The skies tore apart the moment the first trumpet sounded.
What was once azure and endless cracked like fragile glass, spilling divine fire upon a world already drowning in its own defiance. Cities trembled beneath the weight of judgment; stone and steel melted alike under Heaven's fury. The heavens had not come to listen. They had come to silence.
Cries rose—not just from human lips, but from the throats of angels cast from their high thrones, their wings scorched by the flames of disobedience. Some fell in battle. Others… fell by choice.
Among the chaos, a figure stood still amidst the ruin—aloof and radiant even as blood streaked the white of her robe. Sound wrapped around her like a second skin, resonating in subtle ripples only the unseen could hear. Her eyes, once silver like starlight, held no fear. Only sorrow.
A voice echoed through the flames—harsh, commanding, celestial.
"Those who betray the Throne shall be stripped of their grace."
She didn't look up. She already knew who spoke. And she knew what would follow.
She closed her eyes and whispered—not a prayer, but a farewell.
Now
The city was a fractured hymn of silence and static.
Perched atop a rusted tower of forgotten tech and tangled ivy, she listened to the broken rhythms of a world still limping toward survival. Wind whispered through broken antennas like flutes played by ghosts. Somewhere below, neon flickered against crumbling stone—remnants of two eras refusing to let go of one another.
The fallen angel watched.
To mortals, she would have seemed ethereal—too clean, too still, too… unbothered. But within, every beat of the earth echoed in her being. She had given up Heaven, but not her purpose.
She searched—not just for a sign, but for him.
He wouldn't remember the war. Not truly. Just fragments in dreams, perhaps. Songs that haunted him. But she remembered him. The child who had once dared to sing amidst the ashes.
The one who was now a man.
He tuned the last string and let it hum.
The sound was imperfect—slightly flat, worn like the guitar itself—but he let it settle. Perfection didn't suit this world anymore. Not since the sky burned. Not since silence became the default melody of life.
His name was Caleb. Just Caleb. No titles, no grand lineage. Just a man with rough fingers and a stubborn heart who carried music like a scar he refused to cover.
He sat by the cracked window of a forgotten chapel-turned-shelter, surrounded by relics: broken pews, old circuitry, candle stubs barely clinging to wax. A fusion of old faith and scavenged tech. It was his sanctuary.
Outside, the wind carried ash and whispers. Inside, he played.
Notes drifted like feathers, soft and uncertain, rising through the air as if searching for someone to hear them. To understand. To answer.
He didn't know why he played anymore. Maybe to remember. Maybe to forget. Or maybe because she had once told him music could mend things the world didn't know how to heal.
She.
That memory was vague. A presence, more than a face. A voice that sounded like starlight and mourning. He often wondered if it had been real, or just something his mind had conjured during the darkest nights after the Fall.
But tonight, something was different.
He paused mid-strum. A shiver ran through his spine—not of cold, but of recognition.
Someone was listening.
Not from the street, not from the city below. From above. Somewhere between sky and silence.
He looked up.
The moonlight traced the silhouette of a figure on a distant rooftop. Unmoving. Watching.
And though he could not see her clearly, something deep within him stirred.
A note played in his chest—a memory, a longing.