Not Another Bloody Prophecy

Chapter 5

Ryliel had absolutely no idea where Michael could possibly be. He was not a tracker by a long shot. That was mostly Remy's department. And after that, anyone else's but his.

Both him and Irisia knew that it was just busywork. Something to keep him distracted while she did her thing. He wanted to be annoyed by her, but he couldn't. He knew that if he didn't have an excuse to do something, he would just sit around in his hotel room and worry about the prophecy and their little sister, Marliel, and what she planned to do.

Then that worry would gradually turn to more worry, which would then turn to panic. And panic usually turns into stupid decisions that you regret later.

No, it was in everyone's best interest that he stayed distracted. And besides, he's always been curious about what earth was like. He knew that no matter how hard he looked, he wouldn't be able to find his brother. The same brother who had helped inadvertently to cause this entire mess. So, he mostly just, how humans would say, sightsaw, with finding Michael on his mind. He knew a soul up in heaven who had lived in Los Angeles.

She had told him about all of the best places to visit. All the hole in the wall places that only the lifelong natives knew about. He visited unique boutiques that held all sorts of oddities (only to observe, though. Not to shop.), he watched performers in the streets, tipping the ones he had felt impressed by. He had decided to try out Lucifer's night-club, Lux, and had quickly left, feeling entirely overwhelmed in all the worst ways. He found it hard to believe how anyone could find that enjoyable. After escaping Lux, he had found a family-owned used book store to relax in.

He found himself in the children's section, looking for his favorite stories. Sitting on a bottom shelf was a thick hardback book titled 'Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales'.

He reached out and grabbed it, taking it with him to a round wooden reading table, and sat down in one of the four empty chairs. He had only heard about Hans decades after the man had died, and heard about him through another soul. He'd never found the writer, since heaven was such a vast place, so Ryliel was never sure where he had ended up. All he knew, was that he had loved his stories.

He didn't particularly like the violence, curses, and pain in some of his stories. But he enjoyed the magic, romance, and the idea that good could prevail over evil. Though, figuring out who was good and who was evil in real life was much more difficult than in the stories. And fighting them was even harder.

Ryliel sighed deeply, filled with remorse and guilt. If only he had just kept his mouth shut about that stupid prophecy, none of this would be happening. Why did he have had to find that damn slab of stone to begin with?

An archaeologist had arrived to The Silver City in dismay (as souls often do at first). And said that he had made an incredible archaeological discovery, regarding celestials. But unfortunately he had died of heat stroke before he could properly translate it. The mortal's story had immediately caught Ryliel's interest. Their father rarely ever gave humans true prophecies.

Most of them were always fake, invented by the mortals themselves, and the angels never gave them any attention after awhile.

But the man had seemed convinced that this was the real deal. And he was an award winning archaeologist for over forty plus years, and a known skeptic. If he had thought it was real, than it was either an exceptional fake, or a true prophecy. Ryliel had been the only one to even consider the possibility. Though, if he was being honest with himself, he had wanted to believe it was real because of how bored he was. He was bored, and had been for some time, and thought that a mysterious prophecy could be an adventure.

At the time, Michael had just left The Silver City for Earth, and Marliel had began climbing her way to the top to Michael's position. No one had thought much of it at the time. They never took her craving for power too seriously.