chapter six
“Her hands are covered in blood and torn flesh- I can’t see who-“ The voice of the disembodied attendant boomed in the air around a discarded, catatonic body.
Another unseen aide sighed uncomfortably. “You know the protocol. Check the soles of its feet. You know this. The whorls on the soles spec the soul just as readily- all we need is proof of life to distrib-“
“No-it’s like a bomb went off in her hands- like they have been carved into- literally-or-”
“You mean hacked into, right?“ The Lead Attendant snarked as he materialized next to the flickering eyes of the teenaged girl, indifferent as she unsuccessfully tried to swallow her own tongue. “You and your numb-minded Over Lore-“ the Lead snapped as his anger pulled the lines of the Secondary aide out of the spiritual plain and into view. “Just my luck they’d assign a Thirdofa to be my Secondary!” he seethed.
The Secondary Attendant flinched as if he had been slapped in the face by the barrage of insults that literally never seemed to end while he tried to do his job in this so-called Heaven. He did his best to recall something, anything that had been said attending Third Council that could assist him in this moment, but came up blank. Suddenly, something older, impossibly deeper than all that he’d known to be in the Empyrean stirred within him, in a way that even he knew as it occurred was utterly illegal. But he followed it anyway. Secondary dropped his head to steel himself, sucked his teeth, looked back up at his superior and slowly turned the other cheek.
Nervously disgusted, the Lead Attendant roughly grabbed the wrist of the prostrate girl and peered into the burnt and bloodied flesh torn open across the palm of her hand. “Check her feet.” He snapped nervously.
“What?’
“I said CHECK THE SOLES OF HER FEET!” He roared.
“Nothing but glyphs, Sir-carved in, calloused over-“ the Secondary called out nervously.
“Read them!” the Lead Attendant snarled. “Isn’t that what got you here? Your so-called…gift?“
“I- I can’t, sir- it’s in some sort of – of wait- it’s Cuneiform?“
The Secondary aide blanched as he dropped her foot and slowly backed away from her body, looking terrified. “This- is an encryption- Whoever or whatever she is, she’s Not supposed to BE here, and she knew it coming in-“
The Lead Attendant rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about? Cellular Encryption? Illegal Access? You’ve been listening to the- the- This will certainly be noted in your file!” he huffed. Unmoved by the outburst of his direct superior, the Secondary took another step back. “Are you kidding me?! You’re afraid? Of This? This lump of dead flesh? Do you not remember where you are?!” The Lead laughed nastily and spit over his shoulder.
“..Uh~ Sir-“ the Secondary aide murmured as light drained from his face like a lanced boil.
“It’s a CORPSE- “The Lead Attendant started to yell. “Just Like ALL The-“
The remainder of the sentence pulsed in the vocal cords that the undead girl roughly ripped from the throat of the Lead, whose shell dropped to the floor into exactly the same position she had been discovered in during their rounds.
“Rest-“ she purred wildly.
The Secondary dropped to his knees in front of her, wet with the Lead’s glinting spiritual blood.
She danced her hand towards the Secondary attendant’s offered neck with a bemused smirk on her face and pressed her thumb gently into his jugular.
“THAT IS ENOUGH.” The Voice that no man’s voice equals boomed into the vague white space.
Anukai paused, then grinned darkly as her mind realized where she was. Wings of God imagery materialized around her. In a flash she lunged at the attendant anyway, rabid.
Other attendants flooded into the room to try to pry her off of the Secondary. She deflected blow after angelic blow to the surprise of the Guard. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you touch me!” She hissed like a Banshee as she swung on anything that came near her and her prey.
“Sweet Mother of VayoKahn-“ the Secondary cried with the last of the geist within him. The blood-soaked woman-child paused.
“-What…did you say?” she hissed malevolently.
“I…SAID.THAT.IS.ENOUGH.” The Voice that no man’s equals blared.
The attendants dropped to the floor in formation and covered their faces as a blazing ball of light exploded in front of Anukai, knocked her off of the Secondary and pinned her to the wall.
“Let me down! Let me the-! You tried to KILL Him! I Told you! I told you if you EVER tried-nothing would stop me from -Didn’t I?! Didn’t I?!” she screamed. “You think I am just going to LET you take him like that?!! That’s going to be the end of this?? No! You thought I was just going to go home?! To walk away?!” Anukai roared at the top of her lungs. “Let me down now, damn you! Damn YOU!!!!”
The aghast Empyreanic Guard remained prostrate, the stream of obscenities that roared out of the chest of the sixteen year old girl making their ears bleed from fear.
“I OBJECT! Fuck you! Fuck all of you!! You Puppets! You’re out of order! You can’t keep me here! Your coup failed! Now let me the fuck down! You fucking pawn! You’re all pawns!” Anukai screeched.
“Where is her keeper?” a guard asked with his forehead still to the ground.
“Courted-“ another whispered as Anukai screamed on and on, pinned under the wings of God.
chapter seven
A tribunal of sorts spread out around where he was caged by bannisters of polished wood. The pressure of bodies he couldn’t see pinned him to the two others who’d dropped when he did, and the only thing that kept the three of them from completely losing their minds was the erratic yet faint heart beats of one another that pulsed through the cold, clammy flesh they all found themselves forcibly encased in. The only words that came to Gabryl’s bruised and bleary mind were judgment, harsh, fear, & not.
Catatonic, yet fully awake inside, his vision faded in and out as jumbled arguments bounced off him between drawn-out beats of his heart. A litany of charges were read off, some things he knew he’d done, others that he vaguely recalled thinking, but never having done. Outright lies and Accusations of every kind slammed into his face but there was no way for him to defend himself with his mute mouth. He cried out internally as raw memories rose up out of his panicked skin in a sweat. Suddenly he realized he had been in this place before.
He began to spin wildly out of control as his mind unhinged in the press of silence, punishment and memory that clouded around him. His thoughts began to sputter as parallel visions of himself now in this strange prison of pressure and as a little boy careened through his mainframe. Him in a hospital, chained to machines by tubing, cords and pumps that were doing his breathing, his living for him. He scanned both prisons in his mind’s eye, and on the periphery of both he saw expanses of long, wild black hair, cuffed and listless in the galley now, and dangled listlessly off the bed closest to him as a child. He had never felt as alone as he had in that room, and what didn’t kill him before threatened the last of his life here and now, wherever here and now was. At the latest moment possible, a voice rang out, not his own. In his defense.
“The Only I.D. you have is a bullet-scarred one-HE does Not belong to you- None of them do-“
“That’s not the-“ The Accuser tried to interrupt the advocate.
“NO I.D., NO IMPRINT- YOU CANNOT HOLD HIM!”
“That’s not for you to-” The Accuser tried to argue back.
“No! YOU HAVE NO PROOF OF WHO HE IS-!THERE IS nothing IN the LAW you keep calling on as the rule you live by but that you truly sentence all that you can to death by that allows you to hold him here! Any of them, frankly! Not one of these “He’s” belong to you!” His unseen lawyer bellowed.
“Fine!” one Judge shouted back, annoyed by the disruption in his court caused by the presence of these three lost boys that didn’t even fit the ID of those that the tribunal were in search of, which made the entire proceedings he felt trapped in a colossal waste of time in his mind.
“You cannot have him, he doesn’t belong to you!” The advocate of Gabryl shouted again.
The lead judge was utterly over it. “Enough!” Those in tribunal alongside him looked at one another, just as anxious to get back to the paradise they’d found as if it wouldn’t eternally wait.
“EXILE.” They shouted in unison as they absently dropped gavels from their perches to the ground.
“To the LEUCE.” was offered nonchalantly as the gavels made their way across the floor to rest at Gabryl’s feet. “ALL of the detritus.” was added absently as the judges rose and headed to their quarters.
“What?!What the fuck is the Leuce?!” Gabryl screamed inside himself as his lawyer fought against the sentencing. Gabryl swooned again as unforeseen memory slipped its yoke around his neck.
chapter eight
Little Gabryl fought his way up out of the morphine-induced haze they kept him in for the millionth time. He stretched out his fingers and winced, which made him take in more air than his ripped lungs could manage without pain, but he refused to cry out.
His eyes rolled back in his head as the face of the pedophile that assaulted him flashed before him, but instead of cowering in fear as his spirit had done in what felt like the forever since the sexual assault, Gabryl resisted the fear, bared his teeth and violently lunged at the spirit of the dead man. After what had felt like a lifetime to the boy, the demon finally fled his bedside.
Gabryl’s breath caught in his throat as he exhaled roughly, excited.
“It-it,” he stammered, “it really Does Work! It does!” he whispered.
The last thing he heard before he passed out into a fit of dreams was the voice of the suicide that shared the hospital room with him.
“Told you~” The woman with the long, tangled, stringy black hair said hoarsely.” It’s the only thing that does-“
