Chapter Text
Agony.
Pure, antagonizing agony.
White hot, burning, tormenting, agony.
That was the only way to describe the anguish Eric was going through.
Everything hurt. Everything was confusing. Nothing made sense to him. He couldn’t make out where he was or what was happening as the world as he knew it seemed to crash and burn around him. His body twisted and turned in ways that didn’t seem possible, making him feel sick. And no matter how hard he tried to use his wings to stop the wild descent he found him in, it was as if he no longer had control over them.
His throat felt hoarse, his vocal chords straining and scratching as his screams fell on deaf ears. No one could help him. He was on his own. And he was in pain. Intense , scorching pain. And no one knew it. If anyone were to look around, they would have seen what looked to be a meteor plummeting to the Earth’s surface. But, in actuality, it was Eric experiencing what was quite possibly the worst moment in his long, long life.
What had he done to deserve this?
It was almost laughable to realize that he couldn’t even remember. He couldn’t bring himself to think of anything other than the pain that was running through his veins, and overtaking his entire being. All Eric knew was that he was suffering immensely, more so than what could possibly ever seem fair. Weren’t those the types of people he was supposed to assist? Those suffering?
He was an angel, after all. That was what he was supposed to do. It was one of the largest factors in the job description. So now, why was he pushed into this position? Why was he the one suffering? He should be the one watching over others while he stood in the comfort of paradise. Guess it wasn’t as much of a paradise as he once thought if the ones in charge would so ruthlessly subject him to these conditions without a lick of remorse or a blink of an eye.
Tears streamed from the boy’s eyes, barely having the opportunity to flow across his cheeks before flying into the air without any mercy. It felt as though Eric had been falling for ages, flames flitting around every inch of his being and effectively blurring his perception of time as well as the landscape below him. But before the boy had the time to properly come to terms with the situation he was in, to fully accept his seemingly eternal fall, his body hit the ground with a sickening thud, the earth around him caving in from the impact.
Eric didn’t move as he stared up at the night sky, his chest heaving as he tried to breathe. Dull aches shot through his body almost like pangs of electric shocks, rendering him practically useless. There was a new sensation that he couldn’t quite describe. It was a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach as if something was missing . Fear suddenly overtook him, crashing over his body like the largest of tsunamis in a way that made him feel ill. It was so overwhelming that it overrode his pain, overrode his inability to move. A shot of adrenaline had been pumped into his veins from the alarm bells screaming at him in his head; something was wrong. Something was missing . He shot up from his spot, his hands instinctively reaching behind him to his back. They should have stopped almost immediately, but the panic only seemed to grow as his hands continued to go without feeling anything.
Eric whipped his head around, looking over his shoulder with the hopes of seeing his grandiose, elegant, white wings sprawled behind him. It was a sight that he had grown used to and had loved all the same, showcasing one of the most important and valued aspects of his sense of self. But now, there was nothing. A strangled sound caught in the back of the blonde’s throat, his mouth dropping open slightly. His wings were gone . Ragged breaths left his body at the realization. Ragged breaths shifted into cries of terror, or anger and desperation. His neck craned back, an extremely guttural scream of torment leaving his mouth and piercing the night sky. His brain began running a million miles per hour at the scorn he’d been put through. He screamed until he couldn’t scream anymore, his voice coarse and very much overused. It hurt. Every part of his throat cried out in protest as he pushed their limits to the point of him retching, his body giving up beneath him, causing him to double over. He had never felt such raw, visceral emotion in his life before, and it was almost paralyzing. When his vocal cords finally gave out on him, his body began shaking in misery as hot tears began streaming down his face, falling to the ground beneath him and soaking into the dirt.
He wept, and wept so hard that he began coughing and gagging as his fingers clawed into the dirt, the soil uprooting easily from where he had already disturbed the Earth. How was this fair? What could he have possibly done that was deserving of such a sentence? He would have preferred death. How could those whom he trusted beyond a shadow of a doubt subject him to the worst kind of nightmare he could have possibly imagined? They were people he thought to be his friends, his family . How could they possibly do this to him? To their friend. To their brother. Eric wept. He sobbed, he blubbered, he looked like a disturbing mess. Mucus dribbled from his nose, saliva fell freely from his mouth as he did the only thing he could do. There was nothing but scorn, contempt, and disdain flooding through him in waves that threatened to make him throw up. These were all emotions he had never experienced before, and to feel them so strongly felt like another death sentence in itself.
“It’s okay.”
As though he were a wounded animal because, in a way, he was , Eric scrambled backward at the sound of the new voice. He scuttled out of the small crater his crash had created, his eyes furrowing at his surroundings. The crater was sat in the middle of a large open field, tall grass and dirt surrounding him for as far as he could see. In about a twenty-foot radius around the crater was devoid of any grass. It seemed like this area had been through some sort of disturbance, which prevented any growth of the dying grass from appearing. It was almost as though a plague had impacted this area, and this area alone, preventing any form of life from growing.
The boy looked up, his eyes wide and eerily bloodshot from tears.
“Who are you?” He questioned, his voice hoarse and shaky. He didn’t recognize the sound, but he knew it had come from him. He sniffled, rubbing awkwardly at his nose as he suddenly found himself feeling much smaller than he ever had before, akin to that of a toddler. Eric looked at the man who stood before him, a man who looked to be about his height with silky, silver hair and wings protruding from his back. Only, instead of the elegant, extravagant white ones Eric had been so accustomed to seeing on others, they were mangled, ugly, and all around unattractive. The skeletal structure of the wings were visible, no feathers attached as though they had been burned off. One of the wings was broken in the middle, causing it to dangle and protrude at an odd angle that made Eric unnervingly queasy.
“I’m Sangyeon. I’m here to help.”