God's Gone AWOL

[2] Xander's Emo Hours

He wasn't really sure what he was expecting.

Bentley had said she had forcefully blasted her way out of her grave. But for some reason, Xander had pictured something a little cleaner than the sight in front of him now. It was as if a whole chunk of the beautiful hill had been assaulted with a bulldozer. Heaping patches of dried earth stained the hillside brown. Uprooted flowers withered in clumps on the ground. The sight was already almost unbearable to see, but the worst image of all was the dark earthy hole, decorated with filthy stringy roots and burrowing six feet into the ground.

Xander couldn't stand it. He immediately started scooping up the piles of discarded dirt and throwing them back into the pit from whence they came. He'd been the one who dug this grave in the first place, he might as well be the one to fill it in after Bentley destroyed it.

How stupid. He visited Pomegranate Hill to look for any trace of his sister, and yet he found the mess she had left instead. Nothing had changed, even after all these years. He was still the one cleaning up after her.

As Xander continued to fill in the obsolete grave, he thought about the sister who was still buried. Lilith's grave had been untouched by the blast, thank goodness. Still, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt. This sacred land had become a birthplace of mayhem when it was supposed to be a resting place. After a few minutes, Xander realized he had been staring at Lilith's headstone without moving at all.

If you could only see the way things have turned out. You'd definitely have a thing or two to say to everyone. He told Lilith in his heart.

Then his black eyes moved to the other headstone and about a billion questions popped into his head one after the other. Why did she have to come crawling back after he had said his goodbyes so finally? What was he supposed to do with an empty grave and stupid rock with a living person's name on it? What was he supposed to do with the living person??

He supposed that he would just do what he always did. Deal with it as he went along.

As of that morning, the peace treaty had officially been called off. The war was back on. What else could Xander possibly do except deal with each problem as it arrived? The same thing that he was doing right now. Filling in a grave and trying to track down Bentley before Heaven did.

After toiling away for some time, Xander gave up and flopped face-down into the dirt, burying himself in its deep, earthy scent.

He was tired. He was lonely. The life he had built for himself over the last century was probably going to collapse soon. He'd spent so many years using vengeance as one of his chief character traits but now that one of the people he was so desperate to avenge had risen once again like some stupid phoenix from her own ashes, he had no idea what to do. Should he disappear back into the wings and let his sister resume her soliloquy of destruction? Or keep desperately tap-dancing in the spotlight until he finally booed himself off the stage and out of the story?

Xander didn't want to think about such things anymore. He didn't want to feel any resentment towards Bentley for something that had always been out of control. Instead, he would be better off clearing his mind by doing something he knew he was good at —killing angels. Xander pulled himself back up from the ground, opened his wings, and flew off.

...

Rain was hammering down on the concrete. Each droplet bounced when it hit the already soaking street, creating a shimmering haze of water just centimeters off the ground. Overhead, the neon lights of all the business signs and advertisements stained the puddles and the spraying air a bright combination of reds, blues, and purples. The sight was pretty, but in a cold sort of way.