FicWad

Taking a once round scan making sure no one had followed him; the hooded figure took a turn down Gravelyard. Ironic, he thought bitterly, it's the only place that wasn't a graveyard. He only had the moon and the dying embers of fires in the distance as his guide. The streetlights laid smashed and dull, some had fallen down, poles almost curled around the black and broken shadows of buildings. Stepping over broken glass, he heard his own footsteps echo in the night. Loosing himself in the crumbling labyrinth he tried to ignore the humming melancholy that vibrated from the wreckage around him. He tried. No matter how many times he walked across hopeless battlefields and innocent wreckages of homes, he couldn't help but feel the sadness. Like death and destruction had become a silent song encompassing everywhere he went. At the end of the alley was an open field where children used to play. All that was left was the creaking of unused swings, and the loneliness of empty pitches. Abandoned all except for one. A figure, equally as shadowed as he, stood at the entrance of the playground, his face lit by a cigarette in an ominous glow.

He leaned back against the edge of the valley. It seemed to be the only piece of wall left standing, as if it was too stubborn to join its comrades as scatters bits of brick. The cold against his back was numbing but welcome, the air still seemed warm with the thick scent and deep buzz of grace and gunfire. The shadow of a man began to cross the decaying memory, head down low yet eyes twitching about like a lunatic on edge. He didn't move from his leant position, as he observed the figure getting closer. Finally he caught up and passed quicker than the shadow of an alley cat. The only words exchanged were

"Alright mate." And "ta'." As white powder was changed for cash. With that the figure left the alley way, heading towards the remnants of the slaughter ahead. He instead turned and walked into the park, where memories of days now passed lurked in the silence.

Astrid couldn't have been happier when they finally reached the hotel. The rest of the drive no one had spoken after the last conversation, the tension was chocking her. The problem was the tension hadn't been the thick, obvious sort which everybody wanted to slice up. No, it had been a ribbon of tension, so thin that time wouldn't dissipate it, nor would it fall under its own weight. Yet despite that, it would hang round your neck, and pull to the point that speech felt impossible. It refused to be ignored.

"The three of us are going to book the rooms." Jacob said, the 'Astrid stay because they know who you are' remained unsaid for sake of her anger. Astrid hurt. The guilt just slowly ate away at her. She didn't mean to get angry, she could be reasonable despite all her foul language and sarcasm. She just… She couldn't help it. Life seemed like a cruel punishment to her, and she was just so hopelessly infuriated with it. It was like just the very sensation of breathing annoyed her. She didn't ask for life! She was only just making it by because of Kye, and now he's losing it! Who was going to hold them together? Why was it they selfishly leaned on him, and even now couldn't find the strength to stop. You're just not good enough. The voice in her head chided.

Astrid thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a lighter, as she looked over to see Kye lighting a cigarette. She had hoped maybe Kye's sombre mood had picked up, yet the look in his eyes said otherwise.

I have only now realised dear reader, that I haven't explained Kye very well to you. He was not a particularly striking guy in form. He was a little small for a 19 year old, and the slim build didn't exactly help. As I had once jokingly said to him, he couldn't even top a woman if he tried. It didn't help that he often hid himself under long tops and jumpers, and seemed to have no care what gender they were originally intended for. Add this with long blonde hair that would reach his waist when down, he was the type of guy that wanted to hide himself from the world. Yet his eyes despite all this, seemed to have the opposite effect. In fact they were so striking it wasn't the burnt skin around the rims of his eyes that you'd first notice. I can only assume he stared a lot as a child, and somehow his eyes just froze that way, because they were unusually wide and always seemed to hold an inquisitive gaze. On top of that, they were dominated by blue iris's that looked like someone had capture the sky on a sunny day, and locked them into his gaze. They were too were wide and always bright, never hiding any emotion that would flash around in them. Compared to his eyes, the black burns were an afterthought.

This was why when Astrid looked over, and saw his eyes almost blank and faded; it physically seemed to hurt her. She felt so uncomfortable that the only thing she could think of doing was trying to fill the void with unnecessary movement and shuffling. Sighing Astrid looked away.
"You here for us." She muttered, looking out the window. She didn't have to look at him to know the small confession caused the young boy to look at her with those damn piercing eyes. She couldn't face him.

"I…I don't know what to say to you Kye. I wish I did. But I know why you're here, even if it makes no sense. You're here for us. We need you…I need you! I just…I don't know how I could keep going on without you here. You're my younger brother Kye, and I love you. I know our existence doesn't make sense… but… I promise one day I'll work out the words that will make it all make sense. I'll find a way to make us happy. Please, I know it's selfish to ask but…but just…please don't give up on us." Don't give up on me. Her mind filled in. Then, without looking back, she got out the car despite being told not too, and went to find Jacob and the others. Holy men be damned, she couldn't take the guilt anymore, and that car seemed full of it right now. With that Kye was left alone with his thoughts, until the group returned to inform him they had a room.

The room they had was better than what they were used too. Sure it was still a little banged up and old, but it actually had separate rooms, with a living room attached, plus none of the furniture was broken. It seemed the smallest thing was enough to lift their spirits now-a-days. Especially when Nikki had realised they had a TV that actually worked. Jacob, being technical mastermind, had managed to work out how to rewire some of the TV's speakers, allowing them to play music off his laptop, which also helped in raising spirits. Kye had sat with them in the common room for a bit, but decided to take himself off to his and Ryker's shared room to be alone and to draw for a while. Ryker had decidedly left to "collect some shit". When Ryker had left, Jacob and Astrid were playing chess on the laptop, as Jacob was teaching Astrid how to get better at the game. Whilst Nikki was busy smashing the keys of some shooting game on her gamepod. Honestly he was surprised the girl hadn't broken it yet, especially when she got too into it and began yelling "Die assbutt" and "Go to hell" at the poor thing. Still he left the room with high hopes, as he grabbed his leather jacket and new red Canvas shoes on his way out. Hey, even for a pickup he had to look co-ordinated.

Head not really thinking of much apart from replaying an old tune over and over again, Ryker made his way around the walls of the hotel and across the road. Towards the alleyway of Gravelyard. Don't think about it. His mind kept chastising him. As over the song memories of bodies and death began leaking through the mental barrier he had set up for himself. It always began to crumble with sobriety. Still he pushed through and went to the middle of the alley, lit up by street lamps and houses on either side of the wall. He couldn't bring himself to wait near the exit. He didn't want to meet those ghosts again.

Ryker hummed quietly as a figure passed him, cash leaving his hand and bags of green entering his palm. It still amused him to be on the receiving end of such a transaction. Despite seeing it a few times with his dealers, it seemed strange to him how one person could look so much like an ancestor a few generations back. Perhaps they weren't alike at all and yet because they had decided to keep up their own dishonourable business Ryker just made his memories match the man who passed him. He waited a while before leaving himself. For a moment he had expected to leave the alley to streets littered with bodies, his heart racing as memory clouded reality. In the dark and quiet he could have easily been back there, in the middle of civil war.

War. More like uncivil massacre based on the amount of innocent and rebel bodies that collapsed in their own sea of dirty red. Each body would be contorted in its own disgusting dance of dismembered limbs and twisted faces of fear. Yet as he entered the glow of working street lamps and the dim polluted night sky, Ryker returned to his senses. He was not there. Not anymore. He was in the present, when the world knew better than to fight, and people submitted like obedient lap dogs. Oddly enough the price for weed had only risen slightly, which was expected due to the nature of inflation. He didn't know whether it was reassuring or worrying that the need to escape misery was still as in demand whether in war or servitude. Perhaps the war had not been that devastating? Ryker knew he was only fooling himself; it was probably far more likely that with the death of everything worth living for, people turned to false highs for any sign humanity still left.

Crossing the wide open street he could hear his own footstep against the gravel. The people round here were the more dedicated type, and therefor stayed in after dark doing respected family activities and all that. Not many places had reached this level of extremist dedication yet, but it slowly seemed to be turning that way. The hotel they were in was half covered by a wall, allowing its seedy inmates some level of privacy from outside judgment. Walking round the slimy brick that was littered with spit, piss and all other forms of body fluids Ryker was completely lost in his own thoughts. His once positive attitude flailing under the memories and sad reality. He was about to turn into the entrance of the hotel parking lot when there came a sound.

"You know not everything is doom and gloom." Ryker whirled round in shock as a voice, seemingly from nowhere addressed him. One that was well spoken and carried an 'educated' sounding accent much like Kye's.

"I'm up here." The voice spoke again, and looking slightly above him Ryker found the figure the voice was attached too. It was a female. With long white locks that seemed straight to impossibility, eyes covered by an impossibly long fringe. The rest of her had an indie feel to her, with a blue jumper that had only a pair of eyes on it. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose. With this she wore a pair of low cut shorts and sneakers. In her hand was a book, 'The Nun' written above the picture of a rather distressed looking religious women in the hands of a demon or devil. Ryker originally was about to dismiss her as a crazy, if not for the strange aura she gave off. Angel aura's would wisp about like spirits, human aura's would roll of them in waves whilst deviant aura's seemed to wrap around them like snakes controlling a doll. She had none of these though. Her aura came of her in flashes of fluctuating fireworks, random, sporadically and nonsensical.

"Who are you?" He asked cautiously, aware of the possibility he could be in deep danger here.

"Justyn Joker." She replied simply, before turning a page in her book.

"Right…" Ryker paused for a second, honestly a little confused by the entire situation.

"What are you?" He tried again, hoping perhaps this time to get a useful answer.

"Human." She paused before putting her book down, looking at the other with an air of contempt. She had bright red eyes that seemed almost luminous like a cats under night vision.

"You'd call me a prophet if that's what you want." Prophet? Now Ryker knew something was wrong.

"Prophets are dead." He stated.

"Yes well, Uriel did call me the last prophet if that helps." Well no, it didn't, it just added to Ryker's confusion, and with confusion came mistrust.

"Uriel? The archangel that died during the apocalypse?" Perhaps she was crazy, he reasoned, yet she seemed nothing like the crazy religious nuts Ryker had met before. She was well spoken and held herself with propriety. She spoke in monotone and certainly wasn't ranting and raving about the bible like a wild beast on meth.

"Went missing in the apocalypse." She corrected

"Though we should not discuss this in the open. He would not like that much." Ryker thought he might actually throw up with confusion, he felt his head spinning around him as he tried desperately to try and join dots that just didn't exist.

"Oh, so am I just supposed to take you in and trust you then? What makes you think I'd let you near my family for one second?" He asked his tongue had slipped on the family part. Now she knew how close they were, something he didn't want to say. Damn it!

"Trust me because I'm here to help you."

"Help us?" He snapped in sarcasm.

"I see great and terrible things in your future. It seems to be Gods intention that I find and help you, so that is what I am doing." Ryker let out a bitter laugh with that one.

"God?" He chuckled darkly.

"God wants you to help us. I don't know whether you've noticed love, but god doesn't care a single thing about us, neither do his angels. Why in the hell would he want to help us? We don't even know why we're here. And how the hell am I supposed to trust what you say? Great and terrible things, what does that even mean? What great and terrible things?" What was supposed to start out as a bitter rant had just turned into a bombardment of questions, and yet the figure still looked down at him with the same neutral, fringe covered, red eyed expression.

"I want to help you because in your midst is the one who can kill Michael, you know that. Humanity is meant to be freed. As for God, well, I don't know why you're here, or why he wants you here, or what his plans are, if any. I only assume that's were my vision come from. Trust me, because you have no choice, I can just follow you in, and you wouldn't want to kill me in public, and if you can't trust me then you certainly couldn't leave me alone now. The fact is you have no choice. And finally I don't know. I'm not sure how people think prophesies work but they aren't set in stone or vision or anything like that. We just, kind of, know things. We learn things beyond our time and in our minds hear whispers of possibilities and future ideals. Like a leak in time. I know that great and terrible things will happen to you, but whether your story ends in victory or destruction I couldn't tell you. Nothing is permanent, and any concept of an end is false." She answered each question as if she was firing bullets, and for a moment Ryker was stunned into silence, trying to process the random dots of information she had given to him, though little of it still added up. He sighed, shit; she was right about one thing though. He was in a position where he had very little choice. It's like the old saying goes, even the walls have ears.

Kye had left in order to get a drink from the vending machine at the end of the hallway. He had to admit he was impressed the hotel had one, never mind that it worked. For a building that looked so scruffy on the outside, it was surprisingly well kept within. The coke had dropped and he was about to head back when he overheard voices in the distance.

"They didn't seem happy when they saw us earlier." The voice was smooth and deep.

"Well I'm sick of all the hiding in the shadow nonsense we've been doing. This is the easiest way to deal with it." The other voice was rough, like he had been gargling sand every morning. It also held a note of bitterness, probably belonging to a very jaded individual.

"If you say so. Still after the glares at the garage I don't think we're going to get a warm welcome." Kye didn't wait to hear the rest of the conversation as he instinctively leapt in-between the vending machine and the wall. There was no doubt in his mind they were the two men from that afternoon. A threat. As he shuffled to the back he realised it might not have been the best hiding spot, if they took even a second to actually look in his direction he didn't think the thin veil of shadow would be enough to keep him from getting caught, and there was no way out of this situation if he was caught. Here's hoping the pair weren't thirsty.

He watched as they came into view, circling the corner of the spiral staircase, and beginning the trek up to his floor. It was them! The first tall man led again, each step thumping up the stairs with long muscular strides. The other seemed to almost drag himself up with such little grace Kye found himself questioning whether this man was actually an angel. Unlike others he made no attempt to appear even slightly angelic or holy. They got closer and closer to Kye, and he found himself holding his breath. Their conversation had ended as they silently approached him, and Kye forced his breath to be shallow and unheard. As they approached him Kye felt for his blade, slotted in his belt under his jumper. Grateful he never left it behind. He wrapped his hand around the leather jewelled handle. He tensed. Gripped tightly. Heart thumping ready to fight or flee, though flee wasn't really an option anymore. He would have to fight. They were so close to him. Only a pace away.

They passed by him. He let out a breath, and relaxed his hand, lightly resting his head against the cool metal of the vending machine. Only to then realise, they were going after his family!

Inside the room, Jacob and Astrid had finished chess and Jacob had grown edgy about their current situation. So as it was Jacob was planning their next moves, Nikki was polishing off her gun growing too annoyed with her game and Astrid was quietly reading through a maths book she had stolen from a library a few days back. Whilst the basic math problems were frustrating, it was good for her to place all her energy into something, to focus away from the world for a while. A knock at the door ended all that, as everyone froze in place. No one knocks at their door. Finding themselves in a situation of unknowing, both Astrid and Nikki habitually turned to Jacob for guidance. One an expression of guilt and worry, the other had the face of a murderer. Through the panic numbness of her mind Astrid heard [Go to the side of the door ready to grab 'em.] Astrid instinctively followed the order with little thought. Shrugging off his large green jacket Jacob began to creep to the door. Muscles tense clear under his army patterned shirt. Nikki begrudgingly put down her gun before making her way to the edge of the door way, which lay at the far end of the large room. [We need to keep this as quick and silent as possible.]

They went still. A beat passed. An exhale. Then, Jacob opened the door.

They went into action faster than lightning bolts. Jacob grabbed the first bloke, tall, stocky and strong, whilst the suspected angel had been too quick. Jacob pulled the man in, only to have him avoid his first attempt at a hit, though Astrid took care of that, taking advantage of his disorientation she flung a swipe to his gut, causing him to double over. Enough for her to chuck him into the room and onto the floor. The angel ran forwards, and with little effort slammed Jacob up against the wall behind him, Astrid found herself in a moment of shock. She knew the strength of angels, and yet to see a scrawny man take on Jacob, a man with the strength of a solider, seemed almost impossible to process. She was knocked back to reality when a kick to her legs took her down, as the man on the floor fought against Nikki, who with legs locked around his chest was hitting continuously at him. There was no mercy as she slammed fist after fist into his face.

With a bout of strength he threw the girl off him, as Nikki went flying into the cheap black couch, her back busting a hole into the furniture before she fell to the floor. He tried to get up when Astrid launched at him, stronger than Nikki, tackling him back to the ground. She managed a knee to the crotch but it wasn't enough as he evaded her next blow and grabbed her arm, spinning so that she was the one below him.

"Basterd." She spat, slamming her head into his nose causing the already bloody face to pour with the red liquid, though not without taking damage to her own skull. Talk about a thick head. Jacob landed a blow at the angel, but did barley any damage as he was flung to the ground with the rest of them.

"This is stupid." The angel muttered darkly, but didn't get closer as Kye appeared from the entrance and all but leapt onto the guy.

"Why you little…" But he got no further as Kye pulled the man by the roots of his hair, and placed a blade into his neck. He froze for a second, and as the larger man was about to help there was the sound of a click.

"Stay knelt on the fucking ground or I swear on everything unholy I will put lead into your skull and make a brain slushy." Nikki's voice was clear and angry, a juxtapose against the young innocent face she wore. Brown eyes glared emotionless; once again she held the expression of a murderer.

The angel jolted for just a second, but Kye let out a flash of grace warning the angel beneath him. It was only a split second, not even enough for his wings to manifest. Only a small glimmer of light appeared from his back, and for a second his eyes were shadowed with injuries past. Then it was gone. It was enough though. Enough for the angel to stop for a beat, to remember the blade at his neck. It wasn't any ordinary blade Kye wielded. It was a dagger encrusted in gold, with a slim silver blade that hummed with untold energy. They called it the devils blade. One of three blades made during the second revolution when men of science and men of God came together to create a weapon that could take down angels.

"I wouldn't try it." Jacob spat, mouth split open.

"Even without the weapon Kye can take down angels." The man above Astrid didn't seem to get the message as Astrid felt him tense. It was her turn to 'flash', just the slightest bit longer than Kye. Enough for wings to appear as subtle shadows, and head to form a dark crimson patch before fading. Also long enough for both men to feel the tiniest twinge of pain. It was a warning; she was not above using her abilities if it meant keeping her family safe. Whilst the angel showed no sign of having felt it, the man above froze, and knelt off Astrid, placing his hands up in a sign of surrender.

"Give me one good reason why I don't shoot this one." Nikki growled.

"Nikki." Jacob snapped in warning, as they all feared the youngest was seconds away from pulling the trigger of her pistol.

"Because I can torture the asshole for information first." Astrid's voice was laced with sadistic intent. She hated her abilities, but right now they were a gift. Rage was pumping through her veins as she was pissed of beyond belief. She looked around at the damage done to her family, granted most would heal within the hour, but that didn't change the fact that these assholes thought they had the right to hurt them. No one had that right. No one should survive attacking them. The more her thoughts spiralled the more angry she got, and she felt more than willing to blast the guy above her with the most painstakingly cruel torture she could conjure. [Astrid!] A voice in her head brought her back, as Jacob had now moved closer to her, just behind the kneeling stranger, staring at her with daggers in his eyes. Jacob was more than willing to throw Astrid against a wall if it meant stopping her from doing something, in hindsight, she would probably regret after.

It was then that Ryker came barging through the open door. Behind him a strange looking girl, with long white hair that was impossibly longer than Kye's.

"Guys wait a second!" He said, diffusing the tension of the room.

"Perhaps they shouldn't have gone up early." Came the posh voice of the strange girl, which Astrid instantly found obnoxious. She didn't like people that could possible battle with her intelligence, (or lack off). She seemed passive about seeing the situation though, and just screamed 'I'm a little odd' at least Astrid thought so.

"You think?" Ryker replied.

"Ryker what's going on?" Came Jacobs's voice, the voice of reason it seemed.

"I don't know okay. I don't know if we can trust them, but they say they're here to help, and I think we need to hear them out." As he said this Astrid glanced over at Kye, seeing relief wash through his eyes.

Though she doubted he even noticed it himself.