Fallen World

Chapter One

My story begins April 14th 2267. My name is archangel Christoph, something that's shortened to Chris for convenience, not that I gave a damn either way. It's a meaningless name. My home territory is the dome called paradise, a completely cliché and ironic name. The dome is far from anybodies paradise, unless you have some serious warped sense of the word. The paradise dome is located South-East of the former city of Basel, Switzerland. The country itself was all but annihilated by flooding rivers and rakaniti. Nowadays, the once idyllic destination is nothing more than a decaying and barren wasteland, one that conceals horrors in the shadows, watching, waiting for a single mistake. The paradise dome is home to twenty-thousand, five hundred and thirty-two souls. As our location would suggest, it was deemed a safe zone by CoL and the paragons, although myself and my counterparts would strongly disagree to that. I am one of three archangels that keep the dome safe. My two counterparts who keep the dome safe are archangel Benjamin, although he prefers Benji. The other is archangel Melissa, someone I have a good working relationship and a good friendship, although she hates Benji for one reason or another. I am not one to pry into such matters. Our home dome was built on clear land, where a city was built beneath the titan of a dome, the home to the cattle. Above the ground, you can find steel and concrete skyscrapers reminiscent of bygone times. Unsightly in many opinions and very efficient. What one saw above ground was nothing compared to the sprawling squalor beneath it, which is where most live and work out their days until sweet death relieves them from our nightmares. I have been doing my job since I was eleven years old. I was a baby born with potential, a curse in all archangels eyes. I do not know who my parents are, let alone whether either are still alive. Myself and those like me are pumped full of drugs to make us what we are, then we are trained in ways that no one should be trained in, but that is what it is. My good friend Benji and I were in the same batch, so when we got assigned to the paradise dome we were honestly relieved, as friendships are scarce to none. Three years later, Melissa was added to our group when our mentor archangel Dennis died in the field. The oldest amongst us three is Benji at thirty, Melissa is two years younger than that, whereas I am a whole twenty-seven years old. The division and outright hatred towards archangels by some was clear from day one. Our training had prepared us for many things, but dealing with obvious hatred was not amongst skills given. Young, inexperienced, it's how we all begin our journeys. Adapt and survived, fail and die. It is the archangel way of life. We live separate from the rest of society in a cold, steel and concrete, grey skyscraper that soars ten story's upwards. When myself and Benji first arrived, Dennis lived on the top floor, which was essentially a penthouse of sorts.

Each archangel got an entire floor to themselves, they needed the space for gear and so on. Below those top three levels are the inquisitors much more modest accommodation, far from horrendous in fairness. After Dennis was found deceased by myself on patrol, not that there was much left of even his corpse. Both myself and Benji were horrified at the lack of respect he was shown. To everyone else, archangels were just a number, nothing more than that. Before us, Dennis had lost young ladies to this horrid world and the rakaniti. Many had come and gone. With Dennis's devastating passing, the top level became available, which most graciously Benji said I could have it, whereas he took up residence below. The day Melissa was thrown into the mix, Benji must have rubbed her the wrong way, so to speak. I found her to be quite nice and whilst she could be blunt at times, I deeply admired that about her. Within a week after joining us, Benji gave his level to Melissa for apparently no reason. I did hear on the rumour mill that they had an argument about something, yet no one was forthcoming with information and especially the two at the centre of the chaos. Quickly, we established ourselves and duties were expected to be done; they were always expected. After a couple years, myself and Melissa had soured significantly and especially towards the disgusting treatment of inquisitors by the cattle, although some of them were complete wastes of spaces too. As for Benji, he maintained his usual calm, and some would say chirpy and oblivious self through the many years we worked together. On many occasions, myself and Melissa would sit down and ponder, how could Benji be the way he was. Melissa's take on it was that there wasn't much going on upstairs, which always makes us laugh to be honest. I was jealous of Benji's ability to not let stuff weigh him down. I didn't hate him for it by any means, I merely wished I could do the same. Nothing was ever easy in our world. The morning began with the beeping of an alarm clock. Christoph opened his hazelnut brown eyes, these were full of anger and annoyance. A bash of his right hand silenced the alarm, something he didn't wish to see. Like most archangels and even inquisitors, sleep was rarely something one achieved to any decent degree. Sitting upright in a grey shirt and grey pyjama bottoms, standard issue and featureless, Christoph growled to himself. The room was almost entirely dark, only the faint touches of light from the city below reached the windows and the room. As Christoph stretched his arms above his head, he rolled his neck, which cracked, once, twice, thrice on each rotation clockwise. The room was spartan of details or personalisation. A large double bed dominates much of the space, which is adorned with heavy dark grey sheets. The thin carpet on the ground is a softer grey by comparison to everything else. Each wall is painted white, where it might as well be grey as well. A single bedside cabinet on the left side as you entered the room was the only thing out. Sat atop of this is an old style alarm clock with red glowing lettering, standard issue for all archangels.