City of Dark Angels

I wake up hours later, surrounded by my own vomit on the floor of the bathroom. My head is throbbing and I look to the right of me and see the empty vodka bottle broken in pieces, my hand throbs in pain and I look down and discover why. It’s cut deep open, bleeding heavily still.

What on earth happened after I blacked out?

I get up and stumble still intoxicated from the entire bottle I must have drank, I clutch the doorknob and turn it.

“Riley!” I shout out, looking around the empty house. “Erika!”

Silence.

I turn on a light switch in the living room, my vision blurrier than ever before but I still find myself being able to focus on a note left on the table.

“We’ve gone back to the City of Angels,” It reads, in sloppy hand writing. “Don’t come looking for us, the AI said to stay here and wait for Delilah.”

I feel my heart drop into my stomach, fear fills my bones. Riley and Erika are my responsibility, and now they are gone. Out into a world of danger, danger that can take them away at any moment out there. Nausea overwhelms me and I lean over the side of the couch, ready to puke my guts out into a nearby trashcan. I retch but nothing comes out, and I am still over whelmed with nausea.

I just want Delilah back.

***

DELILAHS POV

I am tired, and my muscles ache. My killing spree has begun to wear me down, and I find myself falling instead of flying now. The curse coming to a bitter end slowly.

I lay down on a bench and close my eyes, my vision is taken to a small little house. I’m watching from the sidelines as Travis paces around the room, picking up a full bottle of vodka in his hands.

“Travis! No!” I plead, my humanity and concern for him returning with full force. He doesn’t hear me, as this is just a vision and continues to chug down the vodka. Placing it back on the counter with a loud thud and stumbling towards the couch.

Is this what losing me did to him?

He closes his eyes and starts to fall asleep, only to scream out “Fuck it!” two minutes later and storms towards the bottle, taking another hard gulp down.

I cry, feeling guilty that I destroyed his spirit. All his hard work thrown away, clearly my humanity has returned full force as all I want to do is get back to him and make him stop drinking. To put down the bottle forever and never even consider picking it up again.

I watch as he falls to his knees, screaming loudly into his hands. Taking another drink of the soul destroying concoction.

He looks at the bottle in his hands, and throws it against the wall. He cries as it falls to the floor, a loud crash of the glass breaking; my heart breaking along with it as tears fly down his face. He falls to his feet and yells out in pain, a shard from the glass bottle slicing the middle of his palm right open.

He makes his way to the bathroom, in an effort to take care of it. But only hugs the toilet with his good hand, and I look away as he begins puking into the toilet bowl.

As he finishes puking he lays down on the ground, his hand still bleeding out and tears still falling down his face.

I have to get back to him.

The AI appears in front of me, I glance at her cautiously as she looks deep into my eyes and far into my soul.

“I see your humanity has returned full force.” She concludes, taking in the stress of knowing what has happened to Travis.

“Why would you tempt him like that?” I say to her, knowing full well that it wasn’t a coincidence that there was a full bottle of vodka just sitting there in the same house she transported him to. “He’s done so well, for six months and you destroyed it!”

“I didn’t do anything, him falling apart and losing his progress was more than enough to bring your humanity back.”

“My humanity was already back before you decided to torture my best friend with his old addiction.” I say, now angry with what she has done.

“Gotta do whatever it takes to save the world.”

“I’d rather have a broken world than a broken best friend.” I say stubbornly, knowing deep down that she does have a point.

“Shall I return you to him?” She asks, and hearing that just fills me with remorse knowing I have to come face to face with him again. This time it will hurt me knowing that I somehow hurt him. “You two have so much to do before the full moon tonight.”

“Full moon?” She nods, and fills me in on the same plan she told Travis and with that she snaps her fingers and I am outside of the little house. Travis is sitting on the front steps, looking pale and shaky.

“Delilah!” He says, standing up to run to me but as he nears me he plops head first into a transparent wall. “Huh?”

I walk over to where he stands and reach out, touching the wall and my hand lining up with his.

Raviera appears before us, snickering with evil intentions.

“You may have gotten your humanity back Delilah, but I still need back that stone.”