A demon walked through the desert. There was only him, the dry land and the blue sky, nothing more.

His feet rhythmically stomped the cracked ground. The whole landscape of a lifeless yellow, the ground cracked like a jigsaw puzzle. Everything dry. And full of dust.

Dust. The curse of his existence. Dust covered everything, his skin, his wings, the ground, making everything desert-colored. Dust was carried by the constant wind, hitting his body, getting inside his eyes if he dared to lift his head. The demon hated the dust.

Because of it, he walked with his head down, hunched shoulders, half-closed eyes. His reptilian wings, once black and shiny, were now dark-yellow. He kept them half-closed and loose, raised a few centimetres above the ground, almost dragging them along the floor.

A long time had passed since he had last opened them. The last time he flew was ages ago. He didn't feel like it. It didn't seem to be worth the effort.

Suddenly, he stopped, still looking to the ground. With some effort, he raised his head, protecting his eyes from the dust with a hand, and looked at the blue sky with the vain hope that he could never totally forget. He almost expected to see white wings shining. He almost expected to to hear a voice challenging him, calling him “hell dog” and provoking a fight.

An immensity of blue stared back at him instead. The demon sighed. He lowered his head. His feet started to rhythmically stomp the desert ground again.

There were no angels.

…

The demon still walked through the desert. He didn't measure the time anymore. He didn't know for how many days he had been walking with no direction, nor the distance he had traveled. He just dragged his feet, a step after another.

Suddenly, moved by an impulse, he lifted his eyes and looked at the horizon. To his surprise, there was something else other than the immense desert. Far away, on the horizon line, little buildings stood.

A city. A human city. Something weird writhed inside of him.

He should probably avoid the city. He remembered his hate for the humans. Mutual hate.

He stopped. He looked around, squinting to protect his eyes from the dust. There was only dry land. And, far away, the city.

The demon sighed and started walking towards the buildings, slowly.

…

The city was small and poor. And, like everything in the desert, it was covered in dust. Buildings made of waste stood up everywhere. The humans wandered through the streets, looking lost.

They were different than what the demon remembered. He remembered beings of bright eyes, straight bodies, sharp gestures. Flushed faces, strong bodies. But men were now a shadow of what they used to be.

They wore ragged clothes and were yellow from the dust, colored like the desert. They walked hunched, looking to the ground. Their faces were pale and with sunken cheeks, their bodies thin and weak, they almost didn't gesticulate at all. Their eyes, the part that once drew the most attention, were now sunken in their faces. They looked like empty orbs, like they were looking, but not seeing. The only occasional shine the demon saw was the shine of fear. Or hunger. But even those were rare.

They were pathetic beings, who would inspire pity in anyone. The demon now hated them even more.

Some raised their eyes when he passed, and in them he saw anger. And fear. A few of them muttered under their breaths. The demon ignored them.

He heard someone whispering “Angel Slayer”. He raised his eyes and stared at the woman. She cringed and entered one of the buildings made of waste.

Foolish beings. The demon would have laughed, if there was some sarcasm left inside of him to do so. So stupid and ignorant. They thought he had killed the angels. He and the others of his species.

But no, it had been them, pathetic humans. They killed the angels. They had made their planet a hell on earth. And they had stopped believing, little by little. And without the belief, the angels had disappeared.

These days, the humans only believed in demons. And, because of it, only demons existed.

Suddenly, a sound interrupted the whispering of the city. A man screamed. He pointed to the sky.

The demon raised his eyes and saw a plane. It had appeared on the horizon and was aproching the city, fast. It was a war plane, black as his wings.

The humans gathered in the center of the town, looking to the vehicle and whispering, scared. The demon looked at them from a distance, indiferent. He already knew what was going to happen. They were all dead.

He should get out of there. Save himself. But some kind of morbid curiosity kept him still, looking.

Only when the plane passed over the city and opened his inferior doors did the humans start screaming. Only then did they realize that death had just been released, and was falling from the skies in their direction.

Death was black, and it fell, fast. When it hit the ground, that whole pathetic city was going to be blown up in the air, along with the despicable humans. The plane was already disappearing in the horizon, its task finished.

What was the reason behind that? The demon had never understood the humans.

He observed the reaction of those in the ground. Some runned with no direction.

Others fell on their knees, looking hopelessly to the sky, to the death that aproached.

A man cub was hugged by his mother, who screamed and cried. His eyes were big with the fear in his bony face. It was a weak little creature, that was maybe five or six winters old. He couldn't exactly understand what was happening, but he could feel the proximity of death.

Suddenly, his eyes found the demon's. Both stared at each other. The cub didn't stop staring. The demon suddenly felt uncomfortable. What was that creature expecting of him to stare at him in that way? There was something in the boy's eyes that he couldn't indentify. It wasn't comprehensible to him. He couldn't understand this feeling.

Abruptly, the demon felt like flying.

He opened his wings and shook them, getting rid of the dust. For the first time in ages they shined, black. Some humans raised their eyes to stare at him.

With an impulse, he launched himself into the sky. His wings flapped fast, like they hadn't done in ages. He flew up, in the direction of the death that fell.

A second before they collided, he raised his hands. The demon grabbed it. Death tried to drag him down. It had little time before the destruction inside it was released. And it wanted to detonate them on the humans.

But the demon struggled. With the strenght of his arms and his wings, he stopped it. And slowly, he started going up.

He took death up and far away. He felt the chaos inside it, the detonation close with every second that passed. What was he doing? He didn't know. But he kept going up.

In the second before death took him, releasing its destruction vengefully on him, the demon could swear he could feel the cub's stare on him again. Once more he felt that emotion he couldn't identify. He closed his eyes.

He never knew, but down there humans looked and pointed at him. In the last second, the sun reflected in his black wings and they shined, white. And in the ground, between the humans, hands pointed, bodies straightened up, eyes shined. And a boy's voice was raised:

- An angel!

Photo Credits: by Kyle Cottrell on Unsplash