The Looking Glass
A long time ago, when the world was bright and youthful, when the air was free from the heavy weight of pollutions and the trees covered the earth in a cool embrace and protected the earth from the burning sun.
A long time ago, the Angels and the Humans lived together in peace. Two entirely different species became the brothers and sisters of one world.
The humans used to praise their evolved brother species, fascinated by the majesty and intrigued by the might angels possessed.
However, as time spun its complicated web, Man experienced hardships beyond their imagination, sparking the flame of resentment to burn and glower within themselves.
A dark creeping envy started to harvest in Man's pure heart, envy for the long feathered wings that shielded their brothers from harm, sheltering them from the claws and teeth of the harsh raging beasts of their world.
Darkness began to fester in Man's heart and began to tarnish the image of their naïve brothers.
The sparking of resentment started a new age, boiling the weak-hearted and envy-tainted humans over into an unimaginable rage. Before one could blink, one untimely action lead to another, breaking out into a fury of outbreaks and rebellions, and just like that, the time of peace shattered.
The brothers and sisters of Earth turned against each other, sweeping into a bloodthirsty war that neither one had imagined centuries earlier.
The war stretched over centuries, Man's skin becoming harder and thicker from the centuries of bloodshed and scratches, as the angels became weak and frail. Generations of new life were wasted away in the bloody fire of death from their war.
In a last surging hope for rekindling their dwindling species, the brother species reluctantly split from their darkening world.
Where they had fallen, no one can particularly remember.
Whispered rumors could say they still live somewhere, a life separated from the humans but still intact with the weak threads and strings that had made them siblings in the first place.
Centuries pass and the blood washed away as the world twisted and turned like a rubix cube in the hands of the now most powerful species in the world, the humans. With the world's chang almost all traces of the angels' benevolent existence vanished, leaving only the faint stain on Man's brain of their winged brothers.
Where truth once lay, imagination now triumphed and connected the sparce clues angel's left behind. Now the "truth" lies in the obscure stories of these winged creatures. Some were fables about wild, demented beasts with feathered wings and an unquenchable thirst for blood.
While others were exaggerated tales of divine beings whose sole purpose was to guard and protect humans.
Throughout these fables, Man was always the hero of the story, brave and strong, and that was what people wanted to hear. They abandoned their brother tribe into the past and retold them to suite their own wild imaginations.
Yet, somehow through this process of retelling history, they managed to forget a single detail. The seemingly insignificant detail of a hidden portal and an even smaller key within the world of the angels was lost to humanity.
The key that would have reunited the worlds again, and clash the brother and sister tribes together, for better or for worse.
Such a detail was so easily forgotten, and of course a lie to behold, so no one took much notice when the key was used again, forcing to merge their paths once more.
~~X~~
A small, brunette girl sits in the soft soil of the forest floor, while the rest of the angels are off playing; she sits alone with her thoughts. Her pallor hands dig away at the roots intertwined in the dirt as today's lesson replays in her mind.
She vaguely remembers the days when her classes included performing the perfect curtsy, learning immaculate manners or singing.
Her ivory wings flutter and disturb the warm, peaceful air with its agitated flapping; memories surge from beneath her eyelashes, flashing behind her eyelashes in a flickering pace.
A much younger version of herself smiling broadly, as she listens, her eyes widen with and unblinking attention up at the elder. He rambles softly about the importance or rather of being grammatically correct, holding yourself in a way so that your shoulders never slouch and your spine never curves.
His voice always had a calming affect on her, rumbling in a low gruff sound as it left from his quick moving lips. Well, it used to have a calming affect. That all seemed to change when she turned sixteen.
They no longer learned about the dainty lace of doilies, or how to curtsy with perfection. The elder's cease to care if the angels could identify when a pitch became flat or sharp in any range of voices. Instead, they learned of blood and broken feathered wings, and tales of the unimaginable rage their untamable brother species had felt.
The rest of her class had shivered with horror and disgust while she had looked around to her friends with their heads in their hands and had wondered why they didn't find these humans as fascinating as she did.
Her imagination roared to life as images played out in her mind of all the curious things they did. Their need to label things, colonize things, it absolutely fascinated her; it awakened something within her, a need, a small flickering desire to see the other world and its inquisitive disasters and beauty.
Her deep, chocolate eyes flitter around the forest and focus on the stray beams of sunlight reaching through the thicket of trees. With a sigh, her fingertips run through the stray beams of light and she feels the slight warmth tingle her fingertips.
The day is perfect, not too hot but not too cold, immaculate, just as it had been yesterday, the day before, and every day she can remember in her short life. She closes her eyes and tries to piece together all of what the elders have told her. Dark eyebrows furrow as she tries to imagine a rainy day. What would it taste like?
She imagined the thick, misty air but could only hear the elder's words, how blood would wash down the soiled mountains like rivers as the rain had washed it away from the mangled bodies of the angels.
She wants to know how rain would feel. What would it look like as it falls from the sky onto their world? However, after a long moment she lets out an exasperated sigh and opens her eyes, it is useless; all she can imagine is the same warm embrace of the sun she has felt every day of her life.
Her bare feet scratch against the soft earth as she stands up, the muscles contract in her back as her wings stretch to its fullest, each ivory feather illuminating in the soft light. It isn't that she doesn't appreciate the peace, or adore the world's constant beauty, or admire its calmness…it's just that…where's the thrill in a new day if every day is spent like the last one?
She walks through the forest in a daze, hardly paying much mind to where her feet were taking her. She walks without thought, as if there was rope tightened around her chest, lightly guiding her to where she needs to be.
She barely notices the elders gliding through the air, their dark cloaks flapping in the wind. There is no way to identify an elder as one person, their voices are all kind and soft and all of them are men, their stature is tall and strong but never intimidating and their unique features are hidden by the cloak. Only their shaven chins poke out from the shade of the cloak.
The girl walks past the cherry blossom trees, their branches stretching in the non-existent breeze.
She walks by the angels, all in their uniformed clothing of plain white shirts and black slacks for the boys and pallid, loose dresses for the girls. All the young angels run and giggle around two tall copper bells, the dawning bell and the caliginosity bell.
One bell rings in the morning to bring about a new day and the last bell alerts the beginning of night and puts the tired day to rest until the next day is ready to arise.
The girl walks in silence for a long time, too deep in thought to notice how far away from the community she was going. Her heart thumps with disinterest as she walks through the groves of flowers, the birds above her chirp the same song they have been singing since day one.
She can't help but feel like there is something missing, she had always found herself looking at the small angels playing in the grass and wondering what she was missing as their wings flapped joyously as they play tag for the millionth time that day.
A musty smell rips the girl out of her thoughts and she finds herself in front of a mysterious old building, must have been the only building in her tiny world. It isn't until she stops walking that she feels the slight ache in her legs from overuse.
"Wow…" She breathes and looks around only to find the landscape around her foreign. Weeds scratch at her knees and grasp at the loose fabric of her dress, "How long have I been walking for?" The only answer she receives is the faint shadows licking at her frame as the sun hides behind the cover of the thick forest in the distance. She knows she should be worried, young angels should not be alone in the dark. How irresponsible. However, she cannot help but feel the slight trill of curiosity reverberate through her chest.
So she turns back to the curious building, and tilts her head slightly to see it better.
Time has crumbled its mud brick walls but still charcoal colors the building with its designs. She walks into the building and squints as her eyes adjust to the sudden change in lighting; the only light comes streaming in from the hole at the top of the structure.
As her eyes adjust, she sees that the structure is circular, charcoal designs illustrate the walls around her, the dark figures dance around her in the circular room. Her fingertips brush the rough texture of the wall and she sees a group of dark figures outlined in the charcoal. The dark musty clay that figures the men smells odd and sharp, spiking a chill to crawl up the angel's spine.
Each figure held spears of various sizes and shapes, surrounding a single charcoal figure with black, charcoal wings jutting out of its back. It sits on its knees in the middle of the crowd with its hands up, and as the girl looks farther down the illustrations, she watches as one by one the charcoal people throw their weapons at the defenseless charcoal angel, the sharpened sticks piercing the angel figure; it's black blood seeps into the decorative wall.
It sets her teeth on edge and a small but certain shiver begins to curl at the base of her spine.
At the end of the room, a dark hole is cut out of the mud bricks, she inches closer and cringes, knowing immediately where the stale smell was originating. Crouching on her knees, she looks into the small cave, her heart flutters when she sees a faint light at the end of the darkness.
Small, carved letters scrawled out methodically at the foot of the cave catches the girl's attention. With a small breath, the girl leans in, her breath brushing the loose dust free from the collected pile upon the floor.
In a small voice, she whispers: "Beyond this cave lie The Looking Glass and its Key…" Her eyebrows furrow with confusion…it couldn't be what she is thinking…all those stories she was told about the portal to an outside world comes to her mind…it couldn't possibly be that…could it?
A loud clamor rips the girl out of her daze and with a small yelp; she spins around to find the culprit standing at the foot of the structure.
Two large, extended wings leave dark, daunting shadows in the small room, the brunette steps back into he wall as an irrational fear keeps her wings out and alert, flexing and always ready for the opportunity to flee.
The dark, lithe silhouette inches closer to the small angel, the brunette crouches, ready for her wings to swoop her up and out of the room in seconds. However, a familiar giggle makes her hesitate and within seconds, she finds herself with an armful of a tall, lean and very blonde angel.
"I found you!" the other girl giggles again, making the brunette sigh and relax. In the silky darkness, the smaller girl can see her friend's brilliant smile and can't help but smile a bit in return as she gives her friend an obligatory kiss on the cheek in greeting. "You are really bad at hide and seek; you looked like you were sleep-walking!" The girl giggles and jump from the shorter girl's embrace, scrambling out of the building to hide once more.
The brunette just sighed, it seemed as if she was constantly playing a game with this girl and half the time she was completely unaware the game even existed.
She called out for her friend lamely, unwilling to leave her discovery so soon.
After a long moment, the taller girl peeks her head at the opening of the structure, long; tendrils of blonde hair covered the girl's pale eyes as she cocks her head to the side. "Have you forgotten the rules again?"
"Do you have any idea where we are standing?" The girl huffs out impatiently at her oblivious friend. Her friend's expression remains confused, the girl's ever-present smile drooping slightly with bewilderment. "This could be the key out of here!"
"Well…why would you ever want to leave?" The blonde's pink lips turn down in a befuddled pout and all the brunette can do is stare, her lips slightly apart as she glances at the cave to her friend and back again. She doesn't know how to answer that question, because honestly, she doesn't know why she isn't happy here.
"Don't you ever get the feeling that something is missing?" Her voice cracks slightly and she stomps her foot when her friend continues to stare at her blankly "Aren't you even slightly curious?" Her friend is clearly frowning now; she stands at the opening of the cave, staring at her fidgeting hands and shuffling her feet.
"I like it here, this is my home…" She murmurs gently
"Who says we are going to stay there? Just go out and see what the fuss is all about, just one day. One day where there aren't uniformed dresses or routines…" she licks her lips and smiles faintly "We can experience something different" the two of them stare at the small opening in a daze, two entirely different things going on in their minds.
The smaller angel thinks about all of things she has never seen and experiences she has never felt but longs for them with all of her heart; and the other is conflicted with peer pressure.
However, a deep ringing reverberates through the cave and rips the two angels from their daze. It's the chiming of the caliginosity bell; indicating that the day is done and night is upon them. It is another rule and another routine and it breaks the small dream fluttering in the shorter girl's mind, reminding her of her place, her home.
With a small sigh, her shoulders slump, her feet drag against the ground, her wings drooping with defeat as she walks out of the cave. Her friend however, immediately brightens; her smile once again on her lips and her dazzling blue eyes shine with delight. The previous conversation already forgotten in her friend's mind at the bell.
"I wonder what is for supper!" She jabbers excitedly and the smaller girl smiles faintly at her friend as a cold, sharp feeling settles in her chest; for living in such a peaceful world with no judgments or labels, she has never felt so alone.