The Unheavenly Angel

Ch 4: Attacked by the Good, Saved by the Bad

I walked through the woods with two empty pizza boxes and a set of throwing knives.

There were a lot of benefits to living in a rural area, particularly if one was lucky enough to live by a wooded area. The trees behind my house expanded for several miles, and was owned by a nearby farmer. He'd used it as hunting grounds in the past, and carved in trails to make it easier to travel through.

In his old age, he'd stopped making the trips and was happy to allow me to trek through it. He'd also learned to deny access to hunters after one nearly shot me in the neck a year ago.

It had taken me a while to warm up to the woods. I was a city kid before moving to Acker and walking through the woods while constantly getting my clothes and hair snagged on branches was enough to make me despise the woods and everything in it. But I had needed a place to practice knife throwing; there was no way I was going to do it where Mo might see me.

Ryan had dragged me out to the woods while thinking I was the luckiest kid in the world because I had 24-hour access to a woods when he was living in town. The first time I practiced with throwing knives, I didn't hit my target once; though I did accidentally slit Ryan's cheek. After that, he had me stop practicing for the day and decided to  hang out under an old oak tree.

At first I didn't get the appeal. Just sitting there? Without talking to each other or texting? So boring.

But while sitting under the tree and staring off into the distance, I was finally forced to stay in my own head. The woods were peaceful and calming, but without the outside distractions I was used to—like phones, computers, or people—I started thinking.

And thinking lead to imagining. And imagining created colorful deaths caused by the teeth, claws, and venom of demons to fill my head. And that lead to me breaking down in an all-out sob fest that left Ryan, who considered smiling beyond his range of emotional understanding, awkwardly trying to figure out why I was balling and stop it.

I figured after that, Ryan would stop forcing me into that hell-hole, but he kept dragging me back in. After a month of cry-inducing thoughts, one day I came into the woods with slightly better aim and a fresher outlook. The thoughts came, but this time they were different.

I was plotting; I was thinking about how I was going to defeat the demons the next time they showed up. I was thinking about my family and how I could protect them. I was thinking about life and death and just...everything. And suddenly I turned to Ryan and said, "I get it now!" It was after that that Ryan and I actually started liking each other as friends and not despising each others existence.

I reached the point in the woods where we always practiced with throwing knives. Ryan would still occasionally come with me, not so much to teach, but to just relax in the woods. Today, however, he had to work extra hours at the gun shop and couldn't come along.

I took down the old, battered pizza boxes nailed into three trees that were equally spaced from each other and in a triangle formation. Using the hammer and nails from my backpack, I stuck the new pizza boxes on in their place. The pizza boxes provided a target to aim at and protection for the tree.

I got out my throwing knives, a set of ten ebony blades with perfectly sharpened tips. Then I started practicing, throwing all my knives into one pizza box, then unsticking them and throwing them at another pizza box. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Knife throwing was all muscle memory to me now, so I practiced now to keep in shape and come up with new moves and techniques. But today, I was using it more as a stress reliever. The experience with Isaiah had left me in a bad mood.

I was thinking of his stupid grin as I chucked all my knives at a target while backwards. One missed. Irritation welled up inside me as I went to retrieve it. But just as I was about to pick it up, I felt a surge of energy that made my finger freeze. No, it couldn't be the demons. They never attacked me twice in the same month, let alone the same day. I slowly straightened up and turned to the source of the energy.

It was a man. A beautiful man with glowing skin and blonde curls. He wore a suit with intricate little patterns and a purple tie. Being as this was the woods, this probably would have been the strangest thing about him were it not for his wings. Twice his size and gently encasing his figure, the wings burned a luminous white. I stared, unable to move. The man smiled a chilling smile. Then he attacked.

I tried to dodge, but he moved so fast that he was just a blur. He grabbed my wrists and lurched me up into the air. Up, up, up. I could see the tree tops and all the houses of Acker. I screamed, stuck between wanting to escape his grasp and fall or cling on. But then he dropped me.

I closed my eyes as I plummeted towards the earth, the air whipping around my clothes and hair and drowning out my screams. I flipped through the air as if trying to find something to prevent my coming death. I felt arms wrap around me, and I slowed down. Then I stopped completely. I opened my eyes and was met with a face I couldn't have been less pleased to see.

Isaiah.

Like my attacker, he had wings, but his were the color of soot and curled from decay.

He gave me a snarky grin and set me on the ground. With a wink, he flew back up into the air, where the angel was still circling like a vulture.

Isaiah shot upwards, closing the distance between him and the angel. Just as they were about to make impact, the angel shot rays of white flames from the palms of his hands at Isaiah, who barely managed to dodge them. They continued flying, the angel trying to shoot down Isaiah with his flames and occasionally hitting him, while Isaiah tried to get closer to the angel.

I didn't care to see who won. I was running, going as far away from there as physically possible for someone without wings to carry them.

Not long after, I could hear the hissing of flames overhead once more, and I looked up to see Isaiah wrap something around the angel's neck, choking him. The two tumbled through the air towards Earth until the angel shattered into pieces and vanished skyward. Isaiah made victory loops in the air. I kept running.

I yanked out one of my throwing knives from my pocket and pressed it to my lips. The angel may have vanished, but there was still the possibility of him coming back. I had no clue what a blessing would do against an angel. I feared very little, but it would still, hopefully, protect me from Isaiah.

My legs began to burn, and I was drenched with sweat when I looked up to see if I could spot either of them. When I couldn't, I decided to leaned against a tree to catch my breath.

"You can thank me for saving your life now."

I apologize for any mistakes, it's down-pouring here, and I wanted to get the chapter out before the power went out or did something weird... Anyway, please vote if you liked this chapter, and leave a comment if you have anything you want me to hear! Thanks for reading!