Excerpt: Anomaly

She didn’t know why she was still there. The catacombs were empty, completely devoid of life and frighteningly lonely. However none of this affected her; she almost felt like she enjoyed being there, having her peace. She did not feel the passage of time around her, nor the presence of other people. Even when she listened, when she focused her hearing the most she could hear were the rats who dared to venture onto the overgrown structure above. They were the only sign that life was continuing outside the catacombs.

She eventually stopped listening to them. In her peaceful state she did not feel bored. She did not feel lonely. She did not feel isolated. She was happy there, and the happiness spread through her as she was left to her own devices. The only thing that really bothered her were the times when she thought about that awful night, the memory creeping into her thoughts uncalled for, unwanted.

But eventually she learned how to block out unwanted thoughts. In fact she learned how to block out thought completely, falling into a meditative trance. She did not realize that the trance she fell into was the closest thing she could ever get to sleep; a dormant state that caused time to go by much quicker.

Thus ten whole years passed by unchecked.

The only reason she awoke roughly ten years after falling into dormancy was because something around her changed. The first thing she heard, the first sensual recognition she made as she awoke were the voices. There were two of them, one male and one female, and they had just wandered into her range of hearing.

They sounded young. Young enough to not heed any warnings about the legendary abandoned church, while old enough that they should know better than to wander into a ruined structure for fear that something would happen and they would get harmed. Reyna stood up, her muscles stiff after ten years of dormancy. She stretched, listening to the joints pop and snap as they moved after a decade of stillness. The couple was exploring the ruins above.

Reyna walked back through the catacombs, wandering through them as if she’d lived there for years enough to know the ins and outs. It surprised her how she knew her way around, how in her meditative trance she must have become bound to the structure. Thus she was able to find her way easily to a second exit hidden in the woods just outside of the church ruins. As soon as she was out of the catacombs she felt lost, unsure of herself, but the couple was far too intriguing.

Her wings stretched wide and she took off, soaring up to the sturdiest part of the ruins, high above the two. She didn’t know how she knew the structural integrity of the building, but she could easily put it aside as an effect of her bound. It was something she’d have to experiment with later on, but for now she was compelled to watch this human couple who invaded her realm.

There were indeed two of them, a male and a female as she had said. Though she did not know much about humans she could place them as young adults, perhaps even children. The male was certainly less mature than the female; he was acting up, excited about something as he skirted the ruins.

Reyna at first didn’t understand what he was saying. Ten years of dormancy left her mind in somewhat of a cloud, but slowly she began to understand him once again; he was speaking Spanish in a very rapid manner.

“-we’ll have this place all to ourselves! Think about it! Our own private haven where we can leave all the bickering our parents do, where we can come and be together without having to fear anyone stumbling upon us. This is too far out for anyone to wander aimlessly.”

“But Luis, we wandered aimlessly out here!” protested the young woman. Reyna’s attention peaked at the mention of the boys name and the memories of the other Brothers flooded to the front of her mind, how Brother Luis, Carlos’ best friend, had betrayed him to save his own skin. She placed her hand on her forehead and rubbed her temple, her head pounding as she repressed the thought once more.

She focused her attention back on the couple, hoping that they would distract her from herself, help her calm down. She was surprised to find the two of them locked in an embrace, pressing their faces together. She couldn’t recall seeing anyone in the monastery engaging in such behavior, but it sounded similar to what Carlos had described as “carnal delights”.

She remembered him explaining it to her, how it was, in marriage, the act of reproduction for humans. He had, in turn, asked if she knew how her kind reproduced, how demons or angels created spawn. She had responded with a lack of knowledge; she didn’t know exactly how it happened. Had she known she might not have been so confused about her sudden appearance in the basement of the cathedral.

Brother Carlos had come up with a few theories—educated guesses as he called them—on her split heritage. The unfortunate mixing of an angel and demon to produce a hybrid of both worlds, to produce her. She couldn’t confirm nor deny any of them, simply accept them. With these thoughts she looked down at her two hands, at the contrast of the soft, delicate and pale skin of one with the hard, scaly flesh of the other. How the fingers on one ended in clearly defined fingernails with the other’s scales merging flawlessly with razor sharp claws.

She was an abomination in all eyes. She knew she would never be accepted by the humans, besides those few who were much like Brother Carlos, yet at the same time the purity of angels was tarnished by her demon blood, taking both worlds and combining them into an unwanted creature, a monster.

An anomaly.