Chapter Text
Ending up in Memphis is the last unplanned thing in a series of decisions you made like a dart throw. Under your feet is concrete and concrete and concrete no matter where it seems you’re walking; every muscle in your body is sore. Every bone every tissue every organ. The acid in your stomach snarls for lack of anything to whet its teeth on, you can’t think straight, you keep walking.
The sound of rain isn’t so relaxing when you’re stranded out in it. You’re living inside of a song, and you know how it ends. Your life is now the sort of music people cry to, more cathartic than mournful. You’d trade places with the matchstick girl if it made you less despicable. You’re so made of nothing but water, you don’t know how you don’t just wash away.
What you have to your name is a handful of ammunition and a gun with a title that mocks you. You’ve got three bullets, didn’t have time to machine any more after the last hit, or had time but didn’t take it, or didn’t think to; you can’t remember. Smug bastard. The upshot is that you’ve got three bullets, but you think you only need one. Your fingers are going stiff in the cold. You can feel rain pooling in the joint of your left elbow. Your fingers are all going stiff for two different reasons. You flex your left hand a little as you turn a street corner, you oughta fix that before it’s too late.
Ahead of you is something on fire, something bright orange and warm yellow and searing white. There’s a figure at the front of it, or you think-- can’t see legs, only the outline of head and arms. Bust in dark silhouette. You never did pay much attention in church as a kid, but you remember something about angels, look too close and they’ll kill you, ain’t that divine mercy. This one doesn’t have wings but you don’t think that matters.
As you stumble forward a couple steps, the figure speaks to you in a voice that vibrates. “Sir, are you alright?” There’s something in the tone like quicksilver under their tongue, a burning of the skin avoided; you want to reach out and touch and hope it bites your worthless fingers off. Licks of fire. You draw closer without speaking, hit your foot on something that rattles up your leg like a rollercoaster on a wooden trellis. “Sir?” You make your way up the steps without looking, feeling the edges of the world like Braille. Seven eyes glow orange from the angel’s forehead. You lift your right hand with frozen fingers spread to embrace it.
Something collides with you, full frontal like a drowning wave, dark and wet as the depths of the ocean. Your knees are gone from underneath you; you capsize, tip over backwards, and black out.