Past Note
Chapter 14

Mariah clutched her shoulder in agony. She knew she shouldn’t have moved, and she knew that by deciding to move she was going to cause a panic, and that she was going to get hurt. However, perhaps she didn’t expect it to hurt quite so much. The strong maple wood that had been used for the structure of the arrow was embedded almost a third of the way into her shoulder. She could feel the metallic arrowhead rub against her insides and even wincing her face caused pain.

Her mother screamed, falling onto her knees beside Mariah’s bleeding form and hovering her hands over the wound. Maharajah didn’t dare touch it though, if there was one thing she knew not to meddle with, it was physical tares in the flesh. Her Lord had come back from the Great War, bleeding and torn, blood flowing from him to splash on his hungry land which swallowed it like it were honey.

Maharajah didn’t have the stomach to deal with large amounts of blood. It was foolish of herself she knew, being a Neko-jin and having previously lived on the blood and souls of humans, but after her long years in somewhat peace and harmony she had gotten softer, her stomach weaker.

Tears poured down her cheeks and she vaguely registered Lee putting his strong hands on her shoulders and pulling her away from Mariah’s side. She covered her mouth with her left hand and her right loosely held her sobbing child. Joseph was deadly white and his lips wavered every now and again, he buried his face in her warm chest and clung onto her for dear life.

Lee moved past Maharajah and knelt down next to his sister. Mariah’s eyes were drooped and she smiled at him with a certain ghostly resemblance of his feisty sibling. He looked at her wound and frowned.

“Move your hand.” He wasn’t quite sure if she’d heard him over the screams and sobs of the lower floor of the temple. Most of the men were alert, standing with an outstretched hand over their wife’s heads as if to protect them. Most women were on the floor, except for his mother, and they all clutched their children. Those who didn’t have children to clutch either held on with strong fists to their own elbows or their husband’s legs. His own wife clutched his son, smothering kisses into his curls and both were watching him with wide blue eyes. Most of the others were hiding their faces, hoping it would all go away.

Lee took Mariah’s hand and unclasped her tight grip, releasing some pressure from the wound. Her hand and nails were stained a thick red, deeper in the cracks of her palm than anywhere else. He took a hold of her hand and pulled her towards him.

“Mariah. Don’t die.” What stupid things could be said when someone was worried.

She grinned, knowing exactly what he was thinking. “I won’t. Don’t worry, Lee.” Somehow her wavered smile lifted up his spirits. He relaxed, which was unbelievable in the situation.

She looked skyward through her hair and gritted her teeth with the pain of moving. A tiny flow of blood fell from where Tala and Kai were floating in mid air. The arrow in Tala’s thigh and the wound in his chest must have been even more painful than hers and yet he was smiling as Kai took the red head's face in his hands.

Mariah felt as if she shouldn’t be watching something so terrifyingly beautiful and turned her face downwards. She felt like she was going to die, and reached out fiercely to grab onto Lee’s arm.

“Tala is adopted, right?” she asked, wanting confirmation on her suspicion. Lee looked shocked but he realised the seriousness of the situation and nodded with a stern face. “It’s a complicated story, but yes, he is adopted.”

Mariah smiled, knowing she was right and stifled a moan as she used Lee’s shoulder to force herself to her feet again. Lee moved to stand with her but she forced him down. Last time she stood and cried out against the attack, she was shot down. She couldn’t stand it if she was the reason Lee also got shot down.

She felt as if she was already dying, so what was another arrow to a corpse’s flesh if it might resolve things?

Lee clung to the robes at her shins, and when he withdrew them, the facbric was stained red. He wiped them off on his cheeks and her thin legs, as if in some kind of ritual. He would’ve rubbed the blood in her hair but that would mean standing up, and he was not as brave as she was.

“Tala isn’t either of us, is he?” she asked the room. Her voice was quiet and choked with pain, but everyone heard her, and there was a loud wave of creeks as all bows and arrows were directed towards her.

Robert struggled in the arms of his captor and as he opened his mouth to respond to Mariah the Head Angel’s knife sliced open his cheek. He screamed loudly, roughly and felt the marble ground splatter with his warm blood, and saw it bubble before him.

Skin was loose over his lips and the muscles of his face felt like they were burning. He clenched his jaw and growled. The muscles rubbed against the loose skin and he tried everything to ignore the throbbing as every facial movement ripped pain and more blood from him.

“Bastard angel,” he hissed. “I thought you were all supposed to be good, and loyal; never daring to harm anyone.” As he taunted the blonde one blood filled his mouth, he spat it onto the white robes of his captor, who made a face and another lunge with his knife, this time for Robert’s other cheek.

From the corner God- Stanley- rose forward, raising his hand sharply to stop the Head Angel in his tracks. Robert saw this out of the corner of his eye and he smirked, dribbling blood over his lips and kissing the chin of the blonde angel. “You’re his bitch, aren’t you?” he asked, most inappropriately.

The Head Angel growled and threw Robert’s body away like a rag doll, watching with delight as the Demon Lord cried out when his open face wound struck the floor first, smearing his blood along the marbled floor.

Stanley chuckled a throaty laugh. “Try and control yourself, Machrome.” (1) He took haunting, echoing steps towards where Robert lay.

In the middle Tala and Kai settled on the main floor. Tala’s head was tight to Kai’s chest, and the blind and deaf prince was running his fingers through the red hair, his lips were moving and no one could hear or understand what he was saying. Tala heard, but even with his facial reactions no one could tell the type of conversation Kai was starting.

They lay on a bed of feathers that had gathered around their knees, and soon they cocooned themselves in a dome of feathers, of white and grey and broken ones. Shutting them off from the world. Around the outer boundaries of the cocoon lay blue and red flowers.

Most were dead and the rest were withering.

Robert lifted his face from the floor, his skin flapping down to reveal several of his muscles and most of his teeth. His left eye was dropped in pain and his mouth agape as if he didn’t know who was coming towards him. The frown in his eyebrows told otherwise though.

Down below, Mariah used what felt like the last of her strength to point to the dome in front of them. “That’s why Tala’s acting like that, isn’t? Because he’s not entirely anything from this world.”

God looked down on her. “I see you’re dying.” He mused.

Maharajah stiffened and she looked at her only daughter desperately. Mariah couldn’t die!

Rei’s arms came around her shoulders and she remembered him as the ‘Mummy’s Boy’ of the ‘twins’. Her eyes fell upon the dome Mariah was pointing at with a wavering arm. Was Tala the cause of everything? Was it HER fault for choosing to care for him?

God lifted his nose to the dying Neko-jin but decided that it was probably in her rights to get a dying wish. If she was to know the truth, then it just meant the others would get to know as well.

“You’re right on some things, little girl.” He started, smirking as she frowned at his address of her. “The red head is not entirely anything from my realm or yours. You see, back many years ago a great war erupted over mine and Satan’s ideals. He couldn’t accept the fact that his world was falling apart so he sent up thousands of demons and genetic mutations of demons called Neko-jin’s (like yourself) and promised them the clear blood of my angels if they would help him win a war against me.”

Robert frowned, if there was one thing he hated, it was bastards lying about well known facts. It was pathetic.

Although Mariah knew he was lying, she knew there would be some truth in his words later on, so she may as well bide with it until what she wanted to know was revealed. She lowered her hand as it was draining her strength quickly. She wanted to live long enough to hear the entire story.

Inside the dome, Kai mumbled a tune in an unknown language to Tala while threading his fingers through the boy’s hair. Within his blackened world he knew it was Tala and small stabbing pains of the colour red would make their way through his eye wounds whenever he moved his head this way or that. He sighed, what was happening? He felt the need to sooth and that was where this lullaby came from. He didn’t ever remember hearing it though, and couldn’t understand the language himself.

The red head listened to both it and what seemed to be the story of his origins. From behind his armour he listened carefully, still and finding it hard to move, but thanking Kai mentally for calming him down. He would’ve killed himself if he had hurt Kai anymore.

Outside the dome, God continued, walking down the great marble stairs and towards where Mariah stood, with only her brother within helping distance. Lee kept his muscles tensed and his face in a steady frown.

“One of the Neko-jin’s raped an angel, planting his seed within her womb. Then slit her throat. She survived, amazingly, and so did the child that had begun to grow in her womb.” God paused and took a deep breath. “She was an amazing woman, and beautiful. She had long purple hair and bright blue eyes. She lost her voice due to the wound but didn’t let it affect her. After the great war Satan demanded an angelic child, for whatever reasons he had.” He looked over his shoulder and skyward to where Robert was. Robert glared back and growled and the Head Angel picked him up roughly again and forced him over the banister, to look down into God’s eyes.

“The beautiful woman was ready to give birth at the time this request was to be fulfilled and so I saw it as a perfect opportunity to get rid of an impure child of two worlds. Something that was neither angelic nor demonic did not belong in either realm but she had begged with soundless words for me not to kill her child, so hell was good enough for it.”

Inside the dome Tala’s breath heightened and his eyes widened. Kai’s singing got louder and louder as he tried to calm Tala down, he couldn’t see or hear but he knew something was going on with the red head against his chest.

“She gave birth to a son and luckily it had wings, so I could pass it off as angelic. I had always hoped Satan would pick the active, fun-filled, laughing child over the quite wholly-angelic son that had been also given birth to at the same time, perhaps just one day later. But I guess I was wrong.

“Because the child looked nothing like it’s mother, we placed a red headed angel in the hospital bed beside the crib and had her act as the mother. After Satan chose to take both children, the mother of the ‘half-breed’ came down with an illness and it killed her by making her bleed out her womb.” He paused and brought his hand down upon Mariah’s shoulder.

She didn’t hiss at the pain, this being didn’t deserve it. She gritted her teeth and bore it.

God grinned wildly and continued once again. “Miamay’s are possessing demon spirits, everyone here knows that?” he didn’t wait for an answer, “Good, then it won’t be complicated to explain the next part. Since the child was half angelic he was bestowed with wings, because he was half neko-jin he was bestowed with claws and cat like reflexes. But Neko-jin’s were originally demons. It just so happens that the one that had raped the beautiful angel during the war was a direct mutation and not just the descendant of one. Meaning he still carried demonic blood. So, down through his heritage the half-breed was also gifted with a great thirst for blood. When I learnt this, I had though the child would pillage this city from the inside with no one being able to stop it, because of it’s three types of blood. But as it turns out, the demonic blood only starts working in the brain when it has been exposed to death and blood on the lips and through the eyes.”

God took a break and lifted his hand off of Mariah’s shoulder. She was thankful for the release. God started to walk towards the cocoon the two young males had created for themselves and waved towards it with his hands.

“I told Satan on the day he took them away that he must not let the angel’s come into the need of killing another soul. This has not yet happened to the blue haired child, thanks to the love of the half-breed.” He gave a dry laugh. “I never expected the half-breed to fall in love.”

Inside the cocoon Tala wrapped his arms around Kai’s shoulders suddenly and forced his lips against the singing ones. Kai’s sightless eyes widened and he felt a blood-coated tongue enter his mouth. When Tala pulled away he spoke with his lips against Kai’s. “Save me, father, for I have sinned. Save me.”

Kai felt the lips move and heard crackles of a plead, but could understand nothing of it. He flushed at the act of love Tala had given him and allowed himself to be wrapped in the red head’s frantic arms, pressing his wet, blood stained ears against Tala’s chest.

Kai kissed over the boy’s heart, “I love you, Tala.” He muttered.

Tala looked down and brought Kai’s head up again, slipping his tongue in the boy’s mouth and pushing him down to the bed of feathers. He couldn’t control the quickness of his movements, and felt as if he had gone insane.

Outside the cocoon he heard the story continue.

“Miamay’s control living beings that have come down with strange mental illnesses. And many live outside this city. I decided to bring a war to this land, knowing it would cause the half-breed to see horrors beyond any description. This would set off the demonic blood and with the chemical reactions it would create in the brain, it would cause mental illness. Miamay’s can fly, or float, or drift, and when one locked onto the half-breed’s mental illness it possessed him almost instantly, taking one of his most desired thoughts and making it come true. However, I wouldn’t have ever guessed it would make him try and kill the person he loved.” God laughed out loud and it echoed against the walls.

Mariah took an unsteady step forward and Lee leant across the floor on his knees to catch her if she should fall. She took a deep breath that made her ribs and lungs shake and reached for her voice. “But why? The war was settled, did you do this for revenge because you had to give up a real angelic child?”

So many questions would arise from answers to previous ones.

God smirked and turned to her. “Revenge for that wasn’t necessary. Nor was revenge for the war in the first place. Those were just bonuses. The reason I started this war was because of the creation of that one half-breed.” He turned and glared from Robert to the cocoon. “The half breed, while it was in the womb, infected it’s mother with the disease that killed her. The demonic blood, when in angels, causes skin ruptures and the placenta of the beautiful angel had been exchanging this blood between the mother and child. After the child came from the womb, the placenta fell away as well and left the disease in the beautiful angel’s blood, causing her disease and her death of blood loss.” As he spoke now, God’s voice got louder and angrier as he spoke of what the ‘terrible half breed’ had done.

Tala held on tighter to Kai as his birth was revealed. He had killed his mother? His blood had killed the person who had loved him even with his evil origins? Even if his father had rendered her speechless? Tears decorated at his eyes. He was possessed because of his own blood? He had a mental illness? It was all too much to process so he set himself on his biggest desire. “Save me, father, for I have sinned.” He muttered over and over, squeezing Kai every time he finished the sentence. In his head he wished for Kai’s retribution as well. And for everything he had done to Kai to be reversed. Like his father, he had stolen something precious from the one he loved. His father had stolen speech, and he had stolen sight and sound. He shook his head, trying to force these ideas out of his head. They would do him no good. He was not a rapist demon.

Kai held on tightly to Tala, thinking of love and other things, unable to even imagine what was being said or seen outside.

Mariah asked the question she though everyone wanted to know.

“Why do you want revenge for this woman?” she asked, cautious about her words, her voice becoming breathless at the end of the sentence. It would be her last one, she thought.

God turned to her and grabbed both of her shoulders, causing her to scream and causing blood to burst out over his own royal robes. “Because that angel was my daughter!” he screamed, eyes bulging, mouth widened in anger and horror.

Inside the cocoon, a pulse began to beat on Tala’s brain; the demon blood swimming about his body and head, the Miamay cracking his soul.

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(1)- How cool would it be if the Head Angel was called Michael? Cos, then it would fit so well. But I've already used the Beyblade Michael ealier on, to replace my 2nd use of Bryan. Damn!

Woa. I didn’t expect Tala to have such a history. (is amazed at self) It’s quite complicated but god, I love it! Is it okay to love something you’ve come up with, or is that boasting?

And I managed to solve all the other wonderings of the story I’d made up along the way with this one solution. This is probably not something you want to be posted up around Christmas, kinda blasphemous? But I wanted to give you all a gift and an update of most my stories seemed appropriate.

For those who didn’t get it: Tala has 3 types of blood, demonic, neko-jin and angelic. This causes chemical reactions in the brain when all three are awakened, causing mental illness. This makes your body the perfect home to a Miamay, which possesses you and acts out your greatest wish for you. Tala’s was to make his act of hurting Kai seem real, which was probably the worst thing to want at the time- making him actually hurt Kai.

Tala also has the blood of God (since his mother was god’s daughter) flowing within him, which attacks the demonic blood, which will eventually kill Tala. But don’t worry; I have a plan for that as well.

Bra-Two

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Ps- I WOULD have had PLay Pretend up as well, but I've decided to leave that, as well as anything else I can find (perhaps Gh5sts), to be posted on New Years. Look forward to it!!!!!