Avarice.

'Reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth.'


Dear diary,

It has been one... two... three... four... five... six days since Myde went missing. Six days. Since then I've frittered my time away at home and slowly let myself recover from the loss of someone I almost cared about. Every morning I stop by my door and look down at the spot he used to lay in, and then deliberately avoid walking on it, half-wondering if maybe he's still here, and I just can't see him anymore. I talk to myself, faced towards the end of my bed, as if he were still there, just in case he can hear me. I reply for him though, I try to imagine what he would say, and about four out of ten times, I feel like I might have done it right...

In school, I speak to Amelia more intimately before. I suppose, perhaps, I'm trying to make her replace him. I pulled her arms around my waist the other day and just rested my head on her shoulder. She stroked my hair and held me. I know I shouldn't be doing this, because when she asked me out before, I scorned her. I don't want to get her hopes up, that's not my intention, I just need something to cling to right now.

Everything here feels like a memory of him, and I know it shouldn't because... because I didn't know him long enough to have said I loved him, or ever really cared about him. It's just habit, I suppose. A dirty one I need to get out of... but I can't help it. When I look at the window I remember the morning when he was leant against it, staring out, when I go to the front door, I imagine the way he'd lay there when I first met him.

I cried into Xemnas' arms last night. He thinks he's pushed me too hard, I suppose. I slept in his bed because I don't feel safe or secure in my own. I clutched at his shoulders, feeling weak and pathetic, but he said nothing to scold me for my lack of strength. He didn't ask for explanation either. Perhaps he believes I'm having a mental breakdown. It was nice to let go, nevertheless.

He still never explained to me why he had come home early on the day Myde disappeared. Though, I guess he had other things on his mind when his drowned rat of a 'son' dragged himself back to the door at 11pm, shaking and shivering from the cold, eyes red from crying or the rain - who could tell which?

There's a strange surrealism that lingers about this though. I'm convincing myself more and more that I imagined it all, or that it was some experiment conducted by Xemnas. Perhaps he was trying to get me to socialise more... just pretending not to see Myde... after all, there's no such thing as an angel without wings... is there? He didn't have wings... Maybe this was all some kind of joke. I felt pain shoot through my heart just saying that.

What the hell is happening to me?


Myde stirred at last, and a blinding whirlpool of turquoise and sea-foam greens obscured his vision before he broke through the surface and panted for breath, cold sweat running down his back.

Myde had spent one, two, three, four, five, six days in a hellish state between dreams, nightmares and one speech from a 'heavenly' companion of his. He considered vaguely that the speech had been a nightmare, but it was far too clear to be so. His nightmares in heaven had been unbearable, almost as if he was back with Ienzo as he watched him sin and hurt others, yet these dreams spun far beyond reality, and he had, several times, felt Ienzo's hand in his hair as he towered over him, knife in hand, grasping him again and then drawing the edge of the blade closer to his throat before ripping it across. The gagging, the inability to breathe, the desperate drawing in of air despite the pain it caused... the panic. Then finally the bliss of absolute darkness.

He buried his head in his hands, and then looked down at the ground around him. Earth. Back here again... He didn't know whether to be relieved or horrified; once again, he had fallen from Heaven, but this time he knew what he had to do to get back, and to regain his wings, which he missed sorely.

He had sat across from Lea, on soft, springy grass, a gentle warmth running through the air in the middle of a field that stretched as far as the eye could see. One of many landscapes that one could visit here in Heaven.

"What's he like then?" That had been Lea's first question, the second he woke up. Myde had sat up, and, unsure how else to react, he just responded to his question.

"...Ienzo, d'you mean?" He asked groggily. The trip between Heaven and Earth was always highly disorientating, and he still wasn't sure how it happened. Everything seemed to turn black before hand, so he assumed he was unconscious for the journey.

"Yeah."

"Oh... he's nice I suppose..."

"Wrong! Myde, haven't you learned a thing down there?" Lea demanded, a dangerous anger sparking in his eyes. Myde shuffled around, unsettled.

"Ienzo is bad. He is a sinner."

"What?"

"S-I-N, N-E-R, got it memorised?" He asked patronisingly, tapping his temple.

"...He's not that bad," Myde defended, looking away from Lea now.

"Who are you trying to kid? You're supposed to be saving him, Myde, what's going on down there?"

"Saving him? From what?"

"From the crowds of nice people waiting for him when he dies," Lea responded sarcastically. Myde didn't pick up on it.

"Why would I want to save him from that?"

"Myde, you dumb fuck, he's going to hell."

"What? But he's not even that bad! Okay, maybe he did some things wrong, but that doesn't make him a bad person!" Lea just rubbed his temples, trying not to lose his temper.

"Okay, Myde? Shut up. Let me explain. You were sent down to Earth because he is a sinner. He has committed nearly every sin in the book."

"So?"

"SHUT UP! Let me FINISH, damnit!" Myde winced and gave Lea a dirty look. He was worse than Ienzo. "Basically, Myde, you've got to show him the error of his ways. Teach him to be a good guy."

"Then he'll get to go to heaven?"

"Nobody taught you anything, did they?" Lea asked, raising an eyebrow. "Don't you get it? You are born into Heaven, not welcomed into it. How many angels have seen God or the Gods? Three claim to have, and they are all Elites. We are the bog-standard run of the mill angels, and we don't even get to see who we're meant to be working for... if there is anybody. So why would someone that was born onto Earth EVER get to come here and get the chance to see them when even we don't? They're not worthy. Why would you think otherwise?"

"...I just assumed that was the point."

"No Myde. There is only Hell or death for those people. Eternal darkness. Go to sleep, never wake up. We claim to be the compassionate ones, so every now and again, it's practically our job to head down there and set a few of those heading for Hell on the right path, and you know what? If you're not compassionate naturally, they give you a new drive so that you do the right thing and keep people down there believing we're so good and kind and perfect."

"What's that?" Myde asked tentatively, but he was already sickened by this new information.

"If you don't, we take your wings, and you go to Hell," Lea said in a sickly sweet voice. Myde's brow furrowed.

"Why do we need them to believe we're all these things?" He asked slowly.

"Because, Myde, one day we're going to go down there, and we will be treated as good as God himself. People will honour us, and why? Because they're ignorant! They don't know what happens here, only how we act while we're there. Make sure you keep that image up and if you end up being made an Elite, well, when you go to Earth again... Geez, life of luxury, y'know?"

"So what are we?" Myde asked with a tight throat, his eyes fixed on Lea's now. "If we're not really that kind or good or caring, what are we?" Lea grinned at him, and Myde's stomach twisted into knots.

"People with wings, Myde. We just live on a different plane of existence to them."

"...But... don't we care about them?"

"Nah, we're just smarter than them, Myde." Lea leaned forward and ruffled up his hair, "We're just as greedy as they are, we just hide it better, see? So, go back, set your little friend on the right path, and then we can haul you back up here and in a few years time we'll head back down and he'll worship the ground you walk on!"

"...Lea... Is... Is this really what we do this for? We have everything we need here..."

"Yeah, it's true, but we'd have even more if we ruled Earth too." Lea grinned like a Cheshire cat. "One minor detail, you'll be going back as a human. Don't worry, we're still keeping tabs on you, it's just, we figure you'll work better this way because you can manipulate his friends as well. It's like getting a combo on a game - you'll get more for it later. We could even tint your wings gold if you do it well enough," Lea said with a smirk, and then pounced on Myde, drawing a loud cry from him as he did so. Myde grunted when he hit the ground, and then looked up at Lea, searching his eyes for some sign that this was all a joke. It wasn't. Lea leaned down close to him and he shuffled uncomfortably again. "S-A-V, I, O, U-R, got it memorised? Now, get back to work!" And then everything went black.