Lost Soul

A rending, grinding pain radiated from my chest, I am incapacitated, I fell, writhing, the pain unbearable, unrelenting.

Sweat beads formed on my forehead and upper lip, the heat built up within my core, my mind reeled with the realisation that soon I will not be myself, and that I would be fundamentally flawed, a caricature of the man I once was.

A sensation like that of a rubber band, stretched beyond its endurance, tugged at my internal organs, I could feel the displacement, as they shifted under duress.

The agony continued unabated, the sensation of being pulled apart was increasing with every second, time slowed and my perceptions became vague.

I placed my hands on my chest, crossing my arms, resisting the incredibly powerful urge to give in, and submit.

It was then that I opened my eyes, and the reality of my situation struck me, I could not resist, it was over.

For straddling me was an angel, his robes black as the space between the stars, black wings gently beating, the breeze in the movement of his wings warmed the air, as fire crackled between the burnished feathers, each feather long and sharp as a blade, light glinted off the serrated edges.

I looked down, as his hands sank into my chest, black ochre oozing out between his fingers, as they disappeared into my chest up to the wrists.

There was a sudden tug, a last agonising tearing, a sound like velcro ripping, and his hands pulled free of my chest.

Held tight in his hands was a squirming shape of glowing light, and as he stood up, the light became bigger, longer, human sized.

Pulled free of my body, the wounds in my chest were no longer visible, as the light came out of me, it was as if the wounds were zipping themselves up, healing instantly.

As the last of the light left me, my vision started to tunnel, reaching up into the stars, to a point to far away to comprehend.

My vision snapped back, and I could focus again.

The angel leaned over, placed his index finger on the cleft of my upper lip, the smell of carrion and death on his breath, and spoke in a soft, hissing voice.

"You are not deserving of this gift," he hissed, "you have dampened the light, and now, what was given freely, is now reclaimed by force."

He tilted his head up, and flung the lighted mass into the air, where it formed into a solid ball of light, streaked into the heavens, and in a moment, was gone with the sound of a thunderclap.

The angel stood up straight, he was well over eight feet, a black fiery mass, his wings crackling with flames between the feathers, and a halo of black roiling and smoking fire circling his head.

He stared at me, his solid black eyes gleaming a shimmering dull blue, illuminating rhe runes carved into his oily skin.

" You will walk still," he hissed quietly between shark like teeth, filed to triangular blades, and with a mighty flexing of his wings, he rose up into the air, as the earth cracked open with the sound of rending earthquake, and swallowed him, and he vanished into its depths.

A whisper resonated in my mind, as a sickening laughter tinkling in my blood.

"Walk, Soulless One", the voice whispered in my head.

"You will walk the night alone, in the dark, for your soul I have delivered to its rightful place.

Walk the earth, and when the time is of my choosing, you too may enjoy the underserved gift of your mortality."

I could feel the my conscious slipping, and faded into a dark deep chasm of nothing.

I woke up in shock, my eyes flew open, a scream escaped me that echoed into the distance

My skin was cold to the touch and dry, and a hollow, empty space inside me echoed and vibrated in sympathy, as my chest and mind echoed my scream.

The story does not end here, in fact this is just the beginning of the end, this is where my nightmare began, when a Dark Angel took my soul.

The voice still speaks to me, and the tinkling, mocking laugh persists.