Gabriel's Kin

The door opens.

Once upon a time, I had been scared. Seven years I've waited - and I'm scared no longer.

I think.

"I'm tired of waiting," I tell it in a whisper, the ghost of a smile on my lips.

It crawls closer, and it breaths onto my neck. I shiver as it says, "I know. You're mine now."

*

I've been waiting for a long time, for that time it decides to come back. Years upon years I've watched it claimed the lives of people closed to me, years upon years I've watched coffin after coffin lower into the dirt, years upon years I've waited, alone.

You must wonder who it is. So did I, once.

Mother was first; she left as I entered the world - but her soul slipped from its hands and she, alone, survived it beyond death.

Uncle was the next to go. Sweet uncle. He never knew. Auntie had fallen five years ago, and he had been mourning for her. It tortured him all those years with illnesses, pains and debts. And it was said that when he died, he was taken to where all good people do where they do.

- Father said it.

As Uncle lay dying on his bed, he looked at Father and me and apologised - he said he was sorry he ever brought such misery onto the family and I was watching as he closed his eyes. His wet eyes. The adult I had loved was crying in his death.

"Gabe," Father whispered, "I forgive you."

And he breathed his last.

We didn't wait for the funeral - Uncle's best friend took care of it for us.

Father took me and ran, hoping we could escape its claws. We hid for several months, for years until I become a teenager physically and then-

It came for Father.

*

The Matron took me in. I was found, a teen barely aged, on the streets, crying beside Father. They told her that I was screaming his name as they forcefully dragged me away from the cold body that I wanted to hold on to-

It had told me it would return for me.

And I knew, with my thirteen years of wisdom, that it was telling the truth.

*

It doesn't look like anything; it looks like everything, be it the kid you bullied, the bully who punched you, the monster under your bed, the creature in your nightmares... It's everything you hate, everything you fear, everything you dread.

It wasn't anything to Mother; she couldn't be touched. For Auntie, it had been her mother - poor Auntie had been abused in her youth. Father had once been a soldier, and it was his best friend, who had been killed next to him. Uncle - dear, sweet Uncle - had seen it as the devil.

Father told me once: it was the devil. It wants us because of Uncle.

My uncle had made a pact with the devil, and signed away our wings.

*

Uncle had once been a rich man, a foolish man. Gambling, wine and women took away the former from him and the latter led him to it.

In stories I've read, they always describe the devil as a dark, handsome man with red eyes peering out from underneath his hat. The man my uncle met must have been no different - save for the silver tongue. Within minutes, the contract that bound our family to the devil was written and signed and in its hands.

Father never said what Uncle received from the devil, nor did he have a reason why the devil chose him. Out of the millions who lose to the casinos ever year - why him? Why us?

Mother was an outsider. Auntie and Uncle were formally joined by marriage - and, once, years ago, before I was born, where Auntie had lost a lot of blood from an accident, it was my uncle's blood they gave her in a transfusion.

I, myself, was the daughter of my father and the niece of my uncle.

I was one of the family.

*

Before he died, Father told me to run. But I couldn't - I was five when we started, and thirteen when he died and eight years of running was too tiring.

The Matron was kind to me, like the mother I never had-

So I decided to wait. Four years passed.

My other auntie - sister of Father and my uncle - fell to her death when her parachute refused to open.

I knew it would come soon. I was the last of my blood.

Three more years.

Now.

*

It came to me first in a disease.

Terminal cancer.

It wanted me to die, slowly, painfully - all the while knowing I would die.

And I would.

*

It had tried to claim me once, you know, before Father died.

I was seven then. Seven, naughty, mean-spirited, hateful. Bitter - I kicked it as hard as I could, for it wore the guise of a kid who had tripped me two years ago.

It caught my leg, threw me backwards and advanced on me. I bit and screamed for all I was worth but- I was losing.

Later, the adults told me not worry, I was fine, they'd caught that stray dog - wolf - that had attacked me.

And then they'd laughed and tried to joke about the wolf being death, and how I was nearly taken by the reaper-

Both Father and I were the only ones who didn't smile, because we knew.

*

"We don't know how we could have missed it," the doctor explained. "We're really sorry, and it might not do any good, but we can help you ease the pain. The market for pills today is advancing, and you might live a little longer-"

I had tuned her out long ago, but I couldn't help notice the dimple in her cheek. She was kind, far too kind - not the type of person who could stand to be around death. "No," I said.

"It's a clinical trial. It will be free-"

"No, I... I don't think there's anything that'll save me."

She faltered. "I'm sorry we didn't -"

"...it wouldn't let go of me anyway."

"Huh?"

I smiled at her, gently touched her dimples and left. She was lucky. She would never know it.

*

I'd met someone else like her before. He was gentle, kind, an angel mistakenly born to the world.

I was sixteen and he was twenty and we were in love with each other and those were the times we'd sit under the stars and, for each star, give a reason why we loved one another until we ran out of stars.

It claimed him. A car accident.

I gave him my blood - there was a shortage - I gave him my blood but I couldn't give enough and they tried to give him water so the blood would thing or something...

As he lay there, he'd told me he loved me and nothing could change it for him, and he said he would have proposed had I been old enough, had he been well enough to move...

The water went to his heart. He died that very day.

I never went to his funeral, or his grave. His mother told me they wrote "God took him into His arms" and looked at me as if I was crazy when I started to laugh and cry because it wasn't God and it had taken him away from me, and it would not stop until I was gone.

*

Seven years. Two thousand, five hundred and almost fifty seven days. Sixty one thousand, three hundred and almost sixty one hours.

It comes and goes, taking people I love away from me whenever it leaves me.

But it always comes back-

Like a... Like a lost little puppy.

Heh. My lost puppy.

*

The tumour grew inside my brain. Slowly, but surely, I could feel its presence, weakening my sigh, weakening my limbs. I dropped plates and cups, and the Matron had started to yell for me before I would hear.

I stopped going to the hospital. The doctors and nurses there insisted in radiation therapy - how could I? It would come anyway.

I would be strong. I wouldn't give in. I would die with dignity-

Not the way my uncle went.

*

The door opens.

Once upon a time, I had been scared. Seven years I've waited - and I'm scared no longer.

I think.

"I'm tired of waiting," I tell it in a whisper, the ghost of a smile on my lips.

It crawls closer, and it breaths onto my neck. I shiver as it says, "I know. You're mine now."

I shiver again as its fingers run up and down my body, my useless limbs. "Am I... the last?"

It chuckles. "Of your blood, yes. Of your family... No."

"My family?" My voice is weak, faint. Am I dying?

"Adam and Eve were two, and their children after them. The world is the family, and your uncle its downfall." It laughed, that weird croaking laughter neither human nor demon. "You were merely the end, and the start; after you comes so much more."

The end. The start - so much more...

The nurses, the doctors, the Matron...

Was everybody going to die? Was it going to take everybody away?

"...why?"

It hisses. "He threw me out of heaven when I did no wrong! He threw me away when I swore never to forsake him! He ruined me!"

"God?"

"Gabriel."

Gabriel - oh lord - Gabriel. Uncle's name. Gabe. Uncle Gabriel.

"But," I murmur, "we're... humans."

My uncle wasn't the angel who had condemned it. We weren't angels. We're humans. Filthy, sinful humans...

"The creations of the Creator," it says. "What better to punish the Creator than to destroy his creations?"

Creations... Angels... Humans... Us.

I never believed in God. I never did. But now... My eyes see, my limbs move and I rise from where I rested, my hands moving.

I witnessed their deaths. I ran for eight years. I waited for seven-

Because I knew I would be the Last, not the First.

My anger, my pain, my sorrow, my hurt.

I push it away. I see it trying to roll, trying to get up. I kick it. I kick it again. Again and again. I throw my fury, my emotions, my life.

It cries out, red eyes flashing with hate, its silver tongue wriggling as it screams and screams.

...maybe I'm the one screaming.

And I watch and weep as it slowly fades away.

*

Something rings in my head. An alarm of some sort.

I lie there, wondering how long it's been. Surely, angels must be immortal - and if it had once an angel...

How long has it kept its grudge? Against Gabriel, against the angels, against my uncle. So simple a deed, so deep a resentment that it would turn to punish us to punish the Creator, to punish the angels?

We're humans. Filthy humans, impure - would the angels really feel for us if it had taken us all into its grasp?

I laugh.

My laughter is a endless giggle, neither demonic nor angelic - but human.

It was really like a puppy.

A lost little puppy.

Not mine.

Heaven's.

*

They run into my room after I start to giggle, and they're all saying things I do not hear at all. Strong, familiar arms hold me and I think I'm crying as I cling to her and I tell them it's fine - that I'm alright - that the devil's gone - that we're free.

She tells me it's okay, the nightmare's gone, that I'm fine.

I'm still weeping when I tell her it's dead, it wouldn't come for us anymore, and that my family can finally rest for what it's worth - that the world is finally at peace.

She tells me to hold on.

My head feels giddy. I see a light.

I see my aunties, my mother, my father, my uncle.

I see my love.

I see Gabriel. I see the angels.

The angels are smiling at me, and they've reached out to me and I take their hands and we're flying.

Somewhere, in the deepest of my mind, I hear the Matron crying.

And the door closes, but I am not alone.