Hollow prayers

The air stank of burnt flesh and melting asphalt. The screams had begun to thin—not because the terror had ended, but because there were fewer throats left to make a sound.

Kieran Holt pressed himself against the crumbling remains of a bus shelter, heart hammering as he watched the angel with black wings. It stood between him and the golden-eyed executioner on the rooftop, its presence an unsettling contradiction—both familiar and utterly alien.

The golden angel did not speak again. It only moved.

One moment, it was perched above the city like a king surveying his slaughter. The next, it was in the street, inches from the black-winged one, its face void of expression.

The two beings stared at each other in eerie stillness.

Then, the golden angel smiled.

Kieran didn't know why, but that single expression filled him with more terror than the fire, the screaming, or the death raining from the sky. There was nothing kind about it. It was an artist admiring its unfinished masterpiece.

The black-winged angel reacted first. Its hand shot out, fingers sinking into the golden one's chest like plunging into wet clay.

No blood. No pain.

Just silence.

Then, the golden angel's head twitched.

It moved in a series of unnatural jerks, snapping toward Kieran with a grotesque, broken rhythm—like a marionette cut from its strings. Its glowing eyes bore into him, and in that instant, he felt his body stop.

Not freeze. Not paralyze.

Stop.

His breath ceased. His heart stalled mid-beat. He couldn't blink. Couldn't move.

Couldn't think.

A sensation slithered into his skull, cold and slow. Something was inside him.

And it whispered.

"Do you fear your sins, mortal?"

A surge of white-hot agony shot through Kieran's skull. It felt like nails being driven into his brain, like hands gripping his thoughts and ripping them apart.

Memories flooded him—some his, some that weren't. The dead faces of strangers. Blood pooling beneath flickering streetlights. The sensation of drowning in something thick and warm.

Somewhere, through the torment, he felt something new—something far worse than pain.

He felt himself slipping.

Losing who he was.

Becoming something else.

The golden angel tilted its head.

A sound echoed through the ruins of the city. A wet, tearing sound.

And then—black wings.

The grip on Kieran's soul shattered as the black-winged angel ripped its hand from its enemy's chest. Something dark and oozing clung to its fingers—a piece of something that should not have been seen.

The golden angel collapsed.

Kieran gasped, his lungs burning as he sucked in air. His heartbeat slammed back into motion, ragged and uneven.

The black-winged angel turned to him, its face unreadable. It crouched, bringing itself to eye level with Kieran.

"Run," it said, its voice like dead leaves crumbling in the wind.

And Kieran did.

He ran.

Behind him, the sound of the golden angel's laughter—low, guttural, and wrong—echoed through the streets.