Heaven’s Fall
Taking a deep breath she jumps out of the destroyed building, into the deep dark abyss beneath.
Thick smoke all around her is turning the world dark, except for the occasional red and orange flames coming through on all sides. The screams around her are getting louder and louder the closer she gets to the ground…
Where all the fun is happening.
She had been waiting for this moment. Something happening. Something different from the eternal monotony of perfection that made up live here.
Heaven. The place where every wish gets fulfilled magically as long as it doesn’t mean anyone comes to harm directly. And if someone does the magic makes all wounds disappear and reverses everthing bad that might have happened. You only need to wish for it. Every non-violent desire gets fullfilled without the need of moving a single muscle, without the need to use your brain for something else than forming the wish and making your mouth speak the words out loud.
Boring.
Far too boring!
It was hell for Dia.
After a few centuries everything becomes boring and nobody wants to do something interesting. Risk, adventure and new experiences are the things seemingly despised by everyone around her. They always told her how she needed to find something to occupy her mind with that suits the heaven. Like painting. Or sculpting. Or creating music.
Or some other nonsense that you do alone and that you can therefore instantly master if you only wish for it. It has become a kind of curse. Whenever you wished for something it happened. Even if you only wished for a moment to become better at something it would happen once you spoke the words. Getting people to practice fighting with her and having them refrain from simply wishing to be better than she was had been a task that took months at times for a single session.
But these guys right in front of her will not let her ask twice for a little sparring.
Though sparring is probably not the right word for what is awaiting her below — demons with grotesque faces, distorted in malevolent fun while they are slaughtering helpless angels, who can’t even comprehend what is happening. Frantically these sheltered creatures are wishing for something to reverse the pain. To tend to their wounds. To revive their loved ones. To end this horrible nightmare and let them wake up in their bed to start a new day of boredom, only having to fear that they don’t yet know what to wish for dinner.
Their screams for salvation are mixing with the calls for blood from the demons and the crackling of fire destroying the large towers around Dia, creating a cacophony that sounded to her like the sweetest music she had heard for a far too long time.
Right before she crashes into the first demon she quickly extends her wings to their full length to slow her descent. With complete confusion the demon looks up to her, half a second before she crashes into him. Apparently they were not expecting resistance. The pain is surging through her body like lightning, igniting something deep within her that quickly fills the void she had felt for the countless centuries of the past.
Finally she feels alive.
She grabs the sword that the demon lost and without looking back at the demon she just pushed to the ground she rushes forward, through the streets that are starting to fill with the blood of countless slaughtered angels.
Big houses on both sides. Beautiful buildings with sculptures adorning every imaginable place. Gold ornaments everywhere, breaking the light in fantastic patterns every day as the sun shines — at least until maybe half an hour ago. The first buildings are starting to fall apart from the fire and the destruction wrought upon them by the demons and many ornaments and sculptures have already been destroyed.
Living on the edge of heaven apparently has a few good sides — you are the first one that gets overrun by enemies nobody expects. There are no walls, no defenses. Heaven has no need for this as there is no war, no fighting, no hate. No reason to waste space on defenses. Sure, a few watchtowers had been built, but they were not manned. They only served an aesthetic purpose.
This was probably the easiest assault in the history of eternity.
Time to get started.
To the left in front of her, maybe two or three dozen meters away, she sees the first demon who she might be able to slay after she left the other one without his sword and probably with a few broken ribs. Running in a zigzag around demons and angels alike she darts towards her first possible victim, the energy of her heavenly enhanced body allowing her to cross the distance in a matter of a few seconds.
As she gets closer it feels like everything is happening in slow motion. He is currently looking to the left into an alley, apparently slaying someone who is lying on the ground and grinning like a maniac at the sight of the frightened angel to his feet.
With high speed she just runs into the demon’s side with the stolen sword extended in front of her. In her slow motion view she can see the muscles in the demons face changing — from the maniacial laughing to complete confusion and intense pain.
For a few meters she runs with the demon impaled on her sword until another one on her right is in reach. Before he can react she stops, yanks the sword out of her first victim, which flies another few feet before landing on the ground, turns around counterclockwise and swings it right through the thighs of the second one.
They are not wearing a lot of armour. None of them cares about what the other demons are doing and each is playing with his prey.
Those are all signs of not fearing the angels they were going to fight. They weren’t prepared for a battle, only for a massacre. Normally they would have been right to not fear the peaceful angels that were spending eternity with art and poetry. But they couldn’t know that Dia was there, yearning for opponents that would make the eternity at least a little bit more interesting.
Dia leaps into the air for a dozen meters or so and for a moment she does not move, enjoying the feeling when her ascent turns to a descent. That sweet moment of weightlessness. She closes her eyes, enjoying the sounds she had never heard before around her. The fire. The screams. Bombs detonating in the far. The big towers of the city crumbling and burrying angels and demons alike under the rubble. The laughing of all those idiots that would soon be dying by her hands as they are killing helpless angels who never thought they would have to raise a sword.
She takes all of this in for a few heartbeats, bathing in the sensation.
A small grin creeps on her face before she opens her blood red eyes that had always separated her from her peers — nearly as much as the midnight black wings on her back.
Turning around she extends her wings, beginning her descent, but drifting into one of the streets to her left. Those big streets that had enough place that everyone could easily walk through them without fearing to accidentally bump into anyone else, even if they weren’t looking on the street because they were enjoying the wares that were presented on both sides. Wares that were just as perfect as those you would find anywhere else in heaven. At leat normally. Now everything was in disarray, lying shattered on the ground with blood splattered all around them.
Looking around she spies another demon. His hand clutches a big club with spikes, the blood of his last victim dripping from them. He is extending his arm slowly, enjoying the fear that is visible on the angels eyes who is lying on the floor in front of him.
Dia quickly folds her wings, flies low, between the demon and the angel, and slits the demons throat. After he falls to the ground his blood covers the club that was previously covered in an angel’s blood, though Dia doesn’t realize these things. She is running around aimlessly, looking for the next victim, wishing someone would appear that was worthy of being called an opponent.
Again, she finds a demon in front of her and runs towards him, this time trying to cut off his whole head. But other than the previous demons this one sees her in time and realizes the danger she poses, turning around in time to block her strike.
Because of her speed Dia is sliding on the ground for a few meters, the demon slowly turning around to follow her. Apparently they can’t enhance their bodies the way angels can. Otherwise he would have been faster. A high-pitched laugh escapes Dia’s mouth at this realization.
She tries to impale him, like she did with the first demon she killed, but again he manages to block the blow in the last moment. The demons might not have the same physical abilities, but their experience is making up for it. She would have to learn fast or she would soon fall to the ground like all those other angels around her, praying for mercy.
This time she tries to take off his head again. Rushing forward she raises her sword, but the demon realizes that she is trying the same thing and evades her attack, trying to ram his sword into her guts in the process.
Dia barely manages to escape this counter, thanks to her enhanced speed, but the demon still manages to scratch her side. On the demon’s face a big smile starts to appear as Dia is looking at her wound, touching it and feeling her own blood for the first time in ages. Only when she found a partner who was willing to fight her in earnest she was able to hurt him and be hurt by him in a way that would allow her to feel her own blood for a prolonged time. And it had been a long time since she last found someone willing to fight her this way. The higher-ups didn’t like that incident.
Fascinated she stares at her blood, while the demon is starting to say something to her. It’s supposed to intimidate her, causing her to give up, like the other angels did that the demon killed before. The way he looks at her, casually opens his arms to show his superiority by leaving his guts open to an attack and the words he is spitting in her direction make that obvious, even if she can’t understand what exactly he is saying.
But Dia is far too fascinated by the sight of her own blood to listen to him. When she doesn’t react the demon starts to walk towards her with the goal of finishing her off while she is occupied. But when Dia licks her fingers with her own blood on them the demon stops for a second, realizing that even more things are off with this angel than he had realized before.
The taste of her own blood is more wonderful to her than any feast she had to endure for a long time. Not like the perfect sweets that for example came out of the oven every time you wished for freshly baked cookies. Not like the perfectly cooked meat that she would find when wishing for dinner.
It was a heavy taste. It reminded her of copper, which she had found one day when visiting a blacksmith. At first she tasted a high amount of salt. After swallowing it the bitterness was something so new to her that she started to smile again. Such a beautiful range of new feeelings.
That smile was what put the demon off for a moment. After staring at her how she was licking her own fingers, that were dripping with her own blood, with her eyes closed he sensed his chance to end this encounter.
But when he got near enough that he could hit her she suddenly opened her eyes and it was like something had awaken inside of her. Her blood-red eyes were coming to life, changing their color slightly in different places, reminding him of a wildfire.
And if the demon thought she had been fast before he was now taught better.
Quicker than his eyes could see she was turning to him, cutting off his hands with her sword, a wild smile on her face and a fire burning in her eyes. Before he could even realize his pain she changed the grip on her sword, thrusting it upwards through his skull.
After Dia had killed her fourth demon she took a moment to think about what just happened, trying to memorize the movements of her opponent. It would be important to learn fast if she wanted to survive. And while she had thought about ending her endless existence countless times she was now looking forward to giving everything to survive.
She didn’t know what tomorrow would hold ready for her. And for Heaven as a whole, she thought, looking around at the destruction and the death that were visible all around her, listening to the sounds of war raging through the city.
She was looking forward to every single moment.
