HIS ANGEL OF DAMNATION

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

MARY'S POV

"Please wake up... I beg you, Seraphim. I can't live without you."

The voice drifted through the darkness again. The last few words broke slightly, as though the speaker had forced them out through a throat already raw from begging, and a shaky breath followed, filling the silence before he spoke again.

"Please..."

I turned toward the sound, but there was nothing there. No face, no room, no light—just endless darkness stretching in every direction while the voice echoed through it anyway.

My chest felt strangely heavy as I listened. Every word seemed to settle somewhere inside me, leaving behind an ache I couldn't explain. I searched for the speaker, just as I always did, and like every other time, I found nothing.

The dream began slipping away before I could reach anything. The darkness thinned, the voice faded, and everything dissolved into emptiness.

Everything except one thing.

Seraphim.

The name lingered in my mind long after the dream disappeared. The harder I tried to hold onto it, the faster it slipped through my fingers, leaving only that single name behind.

Seraphim.

The dreams had started when I was six. Back then, they came rarely enough to ignore. Strange dreams happened to everyone, or at least that was what I told myself.

Then I turned fifteen.

Now they came almost every night, and worse, they no longer disappeared when I woke up. Fragments followed me into the morning—a sentence, a feeling, or a half-remembered conversation that vanished the moment I tried to focus on it.

The only thing I knew for certain was that the voice belonged to a man.

"Mary! Hurry up! You'll be late for school!"

My mother's voice crashed through the dream.

I jerked awake and blinked at the ceiling. For a moment, I lay there trying to catch the last pieces of the dream before they escaped, but it was already too late. They were gone.

All except the name.

With a groan, I reached for my glasses. Reality had arrived, and unfortunately, it showed no signs of leaving.

"Coming!"

I pushed myself out of bed and shuffled toward the bathroom. The girl staring back at me from the mirror looked as though sleep had personally declared war on her.

Dark hair escaped from a messy bun in every direction. My glasses sat crooked on my nose, and the oversized black hoodie hanging from my shoulders looked like it had survived several academic disasters and at least one emotional breakdown.

I squinted at my reflection.

My reflection squinted back.

Neither of us looked impressed.

Nothing about me stood out, which was reassuring. People with mysterious recurring dreams probably shouldn't be remarkable. That sounded suspiciously like the beginning of a problem.

After splashing water on my face, I grabbed my bag and headed downstairs. The smell of pancakes reached me before I entered the kitchen, and immediately life seemed worth living again.

Dad sat behind his newspaper with a deep frown on his face, as though the local news contained information capable of preventing national collapse, while Mum moved around the kitchen humming softly.

"Morning," I said as I reached for an apple.

My hand never made it.

Mum intercepted it effortlessly.

"Breakfast first, bambina."

I looked at the apple, then at her, and finally at the plate of pancakes that appeared in front of me.

The battle was already lost.

I sat down.

Dad finally lowered the newspaper, though only slightly, just enough for one eye to appear over the edge.

"The dreams again?"

I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. Apparently, my face had betrayed me before breakfast.

"Maybe."

"Mary."

That was all he said, just my name, yet somehow parents could fit an entire lecture into a single word.

I shoved a piece of pancake into my mouth and focused very hard on chewing.

Dad watched me for another moment. His brows pulled together slightly—not angry, just concerned. It was the kind of look parents got when they thought something was wrong and you refused to tell them what it was.

"I'm fine," I said.

The words came out a little too quickly.

Dad didn't answer immediately. After a moment, he lifted the newspaper again and returned to reading.

I wasn't convinced he believed me.

Honestly, I wasn't sure I believed me either.

For ten years, a stranger's voice had followed me through my sleep. That wasn't exactly normal.

A few minutes later, Dad folded part of the newspaper.

"The police arrested a group yesterday."

Mum glanced over her shoulder.

"For what?"

"Some kind of ritual."

My fork stopped halfway to my mouth.

Dad noticed immediately. His eyes flicked toward me before returning to the article.

"They found candles. Symbols. Apparently they were trying to summon something."

I stared at him for a moment.

Mystic Hollow wasn't supposed to have stories like that. This was a town where excitement usually meant somebody's fence had been painted the wrong colour or Mrs Jenkins was accusing teenagers of stealing flowers from her garden. Not rituals. Not arrests. Certainly not people trying to summon things.

"That's disturbing," Mum said quietly.

Dad nodded once.

"People are losing their way."

The conversation ended there, which wasn't unusual.

Faith wasn't simply part of our lives; it lived in the walls. Crosses hung in every room, Bible verses sat framed above doorways, and even silence sometimes felt religious.

When I was five, I desperately wanted a cat. I asked for one every single day for three months.

Mum said no.

I asked again.

She said no again.

Eventually, they compromised and bought me a dog.

For exactly three weeks.

Then my body decided it hated dogs.

My eyes watered constantly, I sneezed every few minutes, and angry red patches spread across my skin. By the end of the month, I looked like I had survived a highly personal attack.

The dog found a better home.

Naturally, I assumed this meant I would finally get my cat.

I did not.

Mum declared cats were "not clean creatures." Years later, I learned she meant that in a spiritual sense.

Instead, I received a Bible.

A very large Bible.

On my birthday.

I still considered that trade unfair.

Breakfast ended soon after. I grabbed my bag and headed for the door.

"Be careful today, Mary."

Dad's voice followed me.

"I will."

The cool morning air hit my face the moment I stepped outside.

Much better.

The sun had already climbed above the rooftops, washing the streets in pale gold light. Mystic Hollow looked exactly the way it always did: clean, orderly, and predictable.

Small houses lined the roads. Church spires rose above the town, while shop owners opened their stores and neighbours stopped to exchange greetings.

Nothing ever seemed to change here.

Mrs Jenkins stood outside the bakery arranging baskets. She looked up and waved.

"Morning, Mary."

"Morning."

The smell of fresh bread drifted toward me, warm and distracting. I slowed slightly. The temptation to skip school and spend the day eating pastries was very real.

Unfortunately, responsibility existed.

I continued walking.

The dream slipped back into my thoughts almost immediately.

Seraphim.

The name felt strange every time I thought about it. Not unfamiliar exactly. Known. Like hearing a song you couldn't remember learning.

I had searched it online once, late at night out of pure curiosity. Most of the results talked about angels, messengers, and divine beings.

None of it felt right.

The voice in my dreams never sounded divine.

It sounded like someone standing at the edge of losing everything.

By the time I reached the town square, the old stone fountain was sparkling beneath the morning sun, surrounded by flower beds carefully maintained by church volunteers.

A group of elderly women spotted me immediately.

My fate was sealed.

"Mary!"

I slowed to a stop.

There was no escaping it.

Mrs Patterson smiled brightly as I approached, wearing the expression of someone who already knew exactly how this conversation would end.

"Good morning, Mrs Patterson."

"You're coming to Bible study tonight, aren't you?"

There it was.

Right on schedule.

I adjusted the strap of my bag.

"Probably."

Her smile weakened slightly.

"'Probably' is not a proper answer."

"I'm ninety percent committed."

"Only ninety?"

"I'm reserving ten percent in case of emergencies."

The women exchanged amused looks, and a few of them laughed.

Mrs Patterson shook her head.

"You joke too much."

"According to reliable sources, not enough."

That earned another round of laughter before she finally let me go.

A few moments later, I was walking toward school again.

Victorious.

Mostly.

The school building appeared at the edge of town, its red-brick walls glowing beneath the morning sun. Students crowded the entrance in noisy groups, their conversations blending into a familiar mixture of laughter, complaints, and last-minute panic over forgotten assignments.

I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and continued walking, but my thoughts had already drifted elsewhere.

Seraphim.

The name slipped through my mind again, bringing the same frustration it always did. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like something I should know. Not something I had forgotten, but something that sat just beyond reach, waiting for me to remember it.

A group of students brushed past me, forcing me to step aside. I barely noticed.

By the time I reached the entrance, I realised I had been walking on autopilot.

"Oh."

I blinked at the building.

"I'm already here."

"Excuse me."

The voice came from behind me.

My grip tightened around the strap of my bag before I could stop myself. It wasn't the voice itself that made me turn. It wasn't threatening or particularly unusual. There was simply something about it that snagged my attention and refused to let go.

Slowly, I turned around.

At first, I saw nothing more than a stranger standing a few feet away. He looked about my age, with dark hair falling across his forehead and sharp features that should have been completely unfamiliar to me.

They weren't.

The moment our eyes met, something inside me shifted.

The noise around us faded into the background. Students continued moving through the gates, laughing and talking as they passed, but their voices seemed distant somehow, as though they belonged to another world.

I couldn't look away.

The strange thing was that he didn't look away either.

His dark eyes remained fixed on mine, intense and searching. A faint crease appeared between his brows, and he tilted his head slightly, as though he was trying to place a memory that refused to come into focus.

My heartbeat stumbled.

For a brief moment, his expression changed. His eyes widened slightly, surprise flickering across his face before disappearing so quickly that I almost doubted I had seen it.

I swallowed.

My throat had suddenly gone dry.

I had never seen this person before.

I knew that.

Yet the certainty weakened with every second I stood there looking at him.

Something about him felt familiar in a way that made no sense, like hearing the first line of a song I somehow knew by heart despite never hearing it before.

Who was he?

More importantly—

Why did it feel as though a part of me had been searching for him for years?

The stranger opened his mouth to speak.

And in that moment, I knew my life was about to change.