The air was thick with panic, the sound of ragged breaths and pounding footsteps echoing across the wasteland. The Wing Reaper’s cry pierced the night like a fingernails to a blackboard, and though our legs were already in motion, our minds were scrambled with desperation.
“Run!” Meryl shouted again, practically dragging me forward as the thin rain drifted down onto the cracked earth. There were no rocks, no mud—just endless, level ground beneath our feet, firm and unforgiving.
Sherry was ahead of us, her sword in hand and her teeth gritted as she glanced back toward the thing above us. The Wing Reaper flapped its vast, leathery wings, its grotesque vulture-pterodactyl body soaring with sickening grace. Its eyes gleamed like wet yellow marbles, hollow and insatiable.
It didn’t just want to chase us. It wanted to eat us.
“Shit, shit, shit—Barrett, you’re slowing down!” Meryl yelled. “He’s too hurt!”
“I’m trying!” I gasped, each word torn from my lungs. My shoulder screamed with every step, still raw from the wolf’s mauling, the ravaged tissue barely holding together. My legs felt like rusted machinery, grinding against the weight of blood loss and adrenaline.
“He’s right,” Sherry barked, doubling back toward us. “He can’t outrun that thing in this state. We need a plan or we're all dead.”
I nearly stumbled again, my sword dragging limply behind me. “Any suggestions?”
The Wing Reaper let out a hungry shriek, dipping lower now, its talons carving shallow grooves in the earth with each swooping pass. A gust of wind slammed into us as it flew by, nearly knocking us off balance.
“That treeline up ahead,” Sherry shouted, pointing to a distant rise of blackened trees rising from the flatness like skeletal hands. “It can’t dive through cover like that. If we make it there, we’ll be safe!”
Meryl looked up at the monster’s dive path, calculating. “If we weave side to side, we’ll make it harder for it to target us. Barrett, can you do that?”
I gritted my teeth. “If I say no, do I get a better option?”
Sherry huffed and pulled me forward. “Then we haul ass and pray.”
“Rumiel!” Meryl called out suddenly, eyes to the sky. “Now would be a really, really great time for some J?gerbombs! We need wings, stat!”
Nothing.
“Rumiel, come on!” Sherry shouted. “You dumped us in this hellhole. You at least owe us a signal if you're planning to let us die!”
Still nothing.
No voice in our heads. No shimmer of light. Not even a whisper on the wind.
The Wing Reaper let out another screech and dive-bombed.
“Move!” Meryl pushed us down just in time as its talons sliced through the air above us. One of them raked across Meryl’s back, tearing through his clothes and flesh. His scream split the air.
“Meryl!” I tried to turn toward him, but Sherry yanked me forward.
“No time!”
He staggered up, shirt in tatters, blood painting the earth in small drops as he limped beside us. “Keep going!” he wheezed, breath ragged.
We were all injured now.
The Reaper circled again, its soulless eyes finding Sherry. The sound it made as it descended was like metal tearing through the sky. Sherry barely got her sword up in time—the blow sent her flying like a ragdoll, her scream cutting straight through me. She hit the ground hard, rolling once before lying still, her leg twisted at a wrong angle, blood starting to seep into the dry earth.
“Sherry!” I cried, panic flaring.
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“I’m fine,” she spat, even though her face twisted in agony. “Just—move!”
“No one’s getting left behind,” Meryl grunted, lifting her up with his good arm.
We pushed forward, stumbling, dragging each other toward the treeline. The Wing Reaper shrieked again—closer, hungrier.
We were almost there.
And then I fell.
The flat earth, as smooth as it was, had no debris, no rocks—nothing to trip on. But that didn’t matter. My legs had become lead. Each stride was like wading through honey with a knife in my shoulder and fire in my chest. I pushed too hard, too fast, and my balance betrayed me. My knees buckled mid-sprint, and my momentum pitched me forward. I slammed face-first into the ground, air rushing out of my lungs in a pathetic grunt. My sword skidded out of reach, my body screaming as every injury I’d been ignoring made itself known in a single, brutal impact.
I barely had time to scream before the talons closed around me.
The world flipped. I was airborne. The Reaper gripped me tightly, its claws like iron hooks digging into my torso. My sword fell away. The ground retreated.
“Barrett!” Sherry’s voice cracked from below.
I struggled and kicked, pain blooming in my ribs. But the beast’s grip held firm. It wasn’t going to drop me. It was going to devour me.
And through the storm of wind and panic, there was nothing I could do besides scream. “RUMIEL!”
This time the sky answered.
“ONE PART LIGHT, TWO PARTS RETRIBUTION, A DASH OF HOLY LIGHT, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, NO CHASER!”
A crack split the heavens—louder than thunder, sharper than steel. The gray clouds peeled back as if the sky itself had been torn open. A column of blinding white light surged down from above, burning hotter and brighter than a supernova. The rain froze in midair as time seemed to stutter.
It struck the Wing Reaper dead center.
The beast screeched—a horrible, gurgling sound that twisted through the air like rusted metal dragged across bone. Its wings spasmed as the divine light seared through its flesh, cutting past sinew and bone like paper. Holy fire spread across its feathers, incinerating its skin in a blossoming halo of radiant energy.
I felt the heat from where I was trapped in its talons—intense but not painful, like standing in the eye of a cleansing storm. The Reaper tried to retreat, flapping wildly, but the light pinned it in place like a frog before dissection. Its body began to fracture, glowing cracks zigzagging across its frame. The monstrous screeches became wet and panicked. Its eyes—those hungry, soulless marbles—burst like overripe fruit.
Wing Reaper defeated!
The light surged again, expanding like a flare. For a single, infinite moment, the entire wasteland was illuminated in pure white.
And I fell.
Into a gentle caress.
Warm. Trembling. Strangely, human.
We hit the earth together, the impact softened by something unseen. I coughed, blinking against the haze.
“Rumiel.”
She lay beside me, her form charred at the edges, her once-glowing wings twisted and dim. Her robe was torn, halo cracked like broken glass.
“You’re… heavy,” she muttered.
“You’re… late,” I wheezed.
Behind us, the Wing Reaper’s burning corpse slammed into the wasteland and disintegrated in a violent flash. Shards of bone and smoke scattered, vanishing into the wind.
And in that moment, something else happened.
A soft wave of light pulsed out from Rumiel’s broken wings. It spread across the wasteland like a ripple in water, washing over Sherry and Meryl.
Their wounds vanished.
Meryl’s shredded back—smooth again, untouched.
Sherry’s twisted leg—straightened, whole.
I looked down.
My shoulder. My ribs. Even the blood on my chest had dried to dust. Every injury I’d suffered was gone—erased by that sacred pulse.
“What the hell was that?” Meryl asked, standing tall, his expression caught between awe and confusion.
“Divine intervention,” Rumiel muttered, struggling to sit up. “Last-minute variety.”
“You could’ve done that sooner!” Sherry shouted, fists clenched, tears in her eyes.
“I tried,” Rumiel argued, sincerity in her eyes. “But he found out.”
“Who?” I asked.
She looked up at the clouds—once glowing, now quiet.
“God.”
The rain stopped.
The sky dimmed.
“He found out I was helping you,” she said, her voice low. “And now I’m not allowed back up there.”
“What does that mean?” Meryl asked.
“It means,” Rumiel said, glancing at us with a smile that couldn’t hide her fear, “I’m stuck here. With you.”
And with that, the last remnants of heaven’s glow vanished, leaving only the silence of the wasteland—and the sound of our hearts still racing from the ordeal.
