This must be what they meant by "rest in peace." Ironically, I was feeling pretty peaceful right now. Tentacles were squeezing me to death. I guess I had a new vacation idea. Maybe I should start a travel blog about underwater adventures, except this was not exactly the getaway I had in mind.
As I floated in this dismal predicament, I couldn't help but wonder: why was this day so messed up? When I regained my limbs, I found myself in a precarious situation, unable to use them effectively. Now, my powers were flickering like faulty Christmas lights. I could feel my halo sputtering atop my head, its faint light barely visible through the reflective skin of the beast that held me captive.
Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, an outline of an angel appeared, cutting through the chaos. If I had lost a screw, she had lost the whole goddamn toolbox. Even a person with the slightest modicum of sense could tell that confronting a monster a hundred times her size was a surefire ticket to the afterlife. But I guessed she was too desperate to die.
She flew in, wielding a giant sword that glowed with a fierce intensity. As she drew closer, her sword illuminated the murky waters around us. It glowed orange, like the sun at dusk—so bright it seemed ready to burn the monster to ashes. If I were a lesser being, I would have felt a flicker of hope, but instead, dread filled me.
But the zombies had other plans. I had watched countless zombie movies, but flying zombies were a whole new level of madness. These weren't just any undead; they were angel zombies, grotesque mockeries of what angels should be. Their halos glowed a luminous green, their wings were tattered and ragged, and some even wielded weapons like jagged swords, their eyes gleaming with malice.
I still hadn't comprehended my surroundings, and that didn't make things any better. No wonder my punching bag was so swift; I felt like a character in a twisted horror film. Some of the zombies couldn't fly and lacked halos—safe to say they were not angels, but rather abominations crafted from nightmares.
The suicidal lady maneuvered around a few zombies, slashing at them with her jagged sword. As expected, they fell from the sky, but shockingly, they began collecting their severed body parts as soon as they touched the ground. I watched in horror as she fought. Her skills were honed, each slice fluid and deadly. She glided through the air like a samurai, her movements captivating and horrifying all at once.
I was mesmerized until I felt the monster's grip tighten against my chest. I turned to meet its jagged teeth, dripping with a luminous green substance that dripped down its elongated jaws, eager for my angelic flesh. Its breath was rancid, a putrid smell that made me gag. "You should get a toothbrush, man," I muttered, barely able to hear my own voice through the muffled chaos.
"Help!" My vocal cords hadn't cleared, producing a scrappy and low tone. If the lady had come to save me, she'd better do it now and stop showing off in a battle with dead angels.
Her hearing must have been sharper than mine. She shifted toward me, recognizing my near-death situation. With one swift motion, she sent the remaining angels flying into pieces. I noticed she was wounded in her left arm, but that hardly seemed to matter as she launched herself toward me.
She shot down from the sky like a bullet, and just when my head was about to meet the monster's jaws, she severed the tentacle that held me captive. The relief was instant. Thick, obsidian black blood oozed from the severed appendage, splattering onto the ground with a sickening thud.
My savior must not have seen my landing spot. Never mind; I could use a shower to rinse off the zombie punch. I crashed onto my back and was drowned by the sea quicker than I expected. Luckily, I could breathe—at least in parts. The angel of death was coming back into me, but only intermittently: one moment I was choking, and the next, I could breathe as if I were in the open air. One moment my halo was glowing, the next it was out, and I was left in utter darkness.
I stretched my back, willing my wings to emerge, but that part of my angelic existence felt like pulling teeth. Come on. I stretched harder until I felt my back tearing, forcing my wings to sneak out. I had never been more relieved to be an angel, even in a situation this dire.
My celestial red wings glistened with a malevolent intelligence, and every bone in my body felt recharged. The water around me shuddered at that very moment. I faced the surface and propelled myself upwards with extreme energy, breaking through the water like a whale emerging from the depths.
Time to get my ass out of here. I summoned my scythe, Ye, which came gliding to my hand like a magnet. But as soon as it graced my fist, my abilities flickered. My wings went numb, and my halo burned out, dragging me down with the weight of defeat.
My scythe was a heavy tool imbued with celestial powers by the Imperium, meaning it could only be wielded by an angel. To ordinary humans, it was a weight they couldn't lift. A new fear seized me; I forced myself to focus, pushing against the chaos surrounding me. My abilities flickered back just in time to avoid a catastrophic crash landing onto the dead.
In the midst of the mayhem, I caught sight of the nut job angel slicing through a swarm of tentacles with relentless precision. The beast had more tentacles than I could imagine, but that was no longer my concern. My business was getting away from this hellscape as far as possible.
One of the undead floated toward me. With Ye in my right hand, there was nothing I couldn't beat. I slammed her down, slicing it cleanly in two. The upper body and the lower body were no longer one. The lower half fell to the ground, but the upper half was relentless. It stretched its limbs toward me, which was pretty dumb on its part. With one flick of my wrist, it was in pieces.
The lady, on the other hand, was thrown through the air by the sea monster. She flipped like a ball and crashed into me. Resiliently, she regained her composure in one shake of her head.
"You attack on the right. I'll take its left. Hope he will be here soon."
My mind raced, trying to process her plan. But first things first—she had dialed the wrong number. Running away was my game plan, not attacking on the right flank. Who was this 'he' she mentioned?
"Go," she whispered in a tone I wouldn't have heard if I weren't an angel.
I was 'going' in the opposite direction. My motive remained unchanged. Angel zombies were coming my way, and when I needed it most, my abilities betrayed me. I found myself being pulled back to the ground.
Just as I was about to eat sand, I felt my wings return along with Ye's grasp. The angel in me was messing with my mind.
I fired into the sky and thrashed through the swarm of undead. Momentarily, my powers betrayed me. One second I felt myself crashing down, feeble and weak, and the next, I felt like thunder, a force of nature.
I twirled Ye at an unnatural speed, forming a protective force around me that shredded every zombie within reach. I faced the earth and propelled myself like a comet, gathering energy as I descended.
When I hit the field of zombies, I crashed down, sending them flying into pieces miles away in all directions.
"Brilliant. But I would run if I were you," the lady warned in a tone that was more jolly than alarming.
That was the first thing on my to-do list after she saved my ass—if she didn't know. That was until, of course, Dicky McDoggy's family ruined the moment.
The lady didn't mean it that way. She was referring to the sea monster that was rumbling as if it was about to make diarrhea out of its mouth. It trembled even the surface as the core of its throat shimmered in a luminous green liquid.
It bubbled like an acid, before a torrent of it fired like a volcano. I was just in time to make my leave, but was caught with some drops.
Damn, it burned. The two drops around my wrist felt like a real angelic acid. How? It was as if it was built to destroy angels. As far as I knew, not many creatures were made to do that.
"Jackpot!" the lady shouted, withdrawing a canister from the shrouds she called clothes. She strode towards the bubbling liquid melting the dead and sand and put a sample of it in the canister. She then shook it like a proud scientist. She was crazy. More crazier than me.
In the moment of unknowingness, the zombies began collecting themselves. The ones that were on the ground emitted an energy I was way too familiar with–-demon energy. Demons had a distinctive aura that I couldn't easily miss. Demon zombies? What was this place? Anthropomorphism-gone-wrong city, or St. Everything-Is-Crazy town?
I stretched my wings and shot off the surface, but they were not done with me. "Watch out," I heard the warning, but it was too late.
I was tackled and taken back to the surface. Demons had unnatural speed hence the zombies pinned me down before I could digest what had happened. The lady flew to my rescue, but her gift was on her way. She was pressed against a stone that was close enough to the bobbling fluid that I bet she could feel its radiation.
"Wade!" She called.
An angel answered the call by falling from the sky and crash-landing on the surface.
"Little help her," the lady called in a choking tone.
The angel from the sky got to his feet and stumbled before his wings disappeared on his back. From my point of view, I couldn't clearly see his face, but I could tell that he was holding a bottle in his right hand. He was in an oversized cloak and heavy boots. He stumbled once again, and that was when he sold himself out. He was drunk and that was a bottle of beer he was holding.
Was that the guy she was calling for the rescue? Okay, Jack Sparrow show us what you got.
He stumbled two feet and fell on the ground. His head went down and butt up as if, mhh, mhh. My manners. It wasn't the best thing to think about a guy to my rescue, was it? Or his sand bed. Another solid proof that I was trapped in a vast mental asylum. Either way, he bought the eyes of the zombies.
I flicked off the one holding my hand, summoned Ye, and sliced the zombies before shooting towards the opposite direction of the water.
The lady executed a series of some crazy downtown lady maneuvers and freed herself from the horde. Without missing a bit, she swooped down, grabbed the drunkard, and flew off, her speed a sharp contrast to his stumbling gait.
"Follow me," she whispered across the sky.
Considering that I had more pissed-off angel zombies behind me and more demons on earth waiting for me to fall, I could really use a lady of her skills.
She landed lightly on a house's veranda. I followed close behind. Surprisingly, the zombies could not cross the threshold of the house.