And we didn’t stop.
We stomped over him.
As if we had no feelings.
As if we were puppets on strings.
My squad started chanting what sounded like a prayer, one unlike any other. I might never have attended church, but I was raised Christian and had read the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. This language, mangled and torn when coming out of a human’s throat, sounded like one Michael used when speaking to other angels. The squad sang in unison, as if they had one voice. Abruptly, they halted. Everyone unsheathed their blades.
Angels above us shrieked, but I couldn’t see a thing because of the fog, no longer gray but much darker. Inhaling the smell of baked cookies, I took the knife from my back pocket and crouched when everyone else crouched.
The fog cleared. Just like that, it was gone. A street filled with other people appeared before us. They held up weapons, namely household knives, screwdrivers, and scissors. The people from their front line split from the rest and started crawling up the buildings. I gaped. People, and I meant humans, crawled on the walls like spiders, their movements jerky and unnatural, then they rushed down the line of the townhomes.
The soldiers in the back shouted.
One of the crazies landed on the man next to me. I screamed and turned, trying to run, but tripped over a pair of wrestling people. Stumbling away, I fell against a soldier who dropped to the ground, blood pouring from his nose. People fought everywhere. Blood spilled on the walls.
The knife dropped out of my hand, and I stared at the chaos around me, the bodies of regular people crawling over the townhomes, something they could never do in the world I remembered. Did they remember? Like me? Were those people what became of the ones Michael hadn’t killed? Was this what Lucifer’s possession looked like? No, it couldn’t be.
A woman stepped in front of me. Her eyes weren’t vacant. They were filled with…with desire, passion, determination. She’d kill me or die trying.
The woman lunged and knocked me down. The back of my head hit the pavement, and stars played over my eyes. I tried rolling away. She bared her teeth. Her blonde, blood-matted hair curtained her face, and she stabbed me with a screwdriver. Pain exploded near my collarbone, and I screamed at the top of my lungs. She withdrew the weapon, aimed it again. I put my hand up to shield my face.
She pierced my palm.
I jerked my hand back.
My God, I would die today.
She poised to strike again, and I grabbed her wrist. She pressed down with all her might, climbing on top of me so she could hold me down. I pushed back, regretting I’d dropped my knife. She pressed harder, and I knew I couldn’t hold her back much longer. I jerked right, and she stabbed the pavement, nicking my cheek. Using the energy of her movement, I flipped us over and held her hand, trying to pry the sharp tool away from her.
Under me, she bucked and threw me off.
I scrambled to my feet, tripped over something on the street, but managed to keep moving.
Jesus, the fog rose again, biting into my eyes, and the cookie-dough smell made my belly rise. I could barely see anything.
She wore a dark gray apron over black clothes.
We wore white.
She blended in.
I stood out.
She charged, not like a normal person, but executing a massive leap no human could possibly make. I kicked out, got her in the belly. My foot throbbed with the pain of the impact. I screamed in anger and went after her. My foot connected with something metal, kicked it. The metal clicked down the asphalt, and I kept advancing. I kicked her in the chest and must’ve knocked her breath out, as she gasped and gasped.
Someone tripped me. I fell and cursed. Mad, I hit the ground and hurt my palm on something. A rock. A rock! I picked it up and stood just as she did too. She rushed me, and I pitched the rock like I pitched that home run one fall in Little League baseball camp. It hit her nose. Blood gushed, and the woman wobbled on her feet.
Heaving breaths, I wiped my face.
All around me, people fell. It was like something out of a Viking movie. From the corner of my eye, I caught movement. The black fog condensed, and just when I thought it would spread out, it formed a solid…something.
The something stood four feet tall. It was cute and chubby and humanoid, with featherless wings tipped with claws. I’d never seen anything like it. Except, you know, maybe in a horror movie I wasn’t supposed to remember.
It shrieked and exposed sharp teeth.
Then it charged after me.
I ran. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me right down the street and toward the water, then I cut a right, then a left, right again, hoping to lose the thing flying above me, the thing that kept screeching, the thing that would eventually catch up.
I was slow and wounded, bleeding from two places, and tired, so tired.
It caught my uniform and lifted me. Arms and legs flying, I was going to become one of those people who spattered on the asphalt. Maybe that was why Michael created a world where people existed with these creatures, not the world where people feared this kind of death. Fear made people run. My
