Paradise End

5 - Present

"Why? W-Why didn't you collect their souls? Why did you abandon our orders!?" His voice rose beneath the sound of howling wind atop the mountain. Another angel lay in front of him, propped up by an obsidian monolith as the former kneeled beside limp golden-brown wings on full display. The golden angel's chest lifted and fell in heavy slow moments, each one breaking apart new shards of glass in the former's mind. He leaned forward, an unfamiliar tremble running up and down his numb hands and legs. What was this?

"Why?" Razael uttered, "Why didn't you just do as we were told?"

The angel against the monolith coughed, sputtering ruby red to the side of him, "Razael," He muttered gently between labored breaths, "Have you ever wondered if there was something more to them? More to the soul than their memories?"

"I-I don't understand..."

A slight smile crept up the side of the golden angel's cheek, chaos rumbling overhead in the dark evening sky. "Of course," He whispered, "Raz, there's more to them than you'll ever see with that left eye of yours. More than their life, more than their memories, more than their time, and more than their debt. More than anything that you or I will ever be able to know; They're human," He said. "And there's nothing that can ever equal them. They're more powerful than any of us will ever be. They're so different from us. But there's something you need to know- "he strained, "They deserve to live." said a voice in the wind.

~                                                                ~                                                             ~

Opening a wide door through the side of a pizzeria's alleyway, a translucent portal opened along the side of the brick. Like a zipper, it extended open, revealing the way into someplace strange, someplace beyond, somewhere forgotten. As the circle opened wider, it's rims emanating a silvery-green glow, Razael lowered his head, ducking into the opening. 

Letting his eyes drift over his surroundings, the brick alleyway he paused in paralleled the one before, a different crowd gathering along the streets at the end. The portal shut spontaneously behind him, emitting a melodic groan. He pressed on, turning onto the streets amidst wandering souls, and all their broken things.

Word by word, step by step, the old man's words played in the back of Razael's mind on loop as he stepped down the cobblestone road. Locked in a cycle in his head, he turned it over in his thoughts gently, like the careful examination of an irreplaceable glass menagerie; "Your eyes – they're softer."

Razael released a lofty sigh. What could the old man have possibly meant? Could they really... be what humans would describe as soft? If that was the case, then what did it mean? He scowled. Humans could be so loose with their words, it vexed him to no end.

The walk back was hushed, the sound of the rain now reduced to a faint drizzle. The angel meandered across the main road, the absence doing little to send warmth into his fingers again. All along the edges of the street, souls continued to gather by the sidelines in droves, some trying to sell their business with what little they had left to sell, others trying to buy with what little they had left to buy. Each step Razael took a stranger one than the one before, each soul he passed by averting their eyes at the sight of him.

Stares prickled all along his senses. Whispers accompanied some of the crowd while others merely stepped out of his way, creating an all too strange wave affect among the gathering.

As he neared two long gates, his feet fell to a standstill. At the end of the block, where most of the bustling life found its center, high marble stairs stretched luxuriously up to a grand dome hall overlooking the square below.