The Chronicles of the Four Heirs: WAR

Chapter 2

It seems like years ago that the battle over Dubai happened. But according to my tick marks on the wall it’s been 132 days since I woke up in this cell. As my eyes slowly opening not needing to adjust the light, I lay there in the cold ground wondering if I was going to spend the rest of my life locked away. 

“Hey meat bag,” I heard come from the doors viewing slide, “breakfast.”

          As the tray of food slid under the door, I sat up not wanting to eat but forcing myself over to grab the tray and eat it anyway. It wasn’t that it was bad food it’s just a lot of the guards here are angels who have never interacted with humans and were fascinated by the fact we had to eat in order to survive. Although angels did eat, they only needed a grain of rice ever few hundred year to survive, when they ate whole meals like humans it was a way of celebration. Some angels were given prison duty as punishment for actions during the rising of the Morning Star Conflict, those who weren’t banished were given mundane jobs for all eternity where they were not able to interact with humans or even see how the millennia has affected us and some are still imprisoned in heaven. At this point it was a game to them to see what I would and wouldn’t eat. Some days it’s not too bad one day I even got a cheeseburger, but today it seems I have something similar to corned beef and tree bark.  

         As I ate my food, I went over what little I knew about angels in case something could be useful should the opportunity to escape presents itself. What I remember is that there are 9 choirs of Angels: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Archangels, Principalities, and your normal garden variety Angels. The only ones I’ve met are normal angels, Powers, and Dominions. Very rarely does a human get granted an audience with an archangel directly, and there have only been two or three times that they have that I know of. 

         I do know that not all angels care for humans, a lot who were present during the Morning Star Conflict still think of humans as a stain however because of orders from their leadership they are forced to put aside their own thoughts to fight with us. Commander Marreq from the Holy 56th was that way, to him we were nothing more than bodies that slowed down his army, but he also stated he had great respect for some humans who fought to save one of his angels lives and has returned the favors handsomely. 

         Angels are very hard to kill and even more so to subdue, during our training we are told not to worry about hitting an Angel with gunfire because a round from our sidearms or primary weapons just bounce off them. I remember my first day in the stand down zone near New Washington, some tank drivers and an angel were playing around, and the angel took a tank shell too the face and got up from the ground laughing as he dusted himself off without so much as a scratch. 

         Lower choir of angels are not immortal either, they just exist for a really long time. While higher choirs seem to transcend time, your lower choirs do not. We did find out that when a human die, they can serve in the army of heaven and should someone be chosen for that path they are remade into angels. However, the process is long, and I’m Told the ceremony needs a seraph and 4 archangels to do it over the span of 50 years. They only take the most cunning and daring.  Your basic angel can live for as long as 4000 years before they return to paradise. Basically, when a run of the mill angel “dies” their spirit just returns to who they were before.

         As I was deep in my thoughts sitting the corner of my cell the door creaks slowly open as the metal hinges grind across each other and someone steps in closing the door behind him. 

“Hello John,” the man spoke softly, “how are you feeling today.”

         The tone in his voice was calm and relaxed, his words pierced my ears and forced me to listen as he had almost a lower voice behind his speaking as well. I didn’t reply, I was curious as to what his purpose was and who he was.

“Hopefully you are doing alright in here, I can understand your reluctance to answer, so I’ll just get to the point,” he stated, “my name is Silas and I’ve been instructed to take you to go see the Garrison Commander Kanan.” 

As he finished his sentence there was almost a breath in as he was waiting for my reply.

         As I turned around, I saw the angel called Silas behind me. He stood easily 6 foot tall and was clothed in the angel’s traditional battle armor, although I noticed minor differences in how he was dressed compared to other angels. His robes underneath was red with white accents and his armor itself was blue. There were gold accents on his armor just barely visible underneath all the scratches and faded color. He wore a shoulder belt on his right shoulder that had knives going from his waist to his armpit. As I looked at the dark in his face, I could see the remnants of past battles had taken their toll, his eyes were tired, and I could see wrinkles underneath his scruffy beard. His curly black hair had a traditional military haircut.

“Am I to take that as a yes,” he asked me to reach a hand towards me. 

         I took his hand and he pulled me up, but I didn’t say a word. This was the first interaction with anyone I’ve had in four months. I had been kept in this cell with the only interaction being the guard delivering my food. As I exited my cell, walking into the dimly yellow lit corridor, I feared what was coming next as traditionally in situations like this I would be heading towards interrogation however the feeling I got from Silas’ calm demeanor was that this was not headed that way. 

         As we walked down the cell block and into a white atrium, I heard a loud buzz as we exited the cell block and walked into a gated pathway and outside into the sunlight, I was blinded for a second as my eyes adjusted to seeing sunlight again. While we walked nonchalantly through the pathway Silas finally spoke. 

“We apologize about your captivity Captain, but we had to find out how you were in possession of those angel wings; now that we know the reason we can sit down and talk,” he said to me loudly so he could be heard over the sounds of our feet stomping through the gravel. 

“If you wanted to know, why was I never brought in for questioning,” I asked confused as we exited the pathway into the yard of the prison where angels were training while they watched us as we passed by. 

“In our experience humans will lie to save their own skin,” he stated. “It wasn’t a Matter of if you would tell the truth or not, we just have better ways of obtaining information without the need of t*****e and other barbaric methods.”

“Yeah, and how’s that,” I said sarcastically 

He stopped and half faced me, “Well you were connected to a muse before your plane was torn to pieces right,” he asked putting his hand my shoulder,” think about it.”

I put the pieces together in my head quickly, “you used Norma Jean to pry into every detail of my life.” I asked almost infuriated, “where is she, what have you done with her.” I demanded, the thought of them harming my muse to gain knowledge about me sent a cold chill down my spine. He chuckled and turned away as he clapped his hand against my arm softly and start walking again.

“Don’t worry she is fine,” he smiled as he continued walking, “The muses are great tools for information, to humans they whisper ideas and help create wonderful thoughts and dreams but when they are connected to a human for long periods of time as you and Norma Jean, as you call her, have been, the relationship gets more...... meaningful.”

“What do you mean?” I asked even more confused 

“In those scenarios it is not unheard of for a muse and a human to develop a strong emotional connection and when a muse bonds with a human as Norma Jean has with you the loss of the muse’s human companion can be quite frankly be unbearable,” he said as he opened a door into another building that resembled a bath house.

We stopped at the door to the men’s locker room and he turned to face me. “I will answer more questions after you have cleaned up, I believe you will find everything you need inside; we also took the liberty of having fresh uniforms sent over. Take as much time as you need and after you are ready, I will take you to see the garrison commander.” He tilted his head, turned on his heel and walked down the hallway. 

“Ok?” I said to myself openly even more befuddled than when I was sitting in my cell.

 I opened the door to the locker room and as soon as I walked into the dimly lit room the stale air hit my nostrils and made me grimace. As I looked around, I saw my dress uniform had been laid out on the bench in the center of the room with a toiletries kit resting on top next to a towel. As I walked towards it, I caught my reflection in a mirror. I was filthy, and my appearance was less than desirable for even me. My black hair was covered in dirt and sand so much it looked brown, my eyes were no longer just green but we’re bloodshot from the dust and exhaustion.

As I took off my flight suit and T-shirt, I noticed I had a large scar on my left shoulder and the right side of my torso from where the Hell Flyers claws got me when he grabbed my ejection seat. As I turned my back, I noticed two vertical scars on my shoulder blades, they weren’t as scared up as the one over my shoulder but were pink and looked almost completely healed, I surmised that they were the result of the ejection seat being pushed into me, although it was odd that those were the only ones on my back.

As I turned on the water for the shower and waited for the water to warm, I continued wondering what was going on. I had more questions than answers at this point. Why did I have angel wings being the big one, but also, I wondered what was going to happen next.

I stepped into the shower as my thoughts continued to fly through my brain. Silas has mentioned that Muses can get attached to humans. I had never met Norma Jean but deep down I had developed a deep respect for the Muse. I wondered at the same time how much they actually knew about me and how much Norma Jean told them, did they know every detail of my life or was it just pertaining to the angel wings. These thoughts continued as I got dressed and turned back to the mirror inspecting myself and making sure I had my face cleanly shaven and my hair was in order. I turned and started towards the door and saw Silas standing at the door. “Are you ready,” he asked as we exited the locker room back into the dimly lit hallway. 

“Yes sir,” I replied walking towards him.

He smiled and led me out of the bath house and into the yard again. As we walked towards a large building at the front of the prison, we walked past formations of angels preparing to depart the installation and I assumed to combat. As we neared the doors of the building the angels would stop and tilt their heads to Silas and as soon as he passed, then they would scoff when I would pass behind him looking at me shaking their heads, I knew a lot of angels didn’t like humans, but this felt different. 

Upon entering the primary building we entered a type of reception area that was open and bright. At the center In-between two sets of stairs were a receptionist who had blonde hair and her glasses hung off the bridge of her nose as she was reading a piece of paper. 

         Silas walked up to her and spoke, “Commander Silas and Captain Miller to see Garrison Commander Kanan.” The receptionist looked up and her eyes drooped, and half heartily spoke,” he’s expecting you, go right up.”

“Thank you,” Silas said tilting his head and led us up the marble stairs. As we reached the top, we went down a hallway that had large pictures of Angels with black curtains around the top of them. 

“What’s this,” I asked Silas who stopped and dropped his head before turning to face me. 

“These are all the angels who went above and beyond the call of duty during this conflict in order to protect human life, many of our kind do not agree with our purpose here but it is ingrained into our being that human life be maintained. When an angel falls protecting a human, he is remembered not only in heaven but on earth as well because he died fulfilling our most sacred duty.” He said grimly before turning around and continuing down the long corridor. As we reached the end, we entered a sitting area that had a couple blue chairs and a couple of plants. He walked towards the double doors and knocked. “Enter,” I heard from the other side of the door. 

Before opening it, Silas looked at me and warned me, “don’t lie, don’t try to hide anything, we already know everything.” He opened the doors and led me inside. The room was extremely large and there were paintings all over the walls, there was a set of blue and silver armor resting on a cross in the corner it had gold accents with gold throne depicted on the chest piece with a sword and a round shield resting below it. To the left of it was a chest plate from a piece of armor, but this one was silver and looked more basic no artwork or flare and was not as intimidating as the other set, it too had a sword resting below it. As I turned my attention to the desk at the center of the room, I noticed a man who I could only assume was Garrison Commander Kanan as he finished writing something and closed up a folder and put it away in a drawer in his desk. As we approached his desk and stood a couple of feet away, he brought his gaze up and spoke, “Captain Miller Welcome.”