Trust me… This is the Darkest Hour - 1. Trust me… This is the Darkest Hour

“What do you plead boy…”

“Guilty.”

“Then I sentence you to…”

**

The Boy awoke. He looked around. He was in some kind of hospital bed. There were wires coming from him in every direction. You could hardly tell the difference between boy and wire.

‘Mother?’ the Boy cried out weakly.

‘I’m over here son.’ She spoke in her calm tone.

‘Come closer, I cannot see you.’

‘You see, the doctors told me to keep at a safe distance.’

‘Why mummy?’

‘Because you are not safe.’ She eyed him up and down and saw the restrains around his body, physically holding him to the bed.

‘Why not mummy? Did I do wrong?’

He was young. He was just so young.

‘No. You haven’t.’ She looked out onto the field and saw a single horse. It looked through her.

Looking back at the boy, she felt the agony. She didn’t want to lose him but she knew what she had to do.

‘What is it then mummy?’ He looked into her eyes with tears surrounding his own.

‘I’m not your mother, child.’ She approached him quickly and pulled out the life support tube from his body.

He gasped and tried to reach for the assistance button but he was held down.

‘Who… are you?’ He coughed and gasped for air again.

‘Just call me a visitor. No doubt you will be seeing me again.’

The boy began to cough up blood. It was painful.

And then the boy was asleep again.

**

The Boy awoke. He looked around him. He was in some kind of torture chamber. There were wires hanging from the ceiling.

He looked over to his left and he saw the same woman. The room turned a shade of red.

He began to cough but nothing came out.

And then the boy was asleep.

**

The Boy awoke. He was in some sort of forest. He looked at his body, he was free. He looked at his environment. He had been lying in a field. He had patches of memory but not enough to make an entire picture. He moved along and ran his hand down a tree trunk and he felt it splinter in his hand.

He felt the pain of the splinter. He looked down at his body. Muscular. Tanned. Thick legs. Perfection. A tattoo on his inner thigh, two symbols ‘A1’. He couldn’t figure out what they were. But he knew he would one day.

The forest was cold. He looked around seeing little furry animals running around the place. Surely he was in the perfect place. He stood and he walked.

He was naked. Naked to the day he was… formed.

He leant against a tree, taking a breath after having walked for so long.

He felt a scratching at his back and he assumed it was an animal thinking he was meat for food. But he turned to face the tree and it was bare. There was nothing there and he still felt the scratching. He felt it get more painful, it grew within him and it was allfar too much for him to bear and because of this he dropped to his knees and began to scream in agony.

Something was growing. Out of his back. White perfection. Once they had finished, it was if they had taken over him. They controlled and flew him into the sky.

They were wings…

He could feel the exhilaration of passing through the clouds and climbing through the great blue skies. Just before he passed the atmosphere he took one final breath and closed his eyes.

Seconds later, he opened his eyes and the wings had taken him to a totally new location.

He could remember the gate.

He could remember the long winding path but beyond that it was all faded.

They were taking him to a strange place. A place he felt he had been before but he could not be entirely sure.

He could see little children playing on the path, with wings also. They were playing a game of air football. If there was such a thing. They would throw the ball at each other and trying to knock each other to the floor. The violence in children these days… It’s unbearable.

The wings made him continue flying, and then he saw her. The woman in the red jacket. She was flying in the opposite direction. Her purple hair flung back in the wind.

But her wings were different…

They were not white and beautiful. They were black and scarred and surrounded by an eternal fire.

She…

She was fallen…

He was ascending further but suddenly the wings plummeted him towards the ground and he hit the ground with a crashing thud.

He had landed in a garden. A cloaked figure walked towards where he had landed.

‘You will follow me. They have been waiting.’

He followed the cloaked figure and arrived in a huge courtroom. He could feel the small memories coming back to him.

He knew who he was.

“We didn’t think we would see you again.”

“It’s my pleasure. Now if you would like to tell me what I am doing here.”

“None of your business boy. Do you know what you are charged with?”

“Most certainly.”

“What do you plead boy…”

“Guilty.”

“Then I sentence…”

**

The Boy Awoke. He looked around him. He was in a street. He looked down at himself, surrounded by a coat, a sleeping bag and a cup for change. He was a beggar.

He looked into the crowds and saw people dressed in many colours but then he saw her.

Coming towards him; the mysterious woman in red.

He could remember nothing.

Nothing of what had happened previously; all he could think of were the patches of the woman in red, the patch of the courtroom and the patch of the gate. All little fragments that he couldn’t piece together to save his life…

She arrived in front of him.

‘Hello sweetie.’

He was looking at her and he could feel his mind trembling. She sneered down her nose at him and raised her arm.

And then he was asleep.

**

The Boy Awoke. He looked around him. He was in some sort of posh hotel room. He looked down around his body and he could see that he was chained to the bed and wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of boxer briefs. He was a rent boy.

And he had a feeling who his payment was to come from…

He struggled to get out of the chain but as he struggled, the chains cut into his arms and he yelped in pain. He tried so hard to escape but then he knew he couldn’t avoid the inevitable…

He heard running water in the bathroom. He knew she was in there. He felt a tear drop down his face.

No.

Not this again.

He felt a fire build up inside of him and his subconscious released his wings. They propelled him forward, breaking the chains and it allowed him freedom.

Freedom.

He got to the door, feeling the cuts on his arms from the chains. He fell into the door but it was solid.

It was locked. He ran himself into it but he couldn’t break it down.

He was too weak.

He heard the water stopping and she came out of the apparent bathroom.

He saw the danger in her eyes and in her hand…

And then he was asleep.

**

“Then I sentence you to a life of the fallen. You are to live out your days upon the human planet and you are never to be permitted into the ranks of the angels again. You are now fallen.”

The Judge took up his hand and pointed it towards the boy. The fire shot from his hand and it went straight through the boy and it surrounded his extracted wings with a never ending fiend’s fire. Never ending. Never reconciled. Always fallen…

And then he was asleep.

**

But he was awake. He was on the steps of the courtroom but awake.

He had somehow fought against it. Something or possibly someone wanted him to see what had become of the world.

And what had become of the heavens…

He knew something. He knew he was something different. He knew he was whatever he said ‘fallen’.

But that could be taken in so many ways.

Fallen from grace. From meaning. From space. Anything.

He knew he would find the answer.

But first he had to see the area.

It was devastated. So much different than what it looked liked before. It was a scene of absolute carnage and he knew who did it. The woman in the red jacket and skirt. It was her. She was always there. Everywhere he went she was there. He just wished he could live a normal life. Was that too much to ask? Just a normal life with a wife and kids and a white picket fence in a tract house. His idea of heaven. But no he wasn’t allowed that.

He had to find her. He had to find out why.

The question that has plagued so many for so long.

Why?

**

The darkest night was where he found her. Club Monique. Central New York City. It took him six months and so many near deaths, but he found her. She was getting a dance. One of the most seductive dances. He watched her from the other side of the bar. Getting her dance of absolute expression. The expression of sexuality, he would bump and grind wearing just his thin underwear. She could look but she couldn’t touch. After she was fully satisfied, he saw that she shoved a £50 note down the front of his underwear, getting a quick feel in the process. The go-go dancer moved on and the boy took his chance. He moved over and sat at her table.

‘I knew you were coming at some point.’ She took a drag out of her cigarette.

‘Who are you? I need to know.’

‘Have a drink.’

‘Fine.’ He took a swig from the glass on the table.

She grabbed her drink and finished it. Rum and Coke. Her favourite. But she didn’t swallow it. She allowed it to fall down the other side of her mouth. ‘I’m afraid that’s just something you are going to have to figure out on your own. Its only then will I tell you who I truly am. I am going to kill you again. Once again. Then twice. Then three times. I do it because that is what I was ordered to do. Now go and find the place that you are absolutely at peace in. So I can kill you kindly this time.’

‘Where?’

‘Sorry, but as I said before, I can’t tell you anything. And I’d say.’ She looked at her watch. ‘You have about 20 minutes before you die again. Arsenic is my good friend.’

He ran out of the club but he felt his world disappearing around him. He got himself into a trash box for the night. So he could die in a peaceful way.

Before he faded away he looked down at his leg and saw the ‘A 1.’ Then the pieces of his memory started to come back. He realised what it stood for.

Impossible.

Simply impossible.

He knew who he was.

And then he was asleep.

**

He travelled to the heavens and he found The White Knight. From his memories he remembered he was the leader of them all.

He looked up at The White Knight who never spoke. The large body mounted aloft of horses legs. A typical image of a knight but with so much more power.

The horse head bowed and ran his mane along the boy’s skin.

Where the horse head had run along, began to grow painful. He looked down at his skin and he felt a sensation of burning. Something was wrong…

Seriously wrong.

Then the memory jumped at him.

He knew who she was…

**

‘It is time.’ He turned around to see her standing there.

He was in the local park and was looking into the sky for a solution. But then it had arrived.

She was dressed far more formally than before. A petticoat under her sensual red dress. A small clutch bag that she held in both of her hands.

‘Time for what?’ He coughed.

‘Time for you to discover who I really am. She left me your locket. Your mother. I fashioned my image onto hers for a short while; to distract your attention.’

‘What? How could you?’ He stood and stared her in the eyes.

‘I was hired. To eliminate you. You keep coming back and I cannot figure out how to kill you; so I’m going to keep trying until you die. Goodbye, my old friend’.

And without a trace she extracted a gun from her clutch bag and shot him mercilessly in the heart…

And then he was asleep.

**

He was in familiar surroundings. He could remember it all. The hospital bed. He had to get out before she came to find him. He expanded his wings in order to break the leather bounds that kept him held to the bed. He could feel her presence walking down the corridor; masquerading as his mother. Before she reached his area, he fled out through the window and dived towards the ground.

Just before hitting the ground he flew upwards towards the heavens and arrived at the gates to The Eden Gardens.

He felt the burning upon his skin once more and saw that the knight was grazing in the field below the tree of knowledge.

‘Sir. I’m here to speak to you.’ The body nodded.

‘What am I? I need to know. I can’t figure anything out. Is this is what is meant to happen.’

The horse raised himself and looked directly into the Angels eyes and began to charge.

The boy knew what was coming.

Once they made physical contact he could see everything.

He was falling. He was now a creature of the night because he allowed himself to be corrupted. He allowed darkness into his soul and that was to be his downfall. His weakness was his kindness. Oh the memories, they flooded back to him…

**

3 Months Later

**

It was midnight. The bars were starting to close up. It was a Tuesday night; they always closed early on a Tuesday night. The boy sat alone, drinking heavily.

The Woman in The Red Dress moved from one side of the bar to the other and sat next to the boy.

‘You know.’

He jumped. ‘You startled me.’

‘My apologies.’ She looked at the waiter and called. ‘Scotch on the rocks. It’s been a rough few months.’

‘I can understand why, hunting me down.’

She smiled as the waiter brought her drink. She downed it in one and spoke once more ‘You know I don’t technically have to kill you. Join me. Join me in the revolution. I need some help eliminating some undesirables.’

That was the moment.

He was finally free.

He knew who she was. ‘Pharzuph, is it you?’

She winked. ‘The one and only.’

‘But you were dead. I remember it all. He destroyed you.’

‘All out of love. I’m afraid. Believe me, I thought I was dead but I came back, like you. Our kind always return when we have unfinished business.’

‘Our kind?’

‘Yes’

‘That means…’

‘Yes.’

He looked down at his skin and saw a fire had surround him and he was blackened all over and his wings had extracted themselves and they were also burnt to a crisp. There was no hope. There was nothing left of the great leader. Only pure evil.

She had a dark look in her eye. ‘Welcome to the ranks of the fallen, Gabriel.’

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