It's your job to keep it safe now

My whole life, I fantasized about larger-than-life scenarios. Like one day, I’d suddenly be able to fly or develop superpowers. But then I experienced it and realized I was afraid of heights and probably too unstable for bravery.

I kept trying to appear far more put together than I felt. To attempt easing some of my anxiety, I started to work out. It probably wasn’t the type of training Uriel intended when he asked Ellie to teach me, but I figured if I gained strength, I’d feel more confident in defending myself.

With two water-filled milk gallons Dana prepared, I walked around the house, lifting them. The water inside sloshed like it was mocking me for thinking strength could be achievable in time. But I needed something to hold, anything, to trick myself into believing I wasn’t helpless.

As I paced around with my eyes closed, listening to what Dana was watching on television, I collided with Zeekiel yet again. With frustration mirrored in both our faces as I looked up, I could tell we were both getting annoyed.

“Do you just walk around with a blindfold on?” he asked.

My embarrassment bit back. “You need to get a bell on you or something, because you may as well be a ghost.”

Annoyance pinched his face. “Unfortunately, you need me here because your little workouts aren’t going to help you,” he remarked, pointing down at my makeshift weights.

“Oh, you’ll see; I’m going to punch an angel right in the face,” I declared.

He huffed out a mocked chuckle. “Look, you can get as much muscle as you want, but you only need your staff.”

“Because you think I’m uncoordinated?” I assumed.

He lifted one brow, slight confusion squishing his face. “What? No, because you’re human. Let everyone else be strong, because you’re the only one who can use the staff to release Consumed Ones.”

I wouldn’t have admitted it, but his rationality gave me a bit of comfort. Still… “Well, I mean, that would be nice, and all, if I knew how to use it.”

“You stab it.”

“Huh?” I hummed, feeling it was explained to me way more complicated than that.

“Yeah,” he said, making a fist and stabbing it through the air as if he had a spear. “Just like that.”

“Even with no magic?”

“Don’t worry about all that. Where is it, anyway?” he asked, and I revealed it was in the closet of Dana’s room, and he looked displeased. “It’s your job to keep it safe, now.”

I hadn’t expected Zeekiel to be kind, waiting for him to treat me with the same disdain he showed Raziel, but he was surprisingly tolerable. Ever since Uriel asked him to keep watching over Dana and me, he spent more time inside with us but barely engaged in conversation with Dana or me. Sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if he was upset that Uriel stuck him with me.

There was one late night he engaged me out of nowhere with a bag under his arm. “Need you to do me a favor,” the demon said, coming in from the back door. “Keep this with you.”

It wasn’t a question, but somehow I was taking it from him as he handed it over. “I guess,” I replied. “Why?”

“I’ve been going in and out of form. I just want somewhere to put my clothes. Wouldn’t be the worst if you could throw them in there for me.”

I gave him a teasing smirk. “You’re pushing it now.”

“I’ve brought some compensation.” He rummaged through the sack in my arms, and his face lit up with a self-satisfied smile as he handed me what he was looking for.

It was a used black sketchbook with a wrinkled binding. I took it, the paper cool against my fingers as I flipped through the pages. The first few were filled with portraits of birds, their feathers rendered with a delicate, almost feathery touch on thick, textured paper. A smudge of graphite near the spine of one page gave it a lived-in feel. Then, I noticed it; a majority of the pages were blank, waiting.

Surprised, I looked up at him. “Did you draw these?”

“Nah, my friend does art; she’s really good at drawing birds. That one is me.” He chuckled. “I liked yours too, but it was weird seeing myself next to…myself.” He nudged the book towards me with his thumb. “You can draw in it. I think she’d like to see them.”

I blushed, feeling embarrassed as he reminded me of the sketch I did of him that I put on my wall. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be; I liked it,” he said.

I reluctantly confessed, “It was for a story idea.”

His eyebrows shot up in genuine interest, intrigued by the thought. I couldn’t help but crack a small smile at his reaction. “Glad I could be an inspiration for good this time,” he quipped. “What’s it about?”

My mind raced to come up with an answer to his next question. “I mean, it’s not like it’s fleshed out or anything, but I was thinking about some adventures for this guy and his crow companion.”

He nodded along before saying, “It should be the guy who turns into a raven.”

“I was thinking maybe he can summon the crow out of the shadows and control it. It’s my idea; it can be whatever I want it to be.”

“Technically, it’s my story. Plus, you drew a raven,” he taunted.

“I can change it,” I threatened.

Over the next few days, our interactions became more frequent and cordial. Despite our growing friendship, his habit of flipping the channel during the news infuriated me. I would get upset, but I couldn’t express to him why I wanted to watch it.

I was hoping someone would find my mom and that it would be on the news. As far as I knew, it didn’t even seem like anyone knew we were missing. It’s not like anyone outside my mom would know I was gone. I thought I had friends, but then I graduated and no one bothered to reach out to me. And after only working a day, even work probably assumed I was a no call–no show.

Mom, though, she had friends and work that relied on her. Was no one concerned about her? The days passed and turned into weeks, and there was still no information about what was going on or what I should be doing. The news stations never revealed anything, Uriel was absent, and Ellie never showed up to train me.

My anxiety and agitation rose with the summer heat. Dana didn’t own an air conditioner, but it didn’t seem like the weather bothered her or Zeekiel. I spent most of the days sleeping, and quickly I reverted to my night owl routine. It was best anyway, so neither Dana nor I were stuck sleeping on the couch.

Though my new routine was going to be taken away from me soon when Dana announced my time with her had run out. Someone named Avery was arranging to get me down to Florida without being noticed so I could go to a barriered area in what they called ‘The Ring’; a realm that veiled Earth, where supposedly dragons lived. It was hard to be excited when Dana said Zeekiel was going to be the one escorting me in a few days. It meant she wasn’t coming, and the demon expressed he wasn’t crossing over with me.

On my last night, Zeekiel sat on the porch as he often did. Normally, I was too afraid to go out there while Dana was sleeping, but I didn’t have a lot of time left to ask him about Saniel.

As I sat beside him, the topic lingered in the back of my mind, tugging at my curiosity. With my heart racing, I finally whispered, “Can you tell me about Saniel?”

Zeekiel’s silence lingered as he gazed up at the meager stars above us. His face was impossible to read, and when he finally spoke, he said what I obviously already knew. “She held the Moon Staff,” he said.

“I know that…” I replied. “But what was she like?”

The demon’s expression hardened as he turned to face me. “What do you think you’re going to get out of knowing?” he asked, his tone a heavy warning.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to know if she was, like, a hero?” I muttered.

His lips pressed into a thin line, his gaze turning cold. “I guess it depends on who you’re asking,” he retorted with a sharp edge to his voice.

“I was asking you,” I replied, as I rose from my seat to go back inside. I wasn’t going to beg or pry the information out of him.

But Zeekiel’s words followed me as I opened the back door. “She thought she was right and started a war in my name.” At his words, I turned and paused in the doorway, sensing his stare on me.

His eyes, once dark, turned purple with a distant gaze, as if he were looking through me. “She was stubborn. Refusing to compromise on her beliefs, even if it meant sacrificing a flock of others. She destroyed a world, the Guard holders and herself.”

I stumbled back into the house, the weight of his words hitting me like a punch to the gut. For a moment, all I could do was lean back, frozen.

A war in his name. A whole world gone because one woman believed she was right. I tried to swallow it down, but the thought stuck in my throat, raw and jagged. Was that who I was meant to follow after? Was that who I could become without even realizing it? How was that a hero “depending who I asked”?

His voice drifted in again. “And now we’re both stuck here, thousands of years later, because of her actions.”

The weight of it gnawed at me as I nodded silently, guilt and dread pooling inside me even though I had no part in it. Once I thanked him sheepishly, I slipped back inside.

Still trying to process the story I’d begged from him, my hands trembled when I reached for the coffeepot, and I had to steady it with both palms before pouring the last cold cup.

I drifted into the living room, trying to distract myself in front of the television. Eventually, Zeekiel came back in to relax with me. We sat silently next to each other, nudged into the opposite ends of the armrests. I looked at him. His eyes, lazily focused on the screen, and I relented, changing the last run of news to a sitcom rerun.

As Zeekiel and I broke the uncomfortable silence, laughing together over a show, there was a thud.

At first, I wasn’t alarmed, believing the noise came from the TV, but Zeekiel quickly slapped the remote to turn it off. Then, it came again—a loud, insistent pounding on the kitchen window.

The demon was already running to the noise when he urged, “Wake up, Dana, and get your staff.”

I hurried past the kitchen and down the hallway to Dana’s room. The lights flicked on as I entered. She stirred in her sleep, shielding her eyes with her arm. “Something’s wrong,” I said, grabbing my staff from the corner.

“What is it?” Dana jolted out of bed and followed me back into the kitchen.

Zeekiel was leaning into the sink, looking out the window into the backyard. We rushed to his side as the pane echoed with desperate pleas for entry.

Reluctantly, I stepped closer, my heart pounding in my chest as I watched the shapes outside the window. Three creatures reflected in the glare of the kitchen light .

The creatures before me were grotesque and unnatural, their limbs bent at impossible angles and twisted into warped, animalistic forms. A thick layer of dark, shivering goo covered their faces, obscuring their features, which seemed to pulsate with a sickening, internal rhythm.

A wave of revulsion washed over me, and a choked gasp escaped my lips. I instinctively stumbled backwards, my body shuddering from the harsh prickling that ran down my skin. The sheer wrongness of their forms pressed against my vision, making my stomach churn.

The tapping at the glass intensified, each rap echoing the frantic beat of my own heart.

“Damn it,” Zeekiel muttered, pulling his gaze away. “Once these fuckers realize how to get in, they will.”

Dana’s voice pinched with anxiety. “Fuck, people are going to see this. There’s more this time.”

“Those holes…” Zeekiel muttered before he snarled in Dana’s direction. “They’ve been underground in your backyard this whole time.”

“How would I know? Acting as if I put them there,” she yelled back as her words picked up speed.

“Seriously? You didn’t notice three body-sized piles of dirt out there at some point?” he kept accusing.

“How about you?” Dana charged back. “You’ve been out there far more than I have. How’d you not notice?”

My insides coiled as the staff trembled in my hand. Both of them were too distracted by their argument to notice what I had. “The knocking stopped,” I announced.