I was kneeling down at the opening to the portal. Demons and demonesses walking by peered at me when they thought I wasn't looking. They also whispered about me, whether they thought I heard or not.
We were all on edge. We could all feel the shift in the atmosphere as reality was being morphed. An angel of light falling through realms and realities, being slowly contorted into a creature of darkness, would do that. It changed everything on a cosmic scale.
I was in a weird state of mind. I was seething, but at the same time I was numb. I was depressed. I was anxious. But most of the feelings weren't really there, they were like echoes, or ghosts of feelings. I mostly just felt numb.
It was the sixth day since I'd been waiting here. She felt closer. Immensely closer, as if she were already here, sitting right next to me.
I looked up into the portal enclosure just in case. Of course she wasn't here I chastised myself. There would have been more commotion.
The portal was enclosed, and not because of new angels falling through. That hadn't happened since the beginning of time. No, it was because Lucifer liked to use it as a sort of "time-out corner" when his men acted up. For original demons, it was torture to be so close to heaven, to what used to be, but yet so far away. For some demons, though, it was torture because the fact that they were so close to heaven, which they despise. Some demons miss heaven, some demons despise it. Me? I couldn't care less.
Deep into my thoughts, I almost drifted off until faint tremors began vibrating through Hell's core.
I jumped to full alertness. I stood up, but then fell back on my ass again when another tremor shook the ground.
Then all Hell broke loose, no pun intended. Smoke began filling up the portal, so thickly I couldn't see an inch in front of my face. The shaking intensified even more than I thought was physically possible, so much so that I was starting to get sick and dizzy.
Young demonesses began cheering with their girlfriends, getting wild off the chaos. And then as abruptly as it had begun, it had stopped. I fell back from the sudden stop, and it took me a few seconds to recover my equilibrium.
When I did, I rushed to the center of the portal. I had never been inside before, but now I felt a weight of sorrow, the sorrow of the billions of demons who had come before me.
The smoke was clearing, and finally I found what I had been looking for. A naked body, curled up in the fatal position, black feathered wings, bent and broken, long onyx hair covering her upper body.
I dropped to my knees, weighed down by all the emotions bombarding me. My eyes stung, and then a drop of something wet rolled down my cheeks. Was I crying? I had never cried before.
I swept my hand over her silky hair. It still had that baby soft feel that angels had.
"Clariana?" I whispered. She seemed so fragile, as if I spoke too loud or didn't touch her gently enough, she would shatter until there was nothing left of her to fix.
She began to move slowly, lifting her head inch by inch, until her hair framed her face and swept over her breasts. If this were any other situation, I would've taken advantage and glanced hungrily at the sight of her black hair against her pale skin. But all I cared about at the moment was her.
Finally she raised her eyes to me, and I was excited to finally get to see the color of her eyes, which would tell me which sin demon she was. But I was not expecting to see the color that I saw.
