The only thought that pushed past the base, animalistic urge to flee was: "My feet hurt." Fallen branches and sharp rocks worried the soft pads of her feet as she fled through the woods. Her breath gasped out in sharp bursts like the strike of a snake. If not for that, she would have smiled. From the pain in her feet to the fresh earth beneath her fingernails and nestled in the folds of her flesh, very feeling was a blessing. She savored them all. Sensation had been absent from her for so long. She could feel, taste, smell, and hear. The most important of all was sound, for the pain of the air in her lungs was as real as the damp taste on her tongue. But the curious silence in her chest screamed in her ears. Despite the confounding contradiction of panting breath and a silent heart she felt exhilarated. Better to be confused rather than buried “alive.”
She stopped at a clearing, the moon a deadly sliver of a smile. The stars were bright, the nearest light of civilized man too distant to scatter the starlight. She stood only a few miles from the grave in which she was entombed. A sigh passed her chapped lips and she held a disfigured hand to her face. Her reverence of the night sky died under the cold reality spelled out in the awkward form of her hand in the darkness.
“Damn.” She muttered, giving the clawed digits a dirty look before comparing them to the others. The pale, dusty color of her right hand gently allowed the moonlight to caress it; welcoming even the graveyard soil beneath the round nails. But the left hung large and heavy from her slender wrist. The light slid over the long, thick fingers as skin over tensed muscle and clutched the needle sharp nails in a vengeful grip of steel. She dropped her hands, the weight of the left pulling the adjoining shoulder towards the ground, and stared at the sky with wet eyes.
“You couldn’t even let me rest, could you?” Her voice was soft and bitter, scratching with disuse.
“Dahlia.” A voice pleaded behind her.
“I swear to God, Michael, if you tell me to make it easier on me and just let you erase me,” Dahlia turned to face the hovering man behind her. His skin glistened; his eyes were a summer sky and paired with sun kissed hair. The light of his halo and glistening armor roused the anger in her breast.
“After all you’ve done you dare to blaspheme?” The pity in his voice awakened more of Dahlia’s spite.
“After all I’ve been through, I have more right than anyone to swear by the Holy Name!” Cobalt eyes with red vein streamers glared knowingly at the sword at the angel’s hip. “You gonna use that on me, Michael? Gonna send me to hell where you think I belong?” Dahlia brandished her left hand at him. “Better do it quick or soon I’ll be a match for you flaming sword.”
“It must be done, Dahlia. You are not meant to be. Your human death was your final punishment and yet you are risen.”
“Damn right I’m not meant to be!” She interrupted him, sauntering closer to the air Michael was hovering over. “I was flung from heaven into a human body like a comet hitting the Earth for trying to stop a war that never should have been! My mortal life is over and I want rest! I’d be more than happy to still be dead.”
“You raised your sword for the enemy.”
“They were human and slaughter is against God no matter what they’ve done or what they call “god.” I did my job and you are determined to make me burn for it!”
Michael’s brow furrowed. “I am not here to debate with you, Dahlia.”
“Stop saying my mortal name. You don’t have the right.” Dahlia growled.
“I am here to end this.”
Dahlia opened her arms wide, bearing her heart to him. “Do it then. Judgment made. Come carry out sentence.”
It was only then did Michael uncross his arms and the granite that was his gaze softened. He slowly drew his sword and parted his lips to speak.
“If you apologize to me, I’ll do my best to drown you with my blood if it still flows.” Dahlia hissed.
Michael smiled. “I will miss you. You lead a good life. Both of them.”
Dahlia said nothing.
Michael’s wings spread, allowing gravity to strengthen the force of his swing he barreled down upon her.
The ground burst open and Michael’s sword was swept from his hand by a spray of uprooted grass and pebbles. Dahlia was nearly toppled over by three more bursts from the ground inches from her feet. She shielded her eyes with her larger hand while Michael settled on the ground bracing for an attack.
The soft soil fell in clumps from what the ground had birthed, revealing the emaciated, decaying figures of four hideous dogs. Three circled Dahlia while the fourth gripped a golden sword in bone-white teeth. It eyed Michael dismissively before tossing the blade towards the confused archangel.
Dahlia cursed through clenched teeth and backed away from a canine as it approached her. It whined, the sound gurgling through an exposed vocal chord, and tucked a dry nose beneath Dahlia’s malformed hand.
Michael reclaimed his sword and aimed the point at the snarling dogs. “What have you done, Dahlia?”
“Would I be this scared if I did this, Michael?” She spat his name through gnashed teeth. She gingerly slipped her hand over the cold snout only to have the beast gleefully arch into her touch.
“What are you?” She whispered. The dog’s head turned in a flash and set it’s fangs deep in to her icy flesh, seeping its ichor into the wounds. The world behind her eyes went a blinding white and Dahlia went to strike at the animal with her inefficient, human fingers. She fell to her knees, her mind subdued with a flood of sharp jabbing images. Light. Sound. Screaming. Gold. Gates. Explosions. Freedom.
A crisp yelp was her call back to reality with the dull metallic thud of sword on bone. Dahlia’s eyes met a wounded Michael barely fending off the three remaining dogs. The dog disengaged from her hand, continuing its watery whining and licking away the wounds with a spongy tongue.
Michael’s eyes narrowed when dark, swampy laughter dripped from Dahlia’s throat.
“Oh, Michael.” She sang, sweetly. “Dearest, sweet Michael.” Her right hand grew and stretched, the dead skin creaking as it reformed to match her left. “You are so screwed.”
“Dahlia.” He wheezed an empty warning. The dogs maneuvered themselves around Dahlia in a simple formation as her chuckles died down.
“It seems you and I are not the only ones who think I got a raw deal, Michael.” He tensed in response to the chill in her voice, and her thick lips twisted into a vile smirk. “I am not only meant to be, I have been called from death by God himself to right the wrong of my judgment. God has given me a mission: Avenge my expulsion.”
Dahlia stood tall, her eyes flooding with the same animal malice as her guardians. “I know what I am capable of now, Michael.” She flexed her long fingers. “You better go. You had nothing to do with what happened to me and I won’t harm anyone else but those responsible.”
Michael’s brows drew impossibly closer and his eyes hardened to frigid sapphires. Dahlia’s pets matched his aggression with equal enthusiasm.
“Michael,” Dahlia took a precise step towards him, mimicking his pleading tone. “Please.”
Her pleas would have fell upon deaf ears if not for the vow in her voice that she would kill him if she needed to. Michael loosened his grip on the hilt of his weapon and slit it gently into its sheath. Once safely there, the dogs cease their growling.
Dahlia sighed with relief. “When I’m done, feel free to come and kill me.” Her lips slimmed in to a wry smile. “You’ll give me a good death. Be doing me a favor actually. Who wants to be trapped in between death and life like this?” She chuckled, nervously. “I just have to finish this.”
Michael smiled, lowered his head in respect, and left. His shape faded in size until he blended in with the stars. Only then did Dahlia’s new pets settle at her feet.
She knew her lack of nausea at the creature’s state of decay testified to her transformation. Her life as the mortal Dahlia was brief, a scant thirty-two years, but she would have surely fainted away at the sight of such beings.
“But I’m just like you.” She smirked. “Well, better get started before my guts start falling out.”
The dogs barked sharply in agreement, anxious to begin the job they were risen for.
Dahlia turned towards the sky and pointed a jagged finger at the sky. “Better watch out, guys. I’m coming home.”
END