Entanglement

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Phil POV

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The sound was horrifying.

Wood collapsing, glass breaking, the shouts and screams of demons soaring into the air as Hell's office burst into violent flames.

A window above me shattered, the resulting glass fragments falling around Dan and I, one of them slicing against my hand. I gasped in reaction, looking down at the gash forming near my thumb. My eyes went to Dan as I pressed the wound against my gown, applying pressure while the skin patched itself up, though I barely cared about my own well being. I wanted to make sure my demon hadn't been hurt in the small explosion, and that he wouldn't be in the larger ones sure to come.

Once I looked him over and decided he was alright, my mind began to swim with terrible thoughts and questions. I'd had no idea it would get this bad; when we'd first arrived in Hell, I'd had no time to give any orders before angels were filing out around me, and soon, there were explosions and fires. We were destroying their homes, destroying their important landmarks. We were doing things that angels shouldn't be doing, and yet Korey didn't seem to care. I turned to Dan in a frenzy of near panic.

"We need to split," I rushed out, resisting the urge to reach out and grab his arm. His eyes were wide, and I could read the main question in them. How is this happening? It was the first day of the war, and yet somehow, the demons were already at a terrible disadvantage that seemed to grow only worse each passing second. "You need to go to Tyler and your demons and protect them. I need to slow down Heaven before this becomes genocide."

The word seemed to echo in the air around us. He nodded in understanding; we both knew that the possibility of this becoming impossibly out of hand could and would happen. Especially if the angels continued to not care.

Especially if someone got too angry.

I looked once more into Dan's eyes, noticing the fear clouding his vision. "I'll see you," I told him quietly, trying not to let any tears fall from my eyes. I was afraid, too, but I had to be strong. I had to get this to stop, because I knew that if I didn't, Dan would be hurt and some sort of history would be made.

With that, I spun to his left, picking up speed and running past him. I trusted that he would be able to find Tyler and remain securely at his side, and at the moment, I had to find Korey.

My intuition proved me right, as the angel was standing in front of the office building, watching with some sort of fascination in his eyes as the place continued to burn.

"Korey!" I snapped, stomping up to him. "What do you think you're doing?"

His eyes met mine, narrowing. "What do you mean? This is war, Phil, I'd assume you-"

"This isn't what we do," I stated, leaving no room for argument. "The plan was to steal their documents and resources, not incinerate them. Since when do we burn down their homes?"

"Since all of this got out of hand," Korey replied, and my eyes flicked to the side, where my vision caught demons attempting to salvage anything before the fire got even worse.

"You're the one who made this get out of hand," I told him, and a small part of me wished I could feel the same way he did. If only I didn't love a demon, then maybe I would be alright with our terrible actions, maybe my only goal would be to win this war. But I could see, being who I was, that this was not how we operated. A war had never been this violent before, and especially not on the angels' end. "Tyler and Dan said that they didn't want the war-"

"It was going to happen anyway, Phil," He retorted, despite how he knew I had no idea what that meant.

"That doesn't even make any sense!" I shouted, my voice raising as another explosion went off somewhere behind me. "We could have stopped this and tried even harder to compromise-"