Demons

Heaven and Hell

With a groan, Lilliana's eyes fluttered open, seeing the strangely dark room. She sat up, rubbing her head as her eyes adjusted to the darkness whilst the sight of a halo on the floor jolted her memory.

Frantically looking around for her comrade yet he was nowhere in sight. That's when everything hit her, the memories. The last one being her body thrown into a wall then just blackness, only sounds in the darkness such as grunts and groans of a fight, then nothing.

She racked her brain for what could have happened, only seeing one solution to her problem or at least an answer of what could have happened.

Looking towards the swirling portal of white and golden yellow with a sigh. She reluctantly stands, wincing in pain as she uses the wall for support. She glances down at her arm to find her black veins had spread to her upper body as well as halfway up her face, accents suck as freckles and such had been turned to a pitch black.

She staggered over to the swirling vortex, taking a wheezing breath before taking the step into the portal. The action was much harder than she had originally anticipated, having to push her way through the portal.

Going through a portal for the first time was an intense experience yet she didn't believe it would hurt as much as it did. She screamed, feeling the flesh of her back ripping, the cracking of what sounded like bones. Something was coming out of her, protruding from her back, blood dribbling from the two new attachments to her body, wings.

Finally stumbling out of the portal and onto the ashy marble floor. Grunting, she sat up and lifted her head to gaze upon what should have been a beautiful kingdom yet it was not as she had expected. Instead of the glowing kingdom, in its place was an ash filled sky, covering the once periwinkle blue sky.

The tall kingdom had been degraded to a crumbled castle, the light grey blocks of smooth concrete was scattered around the kingdom in jagged pieces of sharp stone. Whilst the once pristine stained glass was shattered within the crumbled building.

Once a grand oak had been burned to the stump, whilst others such as silver and red maple had been-what looked like-ripped from the ground, lying lifelessly on the cratered ground.

Tears filled her eyes, a gasp ripping from her suddenly dry throat. An unexpected hopelessness, sorrow at the sight. She looked around the barren city with blurry vision.

Staggering to her feet, she managed to hold onto a surprisingly large piece of stone to support her wary body and making out a water feature within the debris, a fountain.

Wobbling over to the only immaculate feature, slowly dragging her fingertips over the stone. 'What happened here?'

At her question, the fountain lit up with a heavenly glow. The water moved on its own, floating above the fountain in patterns, changing colours in to images of some sort as if answering her question.

First, angels frolicking in a pristine heaven, the beautiful City of Gold it once was. Then darkness, a shadow enshrouding the city, angles flying away in fear some readying weapons and armour. Yet sadly things hadn't gone well.

The next image was horrible, hundreds, thousands of angels chained to the walls within a dungeon only to be taken down shortly after, beaten to submission. Their white glow had dimmed, slowly darkening until their wings were pitch black.

Angel after angel til there was only one left, Raziel. He had lasted the longest though even he could not last, slowly becoming dull like the rest. As if there was no hope left, he came. God, the holy being came down in all his glory the small demon running in fear. Raziel lifelessly looked towards the being, he had such a bright glow yet he was transparent. He smiled to the zombie like angel, giving his last command, to save the last angel.

Then he was gone, his spirit had been slowly transferred into Raziel. Now that the last of god had disappeared, Raziel finally woke up, blinking as the command had been registered and that now, god was gone.

Just as the flashback was ending a sphere had shot its way through the water. This sphere of black and red was eerily familiar. She scowled, turning around to see none other than Adriel.

'How could you?!' She yelled, after seeing what he had done she was outrage her wings spreading out to their full length yet sadly one was turning a slight grey. She ignored it, flapping her wings to lift off the ground in one swoop, keeping herself hovering above the ground.

Adriel smirked, his own wings spreading out. 'Aha! Finally, a real challenge.'

'Answer me!' She screamed, her voice echoing throughout the city as she flew at light speed towards him.

He only chuckled, moving aside whilst she flew past him. 'Or not. You still can't do much.'

Lilliana scowl at the smug smirk he held, shoving his hands in his pockets as he hovered in mid-air. Once again, flying towards him as fast as her fragile wings could take, unfortunately the same thing happened. This time through he had gripped her wrist after taking his hand out of his pocket.

He sighed. 'And to think that this was going to last longer.' Was his last word before harshly throwing her into a red and black swirling vortex, much like the portal she had come through yet only this was much worse.

She thought that going into heaven hurt, with growing wings and all. But oh no, this was so much worse. Her once pristine left wing had begun fading to a musty grey before deteriorating to a pitch black, much like her other features of the left side of her body. Her wing had lost all of its feathers yet the skin was black and felt like scales or at least reptilian. 

The searing pain was finally over when she landed on all fours of the disgusting, unhealthy soil. She looked up to see the burning, lava filled land. Yet she didn't have the chance to look around as she was pulled to her feet by her wrist. She stumbled at first, once again not have any chance to do much as she was harshly yanked over to a jagged cobblestone wall where chains hung. She was clipped into the handcuffs, left hanging on the wall like a piece of meat.

She had recovered only little yet it was enough to give her the strength to lift her head, looking around. In the almost empty cell of-what looked like-a dungeon of some sort. It seemed strange, that she had just now realised there was another person in the cell.

Even though her face wasn't seen, there was something eerily familiar about him. If it was the black hair or the wing made of bone and rotten flesh. But she was almost 100% sure that it was Raziel. Whispering his name a couple times, increasingly getting louder with each time yet when he didn't answer she was worried. He was unconscious, there was now nothing she could do but wait, wait as the corruption slowly spread throughout her body.