Fallen From Grace (#Wattys2017)

Chapter XVI

Have you ever thought, how would you describe an emotion to someone who has never felt it before? Like you are trying make a toddler understand what joy was, what pain was, what grief was? The human mind so complex, and it feels such a wide range of emotions, you as a maturing person, understand what you are feeling and why you are feeling that way, but do you have the words to explain to someone who has never felt so before?

Now, try describing the emotion commonly associated with depression and called 'grief'. Describe how the grief would feel when you find out that your best friend is dying, due to stage 3 cancer that wasn't there until last month.

Let me tell you how it would feel.

Grief. Feels like emptiness in you heart, a shear of nothingness that somehow takes over and holds your soul and threatens to kill you entirely. It gives you this heavy feeling that's like the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders and there is nothing you can do to get out from under it. Its like this hole in your heart that is the shape of the one you lost and that makes you feel the need to wipe away any non-existent tears that you want to form, but can't.

Do you understand what I am saying here? Describing human emotions isn't easy. Understanding them isn't easy. Feeling them is most definitely not easy.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of the white haired girl. The girl who had so much to look forward to. Who had ambitions, and dreams, and a plan. The girl, who finally thought, she found her purpose. Imagine how she felt when she learned that she wouldn't get the chance to go to University like she wished, she wouldn't graduate like she wanted, she wouldn't become a doctor like she envisioned, and she wouldn't settle down with the ideal man and have a family of her own like she dreamed.

Loss...is painstakingly hard and no one is a stranger it.

**

The apartment was silent, the clock ticking by the seconds that passed, the seconds that brought her closer to her demise. The jingling of keys could be heard outside the door as the right one was fitted into the slot, turning the lock open with a distinctive click. The door swung open as Eleanora's footsteps resonated through the foyer, her light feet being drowned out by the heavy boots that thudded against the flooring.

Placing her belongings away, Eleanora leaned against her window sill, looking over her shoulder and out at the white sidewalk that resided beneath her. It was silent.

Apollyon sat down on the sofa, feeling extremely drained but not being able to rest. He wracked his mind, salvaging every little moment he shared with her. He went back in time in his mind, starting from when they woke up together, with her admonishing him to get out of bed and get dressed for school. All the projects they worked on together, their weekends off. Then he traveled back a little more, to the day he arrived at her door, battered and bruised and bleeding.

Closing his eyes, his thought drifted further back, to when he was the Devil, but his memories came to a sudden halt at a pair of beady dark brown eyes, glowering down at him.

'Just get it over with.' Apollyon heard his voice groan in pain. 'And tell Eleanora that I apologize for failing her. If anything, then give her a quick and painless death, too.'

He recalled the devious glint in his brother's eyes as he looked down at him. A look that haunted him in his dreams.

'Killing her isn't our problem anymore. Her days are already numbered. She is, after all, a mere human.' Micheal's voice echoed in his skull, growing louder as his head pounded. 'I'm going to take your most precious gift away from you, Lucifer.' Micheal grinned just as the blade came down at him