When Sistine woke up again, she was scared of what she had experienced, and shuddered, and hoped that would never happen again, not in a dream or in real life; as it felt so, so real! It was now dawn, so she inferred that she slept about fourteen hours, which was weird as she had never before slept so long, even when she tried to be lazy like Tabby. And of course, Tabby was still sleeping, despite being the first one to sleep.
Sistine expected to arrive at the grand doors that she had seen with Tabby from afar before several hours ago, but she realised that the carriage had passed the academy and was travelling in the opposite direction of where the academy was located.
"Sir, are we travelling in the correct direction?" Sistine asked, terrified that she was late to the academy with Tabby. She was desperate to hear the words, "We are travelling wrong, sorry for the inconvenience." or something like that from the carriage driver... pilot? She wasn't sure, but it did not matter anyway if one who was maneuvering a flying magical carriage was called a driver or a pilot of a captain or whatever.
"We are travelling in the correct direction." said the pilot, (as Sistine decided to call a person who is maneuvering a flying object, a carriage in this case, a pilot.) in a boring monotone voice without any expressions or emotion. Sistine thought the pilot, Alexander, as she read just now from the name tag, "Hello, my name is Alexander." She was musing at the stupidity of someone speaking in monotone every time she or he talked that she almost forgot her original intention; she had just realised what Alex had said, (yes, Sistine shortened the name of Alexander, well, she liked to shorten every name, basically) and gasped at what the implications of that sentence was.
She was hyperventilating for at most two seconds when she realised that she and Tabby were the sole two people who had got on board for the academy so far, so she knew that she pilot was just going in the other direction to get some more passengers, and at the thought of this, she had calmed down, and muttered how bad the pilot was very quietly, if the pilot did not react to even such things as one of the passengers hyperventilating. Sistine started to doze off again, despite being the one who had so much energy compared to Tabby. She was confused at this, but gave up on trying to combat the feeling of fatigue, and dozed off.
---
As soon as Sistine had woke up again, she started to doze off immediately after. She was getting increasingly worried at this tendency that had happened to be made in such a short period of time; only one day. But she currently did not care as the academy's education did not start yet, and will not start for a few days, as she and Tabby was the earliest of all the children in their class at their old school; much to Tabby's unhappiness and resentment at Sistine's habits.
Who cares, I would be fine. I would BE FINE. I would. I believe in myself. Sistine thought and added, I am early anyway, it does not matter. But what matters is what I just said was CRINGE. Very cringe. And what I just thought now was also cringe; this is going to be an infinite loop or something like that other time.
She did not want to get in a loop of what was cringe, so she decided to succumb to her increasingly greater needs of her hours of sleep, which was steadily and gradually increasing, for some reason that she did not know; all she knew was that science cannot explain this phenomenon that she was experiencing currently. Tabby was still asleep, so therefore I must be fine. I must be hallucinating. She thought, right before she fell asleep again, for the third time, something that had never happened before, in a period of two days.
***
She continued to dream her previous dream. She was now a demonized angel. She was very scared about what was happening and what would have happened to her actual currently human self if she continued to dream for long periods of time like this. The questions "Would it become true?" and "Would my actual state become the dream state?" was Sistine's most prominent worries right now.
Sistine just shrugged at the thought and brushed it off; she was going to follow her fate anyway, nothing she can change about that. So, she told herself that she would be trying her best in both worlds.
"Tabby! What's up!" Sistine said, politely, forgiving what Tabby had done to her all those years ago. Instead of getting a peaceful reply, she was given a smack in the cheek. However, with her now very high pain tolerance, it did not feel like much, but she was still sad to see Tabby, one of her only friends, hit her. In fact, she had forgotten her other friends' names.
"You do not know how to speak and act here. Go to one of the archangels. It perhaps would be better if you willingly get brainwashed like me. You will be unaware you are brainwashed until much later. But you should do it to skip the many thousand years of harshness and stuff apparently, including a trial that can kill you, despite you being an angel!" whispered Tabby, who impressively looked emotionless, who was even speaking without her mouth opening even once.
Sistine thought about this. She did not care if she was brainwashed; it was better she was, so she can forget some painful memories of the torturing she had gone through, along with the effects that she had on the demon world, even though she was there for less than a minute, but her actions in Eden had affected the demons and demonesses much more. Yes, she decided, to go get brainwashed. It would be best if she thought she was an angel! It would be the best of both worlds.
---
Finally, Sistine had arrived at the destination she was trekking after; the archangels' domain, the heavenly realm. She walked, or more correctly, flew across the ominous floor with her new wings that she had grown into after being into a demonized angel.
Sistine thought the archangels stared into her soul, to see if she had given her loyalty to the archangels; which she had done so more than a hundred years ago, perhaps because she might have developed a case of Stockholm Syndrome.
"Hmmm. You have pledged your alliance to our angel race; thus, we shall grant you your wish, not matter how impossible it might be." said the head archangel, who was emotionless... maybe, grinning for less than a plank second before she had regained her composure.
"What if I wish to get rid of all traces of the angel race? What would happen then? Would I be exterminated too, or would I be the hero of the demon race?" said Sistine, saying it in the most mischievous way she could muster.
One of the archangels was very concerned about this, as Sistine had just said the taboo of the angel race. The other archangels, however, did not even react to this; maybe they are preparing to be eradicated, or maybe, they had seen that Sistine was just joking, as her soul was now aligned to the 'good'; not 'neutral', not 'evil', but 'good'.
"Stop her! That must not be done. The angels should be there to ensure a balance in the universe. That means that you are extremely wrong, and you shall not be here. You ought to be banished to the depths of the abyss of the depths of hell!" said one of the archangels, most likely a newly appointed one, because the demeanor of the other seven archangels, including the head archangel, had not changed at all; they had looked like if Medusa was looking at each of the seven emotionless archangels for one hour each.
The head archangel had not changed her emotion, had a straight face, and said, "Stop accusing Sistine Avery. You know a century ago that Sistine had pledged allegiance to us already. You know better; you should, instead, be demoted at such unholy thoughts," said the archangel, and she continued, "However, Sistine, if you had mentioned it to others, lesser angels, who have been newly added to our civilisation, it would be greatly hated and it is taboo, so do not mention this outside of this mischievous request of yours, but I am sure it is just some teasing; we have some angels here who do that."
The head archangel, whose name Sistine still does not know, pointed in the air. Suddenly, a virtual screen had appeared, a view of the entire kingdom, and she had zoomed in on some angels. Sistine has heard of rebelling angels who wanted to become demons, to commit as many crimes without being punished, with the excuse of that it was for their purpose, or whatever; these angels were commonly known as 'corrupted angels,' something that most angels would not strive to be.
Sistine glanced at the screen, and saw three angels who were wreaking havoc, but the archangel had strangely believed they were good. Then, she realised, that she herself had good in herself despite being a demon originally; not by free will, though; thus why she started to believe in the angel race.
However, she did not believe in these three angels; it seemed that they had not experienced the sufficient amount of torture to fully have their faith in the angels. In fact, it seemed that they wanted, yes, wanted, to become corrupted angels. Perhaps, because they were forced to go into the academy – you can decline the offer to go in, but only a select few had done that; and the humans who remained humans were outed as outsiders.
She did not care for now about those three angels. What she cared about was to be a good, God following angel that helped others. It would be the perfect plan for a fulfilling life. If it was possible to have little angel children, Sistine would easily want to have a great number of children to increase the population of angels.
Sistine had now realised, thinking those thoughts, that she did, in fact, have Stockholm Syndrome. The angels that had bullied her and Tabby, who was unfortunately chosen to be the torturer had been carefully picked so that Sistine would eventually have Stockholm Syndrome despite her best efforts.
She did not hold any grudges, though, as it had been Tabby, who was always smiling at her to help her endure. If she was not there, she would have opted to somehow get a concussion and never arrive back at this alternate reality (which Sistine had realised not too long ago), or get in a coma so that she would not feel any pain whatsoever and risk not going to the real reality, or the mortal realm, as Sistine liked to call it.
"I wish to hereby have Sistine Avery; me, be transformed fully into an angel; and, have a goodwill and be able to meet Tabby every day, and to make having children possible, if it is not already so." said Sistine, with puppy eyes. No one had rebutted that wish, or more accurately, wishes, but it was mostly because of the puppy eyes, and Sistine knew this.
"We will grant your wish. You will now be transported to a golden arch bridge and once you cross it, you will enter the utopia that Tabby had been given because she had voluntarily chosen herself to be the one torturing you, for you will be happier that way, and I hope that she was correct. There will be a payment." said the archangel.
And in a blink of an eye, Sistine was no longer in the archangels headquarters but at the front of the looming golden gate on top of the golden arch bridge – Sistine thought that the angels would take years to make this at first glance, but with the technology of instantaneous teleportation, she doubted that it would take that long, by human standards. Not that she was human anymore; she felt like it had been many millennia since she was a human; not that it was that long.
Sistine, now fully an angel and was not a demonized angel, wanted to call herself "The White Cat" in the heart, with her white hair looking majestically like a cat, with some of the hair pointing upward, like as if she was a cat; and she did not mind as she was quite fond of cats, yes, both cats and dogs. She did not have a preference, but she thought she used to, but she was most likely wiped of that memory when turned fully into an angel; but that did not matter, as angels were supposed to view everything equally.
Despite it being a utopia, apparently, Sistine had heard growls and groans, perhaps from zombies, inside the 'utopia,' so Sistine opened the golden gate and went inside... to not only see nothing because she was surrounded by zombies but to also be pounced upon was unfortunate. She did not see Tabby in this mess of undead corpses that happened to only be girls, so Sistine thought that Tabby had not succumbed and is still hiding, while Sistine is being rapidly eaten by zombies, which happened to be all girls.
Then all the zombies had magically turned back to humans, except one, while Sistine was starting to drowse off. She realised that this was the payment of her wishes that she made to the archangels, which was quite cruel of such a nice angel race that believed in God.
All these people have sinned, thought Sistine. "Wait, when did I think like that? What?" It must have been a side effect of being recently transformed into an angel, thought Sistine, it's sad that the archangels would have done such a thing to recently transformed angels.
Those people might have been innocent. You never know, thought Sistine. The angels were not as kind as they once seemed. The golden holy light slowly and gradually turned into a very, very faint red, where red symbolised the evil of one's heart. Huh, this might be wrong, Sistine thought. Perhaps, it was just the payment, not the zombies, but this was the payment, that was just randomly picked; the archangels were not that cruel, right? thought Sistine.
Sistine also realised that the humans could not move when they were humans and could only move when they had been bitten; only then can they move to infect the remaining humans. After the zombies, all of which were girls, had been eating Sistine slower than Sistine can regenerate, do they turn back into a human, except the unlucky one who restarts the cycle.
Perhaps, these zombies would be gone when I wake up to the real world and come back; anyhow, I need time to prepare, so I would want to wake up anyway, and see if I have actually arrived yet at the academy or not.
***