Alpha Day Chapter Two

Avalon was running heart in hand with blood on her torso. She was leaving a trail of blood in the shallow water that she ran through, bare-feet, alerting the predators of her frantic state. She was injured, coughing blood spasmodically. There were footsteps behind her and it only felt like they were getting closer and closer, just close enough to grab her and drown her in a shallow grave. A gunshot echoed through her ears and she screamed in vain. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Léon stood fifteen feet from her. He turned his head towards her and looked her in the eyes. The monsters seemed to have disappeared. She was lured by his eyes, but like a fly to a light, his soul seemed to have escaped from his body and flew straight at her. She jumped up from her bed, a nightmare had haunted her.

It was minutes before dawn and she had school to attend to. Indira Bay High School wasn’t too far but she had to combat the megacity’s traffic hordes to get there on time. School began at seven in the morning, and even though it was a quarter till six, there was no way she’d get there on time if she went by car. She brushed her hair and changed into her clothes which were quite always the colors of the Covenant. She buckled her belt and strapped her shoes on. Grabbing her usual black vest in one hand and her backpack in the other, she got ready for liftoff. She opened her window and looked down; she was ten stories above the ground and an anxiety built up within her. She held her breath and leapt from the window. She was falling, straight down towards the ground in what was only a few seconds but felt like a storm with adrenaline tingling up her spine. Two floors above the ground her wings burst out from her back, ripping holes on the backside of her crimson long-sleeved blouse. The wings spread wide with foot-long feathers on her fifteen foot wingspan. Before nearing the ground she pulled up and quickly ascended into the air in a graceful arching movement. She flapped her wings repeatedly to raise her altitude and in moments she was above the buildings, seeing the layout of the land that made squares and triangles of buildings bordered by roads. She finally released her breath, heart surging and panting for air. The air at her altitude was thin and cold with wind fighting against her, but nevertheless she began to catch her breath. There was a beauty to flying; it was an exact science where there’s one part work, one part art, and a hundred percent screaming terror. It’s graceful yet tiring and any mistake – no matter how minute – can result in death. Avalon looked to her left and to her right, trying to get a view of the sky. There were no others flying in her airspace and she took off straight to school, trying to beat the clock in order to get there before the bell. She spent a few minutes in free flight, a carefree bird high above the clouds, thinking about hopes and the thought that she was one of the lucky ones that were granted the ability to soar like no others could. She closed her eyes for moments at a time and nearly dozed off, still working her wings even when sleeping. She flew by flocks of migrating birds and even spun in the air, totally departed from the world. But her fantasy was interrupted when her phone rang, a mile high in the air. She reached into her pocket and answered it. It was Ted.

“Hey Teddy bear. I love you.”

She answered on the phone, voice a bit different than from in person.

“Hey Ava, I love you too. Say, where are you?”

“I’m on my way to school but I had to take the scenic route.”

“Scenic route? You aren’t flying are you?”

“Of course not; we can’t let people see us.”

His response was rather cliché.

“Look behind you.”

Ava looked behind her to see Ted nearing her in flight. She hung up the phone and remained at the speed she was at. Ted came towards her like a cannonball and he grabbed onto her midsection in a spinning midair hug. She held him tightly and the two lovebirds were spinning in the air, wings flapping to keep control. Unlike her wings – his were a lavender color and no two angels have the same wing color. He gave her a brief kiss and released her before stabilizing.

“Teddy!”

She shouted at him.

“What was it you were saying about not letting people see us? You afraid we’ll show them what love is?”

He chuckled.

“No, I just don’t want the other girls jealous.”

“Touché, I am adorable after all.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself Ted.”

They tilted their wings a little and held hands in the air, casting a giant shadow over the city with the early morning sun above them. Indira Bay High School was inbound and they descended down in a leisurely glide. They were ahead of the bell, but they’d arrive late if they spent any more time flying. They flew straight down into an alleyway leading out to the road across the street. Their wings retracted back into the skin of their backs, a beautiful metamorphosis challenged only by that of a caterpillar. Ava ripped holes on the back of most of her blouses to accommodate her metamorphosis. Over the ripped clothes she’d usually wear a black vest to hide them from sight. Ted and most of the other males just wore a jacket of some sort.

They walked into the school and departed ways with a sweet kiss and a tender hug. Hours would pass before Ted saw Avalon again at lunch. He waited for her at their usual table. Jonathon was already at the table, waiting for his partner as well. Jonathon’s raven colored hair was buzzed at the sides and short on top. He was much taller than Ted and had more muscle as well. However he was vanilla-lite in color, void of stepping into sunlight. His face was strictly squared with a straight jaw-line and amber colored eyes. Jonathon and Ted had been friends since the second grade and they shared a sense of brotherhood. Avalon and Juliet could be seen walking towards their lunch table outside on the school patio. Jonathon pointed towards them and Ted looked over to the two as they walked towards them, elbows locked together. Juliet had pretty doll eyes that looked like shiny black beads. Her skin tone was a defined caramel-vanilla color – a tradeoff between a bronze tan and a straight white color. Her face was clean-cut and rounded beautifully with straight laced black hair. She was Eurasian in origin like the majority of Indira City’s inhabitants. The four met at the table and consecutive hugs were given out in all directions with warm greetings and kisses.

“Ted, I have soccer practice this afternoon. Are you able to make it?”

“I won’t. I’m actually leaving early for an appointment with my physical therapist. It was unexpected, my parents told me last night.”

She sighed but smiled.

“It’s okay. I was just wondering.”

“And how was your day?”

Juliet asked with a white smile. Jonathon responded with a shrug.

“Same old, Dr. Garren is still pushing us into doing science fair early in the school year. It’s not due until third quarter but its insisted we do it now. I’d rather wait.”

Avalon laughed.

“Are you procrastinating like Ted now? I always thought more of you Jon. Maybe you two were separated at birth.”

Jon puffed. Ted rolled his eyes.

“Pfff, no. I’d have nightmares if Ted was my brother.”

“I’d have nightmares if we even shared a drop of blood.”

Ted scoffed back.

“Speaking of nightmares, I dreamt that I was being chased by monsters and then Léon showed up out of nowhere and dissolved into air. My spine shivered. I don’t think I’ve felt a dream reach out and touch me like that. I wasn’t afraid of him; it just felt like a train wreck. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Juliet saw behind Ava’s shoulder, sitting across her in the table.

“Wait, don’t look now, but is that him?”

Ted turned his head around. He bit his lip.

“Speak of the devil.”

“What? Are you serious?”

Avalon peeked over her shoulder and then looked back at Juliet.

“I’ve never seen him around school. Since when did he attend?”

Léon was sitting alone at another table on the patio, about five away from them. He was deep in concentration, focused on a book that he held with both hands. He was reading Romeo & Juliet. There wasn’t a person near him where he was. People would walk by and look at him as he read but they’d turn the other direction and walk away promptly.

“It’s possible that he joined with his cousin Jane. She transferred over recently.”

Avalon was out of touch again, there was something strange about him. He gave off chills, there was something about him that was just crawling under the surface, yet it was in the air. It wasn’t a smell nor was it a sound; it was an atmosphere of bland tasteless despair. Time seemed to have passed in seconds, killing off a fragment of her life by being lost in his presence. The bell rung and lunch was over. Avalon left the table without saying much about anything, nearly lost in his spell.

The school day ended and it was three in the afternoon. Avalon headed towards her soccer practice. The school year was only two weeks old and the girls’ soccer team had practice alongside the boys’ football team. Indira Bay High was particularly proud of their sports teams, being ranked the third best school in all of Indira Megacity. Their students had both knowledge and ability to succeed in anything. Avalon’s team came up short as runner ups for three consecutive years to North Indira High School; every championship successful until the very end.

She changed into uniform and cleats and started to run laps around the field. There were soccer balls stationed around all sides of the field. She ran from one side to the other and began kicking them into the net one by one after each lap. Her team followed in her steps, she was a natural leader. Coach Kazumoto blew the whistle and she took a break on the sidelines with her team before Coach Kazumoto went to finish the practice with a summary. She sipped from a bottle of water and looked to the football team. They were finishing their practice as well. They were throwing their muddy jerseys at the waterboy or the ground near him while they removed their pads. She couldn’t see his face, but he was reading Romeo & Juliet. She leaned to the side and saw that it was Léon. He placed his book to the side and grabbed all the jerseys from the ground and placed them in a heap. The football coach was shouting at all the players and consequently him for slacking off. Coach Kazumoto began reading from his clipboard.

“You’ve all done great today. Our first game will be this Friday against Central Indira at seven PM. You also have practice on Wednesday and Thursday immediately afterschool.”

Avalon bit her lip. She had patrol missions for the Covenant on Fridays and weekends.

“Ava, you’re doing great. I wouldn’t be surprised if you made our championship this year. Don’t let us down.”

Coach Kazumoto nodded and dismissed the team. The football team was just about finishing their laps before hitting the showers. Avalon stood with her bag and left for the shower. On her way there, she kept looking at Léon who served as a maid for the football team. He didn’t say a word to anyone or anything. He was more of a shadow than a person.

Avalon cleansed herself of sweat and dirt in the shower. She changed back into her usual clothes with her black vest over the ripped holes on the back of her blouse. She dried her hair with a towel and walked off the school property with her school bag. The sun had recently settled and it was right after dusk. The stars could be seen in the sky under the illusion of lights. There were dark clouds in the air and thunder rumbled cantankerously. She lacked a ride home and had no other option but to fly there instead of facing a twelve mile walk in the rain. She walked into the same alleyway she used to get to school and removed her vest. Her wings sprouted out of her back like plants would in soil. The wings emerged with crimson feathers until they were stretched out as far as possible. She stretched upwards and limbered up for flight. She began to flap her wings in heavy repetition, blowing specks of dirt in all directions. Her wings began to pick up speed and before she knew it they were moving in rapid flaps. She jumped into the air and slowly began rising in altitude. Manual liftoff was always the hardest to perform; it took much more strength and stamina to pull off. She gave off a burst of air with her wings and she hovered above the short building she started on. She stopped on the roof of the building and ran along the edge of it and then dove off into full flight.

Avalon flew at a low altitude, nowhere near the cold of thousands of feet in the air. Above her the sky was bright with visible stars and under her the lights were a blanket of gold. She looked straight north, the direction of her home. She felt the presence of something else in the air. She could hear the sound of wings flapping behind her. A smile lit her face up. Ted, she thought. But then she heard another set of wings, and soon another. She looked back and saw demonic wings made of torn flesh. Her pulse spiked and she picked up speed, beginning to frantically beat her wings as fast as she could. There was a ravenous vampire hunting party behind her and the night was young. She was alone in the sky with nobody to assist her. She sent out psychic pulses towards the vampires to disorientate them in flight. They began to lag behind her but they were dead on her trail. Suddenly she made a sharp turn towards her left by rolling her body sideways and broke off her flight pattern by flying between the crevices between buildings. The vampires split up and there was one flying directly above her, one behind her and the third disappeared from her line of sight. Avalon barrel-rolled left and right to cut through the alleys but they were relentless. The alley opened up and she flapped harder, flying well over fifty miles per hour. The vampires began to close in on her and she strained herself to be a cut above them. She focused directly on the opening of the alleyway into a wide open courtyard. Her heart raged in her chest like an animal and she began tiring – but she was almost out of the deathtrap of the alleyways. She gave one final push and darted out of the alleyway – but she felt claws penetrate the skin on her arms. A third vampire hung onto her and violently spun her until she dropped onto the concrete of the courtyard with bloody scrapes on her arms and legs. Her chest felt a pain unlike any other and her arms had claw marks. Avalon crawled on the concrete of the courtyard, the fall hit her harder than she had braced for. The three vampires stood behind her and she limped away from them.

“Crawl insect… crawl…”

The vampire’s raspy voice whispered at her. They slowly walked towards her and she turned around and crawled by pushing the ground away from her. Her wings were torn and she couldn’t fly. Her nose was bleeding over her lips.

“Please, no!”

She begged and they laughed. Their skin was a colorless pale and appeared to be smooth. Two of them were male and the third was a female. They had inch-long claws erecting from their nails and visible fangs in their wicked grins. The female vampire smiled innocently and giggled like a child. The metallic smell of blood was creating frenzy.

“I’m going lick your bones dry of blood when I’m done with you.”

The female vampire was no older than she was – yet childishly rotten and violent.

“Don’t play with your food. Let’s begin this feast.”

Avalon couldn’t crawl anymore and tears dropped from her eyes. Ted was on her mind – his smile, his charm, and her family, her friends. She prayed they’d hear her cry for help. The thunder blasts were louder and bellowed throughout the city. The female smiled and the entirety of her fangs flashed at her.

“Goodbye.”

The vampire’s face grew demonic and a growling could be heard. Avalon let out a cry and hoped that death be quick. Lightning surged through the sky and let off a bright light which she felt was the light at the end of the tunnel. In the split second the light flashed, a massive winged beast’s eerie shadow covered them in a shroud of darkness. The vampire raised her clawed hand in the air and Avalon closed her eyes. The second her hand came down towards Avalon, the vampire’s body was crushed – her bones gnashed and blood spilled side to side from the crushed body. The creature was a ghostly white revenant with six sharp spirit-like wings scaling from its back. It was humanoid but it had no definite form of legs and its long arms had thin foot-long claws on each finger. The head was round with two eyes that were a hollow black color. The creature’s teeth were thin and serrated and it must have had at least eighty in its snarling mouth. It had long tentacle-like hair that dragged behind its back like a cape. The creature gave off a vehement screech that echoed lowly like a cross between a gator’s growl and a cougar’s roar. The creature grabbed the back of the vampire girl’s neck and ripped her head off her body with her bloody spine still dangling from it. It turned around and looked at the two males. Both of them instantly fled from the creature but the creature flew towards the first one and recklessly crashed it against the ground. It ripped both of the vampire’s wings off and then grabbed both of his feet and split its body by the legs before smashing its head on the concrete. The last one was already in flight – not too far from the creature. All six of its wings burst into action and hunted the last one. It instantly overtook the vampire and diced the vampire’s wings off in a gory mess. It then grabbed the vampire before it fell and forced its weight on the vampire as it fell and skid against the sharp concrete edges of the courtyard. The white creature laughed at its pain with a terrifyingly spectral chuckle and then proceeded into forcibly prying the vampire’s ribcage open with its claws and opening its chest. It ultimately grabbed the vampire’s black heart and ripped it in a bloody spray of blood. The torturous howl of the creature rang through Avalon’s ears as it mutilated what was left of the vampire. She continued to crawl away while she still could with desperate kicks to push her body away. The creature turned around and looked at Avalon. Her vision doubled with each pulse of her heart, her breathing began to decline in terror. The creature flew slowly towards her, with its waving tentacle hair curling between the six wings on its back. The creature’s body transmogrified into a human – into Léon.

He approached her and stared into her pale green eyes. She looked back into his russet eyes and saw his extraordinarily pale skin. He tilted his head a degree and he offered Avalon his hand. She weakly grabbed onto it and he lifted her up. She instantly collapsed down and he caught her before she fell. Her legs were brittle and bled from the fighting. He grabbed onto her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding onto the angel for dear life.

“Thank you.”

She whispered to him in his ear.

“Close your eyes and do not move.”

He told her and she listened. She felt her body bleeding inwards – the blood retracting into her body and soaking into the pores of her skin. It stung deeply and she gripped Léon with all of her strength; then suddenly the stinging pain disappeared and she felt reinvigorated – the pain numbed down and lost most of its strength. She opened her eyes and the veins on Léon’s temple and cheeks were a dark blue and straining deeply. He sighed heavily and let out a cold breath - then he began to bleed where Avalon had bled. She felt strength in her legs and balanced herself – stepping away from Léon and looked at her own arms. The claw marks appeared like scratches and the blood wounds were thin scabs.

“What did you do?”

He panted in affliction.

“Share the pain.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

“You split the pain? Why would you?”

He panted heavily and held his hand against his chest.

“Sacrifice…”

He panted between words

“Life and limb…”

He began collapsing.

“For the better…”

He fell on his knees and Avalon stopped him from falling over. He coughed profusely and blood seeped from his mouth and nostrils. She held onto him and instantly grabbed her phone. She called Manner Mansion for assistance while he kept up his throbbing healing, interrupted only by spasmodic blood coughing.

It was another ten minutes before other angels arrived at the scene in groups of four. They carried his injured body and escorted Avalon to Manner Mansion’s infirmary. Avalon felt fine – only sore throughout her body. Léon however was critical and they removed his brown leather jacket before placing him on the hospital bed. Archangel picked up the jacket and Romeo & Juliet fell out of its pocket and onto the ground. Avalon picked the book up and Archangel spoke to her.

“You were lucky. If he wasn’t there you probably would have died. There’s a reason you shouldn’t fly alone – especially at night. Take the day off tomorrow. Go recover.”

She was silent and embarrassed – yet grateful for everything.

“Is he going to be okay?”

Archangel nodded calmly.

“He’ll make it.”

A lone tear drop fell from Avalon’s left eye.

“He absorbed my injuries; he willingly took the pain from me. I feel guilty.”

Avalon cleared his throat and let out a breath of air from his nostrils.

“He’s a strange one to say the least. He doesn’t heal – but he removes pain. He doesn’t know how to love – but knows not to hate. You shouldn’t feel guilty, feel grateful instead and learn from this experience. He’ll be okay.”

She tried to hand Archangel the book but he denied it.

“You give it to him. It’ll be a chance to thank him.”

“Yes sir.”

She said in a whisper – looking down at the ground. Her tears were dried. She turned around and walked to her room in the mansion. She was tired but free of pain. She could see the moon from her window and opened Romeo & Juliet. She used the moonlight to read the pages, but there was scribbly writing in red ink on some of the lines. One of them asked: what is love and why die for it? She closed the book and set it down on the counter next to her and slumbered off into a dreamless night.