It was sudden.

One instant, the night was lit by the recent setting of the sun and the city’s light. The next, great gouges and cracks filled it.

She was stunned, dark bleeding cracks, rivers of pouring green light, portals to broken burning places. Innumerable and unfathomable. Yet amongst them all, there was one that stood apart.

From a gate of white, something fell, no, descended.

Disembodied wings beat around a gyroscope of many nestled bronze rings, each lined with countless eyes.

The world held its breath; she did too.

Other shapes fell, but she had eyes only for it, the angel, for what else could it be?

Its rings spun, countless eyes judging the world from the heavens. It looked at her, Mensha’s breath froze, and she felt his heart racing through their entwined fingers, or was it hers?

Its gaze passed them, and they gasped; sweat stung her eyes, and Mensha’s hand trembled in hers.

“What’s happening?” he muttered to himself.

“It’s an angel.” She said, clinging to the railing to spare her trembling legs.

“I’m an atheist, Summer,” he hissed.

“And it looked at us.” He offered no argument.

The angel, with countless eyes, continued its slow spinning. It floated above them, so very very far above. It could be a dozen she would believe if someone said hundreds. She didn’t bother guessing its size – content in the knowledge it dwarfed mountains.

The wings that hovered about it flexed, they beat, a moment passed.

Then it hit, and a note ran through her, shaking her bones and ringing in her ears like a deep trumpet. She held Mensha, and they braced against the long gust that accompanied the sound.

Her bones hummed in its passing, and she swayed, her skull shaking. Mensha pulled her close to him, and she steadied they were both gasping. She looked up with blurred vision.

Its wings flexed, they beat, and they braced.

One second.

Two seconds.

No impact came, she dared a glance up, from its wings, innumerable dots of light poured, flowing like a thousand minuscule streams. They flowed across the sky.

“How high is it,” Mensha whispered her thoughts.

“How big is it,” she mumbled in turn. The light flowed over the horizon.

“Should we run,”

Stuck between incomprehension and awe, she gave an honest answer. “I don’t know,” she said, staring at the angel that beat its wings again.

Silence, nothing. The angel was serene and beautiful, if only she could capture this moment.

She remembered to breathe.

“What’s happening,” She turned to a mumbling Mensha, his wide eyes were fixed to the sky.

“Mensha, Mensha,” she whispered, not daring to raise her voice. “Are you ok,” She shook her fiancé.

Lucidity came to his eyes,” Yes,” a shudder ran through him, “Yes, I am.”

“Good, because I’m taking a picture.”

He stared at her with intensity equaling his earlier astonishment. “Summer, the world could be ending.”

“If I’m going to die, it’s going to be with a photo of an angel.” She pulled out her phone.

“Oh, my god,”

“Exactly, now turn, so I can get a good one.” Mute, he did.

She turned her back to the railing and pointed the camera up, snap.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She looked at the photo—a heavenly being in the background, a slightly manic woman and a confused man in the foreground. Countless streams of light covered the broken sky, and distant shapes fell. She smiled and leaned into Mensha.

She noticed sobbing behind her, she glanced behind her. Three men kneeled in desperate prayers, one of them cried freely.

She turned to them.

“Summer,’ Mensha whispered.

She snapped back to Mensha, he was staring up.

“it’s falling,”

“The angel?” She looked up, it was the same surreal sight.

“The light.”

The streams were brighter and brightened as she looked, resolving ribbons of light, to motes and eventually to countless particles. Some were above them; they grew in her vision like falling stars.

Mensha’s hand entwined with hers. Her heart stilled, she turned to him, his eyes met, and for a moment, time stopped. “I love you,”

The beat of the angel’s wings thrummed through her,

Light bathed her, and the hand holding her tightened, heart thundering; she blinked rapidly and clung desperately to him.

She whipped her head around, spots swimming in her eyes. She clung to and embraced her love. The first meet the earth.

They pierced the city, carving thousands of golden lines throughout the city. There was no crunching stone, explosions, or even the faintest whip of air. Instead, they were glowing lines drawn connecting the land to the heavens before slowly disappearing.

She looked down at Mensha trapped in her arms, stunned but unarmed, she continued her observation, and the rain continued to fall. She looked down; white spots dotted the street surrounded by figures many, running many still. The lines passed harmlessly through all obstructions.

A light shone behind her, and she turned. Towering rods of light greeted her – thicker than her thigh and taller than most trees, the prone form of the praying men were nailed to the roof. She stared. An orchestra of screams woke her. One of the men was un-pierced, the crying one.

She tried to speak, but nothing came; she struggled again. “Hey-”

A cacophony of voices interrupted her, laughing, whispering, shouting, all buoyed aloft by a current of raw joy and amusement. Incomprehensible, the voices rushed past her like leaves rushing along a jolly current and filled her ears like an overcrowded room with manic children.

The wind wasn’t metaphorical and pulled her up from her feet. A heavy mist came with the wind and the voices, and it rushed past her, she held tight to Mensha, blind amidst the storm.

It passed, and she fell still wrapped around Mensha She hit the ground hard, he didn’t feel in through her pounding heart. She was pulled up. In a frantic daze dazed she searched the roof and noted Mensha’s death grip on the railing. She didn’t find the kneeling man; he was gone like the wind—no sign of him beside the two corpses.

A shudder ran through her. There was more laughter in the distance.

“Summer, we need to go,” she shook as her gaze snapped around her arms trembled around Mensha. “Summer, look up.” She continued spinning.

Hands grabbed her face and pulled her gaze skyward. Shapes, the many figures she’d neglected in favour of the angel, neared the earth. Thoughtlessly she grabbed Mensha’s hand and ran to the stairs, dragging him, before he found his feet and ran with her. From the sky, from the light, from the laughing wind.

She flew down the steps, dragging Mensha behind. Missing steps and nearly tripping in her panicked descent, she stepped onto a new floor and continued her dash.

“Summer,”

She kept running,

“Summer,” A force jolted her to a halt, painfully wrenching her shoulder, “We’re okay, it’s ok,”

Deep shuddering breaths ran through, she shook. It had almost taken her. She squeezed deeper into Mensha’s arms and looked around her.

They were in one of the walls of many large halls devoid of people. It was empty. Tiled floors covered in fallen goods quiet save for the fall of some distant item. Like a great gust had swept away all the people.

She clamped down her rising panic and freed herself from Mensah’s comforting arms. “What now,” where did they even start?

“We call the police,” She eventually answered.

He did, ring, ring, ring. There was no answer.

“Try calling me,” a few seconds later, they knew cell service still stood.

Test complete, he looked back at her, question clear in his eyes.

She didn’t have an answer. Hands firmly ensconced in her hair, she began pacing. “You’re right. The world is ending,”

“Seems so,” he said, looking at the halls. Her pacing filled the silence.

“Maybe it’s just here.” She said, grasping for distant hope.

“I doubt it.”

“Why are you so calm.” She snapped.

“I think I’m in shock,” her heat left her.

“Ya, ditto,” the silence defended her, racing mind.

“At least you got a picture.”

She chuckled darkly and came to a stop. She shut her eyes and breathed in all the emotions swirling in her heart.

In, how many people had the angel killed?

Out, how many had the wind taken?

In, how many were dying right now?

She let the fear feed her, her growing determination.

She could do this t. She refused to die today of all days. “Well, get through this, Mensha.” She said and stared him in his eyes – panic threatened to drown his tenuous calm. “I promise.”

“I don’t think that’s up to us,” his smile was fragile.

“But we’ll give it our all.”

“Always,”

“Then, let’s see if we can find any survivors,”

“As we go to the exit?”

She nodded, turned, and marched down the messy hall, Mensah’s soft steps beside her, his hand in hers, for safety and comfort.

They walked towards the desolate mall’s exit with as much discretion and caution as Summer’s occasional calls allowed. The periodic pillar pierced body, and the accompanying pool of blood, were her only signs of people.

The lights died.

“You’re glowing,” Mensha whispered; she turned to see a pair of eyes and face lit by a soft white glow,

The lights flickered on, banishing the momentary dark.

Replaced by mist, colourful and thick, as if a rainbow had fallen into a cloud, and it clung like oil, it was heavy enough to dim the lights without restricting vision. Yet even beyond its sudden appearance, something was off.

Hastening their steps, they rounded the next corner and found themselves in a room they’d already passed. She spun around. The corridor behind her was unfamiliar.

She shared a glance with Mensha, “Fuck,”

“Indeed,”