“Who?” Uriel asked. Was someone looking for him? He caught a flicker of the face in his memory again, but couldn’t latch on to the image.
“Maybe no one. Could be a coincidence. Let me get you a bowl of broth. We’ll start slow. Do you need to use the bathroom?”
Heat flooded Uriel’s cheeks. The ache in his lower body suddenly made sense.
Wade understood. “I’ll help you up. The first few times are a little strange, but instinct kicks in. We were designed this way as a reflection of humanity.”
“Sorry,” Uriel apologized. He struggled to stand, his limbs trembling like jelly. Their trip to the bathroom took a long time and resulted in Uriel having to change clothes and get a brief wash from the gentle seraph. “There’s no mirror?” Uriel asked.
“Not in this ward. The change is hard on many seraphim. It’s better to let them recover physically before working on the mental portion of their transition.”
“Am I ugly?” Uriel asked. His heart lurched in fear that he’d be hideous and everyone would run from him. He could feel the weight of his wings resting in the ether, ready to be called. That he still had them was a comfort, even if he didn’t know what sort of dark beast he’d turned into. Did he look like one of Morningstar’s creations? Or something else?
Uriel’s headache intensified.
“Not at all,” Wade assured him. “Your colors are beautiful. Most of us are used to seeing white wings and uniformity among the seraphim. Some find it… overwhelming. I am of the few that came willingly. Who wants to be in that stuffy celestial place anyway? All that bright light and no color. It should be filled with life but feels as somber as a tomb.”
“The celestial plane didn’t change?” That wasn’t right, but Uriel couldn’t remember why.
“Well, I never encountered it before the catalyst released the darkness, but I’d have thought there would be rainbows and music,” he shrugged. “Pretty things like flowers. They don’t let the Fallen stay. It’s why you’re here. Once we Fall, we end up there and they kick us back out. I guess they don’t like our colors muddying their big white world.” He settled Uriel back into his bed. A dozen more beds stretched across the room, empty.
“Are there no others?”
“Not right now. Some have been released already. They find their place among the humans, healing, protecting, some learning other trades. There are a few in confinement as they haven’t handled the adjustment well.” Wade pulled the blanket up over Uriel. “Get some more rest. You’ll need a few days to ease the disorientation.”
“Can you find the one searching for Uriel?” Uriel asked. “Maybe they know me.” Someone had to know more than he did. “This world looks very different from the last one I remembered.”
“Yeah? Do you remember anything significant about that world?”
“Rainbow trees,” Uriel said. Pain slammed into his brow and he winced.
“Don’t force yourself to remember. The migraine can last a few days.” Wade clicked off the few remaining lights. “I’ll getsome meds added to your IV. Sleep. Let your mind remember at its own pace.”
Uriel sighed. He wanted answers, but when he closed his eyes, the pain eased. More rest. How much rest could one seraph need?
Uriel’s headache waxed and waned over the next few days. He learned to use the bathroom on his own, eat solid food, and even stepped outside to stand in the sun, though someone always accompanied him. They watched him warily, not only the humans, but the changed seraphim as well, as though afraid of something.
Had he done something when he was unconscious? No one would answer his questions. Wade worked the late shift, and was a rare kind of chatty Uriel thought unusual among the seraphim, what little he could remember of them.
On the third day of his recovery, he had a rare few moments of free time when the group brought someone else in, taking their focus from him, and he spent it wandering the halls. The building had been an old school. The equipment recovered from a nearby hospital leveled in the last Fracture. Uriel remembered nothing about the last several Fractures.
The far end of the school stretched empty, stripped of resources, with peeling walls and dirty floors. Part of it used to be a gym they’d told Uriel, with locker rooms and small workout areas. Alone for the first time since awakening in this strange new world, he wandered, finding peace in the quiet, until he eventually heard a soft keening sound. Crying?
Uriel let the sound guide him to a locked double door with a handwritten sign on it. He stared at the sign, his mind tracing the words to translate them.
Do not enter. Dangerous.
A coiled chain wrapped the two handles together, locked in a dozen ways. A stack of trays sat beside the door, some empty, others molding with rotten food. He traced the chain with his fingertips, finding magic coated the links to strengthen them. A flash of something…someonechained up in the dark, tied to agony, made Uriel’s heart race. The crying came from within,soft sniffling heartbreak echoing a terrible sadness. Familiar, yet not.
He pressed his hand to his chest, fearing his heart would leap free for a second, the pain so intense, but with it came an unfettered well of rage. Why would anyone be chained up to suffer in the mortal realm? The links beneath his fingers snapped and slipped from the door. The release of his anger feltgood.Right. Like he’d held back too long.
Uriel stared at the closed door, a thousand ideas of possible horrors inside keeping him from pushing it open. He was tempted to smash the wood to pieces and hurl them across the broken school. How strange it was to be mortal and feel fear and rage like tangible bubbles of floating emotions he could reach out and grab hold of.
The weeping continued, filled with heartbreak and pain. The guardian senses Uriel bestowed on his half of the seraphim gripped his guts with a brutal demand tosave. He shivered. The pooling rage rising to a boil inside him. Someone was in there.Hurt.A memory of a roaring beast flickered through his mind again. Was there a monster inside?
A growl trickled from his lips as he readied himself to fight, then he kicked the doors, the pair snapping and breaking off their hinges from the hit. Light seeped through the dark space which loomed large as a mausoleum. Open and stripped of nearly everything, it was a few swatches of darkness that made Uriel hesitate.
Shadows? Didn’t Wade say the catalyst released them? Had they congregated here? He studied the dark for movement, finding it looming but free of sentient shadows.