The Rise and Fall

4 - Disturbing Memories

Emiliana had never slept so well before in her life. No nightmares or horrors snapped her from the dreamworld, causing her to wake up screaming or hyperventilating as they usually did. No. Today, nature allowed her sleep so heavily that when she awoke, she was still a little tipsy with fatigue having been so drunk on it before.

It took her a while to notice her surroundings. Though there wasn't exactly much, to be honest. She was in a circular room, constructed of irregular stones that sat on top of one another with no apparent signs of an adhesive holding them together. The floor was cold and hard but smooth like concrete and when she looked towards the side of the room where the low light appeared to be bleeding from, she saw a barred door like the one's in the palace dungeons. The darkening blue sky beckoned her forward, though it seemed completely out of reach and closed off by the rough, steel bars. In spite of this, she moved forward anyway, only to be dragged back like she had by the Fallen Angel back upon The Cloud. When she turned around, she noticed two thick, steel chains linked up to a round metal ring that was stuck between the stones of the wall. Her wings felt restricted and she soon realised that they were cuffed by shackles on the chains at the seams of her wings, just where they protruded from her back.

She struggled to move forward against the shackles, craning her neck to peer at what she could through the steel bars, but only the dark blue of the sky and few cotton bud clouds were visible.

What she didn't know was that she had been locked up in a tower that stretched up into the clouds for about seventy feet, a tall spire twisting into the sky just above the ceiling of her sky-high cell. Below was a large town that was inhabited by hundreds, possibly evens thousands of Fallen Angels, all crowding in the square as the Fallen Leaders readied themselves to produce to their people, the one angel that was feared amongst them all.

Emiliana was lent up against the wall beside that metal ring that disallowed her any movement forwards towards the cell door. The way her wings were shackled meant that she was sat at an awkward and somewhat painful angle, but she continued to hurl small rocks at the bars of the door as light entertainment. She'd already checked for her knife and bow, but both had been removed along with her remaining arrows.

I should not be here, she thought to herself, still trying to retain some pride in herself. So what she'd been a little careless? That didn't mean that the Highest was right in saying she'd needed accomplices. She worked alone, even now. Even when she escaped from wherever this place was, she would continue to go solo on every mission.

Little murmurs of voices began to bleed in through the bars and Emiliana's ears and eyes both pricked up at the sound. People. She stood up and readied herself for an attack as two Fallen Angels fluttered up to the door and looked through the bars, their eyes filled with malicious and victorious intent. One slotted an aged, blackened key into the lock and turned it slowly and mockingly with his index finger and thumb. Emiliana's eyebrows dipped forward and her eyes glinted with anger, her blood searing as murderous thoughts flashed through her mind.

The door swung back on its hinges and made a sharp clattering sound as it knocked against the interior stone walls of the cell. Both angels touched their bare feet down onto the cool cell floor and stepped away from the door that ultimately led to a certain death if a simple human walked out of it right now. Emiliana overestimated the distance that she could travel after she'd lunged at the boy who's name she believed was Leo. His eyes simply watched her, boredom set in them, raising his eyebrows a little and dipping his chin.

Emiliana drew back and calculated the distance that she could travel and the distance that he stood from her optimum position. Perhaps... Soon enough, she lunged again, but this time, she lifted up her leg and shot it straight into Leo's thigh, sending him backwards in surprise. His friend had to steady him as the edge of his heel stepped over the floor's edge, out of the door, but he shook him away instantly and stared at the small girl that had re-positioned herself and was blowing a strand of white hair out of her face.