HIS ANGEL OF DAMNATION

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

MARY’S POV

The last time I was late to Mr Hamster’s class, I thought I had already reached the peak of humiliation, but I was clearly underestimating how creative a man could be when given authority and access to teenage suffering.

Because this time, he didn’t just punish me normally; he turned it into performance art, assigning me a forced apology poem that had to be written, rewritten, and eventually read aloud in front of the entire class as though my embarrassment was part of the curriculum.

And somehow, despite all of that poetic torture, I still got detention for twenty-five minutes of lateness, which in my personal opinion qualifies as educational overkill.

This is what I call abuse of teacher authority.

By the time I sat down, I had already crumpled more pages than I could count, each attempt trying to sound more remorseful than the last, as though sorrow itself had to be formatted correctly to be accepted.

A small pile of rejected drafts had gathered beside my desk.

Some had only a few words on them before I gave up.

Others contained entire verses that sounded less like apologies and more like the final thoughts of someone being held against their will.

Apparently apologising was a skill.

A skill I did not possess.

Every version felt wrong the moment I finished writing it. Too dramatic. Too fake. Too emotional. Too honest.

Sorry… sorry… sorry… I am so sorry…

Sorry for everything I have ever done, seen, thought, or accidentally existed through…

Sorry for—

I stopped, looked down at the page, and realised I had created something that looked less like poetry and more like emotional collapse on paper.

I stared at it for several seconds, wondering if Mr Hamster would appreciate artistic honesty.

The answer was obviously no.

Mr Hamster barely appreciated oxygen.

I’m so sorry for coming late, and also sorry that your face looks exactly like your name because honestly you look like a hamster—

That was the point where I paused for a very long moment and considered whether academic exile was reversible.

It wasn’t.

So I crumpled it and threw it away.

Thirteen attempts gone.

The paper bounced off the side of the bin and landed on the floor.

Honestly, it felt symbolic.

“Mary, that was your thirteenth one,” Jason said from beside me without even looking up, his tone far too entertained for someone who claimed to be my friend.

Jason was my only friend, which was still confusing considering we were complete opposites in every measurable category, but somehow it worked anyway, like bread and jam or glue and paper or two people who should not logically survive each other but do.

Sometimes I genuinely thought the universe had paired us together as some kind of experiment.

If so, it was a strange one.

Jason was calm where I was chaotic.

Practical where I was impulsive.

Patient where I was absolutely not.

Yet somehow, after years of friendship, he remained stubbornly present in my life.

“You don’t understand,” I muttered, reaching for another sheet.

Jason leaned back slightly in his chair, watching me with the kind of expression that suggested he found my suffering both educational and amusing.

“I understand perfectly. You are emotionally unstable under pressure.”

“I am not emotionally unstable.”

There was a pause.

We looked at each other.

Neither of us believed me.

Not even a little.

Jason raised one eyebrow.

I looked away first.

“So what did you do this time?” he asked, casually flipping a page in his own book. “Emergency prayer meeting? Or did your mum decide oxygen is a gateway sin again?”

I should have answered him immediately, but instead my mind drifted somewhere it had no business going, because for some reason the image of a certain blond-haired new teacher refused to stay where I had locked it.

Luci.

Just the thought of him made my expression shift without permission.

The memory arrived too easily.

The blond hair.

The strange calmness.

The feeling that surrounded him.

It wasn't just that he looked different.

It was that everything about him seemed slightly disconnected from the world around him, as though he belonged somewhere else and was merely visiting ours.

Jason noticed instantly.

His head tilted slightly.

“That smile is suspicious. Explain it.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It is never nothing with you.”

I hesitated, then against all logic and survival instinct, I said it.

“I think I might like someone.”

Jason froze for half a second, then burst into laughter so sudden and loud that a few students nearby looked over, as though confirming whether I had finally snapped.

“You?” he said between breaths. “Like someone? That is statistically impossible.”

“It is not impossible.”

“It is spiritually unlikely.”

I glared at him, but that only made him laugh harder, which reminded me exactly why this friendship had survived this long: Jason treated my life like an ongoing comedy series I never agreed to star in.

“You don’t even date,” he added when he finally caught his breath. “What do you even know about liking someone?”

That should have shut me down, but instead it tightened something in my chest because I didn’t actually have an answer that made sense.

I didn’t know.

Maybe that was the problem.

Maybe that was why the whole thing felt so strange.

I had spent years watching other people develop crushes as though it were a perfectly normal biological process.

Meanwhile I usually observed those situations the way scientists observed unusual weather patterns.

Interesting.

Confusing.

Best experienced from a distance.

So why was this different?

Why did the thought of him keep returning when I wasn’t even trying to think about him?

Why did every memory feel sharper than it should?

So I described it instead.

“Blond hair,” I said slowly, trying to organise the chaos in my head into words that wouldn’t betray me completely. “Really tall. Too calm. Like nothing ever rattles him. And his voice… it’s low, like it doesn’t need to compete with anything.”

Jason’s laughter faded slightly.

Not gone.

Just less careless.

“And his eyes,” I added, lowering my voice without meaning to, “they’re not normal. I don’t know how to explain it, but everything about him feels like it doesn’t belong here.”

Even saying it out loud sounded ridiculous.

But it was true.

There was something unsettling about him.

Not dangerous.

Not exactly.

Just impossible to ignore.

Like hearing a song you had never heard before and somehow recognising it anyway.

For a moment, Jason didn’t respond, and when he finally did, his tone had changed in a way I didn’t fully notice at the time.

“You’re overthinking it.”

“I’m not.”

“You always are.”

That should have ended it, but it didn’t, because something about his expression softened briefly before he forced it back into something lighter.

For the briefest second, he looked almost concerned.

Then it vanished.

“People are never what you think they are when you first meet them,” he said quietly.

I ignored that.

Mostly because it sounded annoyingly wise.

“Ten dollars he is exactly what I think he is,” I said instead.

Jason sighed.

“You’re on.”

At that exact moment, the classroom door opened.

The noise died instantly, like someone had cut the volume of the world in half.

Conversations stopped mid-sentence.

Pens paused.

Chairs stopped scraping against the floor.

Even the students who usually treated silence as a personal enemy seemed to forget how to make noise.

It wasn't the kind of quiet people obeyed.

It was the kind that simply happened.

The principal walked in first, but no one was looking at her.

They were all looking at the man behind her.

And when I looked up—

Everything stopped properly.

Luci.

For one impossible second, it felt as though the room had narrowed until only one thing remained in focus.

He stood near the doorway with effortless stillness.

Not rigid.

Not tense.

Just completely in control of himself.

The fluorescent lights above should have made him look ordinary.

Everyone looked ordinary under school lighting.

Yet somehow he didn't.

The principal was talking.

I knew she was.

Her mouth was moving.

Words were leaving it.

But none of them reached me.

Because my attention had already locked onto him.

He didn’t scan the room like a normal person; instead, his gaze moved with calm precision, as though he already knew exactly what he was looking for and was simply confirming its location, until finally his eyes landed on mine and held.

No surprise.

No hesitation.

Just recognition.

As if this moment had already happened somewhere else.

As if he had expected to find me there.

My stomach tightened unexpectedly.

The feeling wasn't fear.

At least, I didn't think it was.

It felt closer to standing on the edge of something invisible.

A slow, controlled smile formed on his lips, not warm, not friendly, but deliberate in a way that made the air feel slightly too aware of itself.

“Good morning,” the principal said, far too brightly, as though brightness could explain him.

“This is your new History teacher, Mr Morningstar.”

The name meant nothing to the room.

But something in the atmosphere shifted anyway, subtle enough that no one could point to it, but real enough that everyone felt it.

A ripple moved through the classroom.

Not physically.

Something quieter than that.

The strange instinct people had when they sensed something unusual without understanding why.

Beside me, even Jason had gone still.

His attention remained fixed on the front of the room.

For some reason, that bothered me more than everyone else's reaction.

Jason leaned slightly toward me, muttering, “I want my ten dollars back.”

I didn’t respond.

I couldn’t.

Because Luci’s gaze had not moved even once, and neither had mine.

The rest of the classroom seemed distant now.

Muted.

Blurred around the edges.

I was aware of people shifting in their seats.

Aware of the principal continuing her introduction.

Aware of the sunlight filtering through the windows.

Yet all of it felt strangely unimportant.

The only thing that felt real was the silence stretching between us.

Not an actual silence.

A different kind.

One filled with questions I couldn’t answer.

One filled with a familiarity that made no sense.

And in that stillness it felt less like a classroom introduction and more like something continuing from a place I didn’t remember entering.