pulse // supernatural

thick fog

It becomes a game, you see, how many different versions of heaven she can skip through before Jophiel or Miriam or, God help her, Zachariah show up and send her back. Most of the time she doesn't play seriously. She'll get distracted along the way, spend too much time in one place and not get very far at all. Occasionally, she takes on the challenge for real, and then it's more like random odds - they'll either find her in the first five heavens, or let her run up to fifteen before accosting her. They must have some way of telling which Heaven she's about to enter, because the more random turns she takes, the more likely she is to slip past them again.

The angels tire of the game quickly. Their sense of humour isn't the best. Theresa doesn't; she enjoys running, the thrill of the chase. She almost feels alive again, when her heart quickens and her breath catches in her throat, when she spots an angel and pushes herself to break-neck speed and doesn't slow down until the panic and mayhem fades from her veins.

The best part about Heaven is that you can never grow tired - she can run for days and days and so long as she is wily enough to avoid the angels, she could run forever.

Today, she is going for a record. Today, she will not be caught until she stops. Not even Zachariah will catch her this time (if she had her way, Zachariah would never catch her again regardless. What an awful being he was). She starts on the beach, as always, kicking at the waves as they roll in, wondering along until finally she blinks and she's in a seaside town, where a man is cleaning fish while children throw themselves off of the end of a jetty again and again. She'd linger to watch, but she doesn't have the time.

The scene changes when she ducks through a doorway, and again with a postcard. She's getting better and better at finding the right doors, at crossing other people's roads. It's too easy to fly through other heavens, like turning the pages of a book. Which is why she has to mess with the angels as well.

She makes it to some kind of night club before she sees the first sign of an angel on her tail. The lights are low and there are bodies crammed into ever nook and cranny, as dark as the room itself. The base of a song she can't properly hear goes right through her, shaking her and pulling at her heart beat to follow time. She tries to ignore it. This is where she gets lost, confused by the ever-shifting walls of people that crowd around her, that hem her in. They ebb and surge like the waves of her beach, except that these waves do not break at her feet but swallow her whole, towering over her and threatening to drown her.

The angel is just a flash of white between people, obviously not dressed for this kind of party, and she knows it's them because nothing in this place could possibly be so bright, not even the soul that owns it. She sees them at the same time they see her, and she knows this because they push forward, parting the crowd like it is nothing. Heart pounding, she looks for a road, pushing through the crowd with all her strength because every time she looks back, the angel is gaining on her.

A door leads her to a forest, full of tall trees and dappled light. She locks it behind her, jams it up with an old branch, and then she runs, ducking between the trees and heading in no particular direction. Forests are always hard - there aren't any obvious doors of roads to other places, and she's yet to learn the trick to getting out of them quickly. Hearing water, she turns towards the sound and finds a creek to follow. Waterways are good. They often serve as roads to other places, and eventually the garden. Almost as much as actual roads, in fact, excluding deer paths and bridges. 

In a park, she slows down, momentarily distracted by a couple holding hands. One is brighter than the other. For a minute, she is reminded of Aaron - somewhere in her Heaven, she has a park like this to wander through, though she doesn't visit it often.

The park leads to a bus stop, which leads to a hotel, where a balcony lands her halfway up a mountain. There's rock and a few scraggly trees around her, and the rest of the world is fog. For a minute, she stares into the unknown, and idly wonders what would happen if she jumped. She doesn't try it though, not today, just follows a little threadbare path up and up and up. The silence is eerie. Nothing stirs; not even the dirt under her feet as she walks. She'd have to be near the top or another heaven by now, surely, but the path just keeps going.

Eventually, the path levels and two trees spring up out of the fog, just dark shapes with spindly arms that spread towards the sky. There's a third barely visible in the white, just an indistinct shape, and she angles towards it so that she will not get lost. The path curves towards it anyway, its twisted, meandering way abandoned on the hillside in favour of a straight line. She keeps her eyes mainly on the ground anyway to ensure she does not wander.

When she looks up again, she is close enough to realise her mistake, and too close to fix it.

There's someone standing in the middle of the path ahead, a tall, thin figure that seems so frozen in place it's no wonder she mistook them for a tree. If it's an angel, then it's not one that she knows - not Jophiel's stock build, nor Zachariah or Miriam, who are both much too short. Perhaps it is the soul that owns this heaven? She's yet to even see a sign of their existence, whoever they are.

She's almost convinced that yes, it must be another soul - to the point where she stakes a step forward - when she realises just how bright they are. And then she remembers the angel in the night club, and her stomach drops. She's never seen a soul this bright before. Never an angel either, but they were the closest.

Theresa stops, and backs away slowly. Perhaps this newcomer will let her go. But no, as she puts distance between them, the angel moves towards her, easily shortening the space. A man looms out of the fog, tall and dark despite his pale skin, eyes unblinking. Mist curls from his mouth with every exhale, like he breathed out this entire fog bank. When his frown deepens, the clouds darken and thunder rumbles in the distance.

Feeling wet grass beneath her feet, she stops and looks behind her. She's come very close to the edge. The angel catches her quickly then.

"Stop," he says, the crack of lighting echoing behind him, and she does. This is not Miriam, who is hard but will not act on whatever words she says. Nor is this Zachariah, who fancies himself powerful but is really just petty, his ambition making it hard to actually be scared of him. This angel exudes power just by being, speaks like he is used to being listened to. Even the thunder answers to him.

For once, Theresa has nothing to say.

"Go home," he orders. His eyes flash like lightning, and for a moment she could swear she smells burning ozone in the air. She blinks, and suddenly they are standing back on her damned beach.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks.

He strides closer, eyes dark and face drawn. If she wasn't already aware that this is someone important, she is now - it is obvious in the way he carries himself. He's a man with purpose, with places to be and wars to wage. Except that he is no man at all, but an angel, and one that has even her cowering at his feet.

She resolves to stop cowering at once. It does not suit her.

"Theresa," he says, and a shiver runs down her spine. His voice is terrifying, and yet draws you closer, makes you listen. She stands rooted to the spot, unable to decide if she should run or stay. Throughout all of her conflict, he watches her with a level gaze, calm on the surface but bubble with rage just below the skin. She can see it all in his eyes. "I have something for you."

From behind him, steps a little boy, clinging to the angel's hand. It's Toby, her son, who has been slowly fading away from her heaven ever since she settled on the beach. His disappearance was bittersweet - she loved him so, but at the same time, being alone made it easier to forget that she was dead. Heaven was much happier when you did not remember that everyone else was still alive.

This is not a memory replaying itself over and over though. For a minute she just stands there, frozen, and wonders if her son is dead too - but no, he is dull compared to herself and the other souls she has seen (and duller still next to the angel). This is something else, something the angels have conjured up.

"Mummy?" Toby asks, and the spell is broken.

"Toby?" she gasps all at once, realising suddenly that she has been holding her breath all this time. The angel lets go of his hand and the boy runs to her, and he feels so warm and alive that for a moment she closes her eyes and thinks maybe she is too. The angel is still there when her eyes open again though, as solemn as ever, a constant reminder that she is not alive and neither is this child.

"Rest, now," the angel says when she meets his eyes again. She will make no promises, but she does not turn away either, and this apparently is enough for him. He disappears, the soft rustle of feathers the only indication of his passage.

She turns back to her son. For a while, she is content.