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RE: Beneath the Wings of a Fallen Angel - Short Story
What I loved the most of this epic ending, as rightfully defined by cyemela is the weaving of the horrors of war with the alchemic, daemonologic theme.
The description of the woman with parchment skin was truly horrific and the whole scene made me think of something coming out from St. John's Apocalypse.
The end was intense and evocative in its climax.. poor Katia!
The faceless child last sentence was particularly spot on, have to say. An authentic demonic yearning reveals in that sentence, at the point that I'm not really feeling at ease to write about it before going to sleep (!!)..And, by the way, a reminder to myself to stay away from your creative diary!
Thanks @f3nix. I tried to do some research for this one but a lot of the scenes just came naturally from my internal landscape. The mingling of war and daemonic influence made me feel really happy when it first came in to my mind and the way that the story incorporated those themes too was one of the things that made me proud of this story. It is also why I just let it off the leash in regards to word count. It is hard to build subtext in so few words or very skillful and I'm not quite their yet ;-)
Anyway, I'm glad it inspired truly horrific feelings. The last sentence by the faceless child actually comes from a dream I had a few months back. I suffer from night terrors, thankful less often than I did as teenager. They can be the most intense experience and I once had to go to hospital as I'd broken my knuckles punching the wall in my sleep but they were much worse when I was young ;-) I now make sure the bed I sleep in is never pushed up against the wall. Anyway, in the dream there was a daemon stalking me and it kept taking the face of all of my friends and loved ones. I was running away from them all and everywhere I turned another friend smiling and sanctuary only to have the face change into that of a daemon. Finally I turned to my friend who died around 5 years ago and his face changed and it spoke a variation of those words.
"YOU ARE MINE. YOUR SOUL IS IN MY HANDS. I HAVE COLLECTED YOU AND EVERYONE YOU HAVE EVERY LOVED."Fucked up ehh? I got used to these types of dreams many moons ago but they still terrify me for 5-10 seconds after I wake then I can dismiss them quite quickly.
Great material for horror stories though :-)
Great material indeed, Rowan, and you don't know how much I understand you.. mostly when a teenager and in my childhood I suffered from recurring nightmares and I'd say true visions of hell and demons.. My reaction is the same as yours, as I learned with time to recognize them, even within the dream itself. You know, that was a sort of self-defense mechanism, preserving me from when the horror was going to reveal.. At a point, from inside the nightmare I was just "hell no.. this has to stop now, I'm not going through all this". This developed in me some lucid-dream episodes. There are some things I would not write about.. I think they're a bit too much but, generally, all these dives into darkness are a source of inspiration, I agree with you ^_^