| Believe By Raen Chapter 1 Believe in what ever you want to believe in....in ghosts or angels, in life after death. Believe that sometimes a deed so terrible is committed that someone must return to set the wrong things right. A fallen angel perhaps....a ghost....warrior....one who lives again. A man fallen from the very stars in a blaze of glory, carried down on the back of a black winged bird. If you can believe in all that, can you not find it in your heart to believe in me? In one more angel? I know....I knew that people don't come back, but I have, and now I know what I must do. I have come as a messenger to the evil ones who murdered us in cold blood like sacrificial lambs to the slaughter. We did not know that our time had come but they will. They will sing the songs of the damned and it will be music to my ears for, though I am nothing if not a blade in the hand of some divine force, I so want to see their blood spilling onto the ground and know, for certain, that I will soon be going....Home. And this black winged Angel, so sure of himself in the midst of all this despair, speaks to my mind in the voice of a child and I am one small step closer to being with her again. The rain falls like the tears of a thousand angels as I sit alone with his gravestone and weep for my loss. The loss of her....of my one true love. The loss of her is like a blade in my soul, constant reminder of how much I truly did need her. Second only to that is my grief at the loss of who I really am. I am no longer a man who talked and drank and laughed with his friends on nights such as these. I am the avenger, hiding behind my painted mask in my battle armor of black. A wraith....a spirit. Never a man. That hurts almost as much as loosing her. And so, as I sit in this long neglected garden, filled with stone angels that seem to weep in the rain and forgotten souls who wander endlessly, calling out the names of the ones they left behind, as I sit, together with the waning yellow moon, I grieve for my condition, this limbo that they left me in and I weep again for I cannot find the words to remind her that I love her so. Instead, for words could never convey the depth of my adoration, I whisper her name to the rain. For remembrance.... And as the night fades, becoming another day, I hear music in the sunrise. The light strips away all the ugliness the surrounds me in this city, diseased at its very core. It makes me feel half way to being alive again. And the child in the street asks me 'are you an angel?' in all innocence as he sees my painted face. I weep because I do not know what I am, except a soul with nowhere to go. I long to go home and finally be with her, in her arms but I cannot seem to find the road to take me there. I must do what I am bid and hope that my black feathered friend will show me the way when I am done....How sad I must seem to those who pass me by; a grotesque parody of a clown on my way to God knows where, to spill blood. Where else do clowns go when nobody laughs anymore? * Now, with only one more of them left, not knowing that this will be the last night he will ever see, I feel a darkness, cloying and crushing that will destroy my heart if I let it in. Deep down, I am shaken by the violence I have committed to get back to her, and I know that I exist only for her. I can't be with her just yet, but I'll do what I have to do. I swear on the dregs of humanity left at the bottom of my soul that I will do what it takes. The tatters of the man I was.... I am so close now and yet....I feel a doubt creeping at the edge of my tortured mind. I begin to wonder whether the mercy of God will be revealed to me at last or will my tears blind me for all eternity. Can the crow make this misery beautiful? I so wish he could. And I would look to the brilliant stars to see if they still shine in this deep, killing darkness but I am afraid that I will look and find the skies empty and know that they do not. And I cannot face that. Better to walk this terrible road and imagine an Angel at my shoulder, rather than look behind and know that I am alone....I don't want to be alone anymore.... Blood spilling onto my hands like wine....clinging to my skin, smelling of rust. Spilling over the concrete as I fire one shot and then another, killing shots. He will not survive this.... I will not allow it. I need to be with her and that means that they be dispatched to hell by my hand. So be it. It will be done. It is done. All over.... And now it is over.... They are all gone to Satan in his fiery hell and now I can be with her again. Not for the first time, I stand in the rain, my arms stretched to the heavens, letting the rain cleanse me, body and soul. Letting it wash the scarlet blood from my hands and the paint from my face. And I begin to feel clean again. I shed a few tears for me... and for her....and for any lost soul without someone to guide them. And now I follow the black wings back to the graveyard and I lie down on her gravestone, just to be close to her. The letters that spell out her name press against my cheek and, as I fall asleep, I whisper her name....not as a prayer but as a call to her. To let her know that I've done it; set the wrong things right. They can't hurt anyone anymore. And she comes to me from the heart of the sunrise and once more I hear the music, heavenly choirs singing in the new dawning. She is so beautiful now....more beautiful then I had dared remember. As she takes me in her arms, presses her mouth to mine in one sweet kiss that tastes of honey, I smile and ask her one question, "Are you an Angel?" And she laughs and takes my hand. I know that we will never have to let go again.... And now I know. I know how people live through the rain and the dark times. I know how people, people I would never have thought about before, survive. Now I have everything I needed and everything is done. I know. I believe....in angels.... * Dedicated to the guy I love....you know who you are....* The End (c) Copyright, Raen "Believe", 2002. |