I woke up with my head pounding, and my body aching. I felt like I’d been thrown off a cliff. I blinked a couple times, trying to regain my senses. When I finally managed to see clear images, I sat up and found myself in a small, concrete box, with walls surrounding me on all sides except one, which was barred by long, metal poles. I was in a jail cell.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember what had happened before ending up in this cell.
Oh. Lyon, the little boy who had somehow tortured me with images and memories I'd always tried to forget. Had he brought me here?
I glanced out of the bars of my cell, trying to see if anyone was there. If anyone could tell me what was going on. I was suddenly very aware of my dry mouth and growling stomach as I noticed a figure in a dark hood sitting just meters away drinking some water and munching on potato chips, as if they were trying to taunt me. I tried to stand up and walk over to the bars, but I just fell back down. The hooded person chuckled, their shoulders shaking up and down very slightly.
"Don't bother, you'll only waste your energy." They said. "And trust me, you'll need it." The person had a high pitched, feminine voice that I might've described as musical if not for the fact that I was locked up in a prison cell.
I narrowed my eyes at her. "Who are you? What do you want from me? I haven't done anything."
She laughed. "Classic line from a prisoner. trying to pull the whole innocent act, hm?"
"I'm not trying to pull anything, I honestly have no idea what I've done to be brought here, wherever or whatever this place is." I said insistently.
The woman clicked her tongue, as though she knew something about me that I didn't. "Well, I suppose that's for the Prince to find out, isn't it?"
I wrinkled my nose. "I don't know about you, but I'm living in the twenty first century. And in said twenty first century, royals don't grab random people off the street and put them in a cell. So please, let me out of this damn cell."
"She's got quite the mouth on her, hm?" Said a new voice, echoing from further away. I looked towards the noise and saw another figure in a hood, but this one had a very low, baritone voice. He made his way to my cell without a single sound. It was almost as though he was floating, walking on air. Within moments, he was right at the bars in front of me. I wanted to scoot to the back of the cell but I told myself to stay where I was, to not let myself be intimidated by some freaks in hoods.
The man chuckled, as though guessing what I was thinking. "What a curious thing you are. Most die within hours of passing through the gates. You're handling this quite well, too. Almost as though.. you were prepared for something like this."
My nostrils flared as I stood up quickly. "I am not a thing, I am a human being! I don't know what the hell you're trying to pull by locking me up in here, but I demand to be let out of this cell right now!" As soon as the words were out of my mouth, my knees buckled and I fell forward, right into the man's arms. His hands gripped my shoulders so tight I was sure they would punch holes right through.
He brought me so close to him, I could see the small stubble on his chin. "Let me make myself very clear, human. I make the rules here. It is not your place to demand anything of me, nor of my servants." He roughly shoved me to the back of the cell. I hit the floor painfully, squeezing my eyes shut as tears threatened to fall. "You may have survived so far, but nobody lies to me, and you should learn that if you want to survive any longer."
With that, the man unraveled a pair of huge, black, feathery wings and flew off into the vast, never-ending darkness.
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In the time leading up to my next visit from the winged man, I came up with several theories.
One: this was some super twisted cult with a great stage crew that thought I did something to offend them and they wanted a confession before killing me.
Two: my grandmother was actually a high-status demon who wanted me punished for punching her so she had me kidnapped and brought to an underworld jail cell to die.
Three: humans mated with birds and their offspring wanted to kill all humans, starting with me.
So my theories were a little far fetched. But I still couldn’t see any way of getting out of this place alive. I had no idea what I had or hadn’t done to get into this place, and it seemed pretty clear that confessing to whatever crime it was the only thing that would buy me some more time.
I leaned against the back wall of the cell, my butt aching from being thrown down by the winged man. I was thirsty, starving, and tired. I just wanted to go home.
With a huge whoosh, the winged man gracefully landed in front of my cell, but this time, there was a small boy with him. Lyon. I glared at Lyon, internally kicking myself for trying to help him. He stared at me with innocent, yet piercing eyes. Lyon stood beside the winged man, a little too close for their relationship to be plain business. Father and son, maybe?
“What do you want?” I asked, my voice flat.
The winged man took off his hood and raised a brow. “It’s more of a question of what you want. Do you want to live?”
“Does anyone want to die?”
I could’ve sworn I saw Lyon crack a smile.
The winged man’s eyes flashed with annoyance, making me smirk with satisfaction. His stormy, dark grey eyes stared vehemently into mine, and my dark blue eyes stared right back. This continued for a few moments when he sighed, and leaned on one side, crossing his arms.
“So, Lyon here tells me that you were quite violent with your grandmother the other day?”
So maybe my theories weren’t so far-fetched after all.
“So what if I was? She deserved it.” I responded sharply, pulling my bright red hair to one side.
He looked at me dubiously. “Did she?”
“She insulted my mother.”
He nodded, somewhat understandingly. “Ah. I see. You must love your mother very much. What’s she like?”
I shifted uncomfortably, making my lower back scream in pain. I stifled a gasp. “If Lyon told you about my grandmother then he must’ve told you that my mother’s dead.” I said bitterly.
“Oh yes, sorry about that. Standard procedure, we had to see if your memories were suspicious. So who killed your mother?”
I felt a sudden rush of anger. “You just went through my memories like they were files in a cabinet? How is that even possible?”
He pursed his lips. “Classified information.”
I rolled my eyes. Classified, schmlassified. “If you’re going to kill me you might as well tell me.” He didn’t respond. “Fine then. But if I’m going to answer your questions you have to answer some of mine.”
“We don’t bargain.” He said sharply. “Who killed your mother?” This sounded more like a statement than a question. I huffed indignantly.
“She did. Suicide. Stabbed herself.” I mumbled. I looked down at my hands, avoiding the gazes of Lyon and the winged man. I could feel their eyes practically piercing into my soul.
“Are you sure about that?” asked the winged man. My head shot up so quickly, I could’ve sworn I heard a crack.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m asking if you’re sure it was suicide. Do you know for sure that it wasn’t murder?”
I opened my mouth then closed it, speechless. “Well… no, but there was a lot of evidence pointing to suicide.”
“Like what?” he pressed.
I swallowed, trying not to cry. “Look, I… I don’t really want to talk about how my mother died.”
“Well it’s too bad you don’t have a choice.”
“Why are you interested, anyways?”
“I told you, we don’t bargain. What evidence was there?”
A tear escaped from my eye. “Her hand was on the knife. There was a letter written by her. There were no other footprints or fingerprints anywhere. There’s no way it could’ve been murder.”
“Stop crying.” he said, making me cry more. “What about prints from other people in the household?”
“W-well, obviously mine and my dad’s and my brother’s prints were everywhere but we were all out on the day she… died, there was footage at the grocery store and everything. Are you trying to insinuate that I killed my own mother?”
He shifted his weight to his other foot. “It’s a distinct possibility. Are you an angel?”
“I.. Excuse me?”
“I said, are you an angel?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“It’s a perfectly valid question. Are you an angel or not?” I could hear his patience thinning.
“Okay, look, I have no idea who or what you are but clearly you and I are on very different pages right now. So you can either answer my questions and tell me who the hell you are, or you can kill me and forget about whatever you want to hear from me.”
He sighed, resigned. “Alright. Here we go.”
