(May edit before deadline)
Fatal Flaws
It was getting closer. That time when I would have to choose between the two parts of me. I am the one too dark for the light, but too light for the dark. I am the freak half-breed, torn by two worlds- I am both demonic and angelic- I am Alium.
This, of course, means nothing to you. It means nothing to any mortal eyes who learn my story. But allow me, if you would, to shed some light on the subject. For, well, eternity the universe has been controlled by two forces, over time these forces have fallen under many different names- but in the most simple of terms they are called good and evil.
Centuries passed, and over time, these forces became incarnated in flesh. Incarnations present in almost every religious text- angels and demons. And from their first breaths they were at war; an eternal tug-of-war between basic nature. Then came the truce. Terms set in stone by the leaders of their kind. No contact, no war, and a single term that would change the face of the world forever.
Humanity.
The precedence being the perfect blend of good and evil, something both could have an equal claim to. And it worked, the good and the bad balanced in equilibrium. Still, some were unhappy, they felt cheated of the power they thought was theirs for the taking. These few created passages into the world, to influence and affect the balance, and it tipped- over and over. War, peace, love, hate- now as changeable as an Autumn breeze. Humans guided and tricked by beings beyond their scope of belief. It was wrong, most definitely wrong, and it was going to go wrong. No one thought this of course, no one ever does, and no one ever will. But it inevitably happens.
It started as all bad things do, in the winter rain. Rain that can no longer be described as drops, but rather deadly sky-bullets. Anyone with half a mind would be hoping to get out of this kind of weather, an angel though? They would rather be in hell than have to dry their wings- because I can tell you right now, it takes at least forty-eight hours and is a pain in the- never mind I’m getting off topic. Anyhow- in this rain on this most unusual of nights, an angel came to earth. Not fallen, not in the 'we denounce you as one of our kind way', but just really bad at landings. And upon noticing the barrage from the sky, she ran into a hotel.
This particular hotel was hosting a celebratory masquerade ball for the Queen’s Jubilee- and it involved ballroom dancing. Unfortunately, any dance is sure to attract a few demonic spirits. Whatever you think about demons- you cannot deny they are amazing dancers- and their passion for it is indefinable.
In a cruel twist of fate, a demon and an angel met that night. Dancing until daybreak. Nothing would have come of it of course, until the announcement that the angel was pregnant.
Everyone expected a worthy legacy to my mother’s name, but instead there was me. Half-demon, half-angel, with wings darker than sin, eyes as red as rose- with the thorns to match. I was a flaw in the perfect plan of angelic happiness, I was what they had feared all these years. And to further ostracize this wolf in sheep’s clothing, they named me Alium- other.
Eighteen years I lived a stranger in my own home. Eighteen years I felt whispers follow me with malicious intent. Eighteen years to choose what I was going to do. I couldn’t stay here, no, I had barely lasted, only a mask of forced laughter had kept me going. But Hell? I couldn’t fathom what life would be like there. I couldn’t belong. At least not in the purest form.
And so the cycle repeated. A being in equilibrium, designed to create peace, failed again. Because I was not pure, not in either way, and I never would be. Because I was grey, neither definitively good nor evil, but in the middle and moved by the temperance of fate.
I am both demonic and angelic. And perhaps I could learn to be human too.
