A new world

I gasped, unable to control my terror. Judging by his collar, he must be one of the monsters below- the Seraph. Where was I? Did I fall? My mind raced, brimming with emotions that I have never felt before. For an unknown reason, I happened to linger on a particular day, 11 years ago when I was first taught about these monsters…

I gazed outside the window, barely listening to my teacher's monotone voice.

"Ivy," Mr Clover barked at me, "are you paying attention? It is absolutely critical that you remember what I am saying."

With this, I snapped back into reality. Despite me being a primary school student, the O.N.I. still made lessons dedicated to teaching us about the Seraphs compulsory. "I'm sorry Mr Clover," I mumbled in response.

"Not a problem Ivy," Mr Clover continued, "long ago, the Seraphs terrorised our world for hundreds of years with no remorse. They killed our ancestors mercilessly, they forced us into slavery and famine, and they committed many other unspeakable sins against us. Humanity was forced into a corner; we were too weak to fight back, despite numerous uprisings. It seemed that all hope was lost and that we would all perish."

"Why?" exclaimed one of my classmates, tears streaming down her face, "why did they want to make us suffer? What did we do wrong?"

Mr Clover took a deep breath and furrowed his brows, considering the question he was confronted with before continuing. "Well… humanity is still not sure of their exact motives. It has been said that they committed these sins in the name of an almighty Being. Although, I personally don't see what Being would encourage such atrocities."

Mr Clover cleared his throat before continuing. "However, a certain group of brave individuals came together to rise up against the Seraph. They lifted the morale of the human race and, after a brutally long and hard war, we defeated the evil Seraph. We banished them to the centre of the earth, where they are punished day in and day out for the heinous acts that they committed."

"But Mr Clover," I interrupted, "the Seraph underground right now did not commit those crimes, their ancestors did. So why are they being punished for them?"

With this remark, the whole class turned to glare at me. Mr Clover became so livid that he turned red. "The Seraph are evil creatures!! If they lived on the earth, then they would continue to persecute the human race!! We would all be dead!!" Mr Clover shouted at the top of his lungs. I was taken aback by his sudden outburst. "So, what do you suggest we do Ivy? Do you want to end up as a Seraph's supper?"

"No…"

"That settles it then. The Seraph are in the Orcus, where they belong. Now you need to go to where you belong, which is the naughty corner."

I pouted in disapproval, but I knew I had no choice. Even at that young age, I knew that something was wrong, but I also knew that I did not possess the power to find out the truth. So, I complied and sat in the naughty corner, deep in thought about my world.

My mind began to clear as it wandered back to reality. I already knew the first question that I needed to ask him.

"Are you a Seraph?" I asked, my voice shaking with fear. I could barely be heard due to the mask that was being pressed tightly onto my face.

"Of course I am. That's a weird question; aren't you one too?" His voice was deep and soothing, like velvet. It was also softened by the mask he was wearing. He possessed an air of importance about him that I could not quite explain.

"No… I am a human," I regretted what I said the instant I uttered those words. What if the Seraph were hostile towards humans? What if they do actually eat us?

"You are… a human," the man repeated slowly, considering this revelation. Fear took over my body, turning me to ice as I prepared for the worst. I held my breath.

"What is your name?" He asked me.

"I-Ivy," I uttered under my breath.

"Ivy, that's a nice name. My name is Cyrus."

I hesitated before I asked, "Are you friendly towards humans?"

Cyrus laughed, "well I am, but I know many others that are not. The real question is how did you get here? I saw you fall from the sky onto this garbage bag. You are lucky to be alive, if you fell even just five metres away from the place you did then…" He trailed off.

Cyrus almost seemed to be too friendly towards me. I was a stranger to him and probably the first human that he had ever met. I quickly became more suspicious of him. My eyes trailed down to the mask that he was holding onto my face. It was connected by a tube to what seemed to be a tank. I panicked.

I realised that he must be trying to poison me with the gas in the tank so I began to flail around. With all my strength, I attempted to move the mask from my face but he just pressed it down harder. This was definitely an attempt at murder.

"Don't move," he warned me, "the air around here is toxic. When I found you, you were about to die from exposure to it. Luckily for you, I always carry around a spare mask, so you should be fine as long as you do what I say."

Now that he mentioned it, I noticed that I felt weaker than usual. Maybe not everything he was saying was a lie. I decided that, because I was too weak to escape anyway, I may as well obey him for now so I could extract information from him to use in my plan to escape later. "Where am I?"

Cyrus smiled. "You're in the centre of the world. Welcome to Orcus, it's a living hell here."

My heart started to race again as my worst nightmare was confirmed. I must have fallen into the hole and ended up here. I internally kicked myself for being so stupid. I let my curiosity get the better of me. If I had followed the protocol then I would not have ended up in this mess. I wanted to see my friends, my family… As far as I knew there was no way back up to the surface from here. As Orcus is meant to be completely isolated from humanity to keep us safe, how could I get home? Before I knew it, tears began to trickle down my cheeks. How has my life come to this? I was lying on a revolting garbage bag getting help from a Seraph, what could be more disgraceful?

"Stop crying," Cyrus tried to comfort me, "I will look after you for as long as you need. When you feel like you are able to get up, I will take you to my house and we can figure out where to go from there."

The situation was becoming too overwhelming for my brain to comprehend. I felt emotionally exhausted, confused, scared but most of all I felt vulnerable. And, even if his words were not completely sincere, they still comforted me. They made me feel less alone in this strange, unfamiliar world. I looked into Cyrus' cold, blue eyes, and against my better judgement, I meekly nodded in obedience.