Izaiah was the only child of the Albers, sporting black wings like his parents. Due to his high intellect, incredible quick-thinking, and tech skills, he was accepted into the Penguin division. It was considered one of the top divisions, working directly for those with high standings in the government. And thus, their duties and responsibilities, as well as their actions were controlled and monitored more severely.
After a few years, Izaiah was considered one of the best intelligence agents working for the government however, he secretly worked with private agencies to gain an upper hand in the information circle. Although it went against his family's rule, his thirst for knowledge was just that strong.
Somewhere along the way, he met her. She worked for the government too, so he had seen her many times. Something about her pulled at him. Her sweet smile, her cute laugh, the way she carried herself with confidence. It didn't take long for them to start going out with each other and eventually led to their engagement. When he stared at their matching silver rings, it was the happiest moment in his life.
But after a few months, something had subtly changed. Izaiah noticed there were times when she was distracted, when it felt like she was keeping secrets from him, and worse, when she was lying to him. Eventually, it led to an argument and they decided to live apart for a while to cool off. But the worst was yet to come.
Like something out of a nightmare, a few days after their argument, he received a red alert that labelled his lover as a deviant accomplice. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. There was no way someone as heartwarming and compassionate as her would side with the depraved and crazed deviants. The angels who only told lies and caused destruction. There must have been a mistake.
He tried to find her first, he had to talk to her and get the story straight. Maybe he could explain to the higher ups that they were wrong. But by the time he found her, it was already too late. He found her slumped in a corner of her safe house, a place she had told him about in passing that she had saved for emergencies. She smiled a pretty smile as blood continued to stain her shirt.
"ɪ ᴋɴᴇᴡ ʏᴏᴜ'ᴅ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴛᴏ ғɪɴᴅ ᴍᴇ."
She was dying. From how pale she looked to how ragged her breathing sounded, she didn't have much time left. He couldn't even muster any words as he fell to his knees and held her hand. With the last of her strength, she pulled her engagement ring free from her necklace, scattering metal beads across the floor.
"ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ... ʟɪᴠᴇ ᴏɴ... ɴᴏ ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴡʜᴀᴛ. ɪ... ʟᴏᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜ..."
Those were her last words before she closed her eyes. Izaiah clutched her now lifeless hand. He didn't get to so much as say goodbye. Tears rolled down his face as his whole body shook uncontrollably. His screams of agony and pain seemingly ripping the very air. She was gone.
Her death put him in a dark place. He didn't have the will to put food in his mouth, he didn't want to sleep and then wake up to the cruel reality of her not being there, he didn't want to think about anything. But one day, he was dragged out of the abyss and began to devote himself to his work. Things seemed to return to how they were before he met her.
hold onto happiness because it is ever fleeting.
It was just another routine mission, to find the source of a bug that had slowed down a major company's servers. It felt like a wild goose chase, but he knew it was all part of the job. However, after fixing the issues, he noticed something extremely out of place. A puzzle. Due to his curiosity, he was compelled to solve it. At first glance, it seemed to be fairly simple. But as he put the pieces together, he could feel a searing pain start to radiate from the back of his neck.
The pain began to travel to his brain and almost overwhelmed him. But he forced himself to continue, like he was being led to finish what he had started. With the last of his willpower, the last piece was solved. With its completion, something seemed to activate, sending a wave of cold water over him, clearing his mind, and jarring him awake.
Memories started to fade away as old ones resurfaced. Izaiah was overcome with nausea but held on as he tried to accept all the new information. But once everything had settled down, he was left completely shaken. His family, his lineage, everything was a lie. It was a fantasy, a fabrication of a life that was never real to begin with. As he tried to remember his past, how he grew up, how he was raised, everything was blank. But what spurred him to action was when he recovered his memories of her.
He realized that his memories were not only supplemented but parts were also blocked. Someone was capable of tampering with his mind. When he looked at the completed puzzle, there was a string of letters and numbers which he quickly recognized as a secret message. As soon as he decoded it, what he found was just a few lines of text, a time and place. He knew exactly what he had to do next.
When it was almost the specified time, Izaiah quietly left his home. He made sure to avoid any eyes on him and stayed away from the street cameras. After some time, he had made it to the specified place, a park off the beaten path. At this time of night, it was completely deserted. He didn't know exactly where to wait or who was coming but he didn't care. He was prepared for anything as long as he got some answers. But what he wasn't prepared for was having a cloth of chloroform covering his nose and mouth. He could barely make out a tall figure as his vision turned to black.
The next time he awoke, he was lying on a bed in an unfamiliar room. A young woman was sitting on a chair next to him, patiently waiting for him to awaken. Once he was ready, she began to tell the story of the creation of angels. The woman tried her best to get through the details. She was visibly distraught as she talked about the experimentation, but it was nothing compared to what Izaiah felt.
Before was just emptiness, but now it was pure chaos. His whole world came crashing down. It was no longer just a lie but a sickening nightmare. A life fueled from the hurt and sacrifice of others. The government was not only using human lives to create angels but was brainwashing them to follow their orders and kill their fellow kind, labelling them as deviants. But the real kicker was when she started talking about his lover.
She was a part of the angel project, her main job being his watcher. She was tasked with monitoring his every move and relaying the information to headquarters. But what headquarters didn't know was that she was a spy sent by the organization. Her assignment as Izaiah's watcher was just what the organization needed, a highly intelligent angel. But what started out as an assignment quickly turned into a real connection, she had fallen in love with him. And because of her feelings, it led to her death.
Now, more than the bewilderment and confusion, anger overtook him, and it needed release. He had to do something, anything. That's when a sinister thought popped into his head. He had to BURN IT ALL DOWN. He had to release his resentment, for the government that used them, for the humans that could mercilessly kill others for their own gain, for his own ignorance. After what seemed like an eternity of despair and anguish, he had finally come to a decision. He was at the point of no return.
do not let your past define you, create a future to look forward to.
After learning more about the organization, Izaiah readily joined them. Their resources coupled with his intelligence would prove to be a deadly combo. But while the organization's goal was to stop the experimentations, he had something completely different in mind. And right until the beginning of his crusade, no one knew of what he had planned.
For weeks, Izaiah was briefed on everything, from the layout of the angel hospitals to the time schedules and codes used by the government agents. What would normally take someone years to remember, he had memorized it all within a couple of months. Whether it was his tenacity or urgency to be a part of their operation, the organization acknowledged his readiness and gave him his first mission.
It was the first time the organization was attempting to infiltrate an angel hospital. As the place where angels were supposedly born, treated, and passed on, the only people allowed inside were angels, government agents, and medical professionals approved by the government. And the process of gaining access to these hospitals was incredibly difficult without the right connections or skillset. Thus, it was the perfect mission for him.
After receiving a staged injury on one of his assignments, Izaiah was taken to the nearest angel hospital. And as he was a higher ranked angel, he was given a private room on the designated floor. The moment he was left alone was when the operation began. After he had managed to sneak out of the room, Izaiah made his way to the sublevels.
With the hospital blueprints he had memorized for the past weeks, it didn’t take him long to find the server room. After disabling the guards, he started hacking into the hospital’s network. His job was to insert a USB that would essentially cripple the underground facility. The medical instruments used at the upper levels wouldn't be affected, only the equipment in the sublevels. However, what the organization didn't know was that Izaiah had modified their virus. It wasn't enough to just stop the experiments, he wanted to shut the whole facility down.
As soon as he inserted the USB, many mechanisms went off at once. The fire alarms in the hospital rang, forcing everyone to evacuate the hospital. As this was going on, the virus was wiping out everything on the server. The information on every angel that was created in the facility and any research that was done there, everything was being erased. And the final mechanism was a self-destruct sequence.
Izaiah had to stay and see through the final moments. However, things never went as smoothly as intended. Due to the system's multiple safeguards, a taskforce was sent to investigate the situation. This would be the final test of his resolve. If he couldn't go through with it, this was where everything would come to an end.
Within moments, he was faced with his brethren. He could see their bewilderment as he had most likely been labelled as a red deviant. Yet even though he knew there was nothing he could say to convince them, he had a small hope that they would understand him, that they would step aside, that they wouldn't sacrifice themselves. He tried with everything he had to convince them, but he could tell that nothing went through. His words were just like any deviant's words, ignored, rejected, and treated as the ramblings of a madman.
Everything that followed was instant. The task force was the first to make their move. All Izaiah could do was fight them off. He had to stall until the self-destruct sequence could start. But as more and more of his kind's blood spilled onto him, he could feel something start to change. He could feel his wings getting heavier and that's when he noticed that more and more feathers were forming. Then a disgusting realization hit.
During one of the organization's briefings, he was told that the government was still trying to evolve angels. They had tried almost everything, from sacrificing humans and even angels, but nothing seemed to work. So, when his wings grew from the massacre, when the death of his kind somehow was fueling his evolution, he couldn’t stand it. It was revolting. But regardless of his feelings, there was no going back. He had to continue moving forward.
sometimes, to reach your goal, you need to be ruthless.
His first crusade was a success. The angel hospital was gone, completely engulfed in flames. Everything from the underground research facility to the aboveground hospital was destroyed, and he was to blame. In response to his actions, he was flagged as the highest tier red deviant, a kill on sight. His face was plastered all over the news, so he would always be a target. Furthermore, he was also expelled from the organization as he went against their orders and broke their rules. But nothing could stop him now.
He no longer needed the organization. He had learned everything there was to know about the government and their system. He saw the lengths to which the government was willing to hide their secrets. The more facilities he infiltrated and burned to the ground, the more he saw the pain and suffering of humans and angels alike. He began to experience an excessive number of emotions. At first, it was all anger and resentment but slowly, a tinge of sadness and loneliness crept up.
When Izaiah had already destroyed a few facilities, a certain faction within the organization began to move. They saw this struggle as an opportunity to rid the world of angels once and for all. Their agents, who were hidden in a multitude of media outlets, started to leak information regarding the origins of angels and what the government had been so desperately trying to hide. This new information spurred an intense battle between those who sympathized with the angels and those who wanted them gone for good.
Hateful discrimination and vigilante behavior started to propagate. The government tried their best to calm the masses but to no avail. They ended up holding a tighter rein on the angels, forcing them to stop civilians and sometimes worse, to meet violence with violence. From all the mayhem, the organization realized that the government wasn't going to give in, and neither was Izaiah. Their hope for reconciliation was no longer possible. They could only hope to pick up the pieces after everything was over.
There was no longer anything that could stop him. Izaiah fought his way through each and every facility. Blood was shed on both sides. He was wounded countless times over but as soon as he recovered, he was back out on the hunt. Others also began to raid hospitals, but Izaiah paid them no mind. He paved his own way. He perfected his craft. He carried the sins of both angels and humans on his back.
Izaiah didn't even recognize his brethren anymore. They were all just a blur. If he had recognized them, it was all in the past. A past that he no longer wanted to acknowledge. Through the carnage, his wings grew until it seemed to no longer grow anymore. But he was numb to it all. He only had one singular goal in his mind.
After burning the last facility, Izaiah had become what the government had always wanted, a fully-fledged angel. However, his black wings still remained as an indication of his origins. Majority of society was destroyed, burning from the hellfire that he had started. The people had long since rebelled against the government and usurped their power. Now, there were new leaders in charge, ones who advocated that the same experiments would never happen again.
Izaiah could finally let go. It was over. The angels were no more. The government was no more. Everything was as it such be. But silent tears rolled down his cheek as his thoughts still raged on. What was his life for? What was the point anymore? He clutched the ring that hung from his necklace and remembered her. And with that last sentiment, he went off into the great unknown to live out the rest of his days in solitude.
when everything you've loved is gone, what remains after?
