Digital Angel III - Darkness

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Part I
Part II

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Sick. She felt sick.

Whatever she had connected with was pure poison. Her stomach clenched tightly, desperate to be rid of it.

She pushed herself away from Erik and sat up straight, wiping cold sweat from her forehead. Her wings shuddered as she tried to bring them back into herself, sending a flash down her spine that made all of the tiny hairs on her skin stand at high alert.

Slowly, her breathing turned steady and she spoke.

“What do you mean there’s a war going on? And more importantly, how did you forget to mention this?”

He ran his fingers halfway through his hair as he looked up at the ceiling. She could tell he was struggling, and she waited for him to find the words to speak.

When he faced her, his eyes were defiant.

“Because it’s not a war that I want to fight in.”

Her shoulders tensed as her wings threatened to reveal themselves once again. That was no excuse for not telling her, for leaving her defenseless without knowing what to expect.

“I’m not asking you to fight, I’m asking you for answers. What is this war that you’re talking about?”

The edge in her voice cut deeply, and Erik looked away. He stared at the wall, his voice soft and distant as he began to explain.

“What we do--” He paused, as if trying to find the right words. “There are people who do the opposite. They only want to spread hate, fear, and destruction. I suppose we’re supposed to be fighting them. You know, the whole eternal battle between good and evil? Light and dark?”

Sophie nodded. The reality of her situation was starting to sink in. She had wings growing out of her back and the ability to feel other people’s emotions. If this could be real, if she wasn’t fully human anymore, then that opened the door for other things to be real as well.

“Angels and demons.”

Erik laughed, a short, biting sound that carried enough pain to betray the indifferent face he was trying to put on.

“That’s the easiest way to explain it. But Sophie, it’s a war we can’t win.” He reached out and took her hands in his own, radiating warmth that flowed into her cold fingers. “Please believe me, I’ve been doing this for a long time. Longer than anyone else I know of. I’ve tried to fight them. I’ve won the fights. They just keep coming back. More of them, stronger each time. You’ll cut off one head and watch two grow in its place. It won’t end, it will only destroy you from the inside.”

She pulled her hands out of his grasp. Her leg muscles tightened instinctively as she shook her head, rising to her feet and pushing her shoulders back to unleash wave after wave of solid copper. Erik stared at her in astonishment, and she knew what he saw.

Gone were the delicate wings made of intricate wires interlaced. This was something new entirely. She raised her chin high, feeling the strength of the blades on her back.

Each one was as wide as a feather and just as lightweight. The tips formed themselves into pointed swords, glinting with green and orange as they caught reflections of the sun.

Sophie smiled.

Her wings really did have a mind of their own, and it was about time she started to trust them. She flexed her upper back muscles and let the harmonic sounds of metallic feathers brushing against each other chime through the air.

“It won’t destroy me.”

Erik reached toward her, but she turned away. There was no point in trying to argue. Those demons had come into her space, into her home, and pierced through the very core of her essence to leave her crippled and broken.

What could they do to someone without wings?

Cool wind blew against her face as she closed her eyes and reached out to that dirty, sharp gunmetal form.

Come find me. I’m not afraid of you.

The temperature dropped in an instant. Her mind turned icy and her senses were as sharp as the weapons she wore on her back. She glided toward the darkness, letting it draw her in.

“Sophie, wait.”

Erik stood behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder, but this time he couldn’t pull her back. This time, he was coming with.

Thunder cracked through the air, and her eyes snapped open as an explosion of sparks burst in front of her face.

They were in her room, her other room, but nothing was the same. The walls were sprayed black, and the floating mercury formed a barbed wire fence coated in swirls of burgundy mist.

It was closing in on them.

Her heart pounded hard against her chest as she turned around. She looked up into Erik’s face and saw it was drained of blood, as pale as the moon in this shadow filled space. She reached for his hand, but he flinched away from her touch.

“I told you this was a mistake.”

The mercury stretched itself to match the full height of the room, and Erik’s voice faded as the scratching sounds of dirty silver scraping across the floor toward them grew louder. Each tiny knot in the pattern pulsed with a crackling electricity that fed the dark red vapors in the air.

Sophie held her breath as the wire approached the tip of her nose.

It touched her, and the whole world went dark.

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