ORIGIN

His guardian angel had left, gone off with the messenger. He'd tried to follow, but the pain in his chest only grew, and he'd stayed in his place, collapsed on the floor, watching the throne, half unconscious. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't cling to the whispers of his name, so he clung to the wings and the feathers. What he'd seen - what his mind had conjured - had been sharp and cutting, too real to believe in, like a thumbtack in his eye, sepia fluid draining from the wound. There was nothing left in his gut to vomit, bile coating his tongue like burning candy. He wanted to be back in the shade of the tunnel that smelled like nothing, felt like nothing, cool dark shrouding him in numbing comfort.

Here, the stars dug into his skin, stretched it tight across his ribs, legs like matchsticks. The braids he'd kept meticulously clean were rotten, molded inside, falling out in revolting clumps. What mane he had left was patchy and thin, barely there, almost invisible in the light. It hadn't seemed to bother the angels, especially not with their leader wearing the same marks of demonic flame, but it bothered him, because - because - it wasn't right. He was supposed to be something else. He was supposed to find them. He tried to remember how long he'd searched, but all it dragged up was the number four.

Four. Was that enough? It felt too short, like he'd given up.

Maybe he had.

Slowly, the gelding struggled to stand, heaving out watery breaths. Find them.

He had to find them.

She was walking away, thinking again on the perfect suffering of that mongrel Ashtoreth. How broken her mind was, how wonderful it was to step on her like pieces of glass, shivering every time she heard the sound shattering beneath her feet. Every crunch felt like sugar candy in her mouth, every sound of the gun clicking to ready a new bullet into the mutt's head like sweet euphoria to her. She wanted more, more, more....

She smelled him before she saw him, and her feet hurried to the smell of decaying, rotting, disgusting vomit and bile covered flesh, and she found her mouth watering once she encountered the horse laying there on the ground, a disgusting feast for her on a beautiful silver platter.

Ahh....Another delicious morsel to delve into, to consume and devour. She would never sate her gluttony for that sickly sweet taste of broken dreams and despair. She picked into his mind that laid bare for her, digging in with her talons and a sweet electric thrill ran though her when she discovered just who exactly he was.

This was too good, this was too perfect....

She stood over him, smiling oh so brightly at him - but her smile wasn't for him, oohh, no. It was for his eventual death.