Flash: Crawling

Digital art from freedigitalphotos.net

Crawling. Zebedee hated crawling. Winged angels should fly, and if they couldn’t do that, if they had legs, they should at least be walking.

His wings brushed the unseen roof again. It kept getting lower and lower. Something had to be an illusion. Either the endless white Lucia transported him to or the ever-shrinking box. Which sense was lying to him, touch or sight?

Neither the rough and splintered distressed wood floor of the club nor the thick silk plush hand-knotted antique Persian carpet underneath the pretend throne where Lucia reigned from were revealed to his ultra-sensitive fingertips. Only endless nothing. White above, white below. A nothingness unlike anything he had experienced before. The only thing he felt was the roof lowering onto the thousands of feathers capable of gauging air pressure, wind, and dozens of other datum needed when flying. The only feedback letting him know he still existed somewhere. Claustrophobia swallowed half his reason.

A whisper.

He heard a whisper.

A clink, laughter, mocking laughter.

Had he been transported at all?

Was he crawling around Lucia’s nightclub with her mob watching? He, Zebedaios, avenging angel? On hands and knees before that rabble?

Only he wasn’t an avenging angel anymore, but a protecting one.

Avenging angels only needed sight, to see miles in a dive, and touch for flying. All other senses were neglected for these two all important ones. But when Zeb had been assigned to Earth … to Dawn … he had been remade. Something Lucia, in her Fallen state, had not experienced.

She may be able to manipulate senses she understood, but the other three senses gifted to him for his new responsibility may be beyond her magicks.

And the demon-witch would not pass on the chance to torment Dawn while demeaning Zebedee. Dawn would be here, somewhere, if here was a place covered by an illusion. Dawn, the human he was tuned to. He should be able to hear her. Smell her. … taste her … no, not that … that thought leads to the Fall.

Hear. Ignore the white, the crushing non-roof. Only concentrate on hearing, however foreign that might be. Ears used to only hearing the rush of winds or the screams of battle search for … a muffled grunt, anger, … very angry. Dawn’s eyes would be sparkling.

That way. Who was near her? A scuffle with weight to it. Baal. Then Phil would be to the right.

Positive he was no more naked, defenseless, than he was in a No-Place, Zeb took the leap of faith normally reserved for humans and jumped forward to where his charge was.

The spell shattered around him and people scattered as he crashed through sycophants toward Lucia’s throne where Dawn was prisoner.

He had given up many things when he volunteered as a Guardian, but his Sword of Vengeance was not one of them. And, unfortunately on many levels, neither was his pride.

And they had made him crawl!

(words 492; published 4/3/2014; republished new blog format 5/5/2019)