They had all been wrong.
Michaela had seen the signs. She wasn't stupid. They said the angels were pure, that their purpose was divine, but Michaela knew better. It had never felt right to her. As she walked through the empty streets, the cold of the night pressing into her skin, she tried not to think about it.
The world had stopped making sense long ago. People had tried to warn her, but they'd been too late. She'd always been able to hear it in the back of her head: the quiet pressure of something pulling, pushing her toward the truth.
When the angel first descended, it was like a dream. A figure so perfect, so brilliant, it shook the earth beneath them. They called it Luthiel. A name that meant hope, faith, salvation. Michaela had seen Luthiel at the great cathedral, heard its voice echo from the highest tower, so smooth and soothing, like something forged from light itself. It spoke of mercy, of healing, of forgiveness.
But Michaela had watched Luthiel closely, and it hadn't been right. She'd seen the first cracks in the divine mask, small things that no one else seemed to notice. The way the light around it flickered in certain places.
The coldness in its eyes when it looked at the people, the way it never quite seemed to understand human emotions. She had tried to ignore it, of course, but there was something that gnawed at her. It had become undeniable as the days passed. They'd all made excuses, but Michaela had come to see what Luthiel was truly about.
It wasn't about saving them. It wasn't about protecting them. It was about control, about bending humanity to its will. And that was just the beginning.
The air felt wrong tonight. It had been like this for weeks: thick, dense, as if the world was holding its breath. It pressed against her chest, constricting her lungs, pushing against her ribs with each step she took.
The moon hung above, pale and distant. She could hear nothing, nothing at all, but the crunch of her boots on the brittle leaves beneath her. It felt like the world had stopped. There were no animals, no sounds of life, not even the wind moving through the trees. All was still.
Then, she saw it.
A figure stood by the side of the road, just outside the light of the streetlamp. At first, it could have been a person, but the longer Michaela looked, the more she realized it wasn't. The figure wasn't human.
Its wings were vast, too wide for the narrow street, stretching out like an impossible thing—black, not white, soaked in darkness. It was wrong. That was the only word for it. Michaela could feel the weight of it even from a distance.
Luthiel was the one who had done this.
The angel had turned. It was no longer the savior everyone had believed it to be. Michaela remembered the last speech Luthiel had given, a speech about cleansing the earth of the corruption of humanity.
She'd thought it was just words, just rhetoric, but it had meant something else. The people had gathered in the cathedral that night, their faces glowing in the light of the candles. They'd cheered, believing in the angel's vision. They hadn't known.
Luthiel had been patient. It had watched, waited, like a hunter. Michaela had thought she understood its plan. It wasn't about saving them. It wasn't about salvation. It was about eliminating them. All of them.
The figure by the street slowly turned its head, the movement slow, deliberate. Michaela's heart stopped for a moment. She froze. She could feel the air press against her skin, thick and suffocating. There was nothing but that cold stare. She knew that it was watching her, waiting for her to make a move.
Her breath caught in her throat. This wasn't a dream. She had to keep moving.
She turned on her heel, her feet pounding the pavement as she ran. She could hear the rustling of wings behind her, the sound deafening in its intensity. She pushed herself harder, her chest burning as she ran, her legs aching.
But it was gaining on her. She could feel it, the pressure building, the sense of something closing in, something too strong, too powerful for her to outrun.
Then, as if to punish her for even thinking she might escape, the sound of those wings stopped. The silence was almost worse than the chase. The absence of sound hung over her like a shroud.
She dared a glance behind her.
Luthiel stood in the street now, its wings folded in, its figure looming like a broken god. The wings were no longer beautiful—they were twisted, blackened, jagged, like something that had been torn apart and put back together wrong.
"Do you think you can run?" Luthiel's voice filled the empty street, cutting through the silence with a cold finality. It wasn't the voice that Michaela remembered—soft, soothing—it was guttural now, a rasp that echoed with an unnatural echo.
Michaela's knees buckled. She collapsed onto the cold, unforgiving ground. The weight of her exhaustion was too much. She couldn't go any further. She knew it, deep down, and as much as she wanted to fight, her body refused.
"I see the fear in you," Luthiel continued, its tone almost pitying. "Fear of the inevitable."
Michaela's pulse throbbed in her neck. Her breath came in shallow gasps, cold and painful. "What...what are you doing?"
Luthiel tilted its head, a motion so eerily human that it made Michaela's skin crawl. "I am cleansing. You were given every chance, every moment to see the truth. But you ignored it."
Luthiel stepped forward, its feet making no sound against the ground. Michaela could feel the ground tremble beneath her, the force of its presence as though the earth itself was bowing down to it. The scent of something burnt filled the air, like the smell of destruction, of something that had been consumed by fire.
She couldn't take her eyes off the angel. It moved closer, its wings outstretched, casting an enormous shadow over her. It was too much. Her head swam, her vision blurred. She couldn't breathe.
"You have failed," Luthiel said, its voice as cold as the air around her. "You all have."
In one swift motion, Luthiel reached down. Michaela tried to move, to fight, but her limbs wouldn't cooperate. Her body betrayed her. The ground pressed against her back as Luthiel's hand gripped her arm, pulling her toward it with an unnatural strength.
Her face pressed against the cold stone of the street. She could taste the dirt on her lips, hear the rhythmic thud of her heart pounding in her chest. The angel was too strong. She couldn't escape. Her eyes began to water, her throat tightening.
"You're wrong," Michaela choked out, struggling to speak through the constriction. "You're wrong about everything."
Luthiel stared at her, its eyes cold and unfeeling, devoid of empathy. There was nothing left but emptiness. "It's too late."
And with that, it bent forward, its face coming closer to hers. Michaela could see the terrible thing it had become now—its wings broken, its beauty twisted. The light that once surrounded it had been consumed by darkness, leaving only a hollow shell of what it had been.
Then, it spoke again. "Goodbye, Michaela."
Her scream died before it even escaped her lips. The darkness consumed her, swallowed her whole.
The world went quiet. And when it finally exhaled, humanity was no more.