I rewrote the beginning a bit and this is what I got so far… meh
The Earth was small below her, a marble in the mist, but at the same time it was right amongst her, just shimmering and out of focus. She moved towards it and slowly the shadows got deeper and the phantoms became thicker. The earth took form and became solid around her. She soared now amongst buildings and through them. She was not seen nor was she heard. She was ethereal.
She had heard a cry of absolute anguish and pain. A cry, she thought, that should require Death, but he was not called. It touched her spirit and she went. She was closer now. She sensed it and passed through the wall and stood in a bedroom, within a house, within a city, somewhere on earth. It did not matter to her. She would ease the pain and give comfort, if even just a brief respite until Death did arrive.
She looked down upon a man. The room was dark but it mattered not to her. She saw thick dark hair, deep set eyes, closed in restless sleep, and a hawk nose. She saw no wounds, no bodily harm. She wondered what caused such pain. Was it a tortured mind or a shattered soul? She had never felt such deep pain from a human, not like this. She had to dampen her senses, for this close it screamed at her. She stretched out her pale slim hand to offer her comfort, to give God’s mercy. She reached for his bare chest to touch his heart and give relief.
He snatched her hand like a cobra strike and sat up with black eyes, dead on her. Startled, she tried to back away. She looked quickly from him to her hand. He should not be able to sense her! He should not be able to touch her! She could not pull away. For the first time in all her existence she was frightened. She looked back at him and now she saw the truth. He had wings as black as coal and as ragged as sackcloth, not feathery and satin white as hers where.
“Let me go!” She pleaded, trying to pull away. “What are you?”
“You do not know us?” He said with a touch of surprise but did not release her.
He stood now and his wings unfurled behind him. They were leathery and barbed at the edges. His chest was covered in a dark thick hair.
“You are of the Fallen!” She realized and covered her mouth with her free hand. She had never seen them. She had never sought them on her missions for mortals. “Why do you hold me? Release me!” She demanded.
“What is your name?” He simply asked.
Still she tried to pull away. “I am Eliana.” She answered. “Let go!”
He ignored her plea. “God answers me,” The demon translated her name and smiled, “how appropriate.”
“You tricked me. NOW, LET ME GO!” She was becoming angry for the first time in her existence too.
“I did not trick you, Eliana. I am in pain. My agony is daily and without end.” He told her.
She looked at his eyes, they spoke the truth. ‘But he is fallen’ she told herself, ‘they lie and deceive.’ “Why should I believe you?” she shook her head slowly.
“You felt it. You answered it, my cry.” He tried to pull her close but she resisted with equal strength. “Death would be a release, but I am denied even that.” He told her.
Eliana was a creature of empathy. The Creator had made her that way. His pain was real. His anguish she could still hear when she calmed herself. “You are of the Fallen. You earned your fate.” She said as if reciting words heard before.
“You are so quick to judge me?” he gave a wry smile.
“He judged you, and exiled you.” She refused to banter with the demon.
“Still, I would plead my case. If I let you go, will you listen to me?” He sought her word.
“May I go after I listen?” she countered, seeing no harm.
“Yes.” He said and released her hand.
She rubbed it. It felt cold. Slowly, feeling and warmth returned.
“As you know we have been exiled to this world for thousands upon thousands of years. We are alone, each of us, without His presence or even each other.”
Eliana frowned. “But there are thousands of you in exile.” She interrupted.
“And you think we trust each other?” He looked at the blonde naive angelic woman. “We fight here on this plane. If we defeat each other, the loser is cast to Hell and the Victor rises in power on Earth. We consume each other. We hide from each other until we find a weaker one.”
Eliana looked sideways at him. “That is how you fooled me? You can hide?”
The Demon nodded and sat back on the bed, letting his form change back to the man but his eyes were still black. “We have been here a long time, Eliana. I have had to fool my brothers and sisters to survive. I fool them easily, and they are looking for me.” He smiled slyly at her.
Eliana wrapped her wings around herself for protection. “What is your name?”
“I am called Rahab.” He answered.
“So you are in pain from… loneliness?” Eliana shook her head confused.
“Nearly ten thousand years, oh innocent one.” He looked up at her, his eyes filled with pain. “I used to hear the Creator’s voice. I communed with the others of our kind. Now I hide in holes and walk in this…” He waved his arm down the human body, “…Shell!”
“But you rebelled.” Eliana reminded.
Rahab hung his head and the human body slumped. “I am sorry for it.” He put his hands to his face. “I watch the humans…so I can act as they do when I hide. They pray, they beg forgiveness.” He looks back up, confused. “And He grants it.” A single tear forms in that coal black eye. “He will not hear me. I have cried and prayed and begged and He is deaf to me.” Rahab explained. “That is my pain Eliana. I am cut off from everything I knew. You are the first ethereal being I have spoken to in a thousand years.”
Eliana felt his pain. His anguish was real, but she could not alleviate it. “What would you have me do, Rahab?”
He looked up at her with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “You could speak to Him… for me. He will not hear me. I don’t think he can.” He got up excited.
Suddenly a form phased through the wall and tackled Rahab by the throat. Its fingers were long and clawed. Eliana stood in shock, such violence she had only seen amongst humans. They both tumbled through the opposite wall. Rahab had changed form and attacked with his barbed wings, forcing the other away from his face.
“Found you, Rahab.” The bestial demon proclaimed in a gravel voice. “I will rip out your throat and cast you to Hell.”
Rahab kicked out, but that was easily dodged, but then his wing slashed from above and struck the creature across its black, crow like face. “I will take you with me, Andras!” Rahab swore.
Andras howled in pain but then lunged at Rahab’s throat. His dark claws dug into demonic flesh. A flash of white collided between them and Andras was thrown back against the wall. And Rahab was gone.
“Run! I will find you!” the black demon screamed at the empty air.
Rahab looked up into the soft face of his savior. Eliana flew, but held him beneath her, chest to chest. Slowly he looked around as if spying his old neighborhood.
“This is the ethereal plane. I am not to be here.” He warned her. “But thank you.”
“I brought you.” She said. “You could not be here otherwise.”
With another flash they were in the world again, but on the other side. Eliana set him down on a street in Beijing, China. Rahab morphed into a middle aged Chinese man before her eyes and she could tell he slowly phased into the world.
“If I stay in that nether existence they can find me easier.” The world saw him talking to nothing, but Eliana was there.
“Could I do that?” She asked him, furrowing her brow. She had never had need or want to truly walk in the physical world.
“I could teach you, but you have nothing to hide from.” He offered.
“Who is this Andras that attacked you?” Eliana asked, remembering the bird headed creature.
Rahab looked at her in confusion. “You…you don’t know Andras?”
Eliana shook her pale blonde covered head. “Should I?” She said innocently.
“He was an Archangel. You should have reported to him, before the rebellion of course.” He added.
“I was created after the rebellion.” Eliana answered simply.
Rahab was set back. “So…He replaced us? I hadn’t known.” He seemed upset by the news, as if discovering a door you had hoped was open was truly locked. He looked at Eliana with some disdain now. “I’m sure He reworked the old model, made you more compliant.” He said that last word as filth in his mouth.
Eliana could tell when she was being slighted. “He made me as He willed it.” She said with finality. She did not question her Maker or His purpose for her. “A third of Heaven was lost, of course He replaced you!”
She didn’t mean it to hurt but Rahab felt a sting. “Lost? Tossed aside, cast out.” He laughed mockingly.
“You rebelled.” She reminded. “You scorned your Creator.” She admonished him.
Rahab shook a finger “Don’t! Don’t you speak of things you don’t know. YOU weren’t there. Remember!” he looked at her with anger now. “He said he loved us, but he wouldn’t give us more!”
Eliana shook her head at him. “I wasn’t there, but the old ones taught us the histories. You hated God. You defied Him!” She said in near amazement.
He screamed now in her face. People around him saw a man yelling at the air. “YOU DON’T KNOW!” was all he said.
Eliana had enough. She should never have argued with him. “I pity you, Rahab.” She said honestly, and with a quick flash only he saw, she was gone.
Rahab stood alone staring at the now empty spot. The Beijing citizens gave him a wide berth; ‘the crazy man yelling in the street’. He had chased her away. The demon nearly wept. That was the longest conversation he had in a thousand years, and he drove her off. He looked around. He hadn’t been in China since the Qing dynasty. He needed a place to hide.
Eliana was a creature of empathy and compassion and also honest. As she soared through the ethereal plane, she sent her voice to the Creator, keeping her word to Rahab. She spoke of his pain and turmoil and his plight with his fallen brethren. Like the humans, angels need not stand before God to speak with Him. He hears them all, but does He listen? She received no reply. She wasn’t sure she expected one. Her pledge was satisfied and the blond angel moved on with her work.
Perhaps a generation had passed and Rahab found himself in Australia. He kept moving from time to time for his cover, besides it was interesting to see new places. He would get menial jobs to pay for a place to live and hide. He didn’t need food and for entertainment he would read. In the old days he would seek out libraries and get jobs near them or better still, in them. Rahab had seen texts that were now lost forever, but human kind’s “information age” stopped him from getting those jobs now.
Rahab sat and looked around at the desolate one room apartment, with bare walls and two pieces of furniture, one of them being the bed that he was reclining on. His existence in this realm was bearable, but only because he had no other choice. Rahab climbed out on the fire escape, and then to the top of the building, where he stared out across the horizon. He would toss himself down to the concrete below, but it would accomplish nothing. He would just be dirty and still depressed and lonely.
“ELIANA!” He screamed up to the heavens. He had given up screaming to God long ago.
