The Dygarlands was otherwise dark, but from the lotus, glowing crystals painted the landscape in a new tone. It touched the plants and distant demons gently, welcoming everything into a new light blue hue. Despite the gentleness of the light, I was given a sinking feeling. I felt choked by the space around me, as though the black of the sky would swallow me whole. It felt familiar.

“We should run,” The captain began, in an urgent tone. “this isn’t something—”

Vines lifted themselves into the air from the lotus, reaching into the sky with begging—swaying motion. They all had sparkling flowers which scintillated with a gentle blue glow. We were far from the lotus, but vines poked up from the ground all around us as if they’d always been there. A cacophony of cracks echoed throughout the Dygarlands as vines weaved into the sky, grasping for prey. They curved over and around us, building a cage. A chill ran down my spine as I realized what felt so familiar. I had seen this so many times. It was the familiar scene of death, but this time, it looked like my own.

The captain reacted the quickest.

He grasped his knives and nearly a dozen of them flew out in a storm of spinning death. They danced through the air, maneuvering in impossible arcs. They cleaved through the vines, leaving broken shards to drift gently to the ground like snowflakes. The detached vines, coiled to the ground like cut rope, but more simply grew in their place.

“Dammit run you fools! Tell the valkyries!” The captain yelled.

The party lifted higher into the sky, we beat our wings in a desperate bid to outrun the cage being tightened around us from below and from the skies. The captain’s daggers cleaved through the mass, kicking it back for moments longer. His daggers would return to him, just for him to toss them away again. I dragged myself higher into the sky and ached against the ruthless pull of the ground. In the midst of our crawl, my vision blurred, and my every heartbeat throbbed with fear. Still, I saw something higher in the sky. It flapped its wings, treading above us with a determined beat. It was fearless, and in its eyes I saw a warmness. A happiness. A satisfaction.

It was a demon.

Black horns curved around her head from the back to her front, upturning and curling in a proud sharpness. Her skin was ghostly white, her eyes yellow, and her wings black. Her arms were tightly crossed and she let in a deep breath, sniffing the air. She was one of the missing demons from the party we had killed, I was sure. And with that thought, she exhaled a gale of purple fire. It shot out, blotting out our escape with a wall of doom.

The captain was in front. He let out an annoyed click of his tongue. “Well shit.” And the fire consumed him whole.

Simcha, with no hesitation at all, dived for Uriel with all his weight, pushing them both out of the way of the fire.

I felt something grab at me. It was Ahaviah. She held me as she pushed me out of the way. Knives that had curved back around from below to return to the captain, but found no one, instead shot into the sky. We heard a scream. They paused the flames, but the final burst still came for us. Ahaviah had wrapped her wings around me, and she held me close.

We were trapped. Either way, we weren’t going to make it out anymore. Whether to the fire or to the vines, we were doomed. And yet, she still tried. And I was thankful, because I wasn’t alone. And I held her tightly as we fell from the sky.

Vines raced to match our fall, catching us almost gently. With their touch, we could no longer react, because like the demons before, we were encased in crystal. If I was to be frozen in a single moment, this one would be fine, I thought.

***

Thoughts felt disjointed and raw.

They ripped and tore as they came to mind.

We lost. So easily. So suddenly…

The last moment was flayed and strewn over her vision. Frozen in that single frame, Ahaviah was holding Mevakiel within her wings, as vines caught them.

There was a grating feeling.

The Captain is dead…

She couldn't tell how long it’d been stuck in this moment, how long she’d been unaware, or if time was passing at all.

We’re trapped…

And…. I don't know… anything.

The other angels, they knew about spirits, demons, they always know so much more…

A sinking feeling—

I’ve failed again.

A relief—

But… maybe for the last time.

It was a familiar relief. One she’d felt hundreds of times in the rain.

It was a feeling she’d come to know. One she’d seen and felt played out again and again. But she never thought it’d come for her. For as much as she’d come to know death from the rain, it was something detached. It was a similar feeling as when she had watched the demons in the distance tear into each other and die in droves. It was a part of her that believed she wasn't like them, that their world was different. They were faraway, they lived different lives, they made foolish mistakes, or they were ravenous monsters.

She had a realization.

We’re all the same. She thought.

We all die.

***

Frozen in time, I looked at Ahaviah. Her light pink hair was a tousled mess. Her eyes hinted at fear, regret. Still, she didn’t stop for even a moment when she saw the slightest chance to live and save me. And that she was still here with me was proof that it’d worked, at least in some sense.

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I could still live. I could take the very slightest chances like her, in spite of doom, futility, and I could still save everyone.

I flailed with my thoughts. There was no limb to move except a worried mind.

I’ve been nothing before—endlessly, but suspended in this moment, frozen, I wasn’t nothing. I’m Mevakiel, the one who seeks. Put here by Ira, my goddess of light, and now stopped in place by this spirit. I asserted.

I recalled how I felt when I first came to this world that this life felt fake. Always, I was a nothing—no dream, no world. Brought here to be foolish, brought here to fail. If I was nothing, I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be trapped.

I flailed and flailed.

When I was nothing, there was no struggle like this. Just… coldness.

I stopped flailing.

I stopped being anything.

I stopped.

And it was cold.

Familiarly, nothing.

But, it was different. I wasn’t alone. There was a reference to cling to, a warmth, a halo in my world, her gift to guide me home.

I followed it, and all the nothing I was, collapsed onto a single point.

***

I awoke to an unfamiliar world, composed of crystal. Vines and flowers composed the walls and the ceiling of a giant cavern. Contained and protected, demons, dead and frozen in place, were put carefully around me. A garden of terror cultivated from the dead. Arranged so that one might think my frozen companions and I were the source. Angels striking fear into the chaotic demons.

I thought it was a little ridiculous, considering how scared I’d been up to this point.

Strange. I thought.

I looked at where I had been. A crystal mold had been left there, empty in my place. Ahaviah was still frozen, now hugging an empty shell. Simcha and Uriel were there too, although much closer to us than I remember. Simcha was hugging Uriel very closely, while Uriel had a rather confused and stupefied look on his face. Honestly, I thought they looked kind of cute like that.

I considered breaking them out, but with only knives to do the job I was more likely to hurt them and didn’t want to alert whatever “spirit” is here. So, not knowing what else to do, very quietly, gently, I looked around.

Countless demons were frozen here. I saw one with a long body of thick carapace, which split into many terrified small heads. Its skulls were pierced by flowers and their mouths remained open, speaking silent screams. There was another, with a single red wing that oozed with blood, his skull looked like a sturdy helmet, and his arms were weapons that had been embedded in his flesh. He was restrained by 10s of vines, and pierced all the same. The chaotic forms of demons played with my idea of what a person could be and taunted my narrow perspective, viciously. Their visage told unknown history, a world, an existence terrifyingly different from my own and I was trapped among endless numbers of them.

What… are they?

It was a question that ached in my chest. I had thought I was lucky to remain unharmed from everything so far. But this feeling had crept up silently. It was a wound I’d only just now noticed and it bled with more than just fear. It was terror.

I couldn’t answer a lot of basic questions about this world, about me, about angels. But still, my questions about demons rang so much louder in my mind. Because the demons were my enemy. They were adversary, they killed the captain.

My heart ached.

I stumbled a little.

They walk on the ground merely to tear into each other. Merely to kill.

I need to be able to fight. I understand now, why I have to keep struggling, why I have to work. To protect them, to protect my home. Where things can be small, where things don't matter so much. Where we can just laugh, play, watch the world go by, and that’s enough.

I have to know everything about them, these demons.

The memory of the demon archer ached painfully in my mind, her worry for her companion, her desperation, her death. I remembered the curiosity even in those that seemed like beasts.

I have to understand.

I felt my heart sink deeply, pulling me with it.

I don’t understand.

Tears welled up.

Why is it like this?

Why is the world like this?

Something spoke out as a thousand voices. Softly and slowly, they harmonized into something almost soothing.

“An angel.”

“It cries…”

“But… why?”

It was the spirit. I sniffled a little and froze in fear in the face of its terrifying power. Its voice would flicker, sometimes sounding different entirely.

“The demons, lay dead.” It said, “It’s a triumph. There’s peace here.”

Vines crept up my leg. A shiver ran down my spine.

“It doesn’t have to worry anymore…” It said, “It doesn’t have to be alone either…Angels… they should be together.”

There was a long pause. Angels. I wondered what they were. It was never something I considered myself until Ira called us angels. It felt so natural, so nice, and so good to adopt it. We weren’t just angels though, Ira had given us halos, names. To ignore who I was, who my companions were, and what Ira had given us, it made me angry. I stood up straight, my face still a little wet from tears.

“My name is Mevakiel!” I declared.

“Is it really so…?” It responded, “Angels don’t really wish to be anyone you know… It was Ira who had wishes for you, it was her who named you. She’s why you’re here. She’s why you’ve had to hurt so much angel.”

Vines circled slowly around me.

“You don’t have to fight. You don’t have to be anything. We’ll protect you, we’ll kill any demons. You just need to stay here…” It said

“You never gave us the choice.” I retorted.

“Angels have never had a choice to be here either. We’re only trying to give them what was taken.”

“Taken?” I said, shaking, I drew a knife, “My captain is dead!”

There was a silent pause. The voice took a solemn tone.

“It was our failure…”

A vine slid forward, gently touching my iridescent knife. It pressed against the knife for a moment, then slowly coated it with crystal. I dropped it before the crystal could touch me and it hit the floor, shattering like glass.

“...I don't understand..” I said, “If you care for angels, if you mourn for us, if you worry over us. Then, why?”

“Love.” It said.

The vines that circled around her feet tightened but did not touch her.

“If you love us, then why snuff out who we are? Why ignore us…?” I said.

“Because little angel we have seen the cycles come and go. We have watched the gods’ kingdoms ebb and flow. We have watched countless angels fight, in battles not their own.” It said, “We know the game the gods play and we know the moves we have to make. We are Aruna, the crystal meadow.”

“So, you just know all there is to know?” I sniffled, “You know you have to keep us like this frozen forever? Ignore what we want? Keep us from living?”

I settled a trembling hand on one of my few remaining knives.

“That’s nonsense!” I yelled.

I drew my knife in my fury and I swiped. The vines collapsed upon me, but in my place, they found nothing. I was gone. Because, for that moment, I really was nothing. I reappeared a little distance away, following my halo once again back to the world.

“I won’t let you keep us trapped here any longer!” I shouted.