Agnes lay on her back, panting. The nightmares kept coming, one by one. Giving birth was just one of the fears.
Then came the next fear.
She was in a huge white room. The whiteness hurt her eyes and made her dizzy. There was no door or window. Only walls on four sides. She thought the walls would squeeze her. Instead, the wall in front of her opened. Only blackness was on the other side.
A huge hairy leg came through it. Then another. Then the head with eight eyes.
Agnes felt her body going cold. The giant spider was more than six times her size. She started running in the opposite direction. But there was not much space.
She needed to get away from it. But it was way too big. It was coming to her. It might not necessarily hurt her. However, that was not even the point. Agnes hated the way its legs moved, the way it had eight eyes. She could imagine how the hairy legs would feel on her skin.
Agnes crouched on the floor, closed her eyes, and wrapped her arms around herself. She could not protect herself. There was no way to go. Even the door the spider came through was closed. It would not open for her.
Agnes knew when to give up. This was one of those moments when there was no point in fighting. Without any weapon, no one could fight a giant spider. Besides, even with a weapon, she doubted she could do anything to it.
Someone wrapped their arms around her. The hug was tight and felt much more intimate than it was. It also felt familiar somehow.
"You are still afraid of spiders," the person chuckled in her ear. It was a man.
Agnes could not talk. She was scared. She was holding back her tears. She knew if she opened her mouth, she would end up sobbing.
"Relax, darling. Relax," he said soothingly, running his fingers through her hair. "It's gone. You can open your eyes now."
Agnes did not trust him entirely. She took her time opening her eyes. By then, the arms around her were long gone.
She was alone in her cell once more.
What next? What fear would she face then?
If she was right, the angels were messing with her mind by making her face her fears.
Agnes tried to control her panting. She still could see the spider's hairy legs in her eyes. It was the ugliest creature she had ever seen. Fortunately, it was walking on the floor. If it were on the wall, she would have died just by looking at it.
Next, Agnes found herself in another room. This time, the room was dirty with brownish walls. She guessed the walls were not brown to begin with, but became so with age and carelessness.
She had a gun in hand.
Agnes laughed bitterly. "Never though angels use this technology."
"Shoot him," someone said.
She looked up. Jin was standing in front of her. He was tied against a pillar. He looked tired. He was staring right at her.
"I won't," she said firmly.
"You cannot leave until you kill him."
It meant she would stay in this nightmare until she killed him. But really, she knew a better idea.
She pressed the gun against the side of her head. "Nes, no!" Jin screamed.
"I will never kill you," Agnes said and pulled the trigger.
***
Agnes's parents thought she was an odd child. They never told her so, but she knew whenever she looked at their faces. They talked about her when she was not there, although she was, just hiding. They said how their child did not react to things normally.
"I took her to the human world. To a playground. A boy got hurt. I asked her what she would do. You know what she said? She said we should walk away since the boy is none of our concern," her father told her mother. "I do not like this. Not at all."
"I mean, she is still so young. She will get better. Perfect," her mother said.
Agnes never got better. At the age of eight, her name was sent to the Base so they could choose which sector she would serve. They could not decide on anything. She was not kind and compassionate enough to be a guardian angel. She did not think the nature as her children. She was too lazy to be a warrior angel. Agnes could be a scholar angel, but the Base was afraid she would use her knowledge against the angels.
Finally, they chose warrior angel because they thought the discipline warrior angels had to go through would fix her.
Jin got scholar angel. Yet, they were always together. Agnes hated the training she had to go through. It was exhausting her and she could not get her beauty sleep. Angels needed neither food nor sleep. But most of them indulged in both because it felt good. Agnes just indulged in them a little too much.
As a warrior angel in training, she had to face her fears. She knew what her fears were very well. So, she manipulated the greater angels into believing otherwise. When it was her turn to face her fears, she thought about different fears that were not necessarily her own. She thought about a rabbit with ten legs chasing her, falling down a mountain, killing other angels and ten more fears like that. She did not have that many fears, but most angels did. She wanted the greater angels to think of her as something she was not. They used her mind to make her face her fears, so she used her mind against them to her advantage.
It was Jin's idea. When Agnes told him that she did not want to face her fears to be brave, Jin told her that he read about it in a book.
"The greater angels use your minds against yourselves. They cannot read your thoughts, but when they send you into the void, the void can read your mind and uses it to show you your fears. The void cannot read the past. It reads the present. It means when you are told that you will be shown your fears, you subconsciously think about your greatest fears and the void reads your mind at the moment to create an illusion of those fears," he said. "No one will tell you that. Scholar angels know that, not all of them though. We are currently being trained, so we are not supposed to know that."
"You stole the book?" Agnes asked.
"Well, I intend to return it after I'm done with it," he shrugged. "Besides, knowledge is power. That's the motto of scholar angels. I'm just pursuing knowledge."
Scholar angels knew secrets that were kept from other angels. Angels were loyal to the Base. They would not betray the Base by revealing those secrets.
But Jin would. At least, for the sake of Agnes, he would.
"I think the idea is brilliant. It is not easy to manipulate the void, however, possible. It is hard to control your thoughts when you are told to think about a certain thing," Jin said.
"So, if I want to manipulate the void, I have to think about different fears that are not necessarily mine?" Agnes murmured. "I can do that."
"It's not going to be easy."
"At least, it's possible. I will do it. Just watch."