Transgression

by Brandy C. Ange

  “So why do so many people hate God?” Achaia asked, confused. “You make Him sound really generous.”

  “He is,” Olivier said.

  Yellaina cleared her throat. “I think every person who hates God probably has their own reason. And a lot of people just don’t know Him, or can’t understand Him, and so they give up, or get frustrated. But He is love. He isn’t just loving, He is love.” She looked over to Noland who was now leaning up against the wall, with one of his legs tucked up underneath him on the seat. He nodded at her encouragingly.

  “That just sounds like some kind of fairy tale, He can’t be that perfect,” Achaia said, shaking her head. Noland looked at Achaia and frowned slightly.

  “He is perfect,” Yellaina said bluntly, turning her focus back to Achaia. “He is the only being who is. Even we angels are fallen, and messed up. Humanity, made in God’s image doesn’t even reflect just how perfect He is.”

  “Then why do bad things happen?” Achaia asked. “If He loved humanity so much, what about war, and all the crime?”

  “Because God is love. He isn’t a dictator. He gave people free will, to choose Him. Not to mindlessly follow Him because they had to. But unfortunately, a lot of people haven’t chosen Him. People took their free will, and many have done terrible things with it. I mean just look at what Lucifer did when given just a little bit of wiggle room! He has punished thousands for the things they have done. But He promised to not flood the whole earth again. He won’t destroy it again like He did with Noah. It hurt Him so deeply to do it. There has never been that much weeping in heaven. The angels closest to God are still in mourning. He wants everyone to have time to choose Him before He comes back to earth. So the humans have missionaries and preachers… They go around and try to tell as many other humans as possible,” Yellaina said smiling. She could see the hope God had for people in that.

  “But eventually He will come back, and the earth will be cleansed, and heaven will come down,” Noland said plainly. “The world, the way it is, has to end eventually. This wasn’t what God had in mind when He created everything. He didn’t want crime and war. He wanted love, and peace.”

  “I don’t know. That just all seems like—that’s just a bit much for me,” Achaia said honestly, shrugging. “I’m sorry,” she said looking around at their faces.

  “After seeing angels and demons, you have a hard time believing there’s a God who loves?” Yellaina asked a little defensively, she couldn’t help feeling disappointed. She couldn’t understand how Achaia didn’t get it.

  “Yeah,” Achaia said, as though it shouldn’t be that hard to believe. “I’ve seen evil my entire life. Demons make sense. The angels I’ve seen, you guys excluded, didn’t look that different from demons, not inside, if I’m being honest.” Achaia shrugged again, her tone was genuine, and calm. “So yeah, believing there is an army of creatures out there who hate humanity, but are forced to protect it, and are at war with each other? Not a stretch. But a God who loves? And just loves, though the people He made are sick and twisted, and do nothing but spit in His face… And they are supposed to be made in His image? Yeah, it’s a bit unbelievable.” Achaia’s face had gone pink, she took a breath.

  “Hey.” Noland put a hand on Achaia’s knee, and one up, in Yellaina’s direction, signaling for her to drop it.

  Yellaina felt a little like a child being smacked on the wrist, and was embarrassed to feel even more deserving of it.

  “It’s a lot to take in.” Noland said lowering his hand back down. “I don’t blame you,” he said looking directly at Achaia. “Our parents knew God face to face, were with Him for eternity and couldn’t believe His love, and they betrayed Him, knowing Him.” Noland looked at Yellaina, and she felt ashamed for not being more understanding and gracious. He looked back to Achaia and went on, “God is God. No one just understands Him, and gets it. Faith is that gap, between knowing and believing. Sometimes I think the fallen forget their place. They judge humanity so harshly for their sins, but they chose to betray God to His face. The Nephilim have less faith than men.”

  “So how do you get it?” Achaia asked, quietly, looking directly at Noland. “If it isn’t from seeing Him?”

  Yellaina wished she could just disappear into the back of her seat. Her stomach felt like someone had put it in a blender. She felt like she was burning, and knew it showed in the color on her cheeks.

  Noland answered her, “You experience Him. It comes with getting to know what you can about Him. And with time.” He smiled at Achaia encouragingly.

  Olivier reached over and took Yellaina’s hand. She flinched in surprise before looking back at him. He was smiling at her sympathetically. She squeezed his hand back but didn’t smile. She resigned herself to stay quiet and just look out of the window, watching the dark silhouettes pass by outside. As much as she felt like they needed Achaia to pledge allegiance to God, she knew that pushing her wasn’t the way to do it. She needed to have patience.

  Yellaina had climbed onto the bunk above Olivier’s and gone to bed first. Olivier dosed off, not long after, still sitting up on his bed. Achaia sat on the bottom bed with Noland. “Why wouldn’t my dad have told me about Him?” They were speaking softly about God, and Luc, and Achaia’s father, so as not to wake the others.

  “He probably didn’t want you to affiliate,” Noland whispered simply. “If you are completely ignorant of both sides, maybe he thought you stood a chance.”

  “Affiliate?” Achaia lowered her voice as Olivier slid down, and started snoring.

  “In the spiritual realms, every being has to pledge allegiance to someone, to something. Most commonly God, or Lucifer. It’s in our nature to serve something greater. Humans chase causes and that feeling of purpose. But fundamentally, we are created to worship God.”

  “What happens if you don’t choose a side?” Achaia asked, looking down at her hands, which were wrung together in her lap.

  “In Heaven the angels who wouldn’t choose a side, during the war, slipped away. They disappeared into the abyss.”

  “They disappeared? Where’d they go?”

  “Well, they aren’t in the heavenly realms, they aren’t in Hell, and they aren’t on Earth. They say they ceased to exist. Their nature was dispersed.”

  Achaia swallowed. Her palms were sweating. She couldn’t follow a God she didn’t even really believe in, and she couldn’t follow Lucifer, could she? But was Lucifer really all that bad? He had been her father’s best friend.

  “It’s choose or be chosen,” Noland said softly. “I guess your father thought that if you didn’t know either side, that you might be spared. But in the end, it’s choose, or be chosen, or cease.” Noland was looking at her with a sympathetic stare.

  “How do you know if you’re already chosen?” Achaia asked, worried.

  “No one can take your will away. You’re half human. You will always have a say. You choose when you’re ready.”

  “What if I can’t?” Achaia asked, looking back up from her hands into his face. “What if no one wants me on their side?”

  Noland reached over and put a hand on her knee and smiled sympathetically. “Kaya, you’re not all that bad.”

  Achaia huffed a laugh. The train came to a stop with a small jerk, and Achaia bumped Noland’s hand with hers. He pulled his hand back away from her leg, his cheeks flushing slightly. More people were boarding, walking through the hall to their cabins. Glancing at Noland’s watch, she was shocked to see it was almost eleven-thirty.

  “It’s not really like choosing teams in gym at school,” Noland recovered, and smiled wider, “and thank God, because whose idea was it to let cruel, hormonal teenagers choose their own teams?” Noland looked utterly flummoxed. “Emile had a full time job consoling the cast-offs of high school society.” Noland cocked an eyebrow at her and smirked.

  Achaia laughed. “Yeah, I was always picked last. No one ever knew me.”

  Noland smiled at her. “I wasn’t chosen at all.” />
  Achaia was shocked. Noland was a huge athletic guy, he should have been the first any sane person would pick.

  “But it was only because I didn’t change out into gym clothes.” Noland assured her with a phony air of arrogance.

  Achaia laughed and smacked his leg playfully. She liked this Noland, laid back, relaxed, even funny.

  “I didn’t know humans did that. Your schools are so ill-equipped,” he mocked.

  Achaia rolled her eyes, and shook her head, smiling at him. She checked her phone quickly to see if Naphtali had responded, he hadn’t.

  Noland seemed to take this as her checking the time, and probably thought she was tired. “Anyway, we should get some sleep.” The corner of his mouth twitched up in a sort of lip-shrug. “Off to bed, pip pip!” He tugged at the covers under her.

  Achaia stood, smacking his hands. “Did you just ‘pip pip’, me?” She whispered. “Who says that in real life?”

  “The same guy who kicks down doors in ‘real life’.” Noland smirked.

  Achaia smiled, thinking back to the day he had kicked down the door to her apartment. The day her father had been taken. It felt like a lifetime had passed. And yet, she didn’t want to think about how long it had been; how long her father had been held who-knew-where.

  “Besides, sleep is lovely, and you look like you have Great Expectations.”

  “Great expectations of sleep?” she asked, climbing up onto her bunk. “You’re weird.”

  “And you need to read more classic literature. So you can get my puns. It’s my favorite thing about humans.”

  Achaia rolled her eyes, and pulled the covers down. “Puns? Or literature?”

  Noland chuckled. “Yes.”

  Achaia giggled as she slid underneath her covers, and pulled them up to her chin. “You really just like their books?”

  “More like their ability to create.” Noland said seriously. “Made in the image of the Creator, they possess so much creativity.”

  Achaia hadn’t ever really thought about it.

  “Kaya,” Noland whispered, after Achaia had gotten settled in her bunk.

  “Yeah?” She whispered back.

  “What is ‘real life’?” Noland chortled.

  “I don’t know! Shut up!” Achaia whispered back giggling.

  After a few minutes, Achaia could hear the deep breathing of all the others. She had just started wondering if Noland had fallen asleep yet, when he whispered her name again.

  “Yeah?” She whispered back, rolling onto her side, facing the edge of the bed.

  “I’d pick you first,” Noland whispered, “for my team, I mean.”

  Achaia smiled, she felt her throat close up, and couldn’t understand why her eyes were tearing. “Corny much?” She whispered back, trying to sound like she was laughing, and not choked up.

  “I don’t get the opportunity often. I had to make it count.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “These other people actually take me for serious,” Noland whispered with a laugh.

  Achaia silently hoped he was serious and not making fun of her. She had never had friends like this. If she was honest, she wasn’t picked last for teams, she wasn’t picked at all and was always assigned to a team by default. Her last thought before falling asleep was that she wouldn’t let that be the case this time. She would pick her own team. She would choose.

  Noland lay in bed, listening. He could hear everyone’s breathing. He could tell Achaia had fallen asleep, but she was restless in the bunk above him. He wondered if she was having a nightmare…

  He wasn’t sure if she had been making fun of him, or not. She was a hard person to read. He made a mental note not to be vulnerable with her unless he could see her face. He turned over onto his side, facing the wall, prayed for Achaia to have sweeter dreams, and tried to sleep.

  Achaia was in a vacuum of shadows. As she tried to fly away, the demons grabbed at her wings. Pain shot through her as, with the cracking of bones, they broke them. Achaia cried out, and fell to her knees. The shadows clawed at her and yanked her up to her feet, tying her to a pole. Achaia imagined the Salem witch trials, and wondered if they were going to burn her alive.

  Another horde of demons advanced before her. They parted down the center, and out of the mass a man was dragged by his arms. Her father. He was beaten, and bloody. She couldn’t tell if he was conscious, but they tied him to another pole, facing her. “Choose,” a low booming voice yelled. “Choose!”

  Shael walked with Luc down one of the many icy tunnels through the catacombs. They were on their way to the arena for more blood games. Shael had worked his way up to the higher ranking demons. However, the demons, out of fear of being challenged had stopped telling him what their rankings were. Shael had been forced to deduce who was higher than him, by weeding out the ones who with sighs of relief informed him they were beneath him. This had slightly slowed his progress. Prolonging Luc’s entertainment, however, had worked toward getting Shael back into his good graces.

  “It’s nice to finally have some excitement around here.” Luc said rubbing his hands together greedily. “I love a good bloodbath.”

  Shael was sore, and tired, and felt like he was dying, but he smiled and laughed, like he couldn’t be enjoying himself more. “I’ve missed this,” he lied.

  Luc grinned from ear to ear, laughing with excitement.

  Shael stopped in his tracks. At the end of the tunnel a cloud was forming. A breeze that came from nowhere, rushed passed them, making Shael’s hair rise on the back of his neck. The mass neared, like a tide of ashes crashing over them. In the waves, Shael could hear whispered voices. He hated the shadows. The sheer mass of them. They were overwhelming. He caught snippets of what they were whispering to Luc. They were going somewhere, to someone. They wouldn’t disappoint him.

  Shael had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Who they were going after? When the tide of demons had washed out, and passed by them, Shael looked at Luc.

  “They do have a flare for the dramatic,” Luc said fixing his spiked black hair, which had been swept to the side. “But I kind of like that about them.” Luc looked giddily excited.

  “What are you up to?” Shael asked, trying to sound curious rather than suspicious.

  Luc clapped him on the shoulder. “Just a little surprise. You’ll have to wait and see!”

  This didn’t comfort Shael. He continued down the hall, following Luc. He silently prayed, that wherever that throng of demons was headed, it was nowhere near Achaia.

  The next morning at breakfast, Achaia noticed a lot of new faces in the dining car. She assumed they had gotten on at the stop they’d made during the night before. She picked at her plate of scrambled eggs and ate a bite of tomato. The others were all talking, but she wasn’t following the conversation. She was thinking about everything they had talked about the night before.

  Outside the window she watched towns and countryside fly by. She yawned, and set down her fork, picking up her coffee. She hadn’t slept well at all. Her mind was racing, but it felt foggy and unfocused. She looked across the table at Emile, who was turned talking to Noland across the aisle of the train. She locked eyes with a little boy sitting at the table behind Emile. He stared at her without blinking.

  Achaia, thinking the little boy was challenging her to a staring contest, leaned forward on the table and stared back at him. Then, the little boy’s face went colder, and turned pale. Achaia squinted, thinking she must have imagined it. The little boy blinked, and blinked again, quickly, to relieve his eyes. This was perfectly normal. What was not, was that, between blinks, his eyes had been entirely black.

  Achaia stared back more closely. But the boy looked perfectly normal. He stuck his tongue out at her and turned his attention back to his breakfast. His mother said something to him in what sounded like Russian. Probably fussing at him to eat. Achaia shook her head and took another sip of her coffee.

  She told herself she must have imagined it. But she felt uneasy. She h
ad that annoying feeling that someone behind her was watching her, and turned casually as if to look next to her at Amelia, to check the rest of the dining car.

  Every person at the tables lining the train behind her was staring at her with eyes that were completely black. Achaia dropped her coffee mug with a loud clatter of china.

  “Achaia?” Emile asked startled. “Why are you scared?” He asked in a low voice.

  “Those people. They—” she turned to point behind her. Table upon table was full of families and travelers, talking quietly together, enjoying their breakfast. “Their eyes…” Achaia said, looking around confused. Only now, the only people looking at her, looked confused as to why she was staring at them.

  “What’s up?” Amelia asked, giving her a what’s-wrong-with-you, look.

  “They were…” Achaia looked back at the little boy. He was shoving something green around his plate with his fork, looking skeptical, but otherwise like a normal little boy. “Nothing,” Achaia finished.

  “You’re probably tired. Olivier probably kept you up snoring,” Noland said with a smile.

  “I don’t snore!” Olivier said defensively.

  “Yes, you do.” Noland, Achaia, Emile, and Amelia all said together. Everyone else laughed, but Noland gave Achaia a look of concern.

  “I’m going to go take a shower. Maybe that will help me wake up.” Achaia said squeezing past Amelia out of their table to leave the dining car.

  “See you back in the room,” Olivier said, recovering from his dismay.

  After retrieving her bathroom bag from their cabin, Achaia went to the end of the train car where there was a small lavatory with a shower. She locked the door behind her and hopped in the shower, scrubbing her face with the soap Yellaina had given her. She breathed in the refreshing scent of lemon and oregano. It stung in the cuts still healing on her face, which definitely woke her up.