Fall of the Morning Star

I am falling. Or am I floating? Suspended, weightless as smoke, deafened by a ghostly screeching. White and grey puffs swim below, light and inviting, yet cold and clinging as I slide into them. I struggle with the vaporous force, muscles straining to lift a hand and touch my raw face. How long have I been here? A moment or an age, it is impossible to tell.

His words reverberate through my being, more real than the breath that holds me up even as it pushes me down. There is an aching void in my torso. Hollow and bottomless, it threatens to swallow me whole. You have defied me for the final time, my son, he whispered and gave birth to the thing that writhes, bounded, clawing to be released.

As hastily as the fog appeared it is gone, and I lament its passing. A vibrant artwork, resplendent, flat, and unreal sprawls beneath me in its place. My eyes ache, pierced by the crude explosion of colour and blaring daggers of the sun. Gone is the ethereal glow, the golden aura of His grace through which I viewed the worlds. I am abandoned, my only companion this burning creature that rips at my throat and chest, sending waves of fire through my body.

New life pumps in my chest, a rhythmic drum pounding in my ears. Even the air rushing past as I descend cannot drown out the incessant beating. I am going mad, I think. But it is worse, far worse. I arch my back and cry out. The air whips the sounds from my opened mouth, gobbling them up as if they never were. I tumble over onto my back, the peace of the clouds mocking from high above.

Scarlet ribbons stream around me, rising to Heaven as I continue my descent into corporeality and insanity. I ignore the biting pain, gnawing into my shoulder blades and reach out. The spell is disrupted, ruby droplets bouncing and breaking against my pale fingers. Digits explore further, stretching to uncover the source of fierce agony. They find the flapping lips of a wound where an onyx wing had once been.

With grim determination, straining against the blasting wind, I crane my neck to the side. My brothers surround me, some higher, some lower, but each contorted figure fighting a silent battle. How did it come to this? The pang of regret is fleeting, swallowed by a fresh sensation, a black burning in my chest that throbs, growing with each beat of my heart. Grief and fear shrivel in its wake. I breathe into it, willing the darkness to give me strength for what I know must come.

I twist, legs and arms spiralling outward, and watch as the earth rushes towards us. It will not be long now. The grace is draining from my body like sand, trickling onto the rolling shades of green below. The solidity of transmutation weighs me down, the burden of flesh and blood drawing me under. I clench my jaw and embrace the growing shadow with each passing moment, willing it to fill me up and empty me out. A pyre has been lit, flaming, searing my veins as crimson liquid flows to the extremities of this loathsome form. We may have been thrust from Heaven, but He will be the one who suffers. His creations will be the bodies on the fire, thrashing as the inferno transforms flesh to dust. No longer will they look for me at the dawn.

Humanity will fear me in the night.