This is my first Alternate Universe story. Do me a favour and leave me some feedback! :) ~II

The Seraphim and the Wingless live in relative peace in the Light Realm. Most of the people there don't notice the corruption that has been infecting the Realm around them. The Fallen and the Unknown are taking over the streets.

Harold Finch sees everything that is happening, but is powerless to stop it-that is until he manages to raise John Reese from the Lower Realms.

Every day is much the same as the next here in this limbo realm. The light here is dull grey, day and night. The world is slowed to an agonizing crawl. Anyone that comes here—whether they Faded or they Fell—eventually gets drained of whatever life was in them. The souls that are here are nothing but shells. Echoes of the people they once were. That's what the Lower Realms do. They devour you whole.

John Reese was a shadow of his former self even before he Faded into limbo. The Grey Realm can take nothing from him because he has nothing to give. He sits, he drinks whatever tasteless stuff that passes for alcohol here and he stares at nothing. He lost everything in Life and he Faded. He doesn't fear Fading further down as most do—as is likely to happen after a while. He does nothing to stop it. What else does he deserve, after all?


It takes him a while to realize there's someone standing over him. It takes another few seconds to gaze through the haze on his eyes and see that the person in front of him has a sort of golden luminosity to him—he completely lacks the dull grey of the rest of the people here. John slowly raises his eyes to meet those of the luminous stranger. Blue eyes study him from behind wire-rim glasses. Like everything else about this man the eyes are too blue for the Grey realm.

"Hello, Mister Reese," he says and before John can ask him how he knows his name, or what he wants, or why he's here (where he's clearly not meant to be), or react at all, really, the man reaches out and presses a palm to John's chest. There's a feeling like flying (or falling—he's not sure of the difference anymore) and the whisper of wings and then his senses go dark.