nao ripped apart from Kanaria to make Heaven, he took the Demonic race with him. But then found us female Demonics revolting and kicked us from Heaven and back to the remainder of Kanaria, which is now Kanar. We, of Kanar, then watched as Eden’s magicks of life bore your race from her abundance of mysterious objects. Our Goddess does not like your Gods and we have been watching your world in case Nao and the other Gods turn on you.”

The seven still didn’t understand.

“We are the first of creations from the Gods. They created us and now they are punishing us for existing, for they cannot entirely kill us. We cannot end when we always just come back. Our spirits are of death, an energy-form of which the Gods know nothing. Though the souls Nao had placed inside of us still call out to him, we will never be his children again. We are trying to kill our souls, although it hurts. We have learned and evolved. When they created us they didn’t create an ending. You can end. They will not repeat that mistake. Your spirit will drift towards the Gods to become one again with their energy when you die, for you have souls within each of you.”

“We can’t ever do this die thing you say we are capable of,” Raphael said. “Nothing will make us depart from our bodies.”

“When you cross into death, ignore the light. Sometimes the darkness is the way to go, Angelics.” One said, with a longer neck. “For, if you are to join the light, you loose everything, you physically and mentally die. So when the day comes for you to choose, do not listen to the Gods. Go towards the darkness of loneliness. It will be hard, but try to cut ties with your souls.”

“I will go to the Gods!” Michael yelled out. “My spirit is my soul.”

“The Gods are not what you think they are. Why are they not here helping you?” The female Demonic asked. “They are a light energy greedy of power. The dark is of mixed energies where you can go and dwell in harmony. This place is called Hell, a universe of darkness far from this universe of Kanar and Heaven. We will be waiting in Hell for you.”

The pale beings, surrounded in a faint glow, snarled at the seven. Did they think they were convincing to the Angelics with their dark aura?

“Ignore them,” Lucifer said to the other six. “The Gods are not evil! Our brothers and sisters roam in Heaven now with the Gods in peace. We are here with great Azazel to watch over this space in which was our beloved Eden. We have been wronged! The Demonics are evil! Pray not to them but to our Gods and the rest of our race up in Heaven. Pray for the day to come that the rip to Heaven’s cosmos will once again open so we can reunite with the others.”

The pale creatures hissed and cackled.

“You will die. You seven, and your king, have been tainted with our darkness.” One had spoken.

Two pale beings held hands and chanted fiercely as the others flew away from the heart of Eden. The two pointed at the seven and said in unison, “You will die only by the other’s hand.”

“We will not turn on another!” Lucifer yelled.

The two chanted more and then flew off to join the others and soon the exiled Demonics vanished into the darkness to return to Kanar.

Lucifer stared at Azazel, the sun, and said:

 

“We cry for our homeland;

We cry your silver tears.

Azazel,

Our lord,

We are all lost.”

 

The six joined Lucifer and they all sat upon the ground.

“I will not join them in Hell; I won’t turn on you.” Lucifer said.

The seven felt their souls and how the darkness had entered them. The sun of Azazel dimmed and sadness was felt from the sun.

“Look,” Gabriel pointed at a fast growing tree before them.

All around them green was growing. The smell of life was returning to Eden’s heart.

“We’ll start over,” Ezekiel said and touched a green leaf of a small plant. “Eden will be reborn in a new fainter light.”

“Azazel is creating this,” Uriel said calmly. “If the Gods are in fact beings we cannot rely on, Azazel can play our God.”

Lucifer looked down to the ground where more green grew. Near the approaching greenery laid the girl from another world. Her pale eyes were open. She’s alive, but lost in thought and exhausted from the war.

Lucifer crouched down next to the limp energy-filled body form of the spirit. His eyes stayed on her entranced ones in complete torment. He leaned down and whispered a few words softly in to her ear.