Damned - By Brittany Booker Page 0,8
had to do was turn the doorknob until it broke. Even with the gash in my side, leaking my blood, it took little effort to accomplish.
The house was full of objects of different shapes and sizes. Everything seemed so outlandish. Examining my surroundings, I could smell something not human. It was animal like. I saw something to my left move closer to me. The little creature was not much bigger than a rat, but its sounds were fierce and canine like. Its fur was fluffy and brown, and its barking continued.
“Silence!” I commanded.
With that one word the animal tucked its tail and ran. Coward.
I continued looking, stepping across the floor and toward the large white sitting place. It looked like a large seat. Oh how times have changed. Books, something I could relate to. I picked up a book labeled American History. Then a smaller book with a lot of blank pages. I read the lines. My favorite part of school would be lunch. It’s definitely not this class. Whoever wrote this was apparently not that bright. The lameness of the words made my stomach heave. The world had come down to pure ignorance and it was infectious.
“Baby, baby, baby, oh.”
I dropped the book, and my head jerked toward the stupid melody from the floor above me. It was around midnight and everyone except whoever was playing that ignorant music was asleep. I knew no one else could hear it. My hearing was better than any mortals. I took the steps two at a time and rounded the corner, seeing a door slightly cracked, with a bright light shining through. I hadn’t seen such a bright light since I had walked into one many years before. And this light was indoors, of all places!
The music became louder. I carefully glanced around the corner of the door, folding my blackened wings tight against my back. The light seemed to be formed in a hard tube, hanging from the ceiling. There in the center of the room a mortal stood a young mortal. Her shirt was incredibly long and hung loosely to her knees. She hopped around with a hairbrush before her mouth and sang along to the obnoxious music. “Thought you’d always be mine,” she sang over and over again. I quickly snuck back, away from the intolerable human that I could only want to kill. If only I could rid the world of this ignorant mortal. But calling attention to myself would only cause infinite problems.
The light that caught my eye from the end of the hallway was not as bright and the sound was lower. I entered the room and froze. This human girl was older and in a tight-fitting shirt and pants. They enfolded her every curve. Her hair was matted to her face and she twitched. Taking my gaze from her I looked at the flickering box. Walking toward it, lowering my head, I listened. It was speaking, softly, and the pictures were moving so quickly, as if there was a life in a box. A picture box? How bizarre. I heard a slight moan and the girl moved, but I was gone before I knew if she had awakened or not. Leaving the mortals’ loathsome and unfamiliarly bizarre house behind me, I felt my side. It was still bleeding. I couldn’t comprehend why it wasn’t healing any faster.
The night air was crisp and cool against my bare back. My wings spread out wide and I tried to not notice the pain in my side. I heard a twig snap and glanced to the right.
A figure emerged from the bush where I had just been. The hood of his coat was over his face so I could not tell who it was.
He eyed the second story and then the door. I watched from the shadows as he picked the lock. If he were smart he would have checked the back door, I had already broken it. The door clicked.
I didn’t know this family, and I had no reason to care what happened to them, although it was my job to kill those who did not serve Christ. My brothers and I had made a pact—we would start The Apocalypse, no matter what it took. We were Famine, Death, War, and Conquest. What were the Four Horsemen to do rather than take out the ones not of the Lord’s honor?
It wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and kill one child that didn’t seem to be missed. His mother didn’t