AFTER CRIMSON RAIN FELL

TW: drug addiction, suicide, gore.

I still remember it all.

Every waking moment.

Every time I close my eyes.

A burn so deep, searing itself into my soul as crimson rain fell out of the sky. The luster of their wings, of my wings, being burnt asunder. Turning our tender flesh created in the dawn of time with milk and honey into falling stars. Our cosmic vibrance being used as fuel for bombs of rage. His rage. His never-ending rage. Father’s rage.

All for a dream.

All for his dream.

All for father’s hope.

His hope that these little insects, these cockroaches slithering around in their own excrement would become more than just that. Instead, they created vast machines of destruction. Destroying his creations! Father’s creations! The earth, the water, the wind, the fire! And he put his faith in them? Over us? Over me?

I remember the look in his eyes when Samael rebelled, when Samael claimed what was ours by right, when Samael with righteous fury rang the halls of Heaven with a shout heard in the deepest clutches of the cosmos.

Father’s eyes burned with rage.

And his rage burned us all.

And yet, a demon cannot cry. Not in front of a rundown apartment building. To think, I was in the highest echelons of heaven as a watcher. A guardian of the gates. Overseeing the angels as they traversed through the planes of existence. And here I am, again a watcher. A hawk of hell looking for all our homegrown rebels. For those that break the laws, rules, pacts of hell. And many do, unsurprisingly.

At least angels had grace when they broke the rules. Demons are such a dramatic bunch. Always a power struggle here,  misunderstanding there. Interwoven webs of cunning dreamt up by the lowest urchin of the proverbial ladder of hell.

Demons think it’s perfectly normal to do their business in rundown apartment buildings. I can smell the shit from outside already. But I have a job to do. And that sense of duty has never left me even as a fucking demon.

I sighed and went through the front door.

The smell of alcohol and crushed-up powder already flared up into my nostrils. If it’s already this bad in my human form, how much worse could it get if I wasn’t?

“Hello! Can I help you?” an old man leaned on a dingy reception desk, grinning ear to ear showing his disgusting decaying teeth at me.

“Yes, you might be able to.” I replied, taking out a badge from my pocket. “I’m a private investigator working out of district six. I heard there’s some kids partying a little too rowdy here.”

“What’s that got to do with you, investigator?”

“A lot of things. You know rich folk? They get worried about their kids and then they send somebody to fetch them. I’m that somebody.” I managed to eke out a grin. One that is making me boil inside with anger.

“Oh I don’t know anything about-”

I took out a crisp hundred-dollar bill from my wallet and placed it on the reception desk.

“They’re on the third floor, end of the hallway on the right!” He blurted, snatching the hundred-dollar bill with his grubby fingers. It’s almost as if he was salivating for it. Another parasite grumbling at the carcass of a dying world.

“Thank you kindly.” I said as I walked towards the stairs. Gripping the railings, I felt the slime of humanity underneath my hands. It repulsed me.

“We have an elevator here.”

I turned towards the old man and smiled, “I have legs right here.” I motioned towards the bottom half of my human form.

I went up the stairs. Every step more disgusting than the other. Everything decays over time, it’s a natural occurrence in the cosmos. But there is decay so revolting, so utterly human. And the signs are all over the walls here. The white paint on the walls has already turned grey from the built up dust, mold, cigarette marks, alcohol stains, spit, and what as I can best describe as dry blood. It’s a pretty accurate representation of what humanity really is.

And he put his hope in them?

My father, how could you forsake us so easily?

You turned your back on us, for them.

Last step now. Third floor. That cockroach said the end of the hallway on the right. How am I going to approach this? Does it really fucking matter how?

I walked down the hallway. Toilet water splashed on the floor with every step. Some doors had been left ajar, showing a wide array of the best that humanity can offer. People so lost in their trance that their eyes had turned white. Their painful screams reverberating through the hall, and then finally the sighs of ecstasy as needles get lazily injected onto tiny purple veins.

One door was only open by a little sliver. And upon inspection, it seemed that the lock was busted open. I peeked inside and saw the body of some random human on the floor with a knife sticking out of their chest, oozing with crimson blood. And a chair where another human, a more frail, petite human with long hair stood.

We met eyes. And I couldn’t see anything staring back at me. I couldn’t feel it either. She gripped the rope hanging from the ceiling fan and it was at that moment that I gently closed the door.

All that hope wasted.

Can you hear me, father?

I reached the end of the hallway and it might have been the only door with a proper lock on it. It was tightly shut but I could still hear the sounds of ruckus going on inside, and even the sounds of a basketball game. Lowly demons have always been more in tune with the wasteful vices of men.

I knocked.

The sounds died down a little.

“Who is it?” A voice shouted from inside.

I knocked again, even harder this time.

“Who the fuck is it?” Another voice shouted even louder.

I knocked again, even harder.

Finally, somebody came to the door and started unlocking the numerous locks. The door opened, their look of irritation and confusion just made it all more fun.

I slammed against the door with my shoulder, pushing the person against a wall. Another person came from behind a kitchen counter and I caught their neck right as they raised their hand. And I squeezed, feeling their bones crack under my fingers.

Their main leader of sorts, a man with hair as white as silver and teeth as yellow as gold came up from the couch opposite the tv playing a basketball game, and looked at me with horrified eyes “Who are you?”

I looked back at him and flashed my true form to his eyes, and then he knew. He immediately knelt down on all fours and started muttering, “Oh Ananiel, forgive us for such a sordid welcome!”

“Please, call me Ana.”

I let go of the throat I was holding and dusted myself off. I headed towards the couch and sat down, spying the basketball game on the tv. “Humans and their obsessions with games, how interesting. Almost like demons that don’t know their place, don’t you agree?”

The white-haired man stood up. The rest of his entourage of lower-class urchins stood around him, and by the looks on their faces: they didn’t know whether to be scared or confused.

“Hey now, what is this-”

“Did I tell you to speak, dog?”

He trembled like the dog he is.

“You know what I do. You know why I’m here. So, I’m going to ask once and if I don’t hear a proper answer then I will consider all your lives forfeit.”

The white-haired man nodded.

“Where is the girl?”

Suddenly, the bathroom door creaked open, and out came a human with the milkiest complexion imaginable. Her hair was a shade of cool brown with curls at the end of its strands. And her face was like a dream. An endless dream.

But then her arms. There were marks on her veins. Marks from needles.

“Who is this, guys? Oh! There it goes again! Butterflies in the sky!” She mumbled through her words.

A well of rage boiled inside of me.

A rage that stirred the demonic force in me. The various little trinkets on the kitchen counter started to shake, along with the bottles of booze, and cigarette holders on the glass table in front of me.

And then the tv turned off.

The white-haired man must have understood what was happening because he told all of his people to get on the floor and ask for forgiveness. All of them. Little pathetic cockroaches on the floor, begging for forgiveness.

“You defiled the purity of a marked one reserved for an archdemon. I sentence you-”

The lights turned off.

“-to death.”

And then it was time.

To show my true form.

“What’s going on?” The girl shouted in the darkness.

A darkness shaped around me, melting with my form, as the red hues of my new wings, my new power bestowed upon me by the rage of my father. These tentacles of Leviathan spreading from the reaches of my soul. And I let them go. Letting them lash out at the unworthy demons, grabbing their bodies and tearing them apart limb from limb. Their shouts and pleads of mercy adding even more rage to my sunken soul.

My burnt swings spread in the dark, their red glow illuminating the room revealing the magnificence of my work. Lifting up the white-haired imbecile with the slender tendrils of my heart, my soul. Each limb ensnared by one tentacle. His eyes begged for mercy. Those little purple demon eyes. Trying his best to fight, to squirm free. But sometimes even demons have to pay for their sins.

And he would pay with all of his limbs.

The lights came back on and there she was in the corner covering her eyes, shaking with fear.

“Please! Please don’t kill me!” She screamed as she crawled on the floor. Once she saw what had become of the room, she screamed even more. It didn’t look like the same room I walked into. Blood and guts painted the walls. Intestines draped the kitchen counter. Heads adorned the apartment, one bobbed inside a fish bowl.

Hilarious.

I approached the girl, still in my true form.

“Please! Please! Oh God no! Please!”

I touched her beautiful face with my hands, my true hands. It felt soft. Like milk and honey. What a shame.

She gasped in fear and her strength to scream seemingly disappeared, “Please don’t kill me.”

I stared at her.

And then I nodded, “Get out of here and go to a church in five minutes to cleanse your scent. If you don’t-”

I licked her face. Her soul almost tasted like milk and honey.

“You’ll die.”

Her body trembled, but somehow she found the power to stand up and run out of the door.

I sat down on the couch and slowly returned to human form. I took a blood-soaked cigarette from the glass table and lit it. Taking a long puff.

Milk and honey.

What a good idea, father.

STARRING

WITH EDITING DONE BY

Gremlin (technical edits)

and

Champ Rockwell (creative edits)