The Angel of Eden

deadly misunderstanding

"Auf wiedersehen, Alec." I told him feeling a pull in my lower stomach like a rubber band being tensed between me and my body before it released, yanking me with it back to wherever I was on earth.

Cold replaced warmth, my body shivering uncontrollably on the hard ground. My clothes having disappeared and the only allowance for clothing was a simple choker type necklace that felt as thick as a dog collar yet had a small box attached to the rough material. Smooth casing that shed a tiny blinking red light in the utter dark of the room.

"HELP!" I called but it came out weak and coarse. The chemical that had knocked me out stuck in my throat making me sway as I tried to stand. Well that and a painful throbbing between my legs followed by what I think was blood leaking from between my legs. I fell back and sobbed hard at my innocence being stolen from me without consent. The one thing about me that was holy and it was gone.

"God please help me. Please, God." I whimpered curling into a ball as my body started to ache in the worst way possible. The only sound the small click of electricity from the red light every few seconds. As hard as I tried, my body's pain wasn't allowing me to sleep. Instead I had to weep in a ball hoping the pain would ease sooner or later.

Chanting the same prayer over and over hoping he may ease it just a little. Loud muffled screams echoing around the room as the women in similar situations as myself began letting out gut wrenching sounds like dying animals. They were like whispers of what awaited me, and that scared me more than the darkness I was confined in.

What felt like days later, the only sound the screams that were my only human contact until suddenly a flood of light illuminated the room followed by very ear voices so loud I covered my ears and shut my eyes so they could adjust to the sudden changes. Through the muffling that I'd created I could just about understand the woman and man conversing and looking at me. My skin crawling with the knowledge I was nude, and the burn of their eyes almost worse than the fire that had been lit behind my closed lids even without opening them in the slightest.

"She is beautiful, yet soiled. Do your men have no control?" The woman snapped harshly at the second person.

"I assure you that she was soiled by a man before we found her in the hospital still drugged with some sort of inhalant tranquilizer. It's increasingly difficult to find pure ladies in this day in age without them being children." The man announced making me stifle a sob that my initial thought was wrong. I almost felt relieved that this wasn't the same man who had raped me.

"Information?" She asked with a half sigh half groan. Obviously angered by the news I had lost my innocence.

"Seraphina Marie Angelina, age 22, 4'11", and no tattoos or piercings beyond one in each ear." He listed making me shy away, peeking from under my eye lids and flinching at the still bright light that bent around the tall man and short woman with a halo of hair puffed up around her head like a helmet.

"Fine..... But I expect a discount for the damage." She groaned loudly before turning tail, the click of her heels on the hard ground before the man reached for the door. Suddenly darkness shadowed me as the door slammed shut with an audible skidding slam.

"God please... Please.... Just let me sleep." I sobbed backing myself into the nearest wall hoping for some semblance of warmth in the more confined area. Like the magic words I'd simply needed to utter, a sense of utter calm washed over me. A calm that could only be explained as a mixture of exhaustion and divine mercy.

Instead of my dreams of the void, it was replaced by opening my eyes into the same clearing I'd been previously with Alec. Laying against the bark of a tree the grass like feathers under my legs as a purely white dress covered me from nakedness. The sun beating down, warming without burning and the peace of the garden itself so different from the place I had been only seconds before.

"Seraphina, you've been gone for a long while." Alec mentioned, landing gracefully from the sky above with the same easy curiosity as before. The fiery whip replaced by a leather arm guard that wound up to his bicep with strange writing I couldn't understand along the outer leather.

"Hello, Alec." Choking out a forced laugh I leaned more against the tree I had appeared at the base of that reached into the sky above me and obscuring my view of the blue sky.

"You've changed...... You were in pain?" He asked looking at my face like I could read a good book. Completely enthralled with figuring it out as I skim over the words.

"On earth..... I was.... Taken by force." I muttered not wanting to say it outright least I break into tears in front of an angel who I've only known two days.

"I apologize. I opened a window to earth in your absence, I saw your physical pains. I was referring to your soul in pained, emotionally." He nodded thoughtfully before offering me a hand to stand up. I took his soft hand and immediately felt overwhelming calm from the contact of his skin on mine.

He led me soundlessly through the maze of free growing trees and bushes with no apparent path. Though somehow I got an impression that he had walked the entirety of the garden in his time. I followed without question.

When I saw a peek of the sky above the tree canopy I stopped in place. Gawking into the small space that revealed the HUGE tree we were walking towards.

"Is that...... It's beautiful." I murmured looking up and suddenly the opening in the leaves closed. Obscuring my view of the amazing tree. I snapped from my amazement and found a narrow eyed angel who's leather bracelet had long altered to the handle of a dagger.

"I knew it..... You come to steal of the tree as everyone else." He snapped, the dagger growing slowly as he seemed to convince himself of the truth he thought he was speaking.

"Alec, whatever I did to make you believe that-" I began, but a soft humming stopped me. Obviously him having heard it as well but instead of looking to the sky where I had heard it orginate, he looked to his right hand where the leather had turned an ashen gray and stopped growing despite his obvious anger that caused it to begin to grow.

"What's happened? What was that sound?" I asked stepping closer despite how he looked moments before I still considered by his side the safest place to be.

"The tree of knowledge. Unlike what most believe, it's an intelligent being who speaks and thinks alike to myself." He told me waving to the portion of the trees that covered the tree's image that had astounded me moments ago to find the magnificently huge tree glowing a deep purple against the blue sky as another vibration came through the air.

"What's she saying?" I wondered hardly noticing i'd called a tree a gender rather than it.

"Not to lay a hand on you, least I be bound by it's roots. Apparently it's taken a liking you." He told me monotously, yet a small wrinkle beside his eyes made it apparent that he was slightly angered by the order.

"Why? I'm not exactly the purest person in the world...." I trailed off curiously looking to the tree as she seemed to radiate beauty and power outward.

"It says you are pretty for a human soul." He sneered in a very human way and kept walking on the same course we had been going.