The Angels - An Original Short Story by K H Simmons

Photo by Forrest Smith on Unsplash

We call them angels, the beings that watch over us from above. While they have wings, of a sort, they never beat, nor do they move or blink or even breathe. They just hang there suspended in the air watching us. Well, we assume they watch us, because that’s what we do isn’t it? We make everything about us. When they first appeared, almost a year ago now, I was brought in to try to communicate with them. Standard first-contact protocol. Only nothing about it was standard. How could it be? There’d never been anything like this before, but we followed procedure.

Everything we expected was immediately blown out the window. They didn’t attack. They didn’t speak. They didn’t do anything. One moment everything was normal and then they were here. Now it’s almost like they were always here, hanging there, impossibly, watching.

Communication attempts had all but dried up as I sat at my desk staring at the notes in front of me. We’d tried every known human language, both verbal and written. Maths was an obvious one, that also got no reaction. I won’t name names, but one country of course decided to prod them with a big stick - by that I mean they shot them, even that got no response. It didn’t do any damage to them, it didn’t so much as shift their position in the air.

So, I was back at the drawing board so to speak and I was drawing a blank. I glanced out the window, I was twenty floors up and there was one hung outside, maybe ten metres away. In many ways they look like us. Same features and form, only their skin doesn’t seem to be skin, it’s like some kind of metallic substance that no one can identify. Of course the lab coats have tried taking samples, but it appears that nothing can affect them. There are theories that they aren’t really here, at least not properly in this dimension. I don’t get it. I just try to get them to talk. Their wings, as we call them, don’t actually beat, so we’re not sure if they’re wings at all. They protrude from their backs but they look to be made of metal too, like ten metal dragonfly wings layered on top of each other ending in ten sharp points.

They wear robes like you may see in depictions of the ancient Greeks, all in the same bronzy-grey colour of their skin. Not even that moves in the wind. They’re eerie to look at. Despite them inadvertently providing me with a paycheck each month, I hate them. I hate the feeling of being watched all the time. It’s like they’re judging us silently and we’re just waiting for them to deliver their final verdict. Then there’s the worshippers. No doubt it was them that dubbed them angels in the first place. They believe they’re here to take the worthy up to heaven or something like that. Every religion believes they’re something to do with theirs and then there’s new ones popping up like weeds.

I sigh and turn back to my computer. We’ve tried every form of religious text, reading long arduous passages aloud to their unmoving faces. Nothing. They give nothing, they do nothing. What’s the point of them? Why are they here? I sometimes wonder if they’re not intentionally here at all. Perhaps they are alien creatures fleeing or in exile and they attempted teleportation only for it to freeze them in time and space here for us to drive ourselves insane over for the rest of eternity. It was infuriating.

I checked the clock. Five to five - close enough. I shutdown my computer and collected my bags. Something, I’m not sure what, made me look out the window again. A chill ran down my spine. The angel looked closer. Not by much, but just enough to make me frown. I slowly walked up to the window and peered out at it. It had been there for so long, yet I can’t say I’d noticed its exact position. Had its shadow always been over the third step up to the front of the building? It must have been. They don’t move. They don’t do anything. Perhaps the frustration was finally getting to me and I was losing my mind. I needed a break. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and left the office for the day.

At home I almost forgot about the feeling. My wife was tired from a long day at the hospital and so we ordered a takeaway. Of course that meant the kids were bouncing off the walls, but it was better than slaving away in the kitchen trying to cook up something that both Tyler and Lucy would like. That was probably more impossible than talking to the angels. When we’d finished I took the rubbish out to the bins and glanced up at the sky. The moon was bright that night, casting long shadows from the trees and the angel that hung halfway down the street near the Richmond’s house. It looked to be floating closer to their house than usual, I shrugged it off though. It was just a trick of the unusually bright moonlight.

After a glass of wine and an episode of some comedy show that Helen had picked out she asked me to put the kids to bed. We’d be lenient with them, with it being a Friday they were allowed to stay up and play games for an extra hour before bed. I gave her a kiss on the cheek, stretched and stood up.

Upstairs the kids were somehow managing to amicably play a game together, it almost seemed a pity to interrupt it, rules are rules though.

I was ready for a fight when I told them to switch it off. There was none though. No “just one more game” or “five more minutes dad!” they simply switched it off and went to brush their teeth. I guess miracles can happen.

I tucked Tyler into bed first. He was quieter than normal.

‘You feeling ok?’ I asked, wondering if he’d eaten too much chow mein. He nodded and cuddled puppy, his favourite teddy, into his chest. ‘Sleep well.’ I kissed him on the forehead and went to click the light off.

‘Daddy? Please can you leave it on?’ he asked.

I frowned. ‘You’ll have your nightlight on.’

‘I don’t like the dark though.’ he said.

I wondered if something had happened at school, he had been doing a lot better with his fear of the dark recently. ‘Tell you what, I’ll leave the door open and the hall light on, OK?’ I asked.

Reluctantly Tyler nodded. I clicked off the light and left the door open for him, his wide eyes followed me as I made my way across the hall to his sister’s room. Lucy was already snuggled deep into her covers, rolled up like a cocoon with only her little face visible. I smiled at the sight of her. She was already sleepy, her eyelids heavy as she smiled back.

‘Night night my little snuggle-bug,’ I said.

‘Please can you shut the window?’ she mumbled.

I glanced over. ‘Are you cold?’ She shook her head. I walked over to the window and checked behind the curtains, it was shut. ‘The window’s shut darling.’

She stared at me, two beady eyes in a roll of duvet. ‘Then why are the angels so loud?’

My blood ran cold. ‘What do you mean?’

It felt like it happened without warning, but the warning signs had been there all along. The spike in suicide rates, the shadow on the steps, how quiet the children had been. One moment I was stepping back towards my daughter, a feeling of dread like a rock in my stomach, the next there was glass everywhere as the window shattered. It moved faster than I believed possible. Turns out the wings aren’t wings at all, in the brief moment I saw it, it’s image was plastered to the inside of my eye for the rest of my life. I couldn’t get it out. It bent its “wings” forward wrapping around its body like insect legs. Its face was still impassive as if it didn’t care as it raced through the air, glass glinting as it bounced off its body. I tried to move towards Lucy, tried to get in the way but it was too fast and I was too slow. One moment it was there, she was there, the next they were gone. I wish I could tell myself that it had just taken her somewhere, that it had taken her to heaven as the religious believed. The blood and gore covering me and the room obliterated that thought before it even had a chance to form.

I stood shaking in silence, my own daughter’s blood dripping down my face. She hadn’t even had a chance to scream. My wife was thudding her way up the stairs having heard the glass break. I’ll never forget the look on her face or the scream that pierced the air, echoing so many other screams from so many other homes that night. She never looked at me again.

I sat at my desk staring blankly at the notes on my screen, pages and pages of the recordings of terrified people. It starts as a whisper at the beginning of the year. Nonsense words and sounds that mean nothing to the listener but they know, we know now that if you hear them, then you are chosen. Chosen for what? Surprisingly that’s open to debate. Many still believe that you are chosen to be taken to heaven. Others believe it is a sacrifice to some greater being. There are those who say that it is a punishment, that those who are chosen are chosen because they have sinned. I don’t know about the others, but I am certain that one is not true. Lucy was no sinner, there wasn’t an evil bone in her body, she did not deserve any form of punishment, least of all what happened to her. I swallowed hard and blinked away the image of blood from my eyes.

So why didn’t we know about this beforehand? Turns out we did, we just dismissed it as cultists, delusion and insanity. We didn’t listen and so we weren’t prepared. Not that it would have made a difference. The notes on my screen were from three years of listeners. Three years of people that we could not save. People hid, they tried to put up a fight, none of it made any difference. The angels found them no matter where they were. The words on my screen made little difference either. They were on a whole, different for everyone. Some were just sounds, others heard random jumbles of words in a multitude of different languages. As the year grew closer to an end, not the end as we know it, the day that the angels come for their chosen, the noise gets louder and often clearer. Sentences form that mean little to anyone. One thing is always the same though. They all mention the cleansing. I assume that it is us that they are cleansing, cleansing the world of humans for whatever reason. Why doesn’t really seem to matter. It could be anyone, celebrities, the homeless, new born babies, children, prisoners, rich or poor, it could be anyone.

After the first time we continued to talk to them or try to. I took a year off for my mental health, talking meaningless words to a councillor that couldn’t bring my baby back. I came back and nothing had changed. We now make the chosen register so we can record their lives, what they hear and try to save them. Last year we even tried placing as many as we could in a nuclear bunker. The angels broke through it like it was paper. The bloodbath within was, well, you can imagine. We’ve attacked them with everything we have. When we found one in the middle of the Nevada desert we even dropped a nuke on them. Once the dust had cleared it was still there, floating, unblinking, unscathed.

I stare at my screen knowing that the list of people on it, knowing that all these people are going to die tonight and there’s nothing that I or anyone else can do about it. There is only one suggestion that we haven’t tried yet. It was my suggestion and it had nothing to do with linguistics or communication, at least not in the usual sense. On the last list of three million, one thousand and six killed themselves before the night of the cleansing. On that year only 2,998,994 people were killed by the angels. This year there are 2,999,514 on the list, for some reason that number is lower. The suggestion to kill them was thrown in the bin, even though it could, in theory, prevent the angels from cleansing again.

I had a theory and it might not make much sense, perhaps it was my own form of insanity. I don’t think it would work if we killed them, I think if we killed them they would just select a replacement. There was a case in year one where a prisoner who had reported hearing voices, was killed by his cellmate, his cellmate was then killed by an angel despite not having reported hearing voices. Killing them isn’t the answer, nor is suicide. I believe that sacrifice is the only way. Those who are sacrificing themselves to try and spare others are shortening the list. It’s the ultimate message. Humanity will prevail. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. They aren’t here to punish us, or take us to heaven, or even to destroy us. It is a test. Will we make the ultimate sacrifice so others don’t have to?

Night came. 8PM GMT. More bunkers, deeper, thicker, packed with terrified people. Another bloodbath. Another failure. I wondered how many would have to die before we saved each other?

That morning I awoke to a whisper that sent chills down my spine, yet I felt that I somehow knew it was coming. I looked out of the window and saw the angel down the street. It looked no different to the first day I saw them, but it was whispering to me nonetheless. I had been chosen. I had a year to live, a year to get my message out and test my theory. I would not live to see the answer.

I visited my ex-wife and Tyler that morning and told them. They cried and I held them, but I wasn’t sad. I knew that my sacrifice could save them. It could stop them ever having to wake up in fear ever again.

I began posting online, creating videos and getting in touch with everyone on the list, a shorter one than last year thanks to a few brave souls. The government was still in denial, they believed it was like a disease that was slowly dying out, there would be less people each year until it eventually stopped. Their plan was non-existent. My plan was thrown in the bin again. I lost my job, but I didn’t give up. The message was spreading. There was denial and outrage. Some accepted it. A few voices in the midst of rage and fear, and perhaps that would be enough. I gave myself until the night before. I checked the forums one last time and even said a prayer to a god I don’t believe in. The angel was loud tonight, almost shouting at me as it prepared itself to cleanse the world of my soul. I sent the angel the only message I could by swallowing my fate. I didn’t know if it would work. I didn’t know if I had done enough. I could only hope that the next list would be much shorter, that I had done my bit and saved another soul. I closed my eyes as the angel screamed its fury at me. You will not cleanse the world of our humanity, I thought as the darkness consumed me.