He had forgotten how long he'd hidden.
Years, perhaps centuries — or maybe only dreams — passed within the cave of broken stone, nestled in a ravine no light touched fully. There he stayed, listening to the wind speak in tongues of sorrow, hiding not just from Heaven's watchers, but from the war within his own soul.
Raphael no longer marked time. Only silence. Only stillness.
Until that day.
The cry came first — distant, shrill, desperate. A young voice, cutting through the muffled quiet. Then the thunder of pursuit: heavy boots crashing through undergrowth, a deeper voice snarling orders, threats.
Raphael stepped toward the mouth of the cave, shadows clinging to his shoulders like old robes. Peering out, he saw them.
A small boy, thin and wild-eyed, scrambling through the bramble toward the rocks. Behind him, a tall figure — a man in form, but not in heart. His eyes were cruel, burning with something twisted. Not madness. Not hunger. Corruption.
The man's skin bore strange cracks, faintly glowing, as if fire lived beneath it. Raphael knew that glow. He had seen it in the eyes of fallen kin — those who had let bitterness root too deeply, who had spoken to mortals not with mercy, but with promises of power.
He blinked, once. The fallen had started to rebel again with the inhabitants of the planet.
The boy stumbled near the cave, sobbing, his small feet cut and bleeding. Then he saw Raphael.
He froze, eyes wide. For a heartbeat, neither moved.
Then, the boy whispered, "Mister… please… help me."
Raphael hesitated. The boy ran to him — not in fear, but in faith — and clung to his leg, hiding behind him as the shadowed man crested the ridge, eyes gleaming with wrath. At that moment Raphael was shocked. He thought to himself " Is this kid stupid or what?,this is actually his first time seeing a being like me,and he dares to approach me?".
Raphael was shocked,probably because he hasn't met any of the inhabitants of the planet aside from the birds that loves to sing in the early morning.
Raphael felt the child's grip — small, trembling, alive.
The wind did not move. The world held its breath.
For the first time in an age, Raphael stood between two wills.
He looked down at the boy, then at the approaching threat.
In that moment, he did not think of Heaven.
He did not think of the Fall.
He thought only of what he was becoming.
He stepped forward.
The man stopped — sensing something ancient in the figure before him.
"Who are you to interfere?" the man growled.
Raphael's wings stirred behind him, skeletal but still wide. His voice was calm.
"I don't know who I am anymore."
"But I know what I won't be."
Then the light returned to his eyes — faint, but true. Not fire. Not wrath.
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