It was an evening like any other in the small town of Eldergrove, except for the fact that something had begun to stir beneath the surface, unnoticed by its residents. The streets were as quiet as they always were, save for the occasional distant rumble of thunder.
The sort of night where the town seemed almost suspended, as if time had momentarily halted. Yet beneath the calm facade, a ripple of something ancient, something forgotten, had begun to awaken.
It started with a sound, barely perceptible, like a whisper traveling through the wind. A faint rustling from the darkest corner of the town. Then there was movement. The kind of movement that usually went unnoticed by the busy eyes of everyday life. But this time, it was different.
A mouse.
It was just a small creature, with soft brown fur and twitching whiskers. It scurried along the edge of an alleyway, slipping through cracks in the old, crumbling buildings of Eldergrove. To anyone who happened to glance its way, it would have appeared as just another rodent, nothing special.
But there was something unsettling about this mouse. It moved with purpose, not like a typical scavenger, darting aimlessly from one hiding spot to another. No, this one seemed to be searching, as if it knew where it was going.
But no one noticed. No one cared. The town was too wrapped up in its quiet routine, too used to the presence of such small things. The mouse moved on, slipping into shadows, unnoticed as it continued its strange journey through the town.
But as it moved deeper into the heart of Eldergrove, something strange began to happen. Its small form trembled slightly, as though it were caught in a gust of wind that no one else could feel.
The air grew heavier around it, the very space it occupied seeming to grow thick with an unnatural weight. The mouse paused, its fur bristling as if responding to something unseen. It looked up, its small eyes narrowing as it scanned the environment around it.
A flash of light, a sharp crack in the stillness, and the mouse collapsed to the ground, twitching and convulsing. Its body writhed, contorting in ways no creature should ever have to. Its tiny heart pounded in its chest as its form began to shift, morphing into something unrecognizable.
Its bones cracked, skin rippling and splitting, and in place of the fragile creature that had once been, something else emerged—something far darker. The mouse's small body twisted, elongated, transforming into an entity that was both alien and familiar.
Its once small, insignificant frame now stood tall, imposing in its sheer size, towering over the surrounding landscape. The wings, once mere memories in the creature's psyche, unfurled from its back, dark feathers fluttering as the creature's transformation completed.
It was no longer a mouse.
It was something far older, far more powerful.
The angel had come.
The creature's wings stretched out, their span wide and terrifying. Its eyes, once black and void of meaning, now shone with an eerie, unnatural light. The ground trembled beneath its feet as it rose into the air, its gaze sweeping over the town that it would soon bring to its knees.
A cold breeze swept through the town as the angel's presence seeped into every crack and crevice, every corner, every forgotten place. It was as though the entire town was suddenly aware of it, its very essence washing over the residents who would never know what had been unleashed upon them.
The first victim was an old man named Charles. He lived alone in a small cottage at the edge of town, having outlived most of his family and friends. His days were spent in quiet solitude, reminiscing about the life he once had.
He wasn't afraid of death—he had come to terms with it long ago. But there was one thing that haunted him still: the idea of being forgotten. The thought that, when his time came, no one would remember him.
That night, as Charles lay in his bed, an unsettling presence filled the room. The air grew thick, the shadows in the corners seeming to stretch unnaturally long. His heart began to race as he sat up, his breath coming in short, uneven gasps. Something was wrong, something was in the room with him.
He turned toward the door, but before he could move, the creature was there. It didn't enter through the door; it didn't need to. It simply appeared, like a nightmare made flesh, standing at the foot of his bed. Its wings, vast and dark, stretched outward, casting a shadow that seemed to swallow the room whole.
Charles gasped, his voice trembling as he tried to speak. "W-who... what are you?"
The angel's eyes glowed with an otherworldly light, but its voice—when it spoke—was low and heavy, as though it carried the weight of centuries. "I am the reckoning," it said, its voice echoing in the stillness of the room. "I have come to make you face what you have hidden, what you have buried deep within yourself."
Charles trembled. His heart raced. "I—I don't understand. What are you talking about?"
The angel stepped closer, its presence overwhelming, suffocating. "You fear being forgotten," it whispered, the words seeping into Charles' very soul. "You fear that when you die, no one will remember you. But your fear is your curse. You will be forgotten. No one will remember your name. You are nothing but a shadow in the passing of time."
The old man's chest tightened as a suffocating darkness filled the room. His body trembled, and his breath came in shallow gasps. "No... no," he whispered. "Please..."
The angel reached out, its hand hovering just above Charles' head. And in that moment, the walls of the room seemed to collapse. The air around him cracked and shifted, and he was no longer in his bedroom. He was somewhere else—somewhere dark and oppressive, a place where the very air felt thick and suffocating.
The ground beneath him seemed to bend and warp, and the faces of those he had known, those he had loved, appeared around him, their eyes empty and cold. They were all gone. They had forgotten him. They had moved on with their lives, and Charles was left behind.
"You will be forgotten," the angel whispered again. "You are nothing."
Charles opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came. He fell to his knees, choking on the overwhelming sense of dread and despair that washed over him. The memories, the faces, the voices—they all slipped away, leaving him in the void, a forgotten soul in a forgotten place.
------
The angel's work had only begun. It moved through Eldergrove like a shadow, unseen but ever-present. It sought out its victims, one by one, each chosen for the darkness that lay within them, each destined to face the horrors they had buried deep inside themselves.
The next was Evelyn, a woman young and full of potential, yet burdened by a secret she could never reveal. She had spent years trying to bury it, trying to convince herself that it didn't matter. But deep down, she knew it did. She knew that if anyone found out, her life would be over.
That night, as she lay in her bed, the angel came for her as well. It appeared before her, silent and menacing, its wings casting long shadows that seemed to stretch out of the room and into her very soul. Evelyn woke with a start, her heart pounding in her chest as she scrambled to sit up, her eyes wide with terror.
"No," she whispered, recognizing the creature. "Not you. Please."
"You can never escape," the angel's voice rumbled, cold and unyielding. "Your secret will destroy you. It already has."
Evelyn tried to run, but before she could move, the room around her began to warp and twist, distorting into a nightmare of her own creation. Her father appeared before her, his eyes cold and accusing. "You've been hiding," he said, his voice filled with venom. "You can't escape your past, Evelyn. It will always find you."
The angel stood in the shadows, its wings unfurled, waiting.
"You will never be free," it whispered again.
Evelyn's body shook as she fell to her knees, the weight of her guilt suffocating her. She had tried to move on, tried to build a life, but the past would never let her go.
------
The last was Thomas, a man hardened by years of war, a man who had seen the horrors of battle and survived them. But even the strongest men carry scars—some invisible, some not. Thomas had always believed that he had left the war behind him, that he had moved on.
But the angel knew better. It had seen the darkness in his heart, the things he had done that could never be undone.
Thomas awoke one night to the familiar feeling of dread settling over him. He had seen the creature before, in the shadows of his memories, in the quiet spaces between his waking moments. And now it had returned.
It appeared at the foot of his bed, its wings stretching out behind it, filling the room with an unnatural darkness.
"You can't escape," the angel's voice echoed in his mind. "The war never ends. It lives inside you, in every breath, every step. You carry it with you, and it will never leave."
Thomas tried to move, tried to fight, but his limbs felt heavy, as though the weight of his past was pulling him down. The room around him shifted, and he was no longer in his apartment. He was back in the war, back in the chaos, the blood, the screams of the fallen. His comrades—his brothers—lay dead at his feet, their eyes staring up at him, accusing him.
"You should have saved them," the angel whispered, its voice a hiss in his ear.
Thomas sank to his knees, his body trembling with the weight of everything he had done, everything he had failed to do. The war had never ended for him, and it never would.
------
The angel had come to Eldergrove to awaken the buried horrors of the past. It had made its victims face their fears, their guilt, their deepest regrets. It had shown them the darkness within themselves, the parts they had long ago tried to bury.
And when it had finished, when it had torn apart the last shred of hope in each of their souls, it disappeared. Leaving nothing behind but broken people, lost to their own demons.
And Eldergrove remained a ghost town, haunted by the memories of those who had lived there—and by the angel that had come to awaken them.