When Angels Fall [GXG]

Chapter 13

**Trigger warning: implied self-harm

The trek back to Abigail's place is a slow and miserable one. There is leftover debris in Sofiel's hair. Her shirt is torn, tattered to pieces, and her jeans are ruined for good. When she takes her first couple steps into the apartment, she tracks in dirt and grime that she knows will be a bother to clean off.

But that is honestly the least of Sofiel's worries.

Her right shoulder is still throbbing faintly, a dull reminder to the agony she was put through just mere hours ago. Albeit, it's thankfully a lot more bearable now.

She had lain there in a pile of rubble, staring up at the steel sky of the empty warehouse she'd broken through for what felt like an eternity. Though, in actuality, it had only been minutes.

Sofiel had felt winded and tired. Each time she so much as moved her wings, the sharp-shooting pain would come back at full force, causing her to keen over onto her knees. When it finally did subside enough for her to haul herself up to her feet, she couldn't help the crazed, slightly manic – self-deprecating – laughter from bubbling up within her.

She fell.

She actually fell.

Twice.

Granted, the second time didn't actually hurt as much. In fact, it hadn't hurt at all apart from the growing stigma on her back. But lying there, prone, still and helpless in the wreckage of her crash; for a moment, it almost felt like the rest of her body was plagued by phantom aches. Her tongue swathed with the thick, acrid taste of ichor in her mouth – the familiarity of her situation hurting all the same.

It had made Sofiel want to dry heave and barf.

Because, she knows, there's no such thing as coincidences in this realm. Things don't just happen twice for no reason. Father has always been a being of little to no words, priding in the subtlety of actions over everything else instead. So, it can only mean one thing.

The heavens have spoken, and it didn't want Sofiel no more.

With that shattering realisation, she sits herself in front of Abigail's mirror for hours on end, knees pulled tight to her chest and arms hugging around herself. She forgoes changing out of her ragged clothes and taking a much-needed shower, and merely stares, watching her broken reflection with glazed, unseeing eyes.

To further rub salt into her wound, she can no longer fly.

If her fall from before wasn't evidence enough, a look in the mirror would show that the stigma has claimed the whole of her right wing. Gone are her feathers, left denuded and bare. Papery thin flesh stretches across the remnants of her warped wing, all wrinkled and coarse. It bears the colour of soot and corruption – its texture akin to burnt leather. It's grotesque. It's disgusting and it's every bit of an abomination to a celestial like Sofiel.

The welt behind her right shoulder has grown substantially as well. What had first started out as a mere spot. An indistinct smudge that could have been easily played off as a bruise of sorts has now fanned across the slope of her neck and the curve of her shoulder like a disease. Her skin splotchy and discoloured in the unbecoming shades of sin, as if blackened by rot. Beneath her flesh, she can feel the stigma thrum. As if lying in wait, bidding its time to feed upon her divinity – to turn her and brand the rest of her.

Sofiel lets out soundless sob and buries her face in her knees. She didn't cry then when she had first fallen out of heaven with Samael in tow. She didn't cry when her body was splintered and wrecked with all sorts of unimaginable pain as she laid, sprawled over concrete for time on end. Nor did she shed a single tear when she realised that help wasn't going to come and that she was irrevocably stuck in the mortal realm.