Is her human life as normal as she thought it was? Of course, being able to see the dead never got anywhere as far as normalcy in our world. This is the story of a young woman who finds herself recalling her past in a very dramatic way, from seeing the supposedly dead to old memories haunting her dreams.
There are two worlds in existence in this universe, side by side and connected by the cycle of life and death. When a human dies, they are reincarnated as a demon or an angel in this other world. When a demon or an angel dies, they are reincarnated as humans. It is very rare when these two worlds merge, with a human being able to actually see and communicate with the angels and the demons. They truly know of the ongoing struggle for power between the two races, the wars that are now dividing a once great world. Demons and angels once lived in harmony, but are now the bitterest of enemies.
Will they ever be able to see reason?
This is the prologue, the introduction. One of the main character's strongest memories. Do you understand it, without me giving too much away? Or is it too vague to be an introduction to the story? That's what I ask of you lovely people. Please critique this introduction constructively, it is still a work in progress and almost nothing is set in stone.
There are two worlds in existence in this universe, side by side and connected by the cycle of life and death. When a human dies, they are reincarnated as a demon or an angel in this other world. When a demon or an angel dies, they are reincarnated as humans. It is very rare when these two worlds merge, with a human being able to actually see and communicate with the angels and the demons. They truly know of the ongoing struggle for power between the two races, the wars that are now dividing a once great world. Demons and angels once lived in harmony, but are now the bitterest of enemies.
Will they ever be able to see reason?
This is the prologue, the introduction. One of the main character's strongest memories. Do you understand it, without me giving too much away? Or is it too vague to be an introduction to the story? That's what I ask of you lovely people. Please critique this introduction constructively, it is still a work in progress and almost nothing is set in stone.
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angel dusk
i. Prologue
An untimely death.
She had never seen the sky so black before.
Rain clouds completely obscured the sun, tinting everything different shades of gray and making a very dismal scene. But would it have been any better if the sun were to shine? No, her heart would still be racing with fear and anxiety, she was sure.
"We're trapped, aren't we?" A young man asked quietly from her left. His features were unclear, but great black and white wings sprouted from his back, folded tightly against the gusting wind.
She nodded, "Yes. They have armies surrounding us in hiding, we can't do anything but wait for them to arrive, now."
The other made a noise in the back of his throat, obviously displeased at the thought of having been herded into a trap without realizing it. "Our only choice is to run, Aer, we can't fight them by ourselves."
Her voice began betraying her panic, her vision becoming blurred by tears. She blinked them away furiously, and tried to keep her voice quiet and even, "We can't run, we can’t fight, what other choice do we have?"
He shrugged reluctantly, "We know what they want, maybe I could just…"
That did it. "No! Absolutely not!" She shouted through the tears now streaming from her eyes, her cheeks red with fury. She spun around to face him, having turned away moments before. "You are not going with them, Lyric! That won't help Karia, and it certainly won't help either of us! I'll be damned to hell before I let them take you away!" Her little outburst left her in a furious state, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. She spun away from him again, stomping off in the opposite direction and back again, pacing.
Lyric watched her, backing up a bit each time she got within arm's reach of him. "Okay, all right, it was just an idea. I don't know what else to do."
She glared at him over her shoulder, "I don’t know either!" At that point another stage of her anger hit; sadness. She suddenly fell to her knees, with her back to him, and sobbed into her hands. "How could I have let this happen? I should have seen the trap, I should have forced you to go the other way, I should have hidden you better…," her rambling became harder and harder to understand, muffled by her hands and distorted by tears.
Lyric cautiously stood behind her, resting one hand on her shoulder. "Aer, it's my fault, I should have listened to you, I-," He got cut off by a sudden clap of deafening thunder. Aerynn cringed against him, the noise having scared her. She never did like thunderstorms.
As soon as the thunder disappeared, they were joined in the clearing by two others. She didn't see them enter, so she wasn't sure where they came from. What she did know, was that they made her blood boil.
The two men stood just a few yards away from them, their dark skin made even darker by the bad weather. Their faces were as much a blur as Lyrics was, and not because of her tears. It was like trying to recall a fuzzy memory. Upon realizing that their foes had arrived, she quickly tried to gather herself and stood up, using Lyric for support.
One of the men –the shorter of the two- laughed. "Seems like we missed something, here. What happened, angel?" he asked, using his much disliked pet name for Aerynn. She did not answer, merely glaring at him. He waited and continued, "Well, looks like we're not going to be civil then, are we? It's your choice. angel. We can do this the hard way, or the easy way." His eyes suddenly glowed red, a warning to the two of them that they didn't have much time to make a decision. Fight or flight? Aerynn glanced over at the second man, standing there with his arms over his chest in a very bored fashion.
Her instincts answered for her; fight.
She felt her muscles tense up and the familiar tug of power from herself to the pendant dangling from her neck intensified. Pure white wings emerged from her back and she braced herself to fight. Lyric had taken a battle stance as well, and it was clear the choice they had made.
The man with the glowing eyes barked a laugh, "Excellent!" He glanced up at his partner, waiting for orders from the superior demon. The nod he received was all he needed. Suddenly the short, burly man seemed to explode, taking the shape of a large bear in the blink of an eye. Anyone who saw this would know that the bear wasn't normal. It was as huge, towering over them with glowing red eyes, black fur, and sharp claws. The creature roared, charging at them with speed that only a demon cold manage.
They both immediately took to the air, trying to fly fast enough to where those claws couldn't reach them. She cried out in pain as one claw caught her leg, slicing the skin through the traditional Guardian uniform that she wore. Lyric's breath caught but relaxed again once he saw that she was all right.
Unfortunately, they couldn't get very far. The ground shook and spikes of rock and dirt flew up at them, forcing the two to separate. Aerynn managed to get a force field around herself to block the onslaught, but Lyric wasn't so lucky. He fell from the sky like a dead fly, catching himself on the upper branches of a tree before he hit the ground. There was blood dripping from his left wing where a spike had pierced him.
Instinct made her next decision for her yet again, dropping the force field and making a beeline for Lyric. As a guardian angel, she could not allow the bear demon to get her charge. Even after his death, he would always be her responsibility.
It was suddenly a race between her and the demon bear, seeing who could get to Lyric first. He made attempts to run himself, dropping from the tree and hiding among the forest, forgetting the hoards of imps and lower class demons that were waiting there. He bolted out from the trees, full out running around the bear and temporarily confusing him, only to run into bigger trouble; the other demon.
Lyric skidded to a halt, as did Aerynn in midair. Lyric had been stopped by a thick wall of ice, one that was slowly growing and sealing him inside a makeshift cage. He tried jumping over it, but the ice only grew to a height that he couldn't scale with a wounded wing. Her eyes widened in horror, "Lyric!" She shouted, diving towards his prison and into it just before the top sealed off. She fell to the ground with a thud, meeting his worried eyes with her own. "Are you all right? Let me see the wound!" She demanded, trying to summon some of her healing abilities in a short amount of time. She managed to seal the wound, but not heal it completely. He'd be able to fly short distances at a time, at least.
One wall of their ice prison shattered to pieces, shards raining on them as the bear swiped at it, cornering them. This time the bear was accompanied by the demon who had conjured up the ice, the more powerful one, one that she knew all too well. The demon was at least ten times stronger than the strongest angel she could think of. He watched them with his calm yet businesslike gaze, trapping them with his eyes. "It's no use. Even if you managed to get out of there, we'd catch you. Why do you even bother running?" He sounded genuinely curious, but a small crackle of ice blue energy was forming in his palm. Her heart was hammering, she could hear it and feel it. "Oh well. You won't be able to run soon anyway," and with that he aimed his attack at Lyric.
She jumped between the two of them faster than she'd ever moved before, effectively taking the blow herself.
"What the…?"
"Aerynn!"
"Holy s**t, didn’t see that coming."
"Aer, look at me, come on!...no." Slowly but surely the voices began to fade, and the scene around her along with them. The pain in her chest was overwhelming, she could feel something warm drenching her clothing, her heart rate slowing for the first time that day and her breathing relaxing, until her last exhale timed out with her last heartbeat.
Death was much more peaceful than she would have imagined.
