Dawn stirred from its sleep, greeting her for the first time after five hundred years. Her shadow wavered into smokes. A faint hiss rose as the light stung. She twitched but remained still to bask in its warmth. Once it started feeling like her skin being peeled off, Ethel shifted herself an inch away from the sun's touch. Just close enough so she could feel the warmth.
The Fiery Flame butterfly rested on the blotches of dark purple at the back of her neck. "Cover in bruises on your first day."
Ethel only smiled, tracing the bruises with her finger. She underestimated the luminary and let her guard down.
"He's the third luminary who can touch me. I thought it was only the Luminary of Valor and Justice. What luminary is he?"
"Is that important now? You barely survive more than an hour." The silk-winged butterfly emerged from her shoulder. It hovered over Ethel's nose. She imagined the butterfly fuming in anger as it flicked her nose.
"It's not every day I can have someone to look at me straight in the eye. They always cowered in fear."
The silk-winged butterfly sighed before dissipating into black dust. It gave up trying to talk to the present version of itself.
"Let's take the time to reach out to the other sinners." Ethel shut her eyes closed.
In the blind darkness, a red thread tied to her wrist. The thread extended in front of her into seven threads, tied to four shadow figures. Their backs were against her. The remaining two threads tied only to the shapeless fogs.
Fallon, the Sinner of Sloth.
Aranea, the Sinner of Envy.
Taegon, the Sinner of Gluttony.
Roze, the Sinner of Lust.
"Just the four of you." She sighed out. Pride has yet to return. It'll give her more time to put up a plan to ensure the past doesn't repeat itself. When she reached out for Fallon's red thread, a gust of wind sliced off her hand cleanly. Ethel looked down without so much of reactions at first. Black smoke poured down like blood.
Ethel looked back at Fallon, whose shadow stood still in silence. He should have felt her calling out the moment she touched his thread. Yet, the thread cut her off as a threat. Fallon rejected her.
She touched Roze's thread. Thorns sprouted and punctured into her skin.
"Again?" Her eyes trembled at the sight of her fellow sinners' backs. A similar event happened to when Pride first declared cutting off his bond with them. His red thread crushed her body, demanding her to kneel.
"I'm being denied?" The bleeding hand trembled in hesitation to touch the remaining two sinners.
Ethel opened her eyes, grimacing at the splitting headache because of the rejection. She stared at her left hand–nothing. The ached lingered on her arm. Her chest tightened remembering the backs of the fellow sinner. After years of sharing the same fates, they have finally turned their backs on her. They left her.
We cannot rewrite our fates.
A crackling voice whispered at her side. Ethel quickly shoved the noises away.
What should I do now? She turned to the sky for answers from the Heaven. She reached out towards the clouds. Fists clasped as she imagined herself ripping open the door to heaven.
Yet, silence was the only answer she'll ever get. The Fiery Flame butterfly rested on her outreached hand. "Hungry."
"Let's not think about it now, Ethel." The butterfly went ahead, leading the way.
She watched as the Fiery Flame butterfly flew under the shades, avoiding the sun. With no one on her side, her own shadow was the only thing left to ease her loneliness. Ethel snickered at the thought before pulling the shadow behind her. A hood manifested over her head. Quite a convenient ability for her to change her outwear. It doesn't require as much maintenance as washing or sewing. Though her imagination only goes as far as simple clothes, it is far more important for her not to walk around naked. She still has conscious of her own flesh in another's eyes.
Once she stepped into the light, her horns retracted. Ethel rubbed her fingers on her head, feeling the tiny bumps of her protruding horns. Meanwhile, her crimson eyes remained the same. It was the only thing she couldn't hide or change. She gathered her abyssal into a calm state. She'll need to keep her presence as quiet as possible if she was going into the mortal's town.
***
Within half an hour, Ethel arrived in a nearby town. Dark clouds loomed over. The people walked in shells of their mortal vessels. Their clothes were old and tattered. Bodies withered away, yet they kept on continuing their days full of hard labor. Ethel found the mortal's stubbornness to be odd and endearing. Their life was brief, but spend their mundane time with hopeless hardship. Sometimes she questioned the mortals' choice why live through cruel fate?
Ethel kept her eyes down from anyone noticing her. In her favor, nobody paid attention to her as they had enough troubles on their plates. A sinner waltzing into a mortal town was never a good idea. However, she needed to replenish the energy. Nothing served her better breakfast than a corrupted mortal town, with its residents locking their deepest and darkest feeling behind their hearts.
She slowed down her pace upon seeing a man in front of her. Just to be safe, she pulled the hood over her face. He was stumbling with a sack over his shoulder. Sweats dripped down from his cheek. He grasped to each little air he could breathe in. He twisted his ankle in stumbling over a rock. He fell right into the mud on the side road, splashing its water on a nearby passerby. Not even a second before he could regain his composure, a hand flew across his cheek.
"Rat, you ruined my shoe!" A piglet finger pointed at his face.
Ethel stopped and watched the scene unfold from a distance. The man's luck ran into a worst one. A man in a blue robe with open sleeves barely fit his greedy stomach. Jewels screamed as they adorned his piglet fingers. His huge bald head showed no sign of intelligence. Flabby face scrunched in disgust. Cheeks reddened as anger boiled within him.
The poor man hurried to his knees and hung his head low. "F-Forgive me, my lord. I wasn't looking."
"Should I just plucked that useless eye of yours?"
The man shivered. Other people kept on walking away. Some had their fists clenched and eyes bored rage at the arrogant man. Ethel took a deep breath of their rage into herself. The anger burned her numb tongue. A tasteless fire was what she could describe.
For the mortals, living at the mercy of these awful so-called leaders was far better than living outside of town, where the darkness awaited them. She made it clear once, thousands of years ago. They wished to live with the mortals in peace and end this meaningless bloodshed. Yet, their words fell on deaf ears. They thought her words were a deception to lure them into a trap. If the mortal made their choice to live in a cage as pigs, then she has no right to stop them. She grew weary of trying to think of a way to solve the strain between the sinner and the mortal.
Ethel walked away from the scene. There was little in what a sinner like her could do.
She reached to an old building isolated in the far corner of the town. A chapel left unattended. As if abandoned by its people despite being near to them. She wondered if their God was seeing this pitiful sight of his home. Mortal's faith was fragile than glass. Once shattered, even the broken glasses can wound the heart of its God. Before she left, the door of the chapel swung opened by an old man. He grabbed his tools and tended the overgrown grass on the front lawn.
"Dear heaven, please get inside. You're too weak to tend small matters right now. You've been only just raised from your sick bed!" A young woman in a white robe walked out with her hands on her hips.
"I'm getting old for this, and so does the grass. I can't leave them like this if nobody isn't going to."
The young saint shook her head. It was the least corrupted area. Despite the dark clouds looming above their roof, their smiles brightened up the coming dark days. But soon those smiles will turn cold. As long as the sinners walk on this land, ruins will follow on their path. Ethel turned her sight away. Let these people have their time before the blood rained down from the sky.
Ethel continued to slip through the shadows on every corner of the town, observing the mundane lives of the mortals. Their bodies crumbled under the touch of the whip. Yet, the mortals held on and took on the heavy sacks on their backs. Fake smiles covered the hatred they hid from their neighbors. Knife behind their backs as they shook their hands.
As she was about to hide and rest in the alley, she caught on some thundering shouts. A home of a family falling apart. An affection that once burned with passion now was burning itself. The pure hatred in their hearts tingled her taste buds. Soon, resentment and hatred filled her stomach.
The crash inside the house snapped her thoughts. A young man stormed out, slamming the door closed behind him. His boots left heavy footprints in the mud.
The woman he left was sobbing on the floor. At first, hatred clutched her heart in a tight grip. When her eyes fell on the wilted flower on the floor, the hatred drowned in the little affection she once had. Despite the conflict, the woman still held some sort of affection. Maybe it was a memory?
This should be enough. Ethel pushed her back from the wall. Night was approaching. She had her meal for a whole day. More than she had expected.
"Where to now?" Her butterflies simultaneously asked.
Ethel stopped. She had no answer. Everyone was looking forward to killing her. Now with the sinners as her new enemies, she had no one to rely on. Nowhere to go as the land even rejected her.
"Let's just go for now," she said as she walked out to the alley, bumping into a passerby. Ethel kept her head down and apologized. "Sorry."
Her eyes caught the familiar silver pendant. A hand held her arm. Ethel raised her eyes to meet the cerulean blue eyes of the luminary. Ethel clicked her tongue. "Again?!"
She jerked her arm from his hold, running her way through the bodies of crowds. People shouted back as they both pushed the people. Some thought she was a thief. Luck was on her side for once, as the luminary couldn't use his miracle prayer in public. Ethel used the people as her shield to dodge his reach. This made him give up on the idea of using force and chase her instead. The luminary wouldn't want to create chaos among the people if a sinner in the town.
I need to leave! She glanced back at the luminary. She can't move away like she did yesterday. It wasn't dark enough.
Frustrated by the chase, she turned around. She drew a line of crimson flame between them. The people screamed and scrambled away.
"A sinner!"
Her shadow scattered and grabbed a few shadows of mortals nearby. Frozen in place. The hostages trembled in her palm. The luminary halted.
"Children, get away from here!" Ethel glanced at the female voice.
Her little hands clutched on the saint's skirt. Wide hazel eyes glistened with tears, meeting her crimson eyes. The woman shielded the girl with her own body despite she herself was already powerless to protect her own.
The luminary approached. She clutched the shadows of hostages enough to make them scream for mercy. Their cries pierced her. But she kept a serene face.
"Not another step or they'll die," Ethel warned.
He glanced between her and the hostages. His hand hovered over the hilt of his sword. He raised his hands. Cerulean blue eyes threw daggers in her direction. He can curse her all he wants, not that it matters to her. Ethel glanced at the bridge connecting the town. She'll need to destroy the bridge to buy more time once she crossed.
Nobody made a move. Only the sound of the hostages' whimpers filled the silence. Cold sweats broke out on her forehead. The luminary's eyes remained on her the entire time. He could have given her trouble if he wasn't a mute. Perhaps an injury or a punishment? The Order of Lumina acted purely and kind to the people. Meanwhile, she saw some devils disguised themselves as saints.
"Please let us go," the child begged.
The little girl's sob stabbed like needles. What started as sympathy now turned into annoyance? She was already in a tight situation and had to resort to a method she despised. The child's cries clawed at the demon she tried to put at bay. She could turn the entire town into oblivion once her patience snapped. The throbbing headache returned. This time it felt like her head was splitting in half, as if someone had hacked her head with an axe.
Dark clouds shut away the Heaven's eyes. Darkness stretched out from its hiding. Ethel could feel the red thread tighten behind her and crossing over the bridge.
"No," Ethel breathed out as she turned around. Thick black mist surrounded the town.
A lone figure emerged from the looming shadow on the other side of the bridge. Metal scraped on the stone ground. Red sparks danced. Heavy footsteps vibrated the bridge. Clad in a black heavy armor. He wielded an enormous blade that glowed in red. Black shadowy mist crept out from the gaps in its armor. A pair of red garnet eyes peered through the helmet.
"Fallon."