The sky was clear of clouds, and the moon hung yellow and old-looking. It was beautiful like my friends had said it would be, but there was little beauty in this world that I had seen. The house stood on the hill in darkness, a flat, square shape, silhouetted against the moonlight.

Melody's mum's car was nowhere to be seen, so I figured she wasn't back from wherever she had taken Melody to. I pushed open the white wooden gate and it made a wailing noise. I crept up the front garden path. Looking over my shoulder, just to make sure I hadn't been seen, I turned the handle on the front door, but it was locked fast. Not knowing how long I had before she returned, I hurried around the side of the house, checking the first floor windows. They were all locked tight. At the back of the house, I found a wooden cellar doorway set into the ground. It had been padlocked. Glancing around one last time, I flexed my fingers and released my claws. I took the padlock in my fist and crushed it. It fell away and I yanked open the cellar doors. There were a set of stone steps and I followed them down into the darkness. The smell of melted candle wax was overpowering, and I knew that I was in the makeshift chapel where Melody had been punished by her mother. I removed my coat, and spreading my wings, I waited in the darkness for Melody's mum to return.

I don't know how long I waited, but in that darkness, all I could see was Ray pointing that gun at his father. I tried to push those images away, but it was hard to do so. I just wanted to go home and try to forget what I had seen tonight.

It was still dark when I heard the sound of a car pull up and park above me. I heard the front door swing open, and then slam shut. Then, just as I guessed I would, I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs leading down into the chapel.

I darted across the floor in the dark and hoisted myself up onto the cross that Melody's mother had put there. I closed my eyes and angled my head forward so my chin was resting against my chest, and cast in shadow.

The sound of a match strike and the smell of sulphur wafted across the chapel. Tilting my head slightly, I opened my eyes a fraction and watched her light two candles. A circular glow of orange light lit the room, and bent forward as if in prayer, she went to a little stone font that I hadn't noticed before. She raised her hands and in the flickering light from the candles, I could see that they were smothered in blood.

My stomach knotted and I felt sick again, as I feared where that blood might have come from. Plunging her hands into the font, she washed away the blood with the holy water. Then dropping to her knees behind one of the pews, she laced her hands together as if in prayer. With her head bowed forward, she said aloud, "Dear Lord, I have sent my wretched child to you for forgiveness. Please release her of her demons, if that is your will."

On hearing her perverted prayer, my heart stopped beating in my chest and the chapel swayed before me. I felt as if I was going to pass out, as I feared Melody had been murdered by her mother.

"Dear sweet Jesus, I pray that you reward me now that I have carried out your will...now that Melody is dead," she said.

Unable to bear any more, I came away from the cross and hovered before her. Hearing the gentle hum of my fluttering wings, she looked up.

"Don't look," I roared. "You're not fit to look upon me."

Her face crumpled with fear, and she dropped to the floor.

"What did you do?" I asked, hovering in the shadows above her so she couldn't see my face.

"What the Lord asked me to do," she muttered. "I killed the demon within my child by sacrificing her."

Hearing this, I landed on the chapel floor and strode towards her, my arms and wings outstretched as if I were about to embrace a small child. I roughly dragged Melody's mother to her feet and held her by her arms.

With my wings beating furiously behind me, she stared at them and whispered, "Are you an angel?"

"Yes," I whispered back, "And your Lord has sent me to deliver a message to you."

"What is his message?" she asked, pounding her chest with her fist.

"He wanted me to tell you, that anyone who hurts a child should kill themselves, rather than face his anger."

I then pushed her away from me, and she looked up into my shadowy face. I could see that hers looked panic-stricken.

"It's not me who is the angel," I roared at her. "It was your daughter and you will burn in Hell for what you have done to her!"

"No!" she screamed, dropping to her knees again. She then started to cover my feet with kisses. "I beg you...please, you must forgive me."

"There is no forgiveness for what you have done," and I didn't like myself for pretending to be a messenger from God, but I hated her. I could have ripped out her heart with my claws, and the urge to do so was overpowering. But I wanted her to spend every second of every day, fearing the moment she would die and face the God that she believed in. There was a spike of anger that knifed its way through my soul and I couldn't do anything to stop the pain that it caused.

"There must be some way that I can redeem myself, a way so that I can enter God's kingdom someday," she pleaded on her knees.

I kicked her off me, and with my wings casting long shadows all around us, I said, "Sacrifice yourself. That is the only way you will ever enter his kingdom."

I then left her sobbing on the chapel floor, full of self-pity and no remorse for killing Melody.

The first rays of sunlight cut through the clouds, and as I stumbled back across the fields, I dropped to my knees. Pounding my fists into the earth over and over again, I screamed. I threw my head back and roared up at the sky until my throat was raw.

"I hate you!" I screamed. "I hate you!"

With tears of anger gushing down my face, I raced up into the sky. Tearing through the clouds I wanted to fly as high as I could. I wanted to come face to face with the humans' God. When the air became so thin and cold that I thought I was going to lose consciousness, I hovered above the clouds, my wings rippling beneath my arms.

"Show yourself to me!" I screamed up into the heavens. "Go on, you chicken shit!"

The wind buffeted me from side to side.

"What sort of God lets shit like this happen?" I roared. "What kinda God would let Ray's father hurt him like that? What sort of God would have allowed Melody to die?"

The wind dragged me left then right, almost as if it were trying to play with me, like a child when it plays with a ragdoll.

"There is no God. There is no heaven," I muttered. Then, looking down at the Earth, I whispered, "There is only Hell."

Lowering my arms and placing them against my sides, I dropped back through the clouds like a stone. Melody's necklace whipped about my chest as I fell. Within inches of the ground, I snapped open my arms and soared away. I just wanted to go home, back to The Hollows.

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