The Battle Within An Angel

Seven | Maddox & Claire

Claire and Maddox had talked for quite some time under the dazzling stars of the night, though they were hardly visible due to the dark clouds above their heads. It seemed as if they were drawn together by fate as time progressed. From what Maddox recalled, Claire had no family left. He didn't know how to help, and when offering her his own story, she rejected it, saying "You don't have to tell me everything. Geez, we just met."

It wasn't long after that in the midst of the free-for-all that had now defined Arizona, much like the rest of the world, that, to no surprise, a bomb detonated.

BOOM!

The clash of a grenade and muffled screams shook the ground beneath the two as they looked back to see a group of people destroyed by the remnants of war. Flames engulfed the stone walls that had been built by the few civilians who remained, eager to protect themselves from others for as long as they could.

The walls, along with everything that they had built in order to survive, crumbled to the ground. The cries of a mother over her child were unbearable for Claire to hear, but for Maddox, it had all become too common. The screams, the loud creaking noises that were made as things were shattered.

"Come on, I have to get you somewhere safe." Maddox stood rather quickly and fell back down as he held onto his back, wailing in pain on the sand. "Oh my God, are you okay?" Claire reached down, trying to lift Maddox off of his back.

"I-OUCH!" Maddox screamed as Claire's hand grazed lightly over his back, hardly touching him. It was only then that she realized what was happening.

Pulling back away from him in complete shock, she looked at him in fear that could not be falsified.

"Maddox,"

"What?" He looked up at her, his eyes pleading for help. His adrenaline rush had come to a standstill as his heart dropped to his stomach, waiting what seemed like hours for a response from Claire.

"You have wings."

"Wh-what?"

Maddox turned his head to see the fully grown, white, feathered wings attached permanently to his back that tore his shirt in half as they stretched out behind him.

"How did-"

"Shh, shh." Claire put a finger to Maddox's mouth, quieting him as she heard car engines and motorcycles roaring in the near distance.

"Chaos,"  she mumbled. "Come on, Maddox. We have to leave. Now."

Wrapping her arms tightly around Maddox, she lifted him off of the ground and helped him to his feet, rushing away from Chaos, both the group and chaotic danger in itself. When the anarchist group, deeming themselves a militia, picked "Chaos" as their official name, they couldn't have been more accurate.

They've been searching for Claire for about five months now, though she hasn't figured out why. Through propaganda posted on rubble, makeshift bomb shelters, and old shacks of homes, the only information that Claire has gathered being Chaos's belief that she was the only daughter of a powerful, ancient deity.

"Yeah, right," she often thought. "If my parents were anything close to deities, I wouldn't be living like I am. If they were ancient, they'd still be alive. How pathetic. The public will eat up anything anyone throws at them just because we're in the middle of a crisis."

"Chaos? That terrorist group that's been black-bagging people?"

Claire was snapped out of her thoughts by the question that Maddox halfheartedly asked.

"Uh, yeah." Claire kept her eyes on the distance in front of them, not wanting to turn around to see what lay behind. The engines roared closer than before, and Claire could only run so fast, and Maddox's weight added onto her only slowed down their speed.

Maddox had begun to break away from Claire's tight grasp around him as he tried to use his newly grown wings. The pain that he had endured had dulled away, and Maddox began to flap the feathery white wings that had become attached to his back.

He swerved side to side as his wings flapped nealy uncontrollably, but he was able to gain enough control to move forward and fly.

"Claire, get on my back."

"What?"

"Get on!"

Questioning but not desperate to get away, Claire jumped on Maddox, and he was able to flap his wings with full force against the backward pull of the wind. The group of anarchists followed closely behind, but all slowed down as they saw their target riding on the back of a man with fully grown wings.

Chaos members wore military-style clothing, a dark green camouflage with "CHAOS" written across their chests. They had been recruiting new members to look for Claire, promising them a better life in an "uninhabited island" that hadn't been affected by the scorching hot sun, spare a few mutated animals. Such new members were only made this promise to increase their desire to stay with the group after being "black-bagged," as Maddox had called it.

Chaos members would stalk citizens for days before putting a cloth-lined black bag over their heads and kidnapping them.

Claire believed all of these innocent citizens who had been turned into monsters that searched for her were simply suffering from Stockholm syndrome as they fell in love with the idea of living in a place where buildings weren't burnt rubble, sand was seldom seen except for on the beach because clay dirt is still moist, and trees and animals were of abundance, all things which had been robbed from the rest of the world.

The belief in such a place was ridiculous. No place on Earth could escape the sun.

Maddox flew with grace over the darkened horizon, among the clouds that were filled with pollution. Though in the middle of a crisis, industries still insisted on continuing operations, lifting carbon emissions into the already too hot air.

Looking down from 100 feet above the Earth's surface was both stunning and terrifying, as groups of people huddled in a stand-still, attempting to rebuild bomb shelters and huts that had been torn down or destroyed.

Countless bodies were scattered among the burnt remains of the Earth, mostly civilians. Maddox knew two survival skills that civilians appeared to be oblivious to: travel alone or in pairs, and live as a nomad would. Always be prepared for the worst.

Maddox flew until Chaos were out of sight, and reached the ledge of an abandoned apartment building. It seemed as if it were likely to fall over at any point as clay bricks had fallen into piles on the ground from the foundation of the building, but Maddox deemed the place safe enough to land on.

Tumbling over as his feet touched the roof of the building, Maddox let Claire off of his back.

"Close call," he rubbed beads of sweat that had accumulated on his forehead and grinned at Claire.

"That it was."