Beyond the Skies
Two winged figures stand next to each other, seemingly staring down at the destruction of humanity. A yellowish gold aura surrounding one, while a pure white aura surrounded the other. One had a look of indifference on its face, while the other had a look of sadness.
"They are dieing, brother." the gold aura breaks the silence.
The white aura turns towards the gold aura, as if looking at him skeptically, but does not respond.
A few moments pass by, and the pure white aura responds.
"You fail to see the bigger picture, Michael."
Michael's facial features slant inwards at this, a discharge of anger surrounding his entity.
"This IS the bigger picture, Gabriel. Or have you forgotten what is truly important?" Michael snaps at the white aura, anger and fury emanating outwards from his very being.
However, Gabriel remains indifferent, before responding. "You are becoming emotionally attached to a tiny, insignificant spec on the canvas of eternity. You know the law prevents us from interfering with... "earthly" affairs. You are only hurting yourself in this." he spoke with a calm, rational voice, trying to reach out to his brother.
"If anybody could understand me, I would of thought my own brother could. How can we just stand here, hiding behind our precious "laws", while an entire race is about to wipe itself clean from the face of their planet?!" Michael responded with a fiery fierceness in his echoing voice.
Gabriel chuckled at this, looking Michael dead in the eye.
"You're a fool, brother."
Michael looked at him incredulously, as Gabriel continued. "You really think you can help a species from extinction? Let me explain something to you." he said while taking a step forward.
"There is NOTHING you can do to change fate. With life, comes death. You cannot change this. What do you think you can do, Michael? The planet is changing, just like it did after it was engulfed in ice, and when the grandest species of them all roamed the earth. Life has been recycling itself for eons, and now it's humanity's turn to die and become part of eternity. This fungal growth... the cause of said "doom", is simply a mutated virus succeeding in evolution." Gabriel smirked to himself, showing a hint of pleasure at this.
"Besides," he continued, "this just makes our job easier. It'll be that many less demons to obliterate when the time comes."
Michael looked him with a fierce glare now, speaking in a voice trembling with rage. "Oh, how you've fallen Gabriel. Those people down there are angels as well. Did you forget this?"
Gabriel scoffed, cutting eye contact from his brother. "It's irrelevant. The eternal conflict will not end until the demons of this eternity are put down. There is nothing in all the universes as arrogant, selfish, and brutally capable as a human being. How do you think they've made it this far in the chain of evolution?" he continued. "The law, by the lord itself, strictly states to not interfere with the affairs of mankind. I'm not going to repeat this to you again."
Michael turned to respond, but Gabriel wasn't finished.
"Just think of it this way," he said, cutting him off. "That little girl you've been wasting your time watching is immune to this virus. She wants to kill herself to save her pitiful race, right? Well, we'll be doing the same thing, sacrificing our own for the greater good. That should make you happy, since you are so attached to these insignificant specs we call human beings. The lord knows what's best here, by letting them all perish."
With this, Gabriel dissipated, leaving Michael alone to his thoughts.
"This is wrong." he said to himself.
He once again looked downwards onto humanity. Witnessing the unholy rape, torment, hatred, destruction. It was a mess, he thought to himself. But, he could also feel something else burning inside him, radiating its way up to him as if it was shooting straight up, like a beam from humanity itself. And that's when he realized-
'It's love.' he said in his mind, repeatedly. 'Gabriel, even if they are demons, I simply cannot sacrifice the angels of this world for the greater good. I will not go along with this. There is another way, and that way is love!'
A holy aura of fire and might suddenly surrounded Michael, engulfing him in righteous, blinding light that could be seen forever.
"You've asked me what I could do." Michael said to nobody in particular.
He then fiercely grabbed his wings, reaching over his shoulders, and in one fell swoop, tore them clean off.
"I will show you." were his last words in pain, before he felt himself falling into unconsciousness, dark forces pulling him downwards at blazing speeds, towards Earth.
The last thing he could feel was this sense of falling, as if he was lowering himself to appease scum. The flames engulfed him, and he blacked out.
Ellie opened her eyes to a ceiling fan above her and a window to her left. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, waking up to a yummy scent of bacon which instantly made her mouth water. She then remembered how she fell asleep the previous night, and a slight blush formed on her face. 'I guess I was really out of it, for Joel to carry me upstairs without waking me up.'
She got out of bed and put on some fresh clothes, before making her way down the stairs and into the kitchen. When she reached the kitchen, what she saw put a smile on her face. It was Joel cooking breakfast for them.
"Wow, that smells great." she said, looking at Joel cook eggs and bacon in front of the stove.
Joel turned around with a small smile on his face "Hey kiddo, sleep well?"
"Yeah, one of the best nights I've ever had actually." she continuted, "I must of been really out of it last night, because I don't remember going upstairs." she smirked, awaiting Joel's reaction.
"I reckon you were pretty tired last night. Never heard you snore like that before, Ellie." he chuckled.
"WHAT?! Bullshit, I never snore." she said, laughing. "You're such a fucking liar."
"Ha, seriously Ellie, you were really out cold last night." Joel's heart then sank and his facial expression changed, remembering the last time he was holding an unconscious Ellie in his arms.
Ellie picked up the change in his demeanor. "Hey, you okay?" she asked with a soft voice, looking him in the eyes.
He shoved the thoughts out of his head and tried to be positive for Ellie. "Yeah, just fine. Come on, let's eat up. Later we'll go visit Tommy and Maria to discuss how we're gonna keep ourselves warm around here next winter." he said, eyeing the wood burning stove in the family room.
Ellie's thoughts immediately wandered to recent winter events, causing her to shudder. She then looked at Joel like he was crazy.
"Next winter? Why worry about something like that now? Spring just started, ya know." she said while eating her eggs and bacon.
"True" he said. "But I haven't really discussed with Tommy how this place survive's its winters. You know how cold it can get in these parts, and aside from the gas burners on the stove, I think that's just about all the heat we can manage to generate here. Unfortunately that won't be enough."
Ellie frowned, not wanting to go through another freezing winter again.
Joel noticed this and continued talking. "Hey, you see that big thing over there with the pipe coming out of the top of it going into the ceiling?" he asked, pointing to the wood burning stove.
"Yeah, I noticed that when we got here, but what is it?" she responded.
"That's called a wood burning stove. It's basically self explanatory as to what it's used for. All you gotta do is pack that baby full of nice hard seasoned logs, and let it burn low and slow. The flames inside cause the metal body to heat up drastically, creating a really cost effective heat source." he continued to explain "The pipe just runs out of the ceiling and that's why there's a chimney outside, so the smoke can escape."
Ellie nodded her head in understanding.
"If we can get enough seasoned wood for that thing, we won't be worryin about no cold winters anymore. I'd say, with the size of that stove compared with the size of this house, it may even get too hot in here, depending on how high we keep the flames. That thing'll be givin' off more heat than any campfire you've ever started."
"Sounds great, but where are we going to get wood? And what do you mean by seasoned?" she inquired.
"Right. So, in other words, seasoned means dried out, ready to burn wood. So let's say you cut a tree down into logs right now. If you were to try and burn it, it would just sizzle out and make more smoke than heat. That's because the wood is still alive and moisture is still stuck inside from it's life. To season trees, you really should chop em' up and let them dry out at least one to two seasons before you actually burn them. That's how you get the best burn out of em' and the most heat." Joel explained.
"Two seasons?! That means we gotta start now." she says.
"Right, that's why I gotta ask Tommy tomorrow about the areas surroundin' this place. We may be able to collect some tree trunks but we'll need tools for that. Also, I'm not so keen on the idea of goin' back out there blindly into infection land. I'm not interested in putting your life at risk just for some stupid trees." he said matter of factually. "Startin' to wish this place had a furnace."
Ellie smirked at him, shaking her head. "You know I can take care of myself, right Joel? I can handle a few mushroom heads if the situation calls for it. You taught me how to survive out there, I ain't scared of no clickers anymore."
Joel's heart warmed up when she said those words.
"Besides," she continued, "You'll be right there with me." and gave him a playful nudge in the side.
"Damn right I will, girl." Joel said, smiling as they finished their breakfast.
Lol yeah, you guys are probably like WTF now, but hey, I told you my imagination was weird. :D