Be forewarned, I wrote this during my semi-religious phase. Looking back on it now it still seems ok though.


Madness… has a voice. It’s not always the same, no, but whenever things become warped and you can actually feel the moorings of your mind giving way, it’s there. Sometimes it’s the click of claws on concrete, other times it’s the dying scream of a little girl you weren’t fast enough to save. All the nightmares in the world are held in that voice, and don’t think you won’t wake up every night sweating, hearing it again and again and again.

But that’s neither here nor there.

My story began not with screams, nor with claws. In what I think of as "my previous life", I knew nothing of real Evil. Make no mistake; there was robbery, rape and even a few murders in my town, just like in any other. It just never happened to me therefore it didn’t matter. Most people might think that a cold assessment, but as my dad used to say; them’s the breaks.

At the time this all began, I had no direction, no set course for my life. I roamed from job to job, never finding exactly what I wanted. Finally, I became an assistant manager at a grocery store that my uncle owned.

It was late one night, as I had just gotten done closing the store, when I met the man. He was standing in the parking lot, just staring out into the darkness. Thinking he was one of the homeless people who sometimes wander into the store, I went to ask him if I could help.

I was within touching distance when I noticed the feathers.

There were about a dozen of them lying around his feet, gently floating to and fro in the breeze. They were unlike any feathers I’d ever seen, enormous and silver in color, almost ephemeral in the glow cast by the streetlights.

He turned to me and said, quite simply, "It’s coming."

"What’s coming?" I asked. "Your ride? Good, because you really shouldn’t be here at night by yourself. It’s not very safe."

"Fear not the night, only what it may bring," he said softly.

Just as he said those words, the trees across the street bent at an amazing angle, and something stepped out.

It was huge, at least ten feet tall and six wide. Insect-like plates of armor covered most of its body, but thick black hair sprang out in tufts in the gaps between. Its head was a mass of fur and foam-flecked, gnashing teeth. In one of its enormous clawed hands was a colossal scythelike sword. The sword looked like it was made of the same material as its armor, and almost seemed to absorb the glow from the streetlights overhead.

It howled, and it sounded like the wailing of a thousand tortured souls all crying out at once. I fell to my knees, holding my ears, and that’s when it charged.

Making no sound except for the machinegun tick-tack of its talons on the concrete, it swept down upon the stranger and I with all the unrestrained fury of a hurricane, its sword held aloft, ready for the downward stroke. The sword began its descent with enough force to cleave telephone poles in two and… stopped.

I looked up and saw the black sword held back by a shining silver blade held high in one shimmering hand. The man turned his head and fixed my panicked brown eyes with his coldly blazing gray ones and said, "Best back up now."

There was a flash of white and then it felt as though I were hit with a pillow as big as a horse. I had the sudden terrifying sensation of flying high into the air and landed on the hood of my car halfway across the parking lot. I blacked out, but only for a second, and when I looked up I saw the man as he truly was, all the disguises and illusions washed away by a tide of brilliance that stung my eyes.

His old overcoat was now a shimmering tunic and breastplate. His ragged, faded jeans were gone, replaced by silvery greaves. His battered tennis shoes were now white sandals.

But all these things were mere afterthoughts; the wings were what really caught my attention. Gigantic, powder-white, they must have been twenty feet from tip to tip. Then it occurred to me: if he was able to send me across the lot with a brush of his wings, what was going to happen when they really got into it?

That thought sent me scrambling over the hood to hide behind the car. Unable to resist, I hesitantly looked around the edge of the car.

They stood muzzle to nose, swords locked together, completely silent except for the heavy panting of the wolf-demon.

"After I’m done with our business, I think I’ll go eat that pathetic human cowering in the dark over there."

The angel said nothing, simply smiled.

"I’ll carve that smile off your face, human-loving coward!" the demon spat, leaping backwards, then racing forward with sword held low.

The angel deflected the blow to the side, then countered with a stab straight for the demon’s heart. The demon dodged, but just barely; the sword gashed its armor in a long strip down its side. The demon let loose with a howl of outrage, and swung with all its might in a furious barrage of bone-shattering swings. The angel dodged or parried them all, but the effort was showing. His face was set with grim concentration, and all of his muscles were taught with effort. A hideous smile formed on the demon’s face. It swung harder, batting aside the angel’s defenses, coming within inches of the angel’s head and torso. Then the angel struck. The demon was rearing back for a final big swing. Twirling his blade around his head, the angel reversed his grip on the sword and drove it deep into the demon’s chest. The demon’s eyes looked down in astonishment upon the gaping hole in its chest, and slowly fell backwards onto the asphalt.

"N-not s’posed to happen this way," the demon moaned.

"It was ordained by the White, of course it was supposed to happen this way," the angel said gently, "Go on, now."

With a final whimper, the demon lay back, and began to smoke. The angel turned to me, still hiding behind the car.

"You can come out now," he said.Then the demon reared up behind him, dark and smoldering, smiling through blackened lips. The angel turned, but, to my horror, he was too slow. The massive jaws closed on his arm just below the shoulder with a crunch, severing the limb. The angel’s other arm lashed out, and the demon’s head fell to the ground.

He didn’t bleed, just sat down calmly and asked me to do the same."Do not worry, it is only my corporeal form that is injured, just as I destroyed the fiend’s."

"Will you disintegrate like him, too?" I asked.

"Sadly, yes. With no body to hold my essence in this world, I will become so much dust in the breeze."

"Are you going to erase my memory of this?" I asked, walking cautiously toward him and the dead demon.

"No, no, quite the contrary. Tell everyone you want. The White needs good publicity, too, you know. Though I doubt anyone will believe you. And don’t worry about the body, it will be gone by morning."


"You don’t feel sad, or angry?"

"No, this was all preordained before any of this ever existed."

"So it’s true? There really is a God?"

The look in his eyes was one of pure childlike joy. He looked up at the sky, at the stars shining their light down on us. "Whatever name you give it, there is an elemental force of innocence, of purity, of Right, all around us, every day." he said.

"So, if there’s a God, then there must be a Devil, right?"

"That, too, goes without saying."

"What…"

"You humans are always so full of questions. I’m sorry, but I can give no more answers. You will have to find them in yourself and those around you. My time is drawing near."

"What do I do now?"

"You do what you can, nothing more and nothing less."

With that he laid his sword in my sweating hand, closing his palm over it. I felt a sudden surge, like an electric shock, but not uncomfortable. Everything suddenly appeared clearer, more vivid. I felt energized and calm at the same time.

Then the angel stood, his eyes clouded over, as though he were looking through me. He spoke in a strange voice, unlike his previous one. It reminded me of thunder and crashing waves.

"WALK THOU MUST, AND SEEK THY TRUTHS. MANY TRIALS MUST THOU OVERCOME, BUT THY LIGHT SHALL SHINE ON."

Then he rapidly collapsed in upon himself, and blew away in a sudden gust of wind.

"Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust," I said, staring at the silver blade in my hand.

That’s the beginning. My beginning. You can believe it. Or not. Regardless, I walk on.

Liked that one too.......

Enjoy your writing. Keep it coming.