Chapter 1 – The Key to Heaven
There are only two kinds of people
in the world. Slaves and the free. The slaves are the people of the world who consume
whatever the angels produce. On the other hand, the free are human-like beings who
were once slaves and whose minds aren’t as easy to sway and corrupt.
“Poor and rich alike should gather around
for today is the most blessed day of the week! Payday!” angels announce to all
people around the city.
Slaves gather around where the
angels are with some grasping at the sky as they eagerly await the fruits of
their labor. One angel dispenses golden coins in the form of maggots while another
throws up muck upon the slaves. The slaves take as much as they can and fight
over it until a storm of flames comes into the city.
“Get to shelter! The devil is sending
another firestorm!” the angels say as they scatter.
Slaves from all around the city run
to cover while others take advantage of the chaos to scavenge whatever food or
money they can, force other slaves to pay for shelter, and steal from other
slaves or outright kill them or make sure they can’t get into a shelter. The firestorm
washes over the city and burns whoever is outside. Those burned by the flames
are burned to ashes along with their shelter while others suffer minor to major
burns. Even some of the angels aren’t safe from the firestorm despite their
strong shelters and strong skin. Two particular slaves, a man and a woman, hide
in a building and get close to one another as the flames enter the building and
close in on them. They look at each other and feel a strange connection that
makes them hold each other’s hand. This pushes back the fire in the building
and gives them both a half-human appearance with some basic raggedy clothes and
a cross-like wooden stake piercing their held hands. When the firestorm is
over, they smile at each other.
The man asks, “What’s your name?”
“Due. What’s your name?”
“Cinquo. It looks like…”
“We’re free. We’re human now.”
“Or at least partially. What do we
do now?”
“We’re free now! We can go to
Heaven!”
“But where do we find the gate to it?”
“God is supposed to show us hints
to find it. The gate is always supposed to appear near the free, but not too close. We
should ask the angels for help!”
“Yeah, let’s see what they can tell
us.”
Since Cinquo can see clearer, he
sees something wrong in the angels and pulls Due away from their sight.
“What is it?” Due asks.
“Is it me or is there something
weird about the angels?”
Due takes a look then says, “There
does seem to be something wrong with them. They look the same as they always
do, but there’s something about them that I can’t put my finger on.”
An angel with a large eye in its
head-sized mouth and a single arm surveys the area and sees Due and Cinquo and
alerts the angels and slaves of their presence with a blaring alarm sound that
it makes while pointing at them.
“A free duo has been spotted,” an
angel with a mouth for a face announces, “The person or people who help us
catch them will be rewarded with extra pay and food.”
The slaves look in the direction
that the angel is pointing and look at Due and Cinquo with their dead and desiring
eyes. Seeing what is about to happen, the two run as fast as they can through
the building and up the stairs since the ground floor is being flooded by
slaves and hunter angels that are after them. They keep running up the stairs
until they reach the rooftops and realize that there’s nowhere else to run.
Looking over to the closest building,
Cinquo says, “We have to jump over to it!”
“Can we make it?”
“It looks like it.”
Trusting Cinquo, Due nods her head
and runs with Cinquo as they jump over to the other building. They don’t make
it to the other rooftop and end up crashing through one of the windows instead.
The angels and slaves that jumped with them to the other building follow while some
of them crash to the ground in the mad dash to catch them. Due and Cinquo
continue to jump between buildings while getting closer to the ground until
they jump into a damaged shelter that begins to fall apart. Angels with
functioning wings fly out of the building while the angels with non-functioning
wings and other slaves continuing the chase while trying to avoid the rumble.
This chaos gets Due and Cinquo on
the ground and allows them time to hide as their pursuers are trapped under the
rubble and confused as to where they went. As they move away from the chaos,
Due starts to limp.
“Are you okay?” Cinquo asks.
“I’m fine. Just a little shaken up,”
she responds while trying to hide the real pain she is feeling.
Their bond tells Cinquo how she is
really feeling so he says, “Let me carry you.”
This bond then lets Due know that Cinquo is in just as much pain as she is so she says, “No, don’t. You
look just as beat up as me.”
“We’ll find a safe place and rest
for a bit there. I promise I won’t push myself too hard.”
Due looks at Cinquo before nodding.
Cinquo then carries her on his back as they leave the area as fast as possible
as the pain in their held hand and pain from the action slows them down.
“Due and Cinquo are devil-possessed
slaves,” angels announce in all sectors of the city while another angel shows
them an image of them, “Various heroic servants and angels risked their lives
to catch these criminals only to be injured and killed. The criminals even brought
down a building on those who are trying to protect you. If you see them, hide
from them, report them, catch them, or killed them if you can, but whatever you
do, don’t listen to whatever they say. To be free like them is to be a slave
and to be a slave to us is to be free.”
“Are they really blaming us for
what happened to the people that chased us? Everyone knows people get injured
or killed when they chase people who look like us,” Due says.
“I don’t know what’s happening. What
the angels are saying made sense to me before, but now they make no sense at
all. It’s like a cloud was preventing me from seeing the truth of what they
were saying and now I can’t remember why I believed them. Ack!”
“Let me down. I feel better now.”
As Cinquo lets down Due, they see slaves
around them watch them from the darkness. Some slip away when they are noticed
out of fear while others watch them with hungry eyes.
“Come on,” Cinquo says as he pulls
Due forward as a group of slaves chases them down an alley, “I don’t know why
the angels want to capture and kill us when the free are meant to go to Heaven,
but we have to hide for now.”
“Okay but slow down a bit. It feels
like my hand is going to be torn apart.”
“I’m not doing it on purpose and we
can’t slow down.”
Due tries to keep up while trying
to ignore the pain with Cinquo. Her weariness and his begin to take their toll
as they slow down and Due tries to relax her hand that is pierced together with
Cinquo’s. This only causes them more pain.
“What are you doing?” Cinquo asks.
“Trying to loosen this thing on us!”
“Don’t mess with it! It’s our key
to Heaven!”
Due and Cinquo keeps bearing with
the pain while holding onto each other’s hand until they make a turn down an
alleyway where they are caught by someone in the darkness.
“Shh,” a man says in their ears as
the slaves pass them.
“Who are you?” Cinquo whispers.
“Someone free like you. When I heard
about you and where that recent shelter fall, I took some people with me to
take you to a place where we can hide.”
Cinquo and Due turn around to look
at the man who saved them and he looks like them with a half-human appearance and
raggedy clothes that look like it’s been through a war. With him, is a woman who
is wearing similar rags.
“Do you know how we can get to Heaven?”
Due asks.
“I know just as much as you. The
gate spawns near the newly freed but not too close as it is said in the forbidden
Scriptures. Your key looks a little loose. What? Do you already want to go back
to being a slave again?”
“No, this key is painful to have is
all.”
“Try to ignore the pain as much as
you can. It took my friend and me a while to get used to it and it still feels
like the same day we got it.”
“Follow us and we’ll tell you
everything that you need to know,” the woman partnered with the man says. The
sound of angels flying and sending their announcements can be heard close by. “We
should get moving.”
“Okay,” Cinquo says.
“Thank you for your help,” Due
says.
The two nod before they lead Cinquo
and Due to a hatch that takes them under the city as their journey to Heaven
begins.
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