Chapter 1

My fingers were numb and yet still feeling raged through my mind. My muscles screamed, demanding a response that I was incapable of giving, no movement, no relief, no mercy.

The hand, pure strength holding me there. The voice, telling me it will be ok. Myself, suffering.

Please let it be it, I can't do this anymore, please no more, no more.

My eyes were sore, clamped shut and trying to hide from the underlying truth that I faced. The pain of not being hurt but the understanding that my body knew that it had been beaten grew, no, thrived on me.

My body was dead, no struggle was left, no energy to fight back, nothing stopping my end from coming.

I couldn't do anything. Nothing could help me now.

I opened my mouth and allowed the tidal wave to clean my body, wipe away all the wrong doings of my life, pure for judgement.

I could hear the blurred murmur of shouts, chaos getting control of the outside world, out side of my mind.

People, not just one, were in the room. The door wide and glowing, smoking.

The hand let go and I dropped to the floor, my body limp and unresponsive, slumped against the bath. The people left quickly, turning right at the blaze, the flames licking at the frame of the door. The artic cold water on my back was little relief from the smoke that consumed my lungs, snatching at the very air I longed for.

A figure, stood in the doorway, stood miles away from me it seemed. Dark with the glow of my death behind him, I welcomed it.

Death seemed so kind, giving me salvation from the pains and evils of life, offering me sanctuary from it all.

I've found my peace, accepted what was to come, braced and ready.

He just stood there, glance over me and turned. He walked away. The light off his back reflecting on me. His two wings, crossed and long, shining bright on his shoulder blades.

Death had left, but not with me.

Was I not good enough for him, am I not worthy to die?

The smoke billowed in through the door, blocking out the light that gave me hope, the flames that raged and offered me redemption and death. It was coming but it was taking its time.

I had excepted death, I wasn't afraid of it, what was to fear but the end of something and the beginning of nothing?

Two people appeared in the doorway, one with brilliant red hair and the other blond. The red head was smaller, lean in build but both held themselves strong. The blond, distinctively male, was taller. The image of an angle and a demon stood before me. Was this why death had left, to let the two sides argue about who should have me? The up or the down, the blessed or condemned.

The two were talking, they were saying something but I couldn't make out what they were saying. The smaller red head laughed, the laugh one of a females. The female, Eve, tempted by the snake to eat from the forbidden tree and condemned into a life of exile from the garden of Eden, had come for me. Showing her dominance over the male Adam and claiming me, but both still stood there, in the doorway.

Why don't they take me? Why do they let me suffer? Why don't they end my life swiftly?

The two, my angle and demon, left in the same direction as death. The smoke now consuming the room I was in, there was no hope for me now.

Why did they leave? Was it not my time, am I suppose to live?

My muscles were no longer demanding my attention and the control and power I had over my body was returning.

I am not going to die.

My hands gripped the side of the bath and using every muscle I could use, pulled myself up to my knees. My spine twisted and turned under the sudden change of position and a yelp escaped my throat. The pain that had long since gone had returned, burning through every cell in me. I could feel the heat behind me, bullying me to fall back down, driving me past my limits.

My lungs were lifted, held high within the smoke, causing me to choke and gag on nothing but the air.

I had to move.

The last of my energy, the small spark that I had left, my muscles screamed as I got to my feet.

I was up, there was no stopping me now. I put my right foot first, still clutching the bath and leaning against the wall, blood streamed down from my forehead. The weight of my body shook my ankles and knees.

Left foot, my hands left the wall and bath rim, leaving me unsupported and unbalanced. I had to move or I will die. Death hadn't claimed me and neither did his angle or demon. I was not going to die today.

Slowly I made my way to the door-frame, the heat intensifying with every advance I made. Brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter, I was standing in the doorway, the frame buckled and splintering.

Left or right?

Do I follow my captures right, or death and his apprentices left?

Turning left, I ran as fast as I could, my heart pounding as feeling returned to my muscles, the control that I lacked for so long returned.

The corridor itself was a tunnel of rage and anger, flames spiralling with the up draft from ahead. Wind? An exit.

The world was turning fast, hurtling past me as I made my way down the endless corridor. There was no sign of human life anywhere, all had left.

My mind and memory was back and sharp, fresh with the adrenaline that flowed through my blood.

I stopped abruptly. The sheer noise was overwhelming, what was I doing? How could I be so stupid and miss it?

All along the corridor were windows, boarded up and sealed, but an exit never the less. Using my foot and all of my body weight that I could, I rocked into the window, gently easing away at the rusted aged screws that blocked my way out. Back and forth, harder and harder until the screws gave out, falling outside the building and plummeting down the wall to the ground.

Four stories high, I was on the fourth floor. The black of night was lit up like the Fourth of July by the glow of the building. But I had to get out.

My judgement and mind still distorted, I leaned my body out of the window, lifting my legs up and over. My hands clamped onto the window still, glass slicing the flesh on my fingers. My legs dangled down the wall, swaying in the wind that blew up into the window.

Lowering my chin as much as I could, my face pressed hard against the wall, I couldn't see a lot. The wall was plain, no foot holes or ledges, just a smooth surface to the ground four stories below.

I tried to pull myself up as the truth dawned on me, the hight was inescapable.

My arms burned with the weight of me, fatigue setting in.

I could not pull myself up.

My arms dropped back down, letting me hang above the unforgiving ground.

The night sky was ablaze with the shine of millions of stars, looking down on me, giving me sympathy and hope. My hands gave way and I closed my eyes.

I landed in a broken pile on the cold harsh ground. I couldn't feel my body; the energy had since escaped my hold. There were people running towards me, a dark shadow and a flash of red and blond following, emerging from the unknown. I couldn't make out who they were but looked familiar, my vision blurred and my head lightened.

The men around me where the last people I was ever going to meet, this was it, I wasn't going home.