The Angels from Hell

Lilea

Lilea panicked, thinking she had slept in again. She had been so careful last night, had tried to keep her sleep light and focus on the bright light that made deep sleep near impossible after nearly a thousand years in hell. Yet, when she woke up, Ala was gone.

Lilea bolted out of her bed and changed into the same blouse and pants as the day before yesterday so quickly that she didn't even had time to recognise that one of the buttons was done wrong. Pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she ran out of the room, she was immediately relieved to see empty corridors. This relief became tainted but that unnatural sense of concern. Where was Ala? She had come back to this room yesterday. Had someone taken her? Had they been discovered?

Gripped by worry and the weariness of someone who had not so much slept as drifted in and out of consciousness, Lilea wandered the empty halls of heaven distractedly. Her monitor was already beeping at her irritably, but in this state, Lilea stuffed it thoughtlessly into a mop bucket she had recovered from another cleaning cupboard. Had Lethe or that other angel Darius become suspicious after finding Ala in Raina's room?

Lilea was so distracted by the questions spiralling through her mind that it took her a few seconds to realise that she was no longer alone. She was in the same hall that she had cleaned yesterday but this time there was the unmistakable squelching sounds of someone else already mopping the marble flooring. Lethe looked around and froze. It was Rylan.

He was soundlessly bopping his head and swinging around the mop as if listening to music that only he could hear. As he squeezed water out of the mop into a bucket, he looked over at Lilea and nodded welcomingly. Lilea hovered at the entrance of the main hall. She looked back at the staircase that led to her room and then at Rylan who had gone back to his work. Lilea sidled up to Rylan cautiously.

"Hi Rylan," she said. He kept cleaning, barely looking up at Lilea. At the sight of his complete unrecognition, Lilea's heart pulled her mind to a hall very much like this more than one thousand years ago.

***

"Promoted," Lilea said in an exaggeratingly reverential voice, "should I call you Sir or Mister or would you prefer your honour now?"

"I like your honour," said Rylan, straightening his new white suit and pushing back his somewhat overgrown black curls. "What do you think?" He gave a little spin in the suit.

"Very expensive," Lilea nodded encouragingly.

"I was thinking maybe a bit too white," Rylan said, "perhaps I could sew on some flowers on something, add a little variety."

"Whatever you say your honour," Lilea said smiling, "just promise me you're not going to ditch me for all your new, fancy manager friends. Don't let us become strangers."

"It would take more than a promotion to make us strangers," Rylan replied, bumping his shoulder affectionately against Lilea's.

***

Lilea stared at Rylan. Seemingly sensing her continual gaze, Rylan looked back up. He pointed at Lilea's mop bucket that was vibrating from her monitor. He raised his eyebrows. Lilea guiltily recovered the device and tried to mute it, pressing the buttons on the side and clicking on the screen. Rylan gently took the monitor from her, flicked open a latch on the back, fiddled with something and returned it to Lilea, now silent.

"Thanks," Lilea said. Rylan gave the smallest smile and focused on his own mop. Lilea stepped back from him, but she couldn't seem to leave. Memories kept flooding back, paralysing her in river of fear, confusion and guilt.

***

Rylan was rushing around his bedroom, opening and closing drawers. Lilea was trying to stop him, pleading with him to stay still.

"Rylan, Rylan," Lilea grabbed at Rylan's jacket, but he shook it off, throwing open his closet door and running his hands around the walls.

"Wait, where's your suit? You're white suit." Lilea stared into the closet which had been completely emptied.

"I gave it away," Rylan said dismissively, peeling up a board in the bottom of the closet and Lilea heard the clink of glass bottles. He pulled out a bottle with nothing but a strange reddish, stain on the bottom. Rylan muttered in frustration and threw the bottle back into the cupboard.

"But you loved that suit," Lilea looked closer at Rylan. He was wearing a grey suit, a little frayed and crumpled. There were no flowers or animals embroidered onto the suit, it was entirely plain. "What's going on," Lilea tried to put herself in front of Rylan, her voice quivering. "Rylan talk to me. I can't help you if you won't say anything." Rylan pushed past Lilea out of the door leaving her alone.

***

"I'm sorry," Lilea said to Rylan, tears pricking at her eyes. "I'm so sorry." Rylan gave Lilea a questioning look, glancing at the monitor in her hand and her mop as if asking "what are you sorry for?." Lilea searched Rylan's face, trying to find some glimmer of familiarity.

"I'm Lilea," she said, momentarily forgetting all about her mission and any attempt at anonymity, "we used to be, we've met before." Rylan nodded, pointing at her mop.

"No, before I...was a cleaner, we knew each other. Don't you remember?" Confusion spread across Rylan's features. He shook his head. "Please remember," Lilea said and as if the words were directed at herself rather than Rylan, a stream of memories that she had tried so hard to supress, exploded into her head.

She remembered hearing screams. They were sounds of complete and utter terror, like Raina's screams yesterday, except they were undeniably Rylan's. In her mind, Lilea saw herself rush towards the sound, but she was too far away. By the time she reached the sound, Rylan was gone, his room was empty. Lilea had searched everywhere and asked anyone she could find, his fellow managers, his other friends but none of them knew anything or would tell her anything. Then there was Deleon, Rylan's new superior.

***

"Where is he? Where is Rylan? You're his boss, you have to know," Lilea stood in Deleon's office, staring down at the plaque on his desk. She looked up tentatively. "Please, you have to know."

Deleon looked back at her, no compassion in his blue eyes. "You should not ask so many questions, Lilea," he said, "Rylan is fine, let him be."

"Can I just see him," Lilea pleaded, clutching at Deleon's desk. "I have to see him." Deleon kept staring at her, his eyes piercingly cold. He did not say anything. Anger flared inside of Lilea, and she swiped her hands across the desk causing everything on it to spill onto the ground. "TELL ME." Her voice rose into a shout. Deleon's impassive face twisted. He rose from his chair, reaching for the knife in his belt.

***

Rylan picked up his mop and moved away from Lilea.

"It's happening again," Lilea said. Rylan stopped and looked back. "I've seen it. I have to know what it is. I have to know what they did to you." Rylan studied Lilea, his head tilted slightly to one side. He shook is head again and shuffled off with his mop to another room. Lilea stood there alone once more. Her body was shaking from the assault of suppressed memories still flashing across her mind. She felt the brooch that concealed one of Bezilda's cameras on her shirt. It was about time that she got some proof.