The shadow fires a blazing bolt towards my left wing. Absorbing the light from the scorching sun, I conjure up a shield of golden flame. Upon impact, the bolt shatters into a shower of glints; the shield bursts, fire raining down. As the fire of heaven floods earth, the sea seethes, the land crackles. The shadow crumples and squirms on the ground. Smoke billows out from where it lurked and gobbles the cloud. The pungent smell of charred flesh wafts in the air.
         “Weak!” I puff and primp my disheveled feathers. “Another mission completed. I am invincible.” Flexing my muscle, I envision a standing ovation from fellow angels and another trophy from Father. This battle ends with my glory. Since when has the infallible Amores ever lost?       
         I descend upon the distorted shadow, a girl with seared black wings. Her cascading dark hair shrouds her chest; her pure black dress casts a cool shade on her pale skin; her face retains a smirk despite the wound on her shoulder that furiously spurts out sizzling, black smoke.
         I yank my angel blade out of the sheath, point it to her chest and demand, “Kneel!” Father decreed that we shall show no mercy. Should I execute her? I have been a patroller all my life, not a so-called cleaner. I’ve been instructed only to hunt demons down and bring them to justice. That’s all I should do, all I know to do.
         Her smirk curves into a sneer, “Wow, what a pleasure to be at the hands of the indomitable Amores! I’ve heard so much about heaven’s fiercest weapon!”
         Tightening my grip on the sword, I push it forward and sink the edge into her flesh. I am radiating heat like another sun. She knows she doesn’t stand a chance, right?
         “What not killing me? Old man must think you have more guts!” She spits a mouthful of some demon phlegm at me.
         “Don’t you dare corrupt his name!” I roar.
         “He is your father, not mine.”
         “He is the father of all beings. Demons like you betrayed him.”
         “Oh really, is that what he tells you white-winged puppets these days?” Her body quivers with laughter. “Of course, pawns are not programmed to doubt their boss. Yet he sent a toy who does not dare to do his will.” She cackles and struts forward disregarding the blade at her chest. She knows she will die if she lets the blade penetrate her heart, doesn’t she?       
         “Stop!” I feel a sense of unease washing over my brain: I want her to surrender, not to commit suicide. Pulling the sword out, I stumble back as she dives into my chest. She locks her arms around my neck; I can’t help gazing straight at her surprisingly limpid eyes.
         “A baby after all.” Her voice softens into the sound of a lullaby and her lips press onto mine. I feel something brand new. I try to shove her away but succumb to an inebriating numbness.
         “Poison….” a thought pops up before the numbness ripens into sleep. I remember a glorious smile blossoming on her face before darkness barges in.

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           I wake to face the demon who poisoned me. The smile still lingers on her face. I flap my wings only to realize I am shackled to a wall. “Where am I?” I grind my teeth.
   “Hell,” she yawns.
           “Release me!” The world is spinning wildly as I struggle to break free of the fetters. Then it closes in on me as I realize my halo is broken.
    “Babe, we’re gonna play around for a while.” She whooshes forward, clenches my chain and sizes me up as if I were her trophy. “Look at those wounds; yet you still breath. Guess you are used to being a victor.”
           Her hypnotic voice hums inside my head. It has the same anodyne effect as her poison, her kiss. I am drained of power in front of her. I hate it.
          “You are just like me before I was cast out. A follower, a defender, a puppet. Our magnificent father always knows how to pick his toys, doesn’t he? Tell me, what has he promised you if you hunt us down? Another trophy to show off?” Her fingers toy with my feathers, “He calls us abominations, demons. But once we loved him too. Our love became hatred when we stopped being blind to his autocracy!” She claws into my left wing as the last syllable erupts, grasping the bones and pulverizing them into shiny powders that come spewing from the gash.
          “That is nothing compared to how your Father hurt me!” Her voice grows so piercing that my ears bleed. She shudders violently, her hands clutching the edge (or edges?) of her dress. Her flushed eyes are transfixed; tears gush out. A cry does not subside until all of a sudden she bites her lips and blood trickles down. Head lolling, she wobbles backwards and collapses onto the ground as the redness in her eyes fades a little. Groping frantically, she snatches a vial of pink liquid out of her pocket. She tears the lid off with her teeth and guzzles. “Ah,” a soft sigh escapes before she licks the last pink droplet off the corner of her mouth. Her eyes clear again. She pushes herself up and pants in sweat. Then she snaps, “What are you looking at?” She barrels forward and fractures another bone in my wing.
         I bite my tongue. I will not beg for mercy. I kneel before no one except for my creator, the Father. I keep balling my fists so hard that the bones in my wings are not the only ones clattering a pitiful melody.
         Sipping from the vial, she jerks one last intact bone out and crushes it, leaving my left side limp and shredded. A cold, excruciating pain runs down my body, my brain threatening to rupture from inside. My vision blurs and dissolves.
         I wake up and find myself shrouded by smoke from incense. As she intones an incantation, my bones grow again, stronger than they were before. I straighten up and lift my chain.
         I glower at her. She strolls around with a drained vial, inspecting me meticulously with a smile. “You are much tougher than I thought,” she says idly and sashays forward. Running her finger across my cheek softly, she whispers, “It was fun being with you.” She leans closer, the aroma of her body permeating my nostrils. I can hear the gentle thud of her heart, my breath hastening. She wets her lips and continues, “You won’t bend. That is why you don’t bore me. In hell, those who don’t kneel die. But here is the interesting thing: I don’t really want to kill you. You are too cute and nice. So I am going to let you go.”
        She snaps her fingers; the chains crack. The ceiling of the cell fissures; sunshine seeps in. Fluttering my wing, I am magnetized toward the blue sky. I can’t wait to get the hell out of hell. But before I reach the exit, I can’t help casting my last glance at her. I am supposed to hate her for what she has done to me, but I can’t; somehow she piques my interest. Her skin glitters under the pouring light, dark eyes shining like diamonds. For a second I hold my breath to marvel at her sublime beauty. What if darkness is merely the absence of light?
        “By the way, my name is Chessia.” Chessia’s dangerous lips stretch to form a smile that I know will haunt me.
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        “Angel alert, angel alert. The loyalty test will start in one hour. Please report to the Capitol.” The grand judge Gabriel’s august voice wakes me up.
         It’s only been one day since I got back from hell. I don’t want to leave my nest. Though heaven is the conglomeration of everything in royal gold, for that is the color of Father, each angel’s assigned nest is whatever mirage he craves. It can be a grandiose castle made of diamonds, or a pile of clouds thick enough to sleep in till the end of time, or the ocean tinted burgundy at dusk. My nest is a bottomless pond that sunshine pours into and I feel safe falling into. I feel free falling because I believe the sunshine will infuse me with the everlasting promise of life no matter how hard I fall. With that promise, I feel wild and free.
        Groggily I step out of the pond and shuffle to the exit. I’ve never been so tired of meeting other angels. I was called “human sympathizer” before because I’d granted humans fire so they would not suffer in winter. I worked my ass off for the past millennium to replace that name with “the infallible Amores.” If other angels ask me about my last mission, I won’t know how to respond.
         Having flown to the Capitol, I find a quiet spot outside of the Supreme Court, away from the bustling cliques of angels babbling about the apocalypse. When Lucifer fell, he cursed Father saying that a deadly weapon would cause heaven to fall. That’s the apocalypse everyone is scared of. The apocalypse destined to come is in a thousand days. Heaven needs everyone’s loyalty in the time of crisis.
       “The test starts now.”  From above, Gabriel’s voice drops ice into the boiling pot of gossips. The gate of the Supreme Court thunders open; angels file in.
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       We tiptoe into the Supreme Court where Gabriel peruses a hefty volume in the seat of the grand judge. He rises and examines us, as if studying insects through a magnifying glass.
       I feel naked. Behind the glasses held high on his nasal bone are two hazel irises that see everything in its true form. As Gabriel skims over our faces, I feel secrets being torn out. In front of Gabriel, one of the first angels, all efforts at duplicity are futile. Gabriel is the kind of angel everybody envies for his air of superiority, but fears for his power.
       “Fellow angels, please take a seat.” The sheer coldness in Gabriel’s voices compels me to move; otherwise I guess I’d be frosted from inside out. I pace stiffly to the table in front of the judge and sit rigidly. Glancing over the table, I find a stack of cards facing downward.
       Clapping the weighty book closed, Gabriel clears his throat, “We are in a precarious situation, my fellow angels. The apocalypse is falling upon us soon. The winter is coming.” Scanning our faces, he resumes, “While attending to other affairs, Father has commanded me to conduct a loyalty test. In such uncertain times we must be of a singular mind--”
       “And of a singular heart.” A dulcet tone wrapped in a silvery voice thaws the iciness in the room from the gate. In the entry, an angel pauses in the air. Her blonde curly hair unfurls gently; her white gown matches her daisy wreath flawlessly; her lilac left eye glimmers vivaciously while her ashen right eye dims impassively. As a prophet, that is the price Ophelia, another of the first angels, has to pay. She grins at Gabriel and retorts, “Actually, Father commanded US to conduct a loyalty test.”
        Gabriel frowns, gives her a quick but sharp glimpse and booms out, “You are late.”
        “Late is better than never,” Ophelia gingerly adjusts her wreath and shrugs.
        Gabriel pauses for a second; a cold draft intrudes as he speaks, “Care to explain what you were doing?”
       “Stuff,” Ophelia answers with a faint smile. A warm breeze is interwoven with the cold draft but both peter out shortly. I hold my breath tightly; the immense power in those seemingly harmless winds could shred my halo, so why is it that those first angels don’t fight in wars?
       Ophelia turns towards us and waves her hand. Cards flow from the stack and land before each angel. She articulates, “Before each of you lies a card that is the divination of your truest self. When I look into your hearts, I see your longings. Father is the only being we serve. Preserving heaven is our only purpose. Right now, anything below heaven is not our concern. If your heart remains pure, you should not fear what the card reveals.” She flits to the table and eases into the head seat opposite Gabriel.
      The angel in the first seat left of Ophelia flips his card; on the front proudly arises an angel holding a torch, brandishing a blade and riding the wind. “A loyal knight,” Ophelia smiles; Gabriel gravely nods his head. Another loyal knight after that, another one..
        Heaven, is that my sole purpose? Purpose..I am a soldier of Father’s. I owe my life to him; that’s a debt I will never be able to repay. But one day if he orders me to kill Chessia, will I really do it? Demons carry marks of disgrace reminding them of their sins, but Chessia is as pristine as angels when she’s not having a fit. Her smile is too sparkling for me to snuff out.
         “Another loyal knight.” Ophelia’s melodious voice is by my ear. I am the next one. Sweat runs down my skin.
         “Your turn,” Gabriel pulls me back from the introspection. I find everyone’s eyes locked on me, most notably Ophelia’s. It is the kind of gaze that reassures everyone that odds are always in her favor. The card is cold, cold as raw iron. But the raw iron starts smelting with my touch. The temperature soars dramatically; the card sears my hand. Impulsively I withdraw my hand; the card flips to its front. I gape at the figure as my hand cools.
         “A loyal knight,” Ophelia muses, leaning back. She pores over me for a minute; her left eye shimmers brighter while her right eye dims with gloom. A smile plays on her lips. “Next,” her voice chimes again. Relieved and bemused, I watch the show play on.
         After all the seated angels reveal royal knights, Gabriel, with a pompous smile, extends his arm and holds the card at the tips of two fingers. He flips his card.
         “Bang!” Gabriel’s chair thumps to the ground. He stands aghast at the card, face stiff as if all features have fallen off. “There must be a mistake!” He howls in a voice thick with dread and disbelief.
         “Let me see.” Ophelia snaps her fingers, the card lies still in the center of the table. A cold breath is drawn; a dead silence takes over the room. On the card squawks an angel with black wings nailed to an upside down cross in the sea of raging flames. “Traitor,” she says cooly, with a sharpness that cuts more deeply than a blade.
        “That speaks nothing but falsehood! You are a fraud! You are conspiring against me!” Gabriel yells. The fear fleetingly melts into the distorted face of a fuming  fiend---harsh, wrung and savage.
        “There is no one conspiring against you except for the one you imagine,” Ophelia says lightly.
        “I will not accept such an accusation! I will only let Father judge me!” Face clenching into a ball of hate, Gabriel grips the amulet hanging around his neck and squeezes it to powders. A golden spot suddenly emerges. As it enlarges, a thin figure steps out.
         The figure wears a loose golden robe. Deep wrinkles carve a map of life on his shrivelled face; under his heavy eyelids are only two lines of dazzling blue. It is an urge we angels cannot resist. As if programmed, we get down on one knee, because the old figure is the earth, the heaven, the Father.
         “Gabriel, what’s this about? I told you to call me only in a time of huge crisis,” he rasps as if two stones are grating against each other in his throat and fixes Gabriel a serious gaze.
           “Father, Ophelia accuses me of treachery. You know I serve no one but you. I’ve devoted everything to this court, your court, Father!” Gabriel jumps up, yapping.
           Seeing the card on the table, Father frowns and turns to Ophelia, “Ophelia, I’ve trusted your power. A prophet can’t be wrong. Traitor is not a word to be used lightly.”
           “Father, I am certain. Trust me, I am certain.” Ophelia doll-eyes Father, flapping her thick eyelashes, “I will never make mistakes.”
           “I won’t make you sad either! I am not Lucifer!” Gabriel strains a smile and simpers, “You know I will never leave you.”
          The word “Lucifer”  casts a shadow on Father’s eyes. Ruffled by the name of the devil, his face creases more. He examines Gabriel carefully and says, “No, you won’t. You are the finest soldier.” Turning to Ophelia, he inquires gravely, “you are positive that you are right?”
          Ophelia suddenly lifts up her chin and jerks up from her seat, fire in her eyes. “Father, what have I done to deserve such doubt? It pains me that you have no faith in me!” Tears stream out; she points at her right eye and sobs, “My eye is blind because I see into the hearts! I’ve sacrificed enough! If my heart is also to be offered to the fate of a prophet, if that reassures you of my devotion, so be it!” She slits her wrist with her nail, draws a blood sigil on her palm and presses the palm to her chest. Her chest heaves violently; the hectic cadence of her heartbeat intensifies rapidly. A heart-shaped chunk of flesh protrudes from her chest, prime to burst open.
          “Ophelia, stop!” Face rigid and gaunt, Father utters a trembling, deep scream. He surrounds Ophelia with golden light; her heart sinks into her flesh. “I can’t risk losing another prophet of heaven! I can’t have another oner of my children die! Ophelia, I believe you, I believe you!” He claps his hand. Gabriel slumps to his feet, all of a sudden stripped of power. 
        “Just take him out,” Father commands impatiently. Two archangels bounce from their seats and scud to Gabriel. They slap a spiked shackle onto his shuddering body. One of them conjures a pale down cross. The other one slowly drives two skewers through Gabriel’s shoulders, fixing him onto the cross. Gabriel flounders hysterically like a fish on a cutting board.
        “Father, Father!” His quavering voice fades as he is towed towards the gate, shackles clattering. Ophelia sits down, tears dry, face trying to fight off a rapt ecstasy.          
        “This meeting is over. Now all of you leave!” Father turns back and vanishes into the golden dot. I hear his disembodied voice lamenting, “First Lucifer, then Gabriel. How do they pay me for my love? Betrayal….”
         I want to get the hell out of this place. This test freaked me out. Gabriel might be snobby, but he is no traitor to heaven’s cause. Heaven and Father, they are all he preaches. Wrong, something is just wrong.
         I walk to the exit following a herd of equally confounded angels. As I am about to pass Ophelia, a small, singsong voice that only I can hear whispers, “your hand still hurts from the card?” I turn around and see a sly smile forming a perfect arc on Ophelia’s rosy lips.
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         “What..”
         “Oh, please don’t be coy with me Amores. This should ease the pain,” Ophelia takes out a vial with effervescent pink liquid in it. She pauses for a second as all other angels file out of the courtroom. Then she proceeds, “Do you want to hear a story?”
          “Do I have a choice?” I regret saying it the next second.
          “It will answer your real question,” Ophelia looks up and blinks at me.
          “My real question?…”
          “First angels are Father’s earliest and most refined works. Besides an immense power, each of us is gifted in one specific area. My talent is to travel into others’ heads.” She leans forward as I take my seat. “There used to be this angel, shining like a fiery beacon, who dominated and eclipsed all her kind. She was Father’s most proud creation. Glamor, ingenuity, aptitude, she epitomized them all. She was the only real prophet; her gift was to see the future. And it was her gift that obviated perils and brought prosperity. It was a gift that even Father could only wonder at. He doted on her and loved her above us all.”
            Ophelia lets out a sigh and continues, “When she walked in, everybody turned around, everybody stood up to talk to her. She just paraded away and didn’t even bother to look at me. In fact, she didn’t look at anyone except for Father. We called her a queen, a loner, and a nonconformist. She was the first one to proclaim ‘from now on, I owe allegiance only to what I deem right’; she was, and still is, the first and only one to doubt Father. She did everything on a whim and got away with impunity.” Ophelia’s voice grows sharp and I can detect a looming redness on her neck. “Then one day, she went too far and received her overdue retribution. She invented a virus that she called ‘love’; and she infected the humans.”
          “What does that do?” I’ve never noticed any anomaly in humans. Though now they are adept at harnessing fire, they are still the unpolished species they’ve always been. What is love?
           “Long story short, the sole element Father added to all his creation is ‘desire’, from desire all kinds of emotions are born. But love is powerful, I admit. It amplified both the good and the evil in people. With love, even ‘desire’, Father’s finest invention, paled. Only humans who loved each other would choose to reproduce because they had something special between them. They evolved. But if two humans were so devoted to one another, how much affection would they have left for Father, their ‘God’? What two humans in love had exceeded what a human shared with Father. That infuriated Father and drove him to the edge.” As she speaks, a quavering emerges in her voice, “I’ve never seen him so mad. He kicked the door of the nether world open, a dark riptide washed everything, every single human away. Knowing what he’d done, he wept for days and swore an oath that he would never lay his hands on any of his creations, ever again. Contrite, inconsolable and outraged, he cast that angel out of heaven. It was the first time he did so; he didn’t even give her a chance to state her case. It took him years to make a new batch of humans without love; and when he finished, he swore he would not see them hurt again.”
       Drawing a deep breath, she goes on, “The angel cursed heaven the day she was ejected, saying, ‘an unprecedented apocalypse will be coming. Heaven shall fall to the earth in the downpour of a thousand meteorites.’ Father forbade her name to ever be mentioned. He erased her real name by calling her “Lucifer”, the first of demons, the source of decadence and corruption. The place she fell to was given the name “hell”; it is a pitch black hole that stretches infinitely underground. Later, hell became home to all those evicted.”
       “What is her real name?” Deep down a name is screaming itself; I think I may have always known the answer.
       “Chessia.”
        I gaze vacantly; somewhere in the thin air rests a pair of black diamonds eyes. It is not the darkness of night, but the sweet silence before dawn.
       “Why do you tell me this?”
       “Because, my dear Amores, you and I both want the apocalypse to come.” Ophelia’s soft tongue composes a ghastly tune.
        “I am sorry?” The last syllable strains my nerves hard. I can’t get Chessia out of my mind, but I never will wish for any harm to befall heaven.
        “I did not earn my position by speaking nonsense. I can’t see the future; but when I get inside everyone’s brain, I can deduce what’s gonna play out. Sometimes it takes a long time to form a clear image. But when I see the picture, it is clearer than a crystal. That’s why Father made me prophet. The instant you touched your card, every piece of your memory beautifully played out. Especially the most recent montages, they were so dramatic I could barely contain myself! Poor Chessia, she has moments like a delirious monster! She used to be immaculate!” Ophelia hangs her head slightly and sighs, “Father sowed the darkest curse into her soul, the one she spawned with her precious ‘love’. Now she is reaping the fruit. Every curse is designed to remind the perpetrator of her crime. I don’t know what her affliction is; but I bet it is awful.” Unable to stifle a chuckle, she snickers, “And you Amores, deep down, you want her.”
       “It doesn’t mean I want the apocalypse to come.”
       “C’mon. Do you really think the apocalypse is that mysterious? Father smote Chessia down for her ‘love’. What’s the better thing she could curse heaven with? Father believes ‘love’ would lay heaven to ruins if it resurfaced. So he made sure the curse would tether ‘love’ solely to Chessia.”
       “You mean...love..is..the apocalypse?” A horrid thought crosses my mind.
       “When I looked into your heart, I saw a sparkle, the same sparkle that Chessia gave off. If in heaven there is a single soul who can finish what she started, it is you. And you want it, don’t you? You were once called ‘human sympathizer’ because you granted them fire. You care so much. Seeing how barbaric humans are, don’t you want to grant them ‘love’ also? You know it is fun to be bad, especially to be bad together with Chessia.”
       “The answer is yes, but not at the cost of heaven.”
       “I couldn’t risk having you exposed. Since the test was run by my power, I used a little magic to swap your card with Gabriel’s.” Catching the doubt in my eyes, she chortles again, “He and I are both first angels, equal in rank. Though he is the judge of the Supreme Court and the strongest archangel, he cannot override my power. He never saw it coming. I knew he would panic and call for Father. But I know how Father would choose between him and the only remaining prophet of heaven. I can’t be replaced. Sorry for your hand, help yourself to painkiller if necessary,” she swirls the pink liquid in the vial, the same pink liquid that Chessia quaffed down.
        It is the first time I am so close to painkiller. I’ve been taught to endure the pain, not to mask it. Ophelia elbows the vial towards me; I wonder if the standing pink liquid stupefies as much as Chessia’s fragrance, her voice or her kiss. “No thanks.” I nudge it to the side. “Why Gabriel?”
        “Because he was a dog on Father’s leash and he was in my way. Besides, he’s been prowling to take me down for too long. It’s better to slay than be slain. You are a warrior; you know how that philosophy works. But most importantly, I saved you.” The same smile bursts into bloom again on Ophelia’s face, the smile of a prophet who knows exactly how the world is going to end.
       “But Gabriel is heaven’s best soldier...”
       “He is still expendable sweetie.”
        I glance around; each piece of heaven is gold and shiny, shiny and gold as gilded ice in the gray haze of a howling winter.
        “You will restore love back to earth,” Ophelia says in a crescendo, eyes firey.
        “No. Heaven is still my home. I don’t want to see it fall.” A tense silence suffuses the room. I strain my vocal cords to utter my biggest query, “Why do you want the apocalypse to happen?”
        “Because I want to help you embrace who you are, Amores.” Ophelia extends her arms and holds my hands, continuing in her mellow voice, “You are strong, Amores, you are strong, stronger even than Chessia. You are a true warrior, I believe you can contain ‘love’ and prevent it from harming heaven.” She closes in, making sure my eyes don’t escape hers, “But most important of all, you will get so high with love, with Chessia, that you won’t even come back. Trust me on this, Amores, I know you, I see your heart in its true form. And I guarantee you, it feels good to be bad.” Pausing for a second, her lips curve upward to form a sly smile, “My good eye sees your valor, your sympathy and your loyalty. My blind eye, however, sees your desire. Angels, demons, humans, we are all driven by desire. You want to live a real life free from all the angel political crap and you, want, Chessia.”
         I’ve never felt so embarrassed before. A part of me admits what Ophelia said without even putting up a fight. I am interested in Chessia. I want to know more about her. And I am strong, Ophelia thinks so, maybe I really am.
        “Amores, I saved you today. One might say it’s a debt that can never be repaid. But I say it can be repaid in a really obvious way.” Ophelia’s face unfolds like a peony.
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       At first I was happy to be on earth, to just sniff the sweetness in the air that made me feel alive. Then I realized Chessia is in hell and there is no place to go? So now I am observing humans to kill time, hoping one day she will magically show up.
       I perch on a branch of a tree; humans scoot by chasing a deer. They are hunting based on instinct. There is an inner drive prompting them to kill. Their natural reflex to the environment is unrestrained and raw; in a twisted way there is beauty in such abandon. I envy them. Maybe Father added that quality in compensation for their mortality. It is a mortality with freedom; when things get tough and they don’t want to put up a fight, they can die.
        I watch humans cavort near a bonfire; they swarm towards it like moths seduced by the glow. They have a rich rouge on their faces, a layer of thickening red powder applied with deepening exhilaration, the heightening sensation of a night full of unbridled touching. A male and a female fuse, in the crucible of wild nature.
        I sniff; a smell of charred woods mingles with sweat fills in. Suddenly, there is a sweet, numbing quality to it, like the rose grown in booze, savory and intoxicating, the smell shoots a shot of adrenaline straight to my heart. The aroma loiters in the air. I breathe again, feeling the silence crashing down around me. At that moment, even the leaves have ceased susurrating in the summer breeze. In the transient stagnation of time, she sits by my side. Chessia flicks a lock of tangled hair, letting it merge into the flaming river that gently caresses its way down her neck, reaching just to below her shoulder blades. She was, and is, Father’s masterpiece afterall. For the first time in a long time, I feel truly happy like my prayers have been answered.
       “I felt your presence. I am drawn to you,” Chessia whispers, the slight raspiness in her voice is tantalizing. I shift my focus to her lips, pursed and dangerous; my alarm kicks in.
       “I will not fall for the same trick.” I reiterate. She tilts her head softly; our eyes meet. As if weighed by unshed tears, the translucent blackness is overflowing. Diving deeply into the lake beneath her fluttering eyelashes, I can’t reach the bottom. Near it are a freezing undercurrent of anguish and a boiling eddy of pride. Converging, they spawn a poignant riptide that washes me away. I plunge in again, descending to the bottom, sinking in as if in a quicksand. I say, “Everything you did, I know now.”
       She scoffs, “Ophelia, of course, that little b****!”
       “It is true, isn’t it? The apocalypse...you cursed heaven with love.”
       “I was the real prophet. I saw what I saw. How it was interpreted was up to your Father and his lovely children,” she sighs, “I was already condemned for creating ‘love’, what’s one more crime to add to my name? And tell me, how is heaven?”
        Heaven, however golden, but rotten.
        “I hated them, all of them, for smiting me down, for smearing my name, for cursing my soul.” Chessia blurts out, “I will not rest till I see my vision through.”
       “How are you gonna do it?”
       “With your help. Isn’t that why you are on earth? If you are not here to kill me, you are here to help me.”
       “I guess...but you can’t make me. It is my decision.”
        She locks her eyes with me again, ripples unfolding. Suddenly the turbulence ends; she sits down and sighs, “No, I can’t make you do anything. I don’t want to either. It is all up to you.” Chessia smiles; her soft lips stretch below her dark eyes, with no sunlight to dim her, brightening her perfectly aligned face. Her smile is unexpectedly genuine, with the right touch of shyness so sweet that abrupt warmth rushes through me. I let myself drown in her eyes for a second.
       “‘Love’ is tethered to my soul by God’s magic. But for every spell there is a loophole, this one is no exception.” Chessia veers closer, cheeks tinged pink, and gabbles gently, “it can be spread through a kiss.”
        Struck by her electric words, I jolt up and see sunburn on her face.
        “So I am a carrier of your ‘love’ now..?” I try to recapture the inebriating numbness of her kiss from my remembrance, the kiss so sweet and potent that it put me into the best sleep ever.
        “It is inside of you now. You just need to find it.” Chessia lowers her head, evading my eyes.
        “But why me? There are so many angels, thousands of us.”
        “The first thing I did in hell was to divine the future,” Chessia draws a deep breath, “I see an angel bringing love to earth, whose halo is so bright and golden, more golden than heaven. It is the halo of an angel who does not only live up to his oath, but transcends it as well.”
        “We shall bring light to the dark. We shall bring justice to the oppressed. We shall bring bliss to the miserable.” I murmur the oath I swear before heading off to battles and ask, “you believe in that prophecy?”
        “It sustained me.” There is a firmness in her newly gained composure, the kind of firmness buried deep but not dead. “I heard your name mentioned in hell, your prowess, your glory, everything about you. So I took an interest. Well hot damn, when I met you, I sensed this heat radiating from your halo. It was a single spark, but enough to set the heaven ablaze.” Pausing for a moment, she continues, “You are not owned by anyone, not even our creator! Just because he gave us life doesn’t mean he gets to tell us how to live it! You have an inner flame that truly shines Amores!” Her eyes illuminate like distant stars from another galaxy, “And you are tough. But everything is a double blade. ‘Love’ makes your life better; ‘love’ also makes it harder. You need to have some tough skin to bear it; so I had to-”
       “So you broke my bones at my weakest to test me?” Suddenly I find a crucial piece to my puzzle---Chessia broke me to rebuild me. She did make my bones stronger.
        At that moment, the smile of excitement withers on Chessia’s face; a twisted smile of a child determined not to weep blooms, “because love hurts.”
       “So you just took the liberty to ‘upgrade’ me?” I can do everything of my own volition, I am not a puppet.
       The smile on Chessia’s face evaporates; instead, a bright, inflamed look with “f*** you” stamped on it pops up. She yells, “Yes, I did! I didn’t ask for your permission because I was strong while you were fragile! I took advantage of your weakness, but so what? No one is perfect; we are all flawed! Don’t you say you’ve always been a saint! Remember the disgusted look on your face and that condescending attitude when we first met? You said, ‘Kneel!’ Who the hell do you think you are telling me to kneel? I, Chessia, kneel before no one! I chose to stand even against Father! Yes, I did hurt you because I could! You were an overbearing little jerk; I was a demented crazy b****! You think being the host of ‘love’ is easy? You think I don’t have my own affliction? I am cursed, and I’ve been suffering in ways so nasty I wish I could die! I wasn’t being myself when I subjected you to such torment! Yes, I admit it! I was wrong. I was selfish. I am a demon for God’s sake!”
      Chessia storms off to a tree nearby and slams down to the ground. She turns around, face bleached, and sobs, “Love is high-maintenance; it saps my intelligence. It siphons away my power; otherwise it would remain dormant forever. There is another side effect too: it fabricates nightmares. I was desperate to find it another carrier so I didn’t lose myself. I gave out portions of it before; their carriers all failed. So love got back at me; its side effect grew stronger. The one I put into you is the most potent portion. If you fail, I don’t know what is gonna happen. But I know there is always a thing called karma. It is my last bet too.” She wipes out the tears; but more stream down. “I was one of the first angels; I was powerful. Over the course of time love has devoured most of my power. Now I can’t even handle a little patroller. I hate what heaven did to me; but I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss it. At least I had my time.” She lets out a small but heart-wrenching cry, followed by a series of more blatant sobs, “Now I am a prisoner to my own affliction. I resort to painkillers all the time, pining for the pain to ease. But there is no relenting, there are only remission and relapse!” She snatches a vial from her pocket and examines it with variegated countenances like a war personified. Hesitating for a second, she instinctively pours the pink liquid down, not letting go until the tiniest drop is gone.
        We stand silent till Chessia’s crying subsides. She strides forward and says in a contained voice, “I am not forcing you to do anything. Love is inside of you; you decide what to do with it. No one is better; afterall, we are all monsters.”
       “Thank you,” I nod; what Chessia just did was the kindest thing anyone has ever done to me. She gave me the right to choose. I extend my arm and grin, “I am thinking about conducting a test on two human samples to see how love works. This way if anything goes wrong, it would not cause any damage to heaven.”
       Brows furrowed, pupils widened, Chessia stares at me. Finally she mumbles, “What are you doing?”
       “You are the creator of love. Don’t you want to see how it works?”
       Chessia looks at me emptily. Then she smiles the most gorgeous smile. A deep curve on her lips makes the world stop around her, bringing millions of memories of all beautiful things in a split second. She holds my hand and says, “My pleasure.”
       We sit on a giant rock waiting for the dawn to break; not a single word is said. Chessia still holds my hand. I try to slip my hand free; but she wouldn’t let go. Feeling her satiny skin, I guess it is letting go that she is afraid of; it is falling with nobody to catch her that scares her. She showed me kindness; it is not a lot for me to return the favor.
        Dawn breaks.
        “Think about your happiest experience; that is where love hides,” Chessia whispers as humans rise.
        My happiest experience… Is it the first time I enlisted? No, it should be the kind of happiness that lasts. I think about my own heaven in heaven, the pond under sunshine. Submerged in it, I feel the warmth of the sun dripping into every inch of my body with the promise of a free life.
        Opening my eyes, I find a burning incandescence exuding from me inside. I focus, directing two rays into a 16-year-old boy named Adam and a girl of the same age named Eve.
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       Adam goes out hunting. When he is chasing a deer, he spots Eve, plump and radiant.
       Eve sits there singing. When she is reaching a hexachord, she sees Adam, sinewy and vigorous.
       Adam likes her voice, so dulcet and spirited. He sprints faster.
       Eve fancies his stride, so rhythmic and confident. She sings louder.
       Adam sees the girl everyday. Sometimes she carols; sometimes she prays. He decides to talk to her.
       Eve sees the boy everyday. Sometimes he ambles; sometimes he gallops. She hopes he’ll talk to her.
       Adam learns her name and her favorite flower, rose.
       Eve learns his name and his favorite fruit, apple.
       Adam collects prims. He always offers one to Eve. As Eve sniffs his bloom, his pupils dilate at her delicate nose, her hazel eyes and her fetching dimples. He exults furtively.
       Eve picks apples. She always sneaks one to Adam. As Adam bites her apple, her heart pounds at his own apple, his pristine teeth and his electric eyes. She blushes willingly.
       “They look cute.” I feel the same warmth emitted from Adam and Eve, the very warmth I savored that is magnified as time flows by. They want to be better human beings for one another. Adam enhances his hunting prowess to impress her;  Eve explores her artistic ingenuity to amaze him. The warmth drives them to be better; it is forming a bond between them that is magnetizing one to the other.
       One day Adam takes Eve to the lake at night. Adam fixes a wreath of prims on her head, letting his fingers slip down her sleek brown hair.
       That night Eve slips her prettiest rosy sundress on. Eve puffs a breath of hot air on Adam’s face, wetting her lips to his angular sunburnt face. They whisper into each other’s ears, smiles tempted out, his mischievous, hers coy. They kiss.
        Adam slams his lips to her and nearly knocks all winds from her lungs, hands drifting to her hips. Eve twines her tongue with his and almost sucks all scents from his throat, arms locking around his waist. Their hearts skip a beat. In a trance, the time around them stops. They believe it could be hours, days, or years of sunlit time before their lips part.
       “I love you.” Three syllables radiate enough heat for their own world. Adam and Eve meander in the woods, crooning and mooning. Suddenly clouds cover the moon. First they panic, fearful of the unknown; then they realize they have their half of the world by their side. They snuggle up in each other’s arms.
       The temperature of the heat between them has been rising each day. Adam whistles Eve’s name; Eve leans for a big old kiss. So it repeats.
       One night Eve invites Adam to her secret garden at the valley, despite the rolling gray clouds in the sky. In her favorite perfume, she seems an angel to Adam, real yet heavenly. Adam feels a hot rush surging in his veins. On fire, he cuddles Eve and kisses her earlobe first, softly, with just the right hint of passion, and works his way down her neck to her collarbone before rushing back to the lips he knows will be waiting. Feeling the graze of his lips against her earlobe, Eve veers in towards Adam, head spinning and pulse elevating. She flips her hair away from the right side of her neck, softly, with just the right touch of frivolity, and shuts her eyes to see the sparkling stars in her mind. As soon as his moist lips imprint on her neck, she is consumed in thoughts of him, only him.
       They collapse in the meadow just as the first drop of rain falls. Adam kisses away the droplet from Eve’s lips and runs his fingers through her wet hair. Nibbling at her naked shoulder, he sinks himself deeper into her arms. Eve hangs her fingers on Adam’s waistband, dragging him closer. She buries her face deep in his shoulder curve, hands flexing around his back and uttering a reduced moan.
        The rain hammers down as if it means to wash the entire world away one more time. Animals stampede in the valley, all to their own destinations except for the two who freely let themselves flicker in the wind like two fused candles. Adam moves his fingertips across Eve’s body, sending her in a transitory paralysis with skin tingling in a frenzy of static. Eve pulls back for another kiss, both soft and hard. They move in a crazy dance of limbs, never repeating the same step twice. At that moment, Adam and Eve, are one, bonded by such tenderness the earth has to stop on its axis to take note of it. At that moment, they are steeped in an ethereal euphoria and in it the harshness of life dissolves. Adam forgets the pressure of hunting, of sustaining a life. Eve lets go of the fear of prejudice, of kneeling to such things as guilt.
       Whether they know it or not, a new life has been created in Eve’s womb. It is beautiful; for I know they would not do the same thing with anyone else. The moment they merge, I feel ashamed because for the first time I think angels are ugly. Humans who can love, are, true masterpieces.
       I observe Adam and Eve. There is beauty in their abandon. Unexpectedly an urge inside is dictating me to fold into Chessia, to feel the weight of her skin and to be wild with her like Adam with Eve. But I can’t feel what Adam and Eve feel to each other. Maybe ‘love” will grant me that. At that moment I decide to spread love.
      “Angels, angels are coming!” Screeching, Chessia abruptly deflects her head to the sky full of silver lightnings. Like hail on granite, the drumming of her fingers is relentless as it is loud.  Each click of her nails against the stone echoes the tumultuous thudding of her heartbeat. Then suddenly she is motionless and smiles like an epiphyllum at night. “Come get us b****es!”
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      The steel clouds melt into the monochromatic landscape, and a bolt of a white cold lightning cleaves the sky into two. Thunder tumbles down on us following the violent illumination. A crowd descends from above, led by a slim figure silhouetted in the air. Her shiny gold hair flows smoothly backwards. Lightning forks the sky, lending me clear sight of a lilac left eye and a dead gray right eye, just beneath the wreath of daisies and above a smile. Ophelia’s face is as calm as a mask.
        Ophelia flutters and moves forward leisurely. “Kill them,” she lifts her chin and commands lazily. Four archangels charge towards me with angel blades.
        “What are you doing?!” I yell, shielding Chessia while conjuring up my own blade.
        “Archangels, be efficient,” when she sees Chessia, old emotions leak out and savage her face. She looks like a doll that can barely resists the urge to come alive into a grotesque monster. “Erase her first!”
        Chessia just stands mute and looks at her, slightly appreciative yet still contemptuous, as if Ophelia were a smeared portrait. I try to drag her back to a safe place while fending off the archangels. I stagger backwards and fall after taking a hit in the stomach. I try to get back up but I see the tip of a blade pressed against my chest.
       “You are a prophet! You can’t leave heaven!” I scream.
       “Indeed a prophet cannot leave heaven. But the Grand Judge of the Supreme Court can.” Ophelia’s face unfolds in the same rapt ecstasy I saw before I left heaven.
       Chessia finally speaks, “You can read minds; you know how Amores is and what he is capable of from the beginning. Somehow you manipulated Father to get rid of Gabriel who was the only one in your way. It wasn’t an easy task. But knowing how Gabriel and Father think, it could still be done. You took the opportunity to rise to Gabriel’s position; you were probably the most eligible candidate anyway. Our magnificent Father will weep in his room because Gabriel has failed him, another one of his first children. With Father out of the picture, you can do anything you want. Amores and I are the only ones able to figure everything out; so now you want us dead. I am impressed. When I was in heaven, you didn’t talk that much.”
        “Yes, I didn’t talk that much, which means I heard everything, I learned everything there was to learn.” Ophelia’s chest heaves; the insignia of The Grand Judge of Heaven bobs haughtily with her heart.
       “We have no route of retreat. They’ve got us surrounded.” Chessia says glumly.  
        “Count down to 3, we fight! It only takes a second to spread ‘love’. Even if we go down, we shall go down swinging!” I respond without thinking.
       “Three, two-”
       “Amores, I am sorry, I can’t let you do that.”
        Spinning my head back fiercely, I see Chessia rise to the sky, bathed in the purest golden flame so bright that the incandescence makes her a sun. That is the flame I recognize, the flame of life. She is igniting her life.
       “Chessia, stop!” I try to reach out to her; but my body is glued to the ground. When one of the oldest angels ignites her immortality, her billions of years of life energy, her one and only soul, she is almost as powerful as Father. At that second, Ophelia’s eyes are transfixed on the incandescence with real fear for the first time, the fear that ice holds for fire. Her mouth opens. Silently, she bends her knees, almost ready to kneel. “Stop!!!!” Every cell in my body screams; tear glands swell.
      “Amores, as much as you want to, you will never break your oath with heaven. That is why I liked you in the first place... love is beautiful, isn’t it? How can such a thing lead to the downfall of heaven? For every two in love, one finds heaven within the other. With love on earth, heaven is on earth. Let me be the one to unleash love.” Chessia blasts into thousands of meteorites showering from the sky, each of them radiating the heat of love to humans, to heaven, and to me. Ophelia’s face is going to pieces, what’s happening is not what she wants, not at all; for the first time, her own prophecy breaks .
       The flames dance into hundred of letters; a message from the last piece of Chessia’s soul fills the sky----
        “I was an angel living in the garden of evil, looking to get high, cursed with love. Angels are programmed to not love; but God made it damn sure I was the only one able to, even though I would never be loved. Love fabricated nightmares for me; in my dreams I loved so stupidly much that it ripped my heart out when I woke up to a cold world without love. If there isn’t love, what’s for me to live? To bear such pain I entered into a bondage with painkiller, degenerating into a monster called ‘Lucifer’. Still I wasn’t ashamed. Afterall I was the one who created love though it became my eternal misery. One day, this angel Amores looked me in the eyes. Those damn blue eyes burned light into my life. In my dreams we were one, skin tight, breath hot, lips soft. There was a subtle difference between ‘wanting’ and ‘loving’. Amores wanted me; he was coming so close to loving me that love didn’t hurt that much for a tiny second. But I knew he could never make the final step. He was yearning for the final push to feed his desire; so I granted his wish. The spell of love had two loopholes. Love could be placed in another angel through a kiss; it could also be spread by the original carrier, just at the cost of everything. Knowing he was a true warrior, I didn’t want to see him breaking his oath with heaven because that would hurt him and I would hate to see him hurt. The time spent with Amores observing Adam and Eve gave me real insight into love, the very thing I’d created but not truly understood-----love is to be wild, wild at actions, wild at heart. It is the reckless abandon that produces a hot rush, magnetic, electric and toxic. When that hot rush breaks free, your longing breaks free. Over the course of years, love tormented me so much that I lost its true meaning. Fortunately Amores redeemed me; the way to end my servitude to my curse dawned on me---living up to it and transcending it, letting the hot rush burn me to ashes from which I rise free. He wanted to love so badly that he was on the verge of breaking his oath! A hot rush imploded and my dying wish exploded. I wanted to fulfill Amores’ desire so he would be happy; for him that was the only thing I could do. I loved him and I still don’t regret my decision of loving him. Interestingly, when I dashed and divided into a thousands stars, I felt free and alive again after millennia of suffering. I remembered who I really am!
        My name is Chessia. I desired love so I invented it. I lived hard, died hard and loved harder. For those who think I was crazy I have three questions----Who are you? Are you in touch with your darkest fantasy? Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience it? I have. Indeed I was crazy. But I was free.”