The Land of Angels

Part 10

Damien and I walk through the forest, it's thick and actually quite scary. I stay very close to Damien here. We walk and walk. I watch carefully. My eyes keep playing tricks on themselves showing me eyes that aren't there. 

"How much further?" I whisper not wanting to be too loud. 

"I'm not sure." He answers quietly, we walk over a log which is creating a bridge over a river. The fish in the water don't look like the ones back home. They attack each other in the water and seem to stare at me as I walk over the log. 

We're walking like normal when suddenly a cloud of smoke and darkness comes hurtling towards us, I hear Damien say rushed grabbing onto me, "Run to the other side, don't talk to any of them and don't let them touch you, just keep running."

"Wai-" I start saying confused as to what's happening. 

He disappears completely and I start doing what he's saying. I walk forward even though there's a strong wind pushing me back. A person, or more like a silhouette of a person appears to my right, his face appears and he says, "I'm sorry for leaving you Lyra."

I keep walking confused, a woman on my left who resembles me says, "Please forgive us."

They turn to dust and fade away. I keep walking and the headmaster from the orphanage appears next to me, "Your parents would be disappointed in you."

I'm so confused but I keep walking the way which I think is the right way to go. The wind is turning in all different directions and I can't see a thing because it's all grey. 

I hear a soft angelic voice whisper, "Wrong way."

I frown and look around not sure where it's coming from, there's no silhouette talking to me. One does appear in front of me making me pause, one of the men from when I was 5 reaches out a hand to stroke my face he murmurs, "Oh how you've grown." I quickly move to the side. I'm getting distressed now. 

I feel so relieved when I see Damien in the distance with his arms open towards me. I run towards him and I'm about to jump into his arms but when I look into his eyes there's no forest green or caring glint in his eyes. His whole eyes are black. 

I stop so suddenly I fall down scrambling away from him. His laugh is inhumane as he turns to dust. Penny appears running towards me but he body distorts mid stride, he bones make a crunching sound and she starts to turn back, 3 extra pointed limbs break out of her and her head spins upside down cracking as it does. He laugh is deep and terrifying. I scream and scramble to my feet sprinting away from the 'thing'. A huge black horse comes storming towards me, with talons for hooves and red eyes. Horns on his head ready to impale me. 

Just as I think I'm done for everything pauses then the horse disintegrated into dust falling into a small pile on the ground. The wind stops. My hair is a mess and I'm shaking with fear and shock. My adrenaline is pumping and I don't think I can move. My skin is sweaty with stress. 

I turn and look around as the cloud drifts away. I see Damien pulling one of his swords out of the body of a black creature, with horrifying features. He looks like someone mixed every animal together and added a dash of evil. 

Damien has a claw scratch along his arm which ripped through the fabric of his shirt. He also has a few splashes of black blood mixed with his red blood. 

He puts one foot on the body of the creature and yanks his sword out of it. 

He swallows something in his throat and glances at me, "Come on, there's a stream not far from here, we'll get cleaned up."

I walk silently with him until we get to the stream, he brushes some hair out of my face once he's washed his hands in the water. This stream seems a lot calmer than the river we walked over. "You ok?" He asks.

I nod slowly, "Yeah, you?"

"As good as I can be." He says putting off his shirt to wash his wound, "That was a Reimund." He explains, "They make people appear trying to to touch you so he can take your soul. They're horrible creatures and the longer you stay in the clouds the scarrier the images get. It's easy to get lost as well."

"Yeah..." I murmur, I splash my face with some water and drink some. 

"Evil creatures, made from cross breeding about a million times." He says, "Ugly too, but also uncoordinated, they have magic but they aren't very good in a real fight. They'll attack you but they have no way to defend themselves."

He cleans his sword in the water and puts it back in it's holder, "How far are we from the Land of Angels now?" I ask.

"We're VERY close." He says. "Once we cross the border we'll be pretty much safe. The Angels looked after their creatures well, although they did believe in the circle of life, they ate normal meat, like beef and chicken."

He wraps his shirt around his arm to stop the bleeding and we walk for a while. A huge river rushed in front of us, across it the trees were brighter and the grass was greener. I guess the saying is literally true in this case scenario.

He picks me up and leaps across the river making it easily. We're both wrecked so we don't even bother making a cover and just lie down on a soft patch of grass and close our eyes. Tomorrow we're going to the Diamond castle where Damien says Castiel will be. A part of me hopes he's not there and we can just stay here forever.  

 I snuggle into his arms getting addicted to that warm loving feeling he gives me.