The angel

4

Night replaced the day, and Maria sat alone in her room, deep in thought. The faint sounds of celebration outside drifted in, a lively festival taking place beyond her walls. But it was the last thing she cared for. The noise, although distant, gnawed at her sensitive ears, and no matter how much she tried to block it out, it irritated her.

"Ah, damn it!" she muttered, slamming her fist onto the table in frustration. She leaned back in her chair, eyes wandering up to the ceiling, her mind heavy with thoughts. "After being gone for thousands of years, what really happened to the world?" she whispered to herself, almost as if expecting an answer from the silence surrounding her.

Closing her eyes, memories of her time in the void resurfaced. That strange, peaceful realm where nothing seemed to exist except the illusion of serenity. The skies were always clear, and an endless field of flowers bloomed under a golden light. It had felt like heaven—an untouched paradise where humanity was free of sin, where people bowed reverently to the gods and goddesses who ruled with wisdom and fairness. But that too had been nothing more than a cruel delusion—a prison, crafted by the gods to keep her, an angel who had been cast out from heaven, under their control.

The reality she now faced was far different. The world outside her window had crumbled, destroyed by war, chaos, and neglect. She had returned to a realm scarred by time and the bitter hand of divine cruelty. Her memories of the void, no matter how beautiful they seemed in retrospect, were a lie—a twisted dream meant to keep her complacent.

"Why did they cast me out?" she mused quietly, feeling the familiar sting of betrayal wash over her again. "What did I do to deserve being erased from history, left to rot while the world suffered?"

In that moment, the facade of the peaceful void shattered in her mind, and she could no longer deny the truth: she had been abandoned, and the world had been left to decay. The illusion of the gods' fairness was just that—an illusion. And she, once their servant, was nothing more than another pawn discarded in the grand game of their manipulations.

With a sigh, Maria stood up, her eyes turning to the night sky visible through the window. The stars were hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds, and the distant sounds of the festival continued to hum through the air. But all of it—the joy, the celebration—felt empty to her. The world she knew was long gone, and what remained was a fractured reality she barely recognized.

"I can't sit here anymore," she decided, pushing herself away from the table. "I have to understand what really happened... to me, to the world."

And with that thought, Maria knew she couldn't remain passive. There was too much at stake. Whatever the gods had planned, and whatever they had done to erase her presence from the world, she needed to uncover the truth. The time for sitting in the shadows of the past was over. It was time to face the future and confront whatever darkness lay ahead.

And yet, she remained there, unmoving, her body still while her mind churned through the chaos of the past. Maria sat back, her fingers hovering over the keys of her advanced laptop as video after video filled the screen. It had only been six thousand years since she disappeared, but the destruction and despair that unfolded during her absence weighed heavily on her. One particular video caught her eye.

It was footage of angels—heavenly beings like herself—being cast down from the skies in droves. They were exiled from the heavens, their wings torn asunder, their divine forms twisted by anger and pain as they fell to the earth. Upon landing, their bodies contorted, shifting into monstrous shapes that wreaked havoc on the earth, spreading terror among the human race.

In the midst of this celestial fall, one figure stood out. At the heart of the destruction, regal and proud, was the towering figure of Vlarion—the High God who had usurped the throne.