Chapter Text
You never thought you deserved to fall. Angels weren’t supposed to ask questions. They were supposed to be content with what they had… but you wanted more.
You were made to sing and entertain the elder angels. Day in… day out… you sang hymns. You played angelic instruments. You danced and praised and knew nothing but joy. You felt joy, because your purpose was fulfilled doing that—just singing. You knew nothing of desire, of pain, or necessity. You were nothing but an ornament for the elders.
So singing you did, in meetings, at parties, and for the incoming souls. You were never the focus of attention. You remained in the background, smiling, performing, celebrating someone other than yourself… and you began to hate it. Did nothing get to be about you?
These were thoughts angels weren’t supposed to have. Your kind all looked alike. You were part of a choir—not a soloist. But you wanted to be a star…
Dreamily, you watched incoming souls arrive beyond the golden gates of Heaven. You sat perched on your cloud, listening to their chatter and seeing their glee as they realized they’d made it! They were in Heaven… And you celebrated them with song.
But your real joy came the day you heard a different kind of music for the first time. It wasn’t like anything you’d heard before. The woman sang alone, her sound melancholy as she sang its words. You fluttered down to greet the new soul, asking why her song wasn’t joyous like the music you knew.
“My son isn’t here,” she said to you.
You didn’t know what to say, so you asked her to sing some more. And you listened as her low, smooth voice filled your ears with something you’d never began to fathom. You asked her what the music was, and she told you it was jazz—the music people had been listening to for the last decade.
That’s when you realized… you wanted to be in the spotlight. You’d never be happy here.
And when you went to the elders…
You fell…
Down…
Down…
Down…
Until you were in a world you didn’t know existed, surrounded by things you didn’t recognize and cruelty you’d never known.
But at least now, you’d be an individual.
It didn’t take long for you to adjust to your life in Hell. Sure, you didn’t look like yourself, but you had no way to know that! You had never such luck as seeing your own reflection in Heaven. That would promote vanity.
And vain, you were. The first time you saw your reflection, you felt like you had never seen anything so beautiful in all your years of life. In the spirit of sinners, you had some animal features. Long lashed blue eyes were framed by a white curly bob, styled like an Old Hollywood actress. Your skin was somewhere between a cornflower blue and a lavender color, and your ears were floppy.
You knew the animal you resembled. You’d seen it several times depicted in art in Heaven. You were a lamb, now. The fact you were truthfully an angel was well-disguised, as you no longer had the halo that once adorned your head or the wings that carried you across Heaven.
As you tried to smile, you noticed your face didn’t move with your emotions. You had never seen someone so cool, calm, and collected. Over the first several weeks you were in Hell, you noticed your face never moved much with your feelings. In moments of extreme fear, excitement, and even sadness, you always remained one way: content.
It didn’t take you long to find out angels weren’t really welcome in Hell. You’d heard rumors here and there when you were in Heaven, stories about an exorcist here or there falling or a soul that would make it to Heaven, only to fall later. It happened during the first Extermination Day you spent in Hell.
You hid in a bunker while you listened to the sinners lucky enough to have a hiding place complain about the way Heaven treated their souls. You listened as they told stories about what they’d do to an angel if they encountered them.
They felt worthless. But you had, once, too.
This was the first time you’d felt grateful for your mask. Because of it, you weren’t able to raise any suspicion. You looked like any other sinner who was being punished in some way or another.
With that said… you weren’t ready to make friends. It took you over a year to start working toward something. You spent that year learning everything and anything about music you could. You accrued dozens of different instruments, picking them up with the most natural ease. Living in Hell was definitely Hell, but you enjoyed having the freedom to learn, to grow… even if you couldn’t laugh or smile.
Once you knew how to navigate Hell and blend in while still finding ways to stand out, you opened up your own music store. There, you would sit and fix instruments from all kinds of musicians. It introduced you to others who loved music as much as you did, and opened you up to all kinds of opportunities to sing, mostly as advertisement for your store.
You would close up shop early on Fridays before sliding down to the closest speakeasy, where you’d sing jazz tunes well into the morning. You would never admit it, but you loved feeling all the eyes on you when you were on stage, a singular spotlight on you as you slinked across the stage, expression cool as a cucumber. Things were so different than they were in Heaven… and you adored it.
Yes, you had to keep your history a secret, but after some time, you became somewhat famous around the night scene. You’d often accompany members of the elite for brunch plans and sometimes even sing at events in different social circles in Hell. Not to mention, on seeing your constant calm demeanor most sinners thought of you as some professional. Your persona during the night greatly contrasted your day job.
You loved your job fixing instruments. Sometimes, you’d even construct instruments of your own and learn to use the little magic you had to make the horns play. You’d work on them all day during the week while listening to soap operas on the radio through the morning time and learn new music during the day.
This was a life far beyond what you ever could’ve imagined in Heaven. It was hard for you to understand how Hell was a punishment. You hadn’t really been exposed to cruelty or pain during your time, and had no concept of it for the first while you were in Hell. As you saw it, people in Hell had choices and opinions, and they could have fun and express themselves. You’d yet to really see the… terrors that happened in ‘eternal torment.’
It was probably partially due to the fact your demeanor didn’t really offend anyone. At your core, you were still an angel, and remained incredibly friendly and trustworthy, despite always looking tired or bored. But, nobody picked on you. As far as anyone knew, your soul wasn’t really anything different than an average sinner. You were popular enough yet remained unimportant in local politics and too unknown for anyone who’d desire to hurt you to even know who you were.
It was on a particular Saturday morning that you woke up early to work on a clarinet someone had thrown in a dumpster. While you had small levels of magic, you liked to work on instruments like they would have in the mortal world. You liked the meticulous way you had to turn the tiny screws to loosen the keys and remove the pads. Sometimes, when you played them to see their quality, you breathed a little life into the horns.
This clarinet had been a problem, though. The wood was aged and cracked, and it had gotten wet in the dumpster. The horn should’ve been unfixable, but you were destined to bring it back to life. So you had been waking up early and working hard to try and bring a little magic into the horn.
It was this morning, that you woke up particularly early and turned on your soap opera, waiting for the story to move over to jazz for the rest of your morning before you opened shop. You found yourself engulfed in the story, gasping when the big twist was revealed and taking a break once it finished so you could go brew your morning coffee.
As you poured the hot beverage into your favorite mug, you listened to the radio station begin playing a song you hadn’t heard before. As the song started, the sound of a clarinet took over your ears and you inhaled the aroma of your drink. The melancholy, low tune inspired you to just enjoy the music before returning to the clarinet…. Maybe when you were finished with it, the clarinet would sound as good as Artie Shaw’s.
Gloomy is Sunday,
My hours are slumberless…
Dearest, the shadows I live with are numberless…
Wow, it never seemed to surprise you any less how sad music in Hell could be, instead of the constant cheer of the hymns you’d grown up singing.
Still, the song had you entranced. You hummed along and tried to learn the song as it played, thinking you could add it to your song book.
Death is no dream,
For in death I’m ca—
Abruptly, the song was cut off, replaced with an empty static. You looked up from your coffee, picking up your radio and fiddling with the dial to pick up the station again. However, the more you fooled with it, the more frustrated you felt, because every channel was only picking up the annoying static.
You sat your coffee aside and went back to your work bench, picking back up the clarinet and painting it with a fresh stain while the keys and screws sat in a tiny cup beside you. You zoned back in on the tiny crack where the body connected, finding yourself annoyed to the fact there was no music playing to distract you. You looked back to your radio, exhaling an annoyed sigh as the static continued to get louder and louder.
“Cheap thing,” you said under your breath as you shook your head and tried to get back to working on the horn.
You lacked inspiration. You were growing increasingly bored with your morning.
“Fine,” you whispered to the horn in defeat, sitting it aside as you tidied up your work bench and picked up your coffee and little radio.
The static was making you tired, and you didn’t really need to be awake for two more hours. You figured you could just go back to sleep for an hour or so.
And so you did, curling back into your bed upstairs while still wearing your work clothes. You let the lull of the static carry you into rest, each breath becoming deeper and deeper until—
You jolted up from your slumber at the sound of agonized screams. You looked around frantically to find the source of the shrill cries, eyes finally focusing on your radio, which was basically vibrating with the high decibel sound.
That sound was the closest to what you’d thought Hell would be like. You grabbed for the radio, turning the dial to find any station that worked, but every station featured a different scream, all accompanied by far too pleased laughter.
Your chest practically beat out of your chest as your next move was to turn the radio off, however, even after removing the batteries, the sounds of torture remained. It was at this point that you realized some sort of demon had taken control of the radio. If you could scream, you would, but instead you chucked the radio out the window and into the street, where a couple sinners stopped beside and listened to the broadcast play and looked at one another in some kind of mix between confusion and horror.
Your stomach was turning as you thought about those cries. You wanted to cry too, but your face betrayed you. You covered your ears with your hands and closed your window, then your blinds.
You figured you wouldn’t open the store that day, after all. You had a lot of things to think about.