Arnette

Alma has to keep her hand on the wall to steady herself. She’d never gone this high up before, never been in this amount of darkness.

“Turn left here,” Matthew’s voice rings from the mechanical box in her neck. “Good girl.”

“Stop saying that.” She replies under her breath.

“Shhhhhh,” the volume decreases. “Hush now, and keep an ear out.”

She slows her pace and squints into the dark. Her surroundings have lost all color, but there’s still enough light to make out movement. The faint beat of steps starts to echo from ahead.

“What do I do?” She whispers, her voice shaky.

“There is a vent to your right. The grate will come off if you pull hard enough.”

She feels around the cold wall until finding the grate. The slits dig into her fingers as she pulls. A shrill scream echoes through the hall as the steps grow louder. The grate flies off with a loud crash. Alma frantically crawls in, propping the grate against the opening behind her while struggling to catch her breath.

“Shhh. It’s okay,” the speaker whispers., “Wait here for them to pass.”

Alma covers her mouth with her hands as the screaming and running get louder. They’re in this hall now. Something passes the grate, followed shortly after by a much larger something with heavy stomps to accompany it. They get slightly quieter to the left before suddenly stopping completely.

“Go.”

Alma rushes out of the vent, the grate clattering on the floor as she scrambles away. 

“Hurry now, it’ll be back this way before long. We’re close.”

Alma speedwalks against the right wall until the knocking begins. She breathes a sigh of relief. The knocks come in bursts of three, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. They always sound like knuckles against hardwood, no matter what material makes the sound. She finds the approximate source; this time, it’s coming from the floor. 

“It will soon return.”

Alma fumbles with the knife as she unfolds it. She slides the knife against her palm, stifling a gasp of pain. The blood drips down onto her fingertip and she begins drawing His sigil on the floor. The large footsteps return, this time less urgent. She messes up one of the lines in her haste and has to redo it. The angel roars as she draws the last triangle in the middle.

Alma closes her eyes and yells into the floor, “Upon this seal I proclaim my penance!”

…

The rabbit stuffed animal slowly comes into view as the blurriness leaves her eyes. Alma is back in her nest. The cut on her hand is gone, as well as her clothes. Over time, her palm has become drier and more cracked. She gently grabs Lucy and pulls her close, whispering shhhh shhhh. 

“You did so good for me,” Matthew coos. 

Alma doesn’t respond, just curling up in her mess of blankets and pillows. She was actually comforted by Matthew at first, but his voice has become harder and harder to mistake for human.

“I’m glad we found that rabbit for you, Alma. You sure seem to love it.”

“I actually think she’s a hare.”

“Aww, you’re so cute.”

Alma feels the metal box sticking out of the flesh in her neck. There’s no scarring around it, no signs of surgery. The skin’s grown around it seamlessly.

“I have good news!”

“What is that, Matthew?”

“As of today, you are the longest surviving Alma.”

Her stomach turns.

“It’s because you have me, of course. I would never let harm come to you, my dear.”

“Do I have to go out again today?”

“I’m sorry, but yes. It seems God is more merciful than he was yesterday, however! Your site is on the bottom floor.”

Alma takes a deep breath and gets out of bed. Her nest is a small, ovular room with just enough red light coming from the semi-transparent walls to see. There’s nothing in the room but her bed, sink, toilet, and vending machine. She puts on her jumpsuit and boots, which are laid at the foot of her bed each time she wakes up, and takes a drink of water from the sink. The jumpsuit always contains the knife in one pocket and seven dollars in the other, which she uses to buy food from the vending machine. It only contains potato chips priced at $2.50. The extra two dollars disappear every time she sleeps and she’s never found any other opportunity to spend the money. The chips make her stomach hurt.

Once she’s ready to start the day, she moves to the end of the room opposite her bed, which has a hole in the wall. She crouches down and enters the hole. It’s just tall enough so that she can walk instead of crawl. The path slopes upward in a zigzag pattern. She emerges onto the first floor about 15 minutes later. The exit is never in the same place.

“Which way should I go?”

“Left. And good luck out there!”

The labyrinth is made of concrete bricks, all painted the same baby blue. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling hurt Alma’s eyes, so she tends to look down. She’s never been in the same place twice, or at least hasn’t cared to notice if she has. She walks and walks, occasionally humming a tune to herself. Angels are never this low. Her eyes light up when she spots a door in the wall. Doors are very rare; the last time she found one, it led to the preschool classroom where she found Lucy. The door is metal and doesn’t have a window in it. The handle saps heat from her hand as she opens it. Inside, there is an office lined with cubicles. She wonders how she knows what an office is. Taking a few steps onto the carpeted floor, she realises she’s not alone. Another Alma, just the same as her, emerges from one of the cubicles, her eyes wide. They stare at each other silently.

“Kill it! Kill it!” The other Alma’s speaker barks with a voice much harsher than Matthew’s.

The other blushes. “Stop that! Sorry…”

“It’s okay,” Alma replies. The two of them slowly draw nearer. “I’ve never been this close to another one.” Matthew told her to steer clear of them, that God only wanted Alma to talk to him. 

“Neither have I.” Her voice is soft. Alma wonders if it’s softer than her own.

Alma puts her index finger to her mouth, telling the other to keep quiet. The other is silent as she approaches. They hug each other gently. Alma savors the warmth and softness of the other’s body.

“They might not be able to hear us this way,” Alma whispers as quietly as she can.

“Oh, good idea. Gideon wouldn’t like us talking.”

Alma melts at the feeling of the other’s breath on her ear. “Is that your speaker’s name? Mine is Matthew.” A moment of silence passes, both relishing the physical contact. Alma leans back slightly and raises her voice. “One of us should go. Yes… Yes.” She leans back in. “That might cover us. I think they can only see the location of their own Alma. Matthew would have told me about you.”

“Gideon too. He tells me to kill everything.”

“How many seals have you done?”

“This is my third.”

“Don’t listen to him. If you hear an angel, hide.”

“How long have you been around?”

“This is my 15th.” She rubs her cracked palm. “Can we lie down?”

“I was just thinking that,” the other smiles.

Alma sprawls onto the carpeted floor, careful not to lie on an old coffee stain. The other lies atop her. They stare into each other’s eyes, feeling the rhythm of their breaths synchronise. Alma doesn’t know what to say, or if she should even talk at all. She breathes in the other’s smell and is reminded of her bed.

“I love you,” the other whispers.

A new warmth fills Alma’s chest. “I love you.”

“Get a move on!” The other’s speaker barks.

Alma tries to cover her speaker with her hands, hoping that Matthew hears through a microphone she can cover. She gets up and begins to run toward the door before the other grabs her arm and pulls her into a kiss. They look into each other’s eyes one last time before Alma runs away. 

The walls seem to beat around her as she tries to emulate her normal behavior. Why hasn’t Matthew said anything? For now, she hopes he just failed to notice. The silence is deafening. There is an intersection, the first she’s seen today. The hall continues ahead and another begins on her left. To the right there is a staircase leading up.

“Which way, Matthew?”

Nothing. She can hear the beating in her ears.

“Matth-”

“Right.”

“But I thought…” She searches her memory. He said it was on the first level, right? Her mind is fuzzy. What is that terrible ringing?

She walks up the stairs cautiously and continues walking. Matthew leads her to another staircase. 

“Go up,” he commands. His voice hurts.

“Do you hear that noise?”

“I hear everything.”

She wants to refuse, but her head buzzes worse when she turns around. She ascends two more staircases, recognizing from the light that the current level is the same one from yesterday. She doesn’t notice the angel until she’s already passed it. It just stares at her when she looks back. All she can see are the pitch black silhouette of its huge arms against the wall and the eyes glimmering gold against the dark. 

Another staircase. At this point Alma can’t see anything; Matthew is guiding her completely. Another. She thinks she sees shapes in the dark, thin figures just out of reach. Her head feels like it’s splitting in two as she reaches the base of the final staircase. She crawls up, each step beating a nail in the back of her skull. Finding a flat floor once again, she leans against the wall to stand. Reaching in front of her, the back of her hand hits something.

“There is a door in front of you, Alma.” Matthew’s voice isn’t coming from the speaker anymore. “I still love you, even if you don’t deserve it.” He laughs, something Alma’s never heard. “I have no right to judge. That is left to God.”

Alma feels the door’s old mahogany grooves. She finds the handle and turns it. The ringing stops as she gingerly swings the door inward. She can see it, despite the darkness. There, lying on the floor, a mangled fetus. Several pulsing arteries are connected to it, leading offsomewhere into the dark. Its chest moves up and down at irregular intervals. A thousand eyes stare at her from all around. Some amount of time passes which Alma cannot perceive. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the knife. God raises its head slightly, the world splits open, and Alma falls.