And The Heavens Fell Silent by Maria Louise (beach read TXT) 📖

     I scooped the egg from the basket and felt its warmth. My mouth watered but my conscience stopped me from eating it right then and there as I felt something inside the eggs shift.

     Come on, Yram! You need the food! You don't want to starve to death do you?! Just get Whiskey to kill it, she'll do it.

     A small peeping sound came from the thin shell and my heart melted.

     I shakily set the egg back in its feathered home and hopped down to sit on Hosanna. If I starved, so be it. I could not steal another life, even one so small.

     Hosanna lead me back to camp where Whiskey was just waking up and Phoenix was nowhere to be seen.

     Whiskey looked up at my groggily, her eyes making slits as she glared. “Yuh and Lover boy better have not been shakin’ da’ bushes last nite without inviting meh.”

     That’s when I remembered.

     Oddly, I realized that I was suddenly looking up at the dark gray sky.

    Hmmm, I seem to have fallen off my horse...

     Whiskey gave me a knowing look. “Yuh know, Aunt Erna always says, ‘If ya’ll regret it in the mornin’ sleep till noon!”

     I just laid there, dayzed.

     “Wheeeell, I’ll leave ya to your dirty thoughts...Gotta go’n take a piss anyways...”

     I heard Whiskeys footsteps crunch away in the leaves and I started to feel hot, sick and doomed. Phoenix must have been close by.

     True to my predictions I heard him shuffle up behind me. I closed my eyes tight.

     Stupid, stupid, stupid! Bad,Yram! What's wrong with you?! Bad, bad! You've never even touched a man before then the first man that comes along (that you barely know,) you melt  in his arms like some type of clay?! Not to mention the mental lapse you had last night!

     I sighed and threw my arm over my face.

     “Yram-” Phoenix began stiffy.

     I interrupted him. “Please, lets not talk about it.”      

     “Hmm...” noted Phoenix with his brow furrowed and lower lip pouted in concentration. Slowly a smile spread across his face making me want desperately to know what he was thinking.

     “That is besides the point.” he said at last. I gulped not wanting him to get to the point. “I am sorry for being so crude last night. I don't know what got into me or what that even was...”

     I sighed.

     “It never happened, okay?” I told him. “Problem solved.”

     He shuffled his feet looking hesitant and hurt at the same time. “But I am glad it happened...It felt...right, good. Did you not feel the same? Whatever happened last night, I cannot stop thinking about it! It’s driving me insane! You drive me insane...”

     Yeah, he drove me insane to. Literally.

      Phoenix sat down besides me and waited for my reply.

     Ground? Now is a good time to swallow me whole.

     After many long moments of which I was contemplating banging my head against the ground, Phoenix couldn't stand to wait in my silence much longer.

     “Yram?..” he asked again.

     “I’m gonna go pray.”

         Ignoring Phoenix entirely, I walked away from him and settled down near the waters edge getting ready to have a serious one sided conversation with my creator and trying to compose my thoughts. However, my thoughts did not, in fact, want to compose themselves.

     Lord I try so hard to be good, to do the right thing. To do right by your eyes, and my hearts. But Lord I'm finding out more and more how confused and wicked my heart really is. It makes me sick! I feel so wrong inside, and messed up... I've always despised the way I looked and thought it did nothing to show who I really was, but now I am not so sure...I do not know what I am becoming or even what I am. All I know Is I need you to help me through this. I cannot do it alone. This journey has stripped me down and left me raw like a sore. It was easy being good when I had no challenges. But now, my true self is unveiled and it terrifies me.

     I put my face in my dirty hands. Please, help me find anything good remaining in myself. Anything.

     Forgive me for my sins and know that I love you so much, and will not lose my faith in you again.

     Help me to be good bye you.

         I reluctantly open my eyes feeling weak and exhausted. That was when I saw through my fingers, Whiskey’s black horse laying dead.

       A black bubbling substance was oozing out of all of its oufaces. Its tongue was thick and swollen as if it had been poisoned.

      Across the pond was also an eagle, oozing blackish tar that reminded me of my blood.

     The water must have been poisoned!

     I looked to the pound water and found it to be perfectly clean and not showing any signs of poison. In fact it was too clean. Sparkling valiantly, even...

     Curiously, I through a stone in. Nothing happened, it merely sank to the bottom. I noticed my hand as it was extended. My knuckles were almost all the way healed showing only the slightest signs of last nights trauma.

      I began to shake. I remembered jumping in it last night to wash off the tar black blood that now flowed through my veins. Had the water healed me?!

     A realization of a darker kind hit me and I became sick. Had my blood poisoned the water? Had my demon flesh healed itself?

     “Phoenix!” I cried out in dread. In answer of my call he came limping down to the bank.

       “Yes?” he was looking at me so intently that he didn't even notice the dead animals.

       I meekly pointed in the direction of the death.

     Phoenix let out a long somewhat calm breath. I looked to his face and saw that he was deeply worried and not looking at the dead animals but down at his own self.

       I followed the path of his eyes and felt as though I was going to pass out. What I saw was horrifying.

       Shakily, I brushed my hands over his chest which was bubbly with blisters. Goosebumps rose on his flesh as my hand trailed over him. I looked to his hands and there were also two oozing, swollen, bumps. Then to his feet. His feet were by far the worst. They were oozing clear liquid and the skin was raw white and torn to shreds.

     I had done this to him. Just as his blood had done to me. Where my blood had touched his flesh it had seared and boiled it as if my blood were acid. As if my blood was poison.

     As if I was a demon.

     I ripped my hand from his skin and backed away, but he caught my wrist.

     “No, do not stop.” he said.

     “I did this to you!” I striked bewildered. I did this to him. I was poison.

     He shrugged and told me casually, “I know.”

     I was speechless. For once in my life I had nothing to say.

          Phoenix stood waiting for my reply. Then he stood still some more. Almost a minute went by without him so much as blinking.

     It quickly became apparent to that something was wrong. The natural sounds of nature had gone silent in my ears. I silence of which I had never experienced before. All I could hear was the ringing in my own ears. I waved my hand in front of Phoenixes face and he didn't so much as twitch.

     I noticed a fly caught in mid air as if it was a puppet suspended from the heavens. I spun around, not even a leaf stirred in the breeze, because there was no moving air.

     All was frozen but me.

      Before I could even understand what was going on, Phoenixes eyes become the color of liquid gold. His lips parted and said to me in a voice that made me want to leap for joy and cry all at the same time, “‘Through struggles and trials, only then will you have the strength to do good by ME. You cannot suddenly be perfect and without sin, though that would be easier. You will learn and become more like Me, through time and trials.’”

     The voced thrummed through my body with gold silk and pure emotion. I could forever listen to that voice and never grow bored.

   Had I been spoken to by the voice of God?

     Suddenly sound rushed back into me and life began to move around me.

     In autopilot I lunged as Phoenix fainted and I was forced to catch him, but I crumpled under his weight, for I was weak and starved.

     God had spoken through Phoenix, to me.

     “Waahappen?” I slurred as I peeled my eyes open to find Phoenix standing above me, holding me.

     He smoothed my hair with a hand as hot as the sun. “You fainted as you saw the burns on me-but they are not bad at all!” he hurriedly added. “I cannot even feel a thing!”

     ‘Through struggles and trials, only then will you have the strength to do good by Me. You cannot suddenly be perfect and without sin, though that would be much easier. You will learn and become more like me, through time and trials.’

    I was frantic.“No-no! You said something! God spoke through you!”

     He gave me a odd look.     I knew what happened to me was real, though it was useless trying to convince anyone else of it. So I remained silent about my experience, and happier than I had felt in a long time. It was going to be okay, I just had to trust God, that was all.

     I pulled myself from Phoenixes arms (somehow I always ended up there), and looked him in his usual blue eyes.

     “I am sorry for how I've been treating you and how I have behaved. Its was cruel and naive of me.You just make my emotions scatter and I’m always angry or scared around you, for some reason.” I could think of a few other things I was around him but I wasn't about to tell him that.

     Phoenix seemed as if he was reading my thoughts when he grinned at me like a wolf pup who just got his tummy scratched. I rolled my eyes not fighting off a smile of my own.

      I grimaced. “Oh, and the water is poison by my demonic blood and Whiskeys horse is dead.”- just a side note. A little tag along really. No big deal. I was trying to mentally communicate that with him but it seemed not to work.

     “Your a-a Demon?”

     “Half.” I corrected. It was funny. Nothing seemed to bad anymore after my talk with God.

     “Half demon...” he whispered to himself. He looked down at his burnt skin. I instantly felt remorse.

     “As soon as we got away from here, I promise, I will find a way to heal you. I am so sorry Phoenix, if I would have known what my blood would do-”

     “That’s enough.” Phoenix silenced me. “It is not your fault...well it is, but you did not mean me harm, so it is okay... What happened is in the past, what we need to be concerned about is the army on our heels, I can feel them drawing closer. We need to go. Now.”

     Yes, I could feel them too. A constant draw like a magnet, or a beautiful tune, singing sweetly, drawing me towards it.

     “Whaaaaat dah heeeell did ya’ll do ta meh damned horse!?” Whiskeys drawl was even worse with rage as she stormed down the hill towards us. “If yah’ put one lily livered hand on er’ Lover boy, I’m guna beat