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I shut s we humans aren’t meant to see Josiah’s shocked face burns out ofinto hell

35

This isn’t the same as the last time I went into Beliel’s memory This time, it hurts

Every cell in my body cries from the pain of it Hopefully, it’s becausewithto pop froround

My sto where they hit the ground

No wonder the hellions were so disoriented when they landed on Angel Island I feel like I just got rolled as flat as pizza dough and slapped onto the ground

I also feel like I’s

I force myself to roll over and open my eyes There’s really no time for recovery when you’ve just landed in hell

The sky – if it is a sky – is a cracked purple black with darker blotches The weak light throws a purple cast over the hulking shadows abovedown atat They reels, but I don’t think they are They also remind me of demons, but I don’t think they’re those either

Their open wings look y, and what’s left of their feathers look like dried leaves on a dead tree The exposed parts of the wings look cracked and leathery The wing bones are splintered, sticking out painfully through the edges of the wings Many of the bone splinters have curled into a sickle shape, not entirely unlike Raffe’s de that shocks h it probably shouldn’t, is that one of these guys is Beliel It shouldn’t surprise me since I did jump into his memory – or a world in which he has a memory – or whatever So of course, Beliel would be here

But he looks different For one thing, his wings are neither the des They’re half dark and half still covered with tufts of sunset feathers

I guess since I’ht have jumped in time and space, but that’s tooBesides, I don’t have tiht, I see that Beliel stares in my direction with empty sockets

Beliel is blind

It takes me a second to convince myself that it really is him He has deep lash marks across his cheeks and nose He’s been whipped in the face He also has gouge marks around his eye sockets

The others don’t look od face and another half that looks like it’s been chewed off Without their injuries, I can tell that they would have been perfect specied bodies, I can see we’re in a war zone or, at least, what’s left of one The buildings are burned out, the broken trees are charred, and the vehicles are ss, trees, and vehicles They don’t look like ours, but the hulking shapes look like they used to be inhabited a long ti that looks like stunted cacti that have been storound And there is debris strewn around that looks vaguely like wagon wheels

A nonangel with canary-yellow feathers reaches foronly the glistening rabs me by the hair and yanks me up to my feet

‘What is it?’ asks Beliel ‘Can we eat it?’ I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anythingthan empty eye sockets, especially on someone I know, even if it’s Beliel