The sky full of stars seemed dead and cold; a place once so magical now hurt to behold.
With my voice, no words I could tell, as I watched as the dark rose as they fell.
The stars all burned with a dark purple hue. The stars all burned with the colour of you.
Our sky full of stars was once a treasured memory; and it’s destruction will have no remedy.
Miles knew that he was cursed to become something. His friends had made sure he knew that when he ingested the corrupted blood of a fallen angel.
And she had never revealed the Brands that claimed her, her deadly sin and heavenly virtue. So instead Miles was left unclaimed and in a void of the unknown.
So when Miles had finally died, six decades later, he was surprised when he was sent straight to Hell.
Ahead of him stood his friends. Skylar, the now reinstated descendant of the Archangel Gabriel and Jaden, the King of Hell.
“Are you two gonna explain this?” He stood, arms crossed and tapping his foot.
Jaden pointed to Skylar, “it’s her crew that tossed you down here.”
Skylar huffed, “they got confused…it’s not often you pick up a soul that’s both pure and damned.”
Miles was confused, “how is that even possible?”
Skylar looked away, sheepish in tone and expression. “Well… remember when you drank my blood…”
“Yeah, that was decades ago.”
“Yeah well, turns out it just branded you as, well, my brands. But both. The sin AND the virtue.”
“So where does he go? Is he Fallen?” Jaden asked.
Miles had never thought the issue would come up again, but was regretting not listening to Skylar at the time. Jaden had encouraged him to drink the blood so he could accompany them in Hell, but Skylar had been against it at first.
“I think your safest choice is being Fallen. Demons don’t take well to angels and angels don’t like anything that isn’t pure.”
Miles rolled his eyes, “so I die, and basically get to go back to my house and live again?”
Jaden shook his head, “no, but now we get to teach you a thing or two about glamours.”
“And forging documents,” Skylar grinned. “Gotta get all your fakes in order if you’re going back to the land of the living.”
Miles laughed, he’d never seen this coming, but if it meant he got to live for eternity alongside his friends, he couldn’t complain.
The Fates. The tattoo parlour was known across the whole world. Queues of people would turn up outside for an unknown artwork that symbolised the rest of their entire life.
You had watched for years as a kid, watched the expressions of those who entered and their reactions afterward.
Some people remained as overjoyed and excited as they were when they entered. Others were red eyed and clawing at their skin. Some came out unmoved and unimpressed with a blank look in their eyes.
Now you were finally eighteen you knew you could join them, wait in that long line and watch as your fate was permanently scarred into your skin in black ink.
But you were hesitant and rightly so. Watching the people come and go for the last decade or so had taught you that sometimes fate was best left alone. To be discovered as you discovered life.
A friend had been earlier in the year, being one of the older members of your circle of friends. They had gloated at first about the tattoo of fate, but had never shown it, claiming it was still “healing.”
But when news got out that their fated tattoo was a pair of intertwining chains, the smug pride turned into aggressive defiance.
You recognised the irony and understood their tattoo as they turned from one person into another. They had chained themselves into that fate, by fearing the chains on their leg, they could never stop worrying. So focused on the fate they could have, that they had chained themself into it. Just as the Fates had fortold.
This is why you hesitated.
If you were to be told your future, how would you live without it constantly on your mind? And what if it was something so ambiguous you would be trapped to never know and live in fear of what could be?
Or you could remain at peace with the ignorant bliss of letting the universe guide you.
Life would unravel as it was fated to.
A tough decision, but one you found yourself taking very little time to mull over.
You would get it in a place you could never see, in a place a mirror would be required to even catch a glimpse. You would live alongside your fate, and see if what was predicted would come true.
And when the day came for your appointment you told the Fates your plan and they beamed at you.
“As you wish.”
As they crafted the artwork that secured your future, unknown to you, the image of freedom made its home in your skin.
Skylar had been brutalised beyond a human’s imagination. She had lived and breathed the air of Hell for decades before she had lived decades more on Earth. Whilst she was stronger and very much capable of breaking her binds, she was more interested in why she was being held by a group of humans.
They were whispering about her in the room next door and using her magic to read them, she could feel their heightened stress levels and chuckled as they hesitated even amongst themselves.
Someone much more powerful than their imagination could handle had ordered them to do this and she was sure it was an angel. She had bets on who, but leaned more towards the ones she’d had previous encounters with.
Whilst they were distracted, she stood and snapped the ropes from her wrists, pulled her blindfold loose and stepped over to the door with complete silence. Waiting for a good moment to surprise them, she slammed the double metal doors wide open with a grin.
“Good afternoon, boys. Mind telling me where Gadriel has gotten to now?”
The group of men were wide eyed in terror, bodies trembling.
“How do you know it was Gadriel who wanted you captured?”
Skylar scoffed, “because it always is.”
As I read the letter addressed to me, from me, I was trying to wrack my memory for when I wrote it. A dear future me letter wasn’t out of the question as I had contemplated it multiple times. I just couldn’t remember ever coming around to writing one, let alone sending it.
I couldn’t deny it was my handwriting, that much I recognised, but it was the words written in that font that I was having a hard time understanding.
But I wasn’t in danger, someone close to us was.
And they wanted to stop it from happening again, in my world.
And not just in my world.
In every world.
I started with my first steps, writing the letter out again, to pass onto the next version of myself…
Jade was panting for breath and pressed against the wall, taking cover from the gunfire from her own family.
Fighting for her freedom had been no small task and even with Ethan beside her, the breakout and path to freedom had been filled with death and destruction.
Jade was starting to feel the wound in her shoulder. As they took a moment to catch their breath, the high of adrenaline had eased enough for her to start feeling pain again.
She wanted to stay, retrieve the family that cared and save them from the corruption that festered in the rest, but in their current condition it wasn’t an option.
Jade looked back towards the door they had come from, the door that led up the stairs and to the main bedrooms. Her cousin Axelle would be there, trapped inside simply by her family name.
“We’ve gotta go!” Ethan called over to her, his gun firing covering fire as more of the family’s security pushed through the barricade they had quickly fashioned behind the main entrance.
Jade nodded, feeling freedom and guilt as the two of them blew a hole in the wall and escaped through it.
Her new name, her cover, would be Axel. In honour of the one person who knew who she truly was, and as a reminder of the one she was forced to leave behind.
“Axel, Axel Finch,” she whispered.
With one last look at the family estate, she scaled the outer walls and dropped down the other side. As soon as her feet hit the floor she was gone.
