God's Gone AWOL

[3] This is NOT Home.

They were falling. And Leslie was screaming.

Amidst the chaos, Atticus twisted his body and looked up. As it turned out, the three of them had been unknowingly standing on a trap-door. When Bentley pressed the button, she must have activated some mechanical network that caused it to open —that was the strange thumping sound they had been hearing. It was a classic trick, like something out of a cartoon. But they had fallen for it and now they were plummeting through another black void of unidentifiable size or depth. Good going, Bentley.

The angel, being an angel, opened his wings to slow his fall. Once he had gained some aerial stability, his first reaction was to grab Leslie. Since Leslie had no wings to protect himself, his entire mortal body would shatter as soon as it hit whatever ground they were falling towards. So Atticus scooped him up mid-air and continued their descent at a steadier and safer pace. However, whether it was the fault of gravitational force, or just plain shock, Leslie fainted the moment he was lifted into his guardian angel's arms.

Atticus sighed.

Everything was quiet on Pomegranate Hill.

The fog that had settled in for the night was only just now starting to lift, leaving behind a sweet, soft haze. Specks of dew beaded the folded petals of all the resident flowers awaiting the kiss of sunshine to wake them from their gentle slumber. The whole hill was enveloped in a comforting silence, making way only for the light bubbling of the creek nearby. Occasionally, a bird would whistle out a little tune to greet the rising sun. But other than that, everything was still as a painting.

Until a figure in red landed SPLAT in the middle of the sparkling grass.

"Ow..." Bentley tried to pick herself up off the ground. "Why'd you catch him and not me?"

Above her, Atticus was gracefully floating downwards with an unconscious Leslie laying weak in his arms like a fairytale princess.

"He doesn't have wings. You could have stopped yourself from falling at any point," he told her.

Atticus touched down lightly and took in their surroundings. It was Pomegranate Hill, he knew that much. There was the creek, the flowers, and most importantly, the actual pomegranate tree. But it was different from the last time he saw it. And it took a moment for him to realize what had changed.

There were no graves here anymore. Neither Lilith's nor Bentley's.

Bentley also seemed to notice something off about the place, and quickly raised the compass again. However, the needle had gone back to spinning aimlessly in circles. She shook it once, twice, but at no point did it ever pick up pointing in a specific direction again.

"Why— why are we here?" she asked.

"I think the compass..." Atticus started, "Led you home,"

It said "Home" on the box. Where else could it lead?

Atticus never had a huge attachment to Pomegranate Hill. He had only ever visited it once, and that was shortly after Bentley passed away. But he knew that Bentley had spent countless hours of her earlier years in such a place —playing in the water, snacking on pomegranate seeds, fooling around with her brother and sister. For years, the little square kilometer of Earth had been regarded by both feuding realms as "The Hellbourne Territory", so not even other demons would dare set foot anywhere near it, fearing they would offend any of the three siblings. After two of the Hellbournes died, the whole area became a monument to their lives, but still nobody visited it.

So if Bentley ever had anything close to a home, this foggy hillside might as well be it.

"This isn't my home, this is Pomegranate Hill. This is my tomb if anything," she said, looking around bitterly.