Angelfall Horror Story

The first thing that happens is the birds stop singing.

Out in oldciv, it’s harder to notice. The ruins reach up with jagged concrete and steel, but there aren’t many birds here. Even after fifty years, nature is still hesitant to return. That’s just how Angelfall works.

Callis crouches behind a low concrete wall and closes her eyes. She isn’t listening so much as feeling, reaching for something deep inside her mind. It’s an old instinct, the kind that once helped people survive before they could name their fears. Now, it matters more than ever.

At first, you barely notice it. It’s like a tripwire in your mind, warning you: ‘watch out,’ ‘something’s wrong,’ ‘something’s missing.’ If you want to survive here, you have to listen to it. Something sets it off now, but it’s not close, not ahead, and not an angel, so there’s no real danger yet.

“Alright,” she says. “You can breathe again.”

Her passengers gasp for air, and she wonders how long she made them wait. Her job is to move people from one ‘safe’ zone to another, but she sometimes forgets that some people still live normal lives. They’re used to breathing, talking, and sleeping whenever they want, not by the angels’ rules. They live in places the angels avoid or haven’t found yet.

She gazes at a small family of refugees, whose names she doesn’t know because she never asks. There are two men and a little girl, probably about seven years old, with dark hair and deep eyes. The girl doesn’t seem scared or panicked; she simply watches the world around her.

“You all doing okay?” The parents look exhausted and worried, and the last thing she needs is for them to break down.

“We’ll be fine, Wayfarer, thank you,” replies the man with a clean-shaven face, wild black curls framing his features. His white shirt, popular in the countryside, looks old and stained. He’s trying to hide his fear, and she admires that. The other man appears to be more troubled. Even with his neatly trimmed beard, she can see it in his eyes and the way he holds his daughter. His hands are tense, and his knuckles are white. She knows she will need to keep an eye on him.

“The sun’s getting low,” she says. “There’s an island about one point two clicks from here, in the basement of one of these towers. If I stop, you stop. If I run, you run. Got it?”

They nod, following her lead and getting to their feet.

She leads them across the street to a row of columns surrounded by grass. Most of the buildings they once held up has collapsed, leaving a pile of rubble that will stay for years. Between the last two columns on the left, there’s a cleared path. Sometimes she comes here alone to keep it open. Other wayfarers do the same. In this job, you have to plan ahead to survive.

They move quickly, sprinting through a gap in the unbroken glass, then slipping down an old pedestrian underpass and under the next street. No one really understands the angels, but narrow, hidden paths seem safest. Still, Callis thinks those things can probably see through almost anything.

That is, if they even have eyes at all.

They say that when the first angels came, people tried to talk to them. Callis thought that was a joke when she heard it. People said we didn’t need to be afraid of them; they were intelligent, superior beings you could reason with.

She sometimes wonders if that’s where the name came from. The angels in her grandmother’s old, dusty Bible said, “be not afraid.” Of course, the people who believed that are all dead now. The ones still alive are those who learned to trust their fear.

You don’t really see an angel; you feel it coming. To see one, you’d have to look at it, and that’s the last thing you want. You can’t look at it, you can’t talk to it, and if you make it angry, there’s nothing you can do except die, she thinks. But you know one is near when nothing moves the way it should.

The first thing that happens is that the birds stop singing.

Callis holds up a hand, clenches her fist, and they drop into a crouch, slipping backward into the underpass, holding their breaths. The back of her brain is screaming. Then every part of her is. Where is it? How did it get so close?

It’s on the street above them. It’s on top of them.

No one can really explain the Angelfall. There’s nothing else like it. Wherever angels go, they change or unmake things. They disrupt everything: the world itself, even the idea of what things are. Everything falls apart.

A wave of impossible change sweeps over them in the tunnel. The walls taste metallic when she looks at them. Her skin feels like the smell of rain on warm pavement. Her fingers feel like willow branches, and her tongue tastes like fear. She’s only been this close to an angel a few times before, and each time she felt sick. This time, it’s even worse.

She doesn’t even dare look at the people she’s escorting. That’s what they become, this deep in Angelfall: just things. The world itself is a disaster, but other people? Other people are a nightmare. She’s heard stories of wayfarers killing those they were guiding in the presence of angels, terrified by what they saw. She refuses to be the cause of another story like that. She refuses to look.

---

---

She remembers her training, drilled into her over the years. She covers her ears, curls up as much as she can while standing, and tries to block everything out. She tries to count backward from a hundred, but her mind slips into counting primes, squares, and Fibonacci numbers. She was wrong. This is closer than she’s ever been. The world is falling apart.

Her breath is sharp, like knives. Her eyes dart, searching. She imagines the ghost of an old wayfarer she once knew, hiding in the back of her mind. A song promises she’ll remember a time after angels, with rain falling in the distance under steep hills, quiet as sleeping rats and monuments. Wild winds twist upward, and black crows circle fields that shine like blooming coal.

Words come close, whispering secrets she can almost taste. Swim in the deep to taste the abyss; it tastes like bile. Under the dunes, wash the sand from the fire; the fire burns in her lungs. A wild dog chases behind, and the air screams for the child. The words rise and fade, calling out now, their meanings just out of reach but hinting at a truth to come. Light hums like a wasp’s sting, sharp as lemon, bleach, and pain.

She remembers that being close to existence is like being on fire. Getting too close means burning and turning to ash, so stay away. Don’t.

Don’t be.

She grabs hold of a thrShe grabs hold of a thread of meaning, cool and slipping through her fingers, catching it before it escapes. She forces herself to become nothing, to think of not existing. There is no self. She hides the idea of thought and lets herself simply stop.

A gentle darkness surrounds her, calming her and carrying her to the edge of oblivion. She sleeps there until, finally, she wakes up.

The air smells like vomit.

Is she alive? Are they all alive?

Callis pulls herself up. Luckily, the vomit isn’t hers, and none of it is on her. The two men aren’t as lucky. Both are unconscious, lying in puddles of their own sickness, but they’re alive.

Her stomach drops. Where’s the girl?

She almost runs out of the tunnel, but stops at the entrance and closes her eyes. She wonders if the part of her mind that senses danger still works, or if it ever will again. Nothing happens. When she opens her eyes, the girl is standing before her, looking fine.

It was the worst Angelfall she’s ever experienced, and they all survived.

The girl looks up at her with calm eyes, then holds out her hand as if to give her something.

Callis isn’t sure what it is. It’s about the size of her thumbnail, translucent and shimmering, thin like a fish scale. Maybe it’s some kind of plastic. There’s a lot of it in the old city’s underbrush, as if people once had so much they didn’t know what to do with it.

“It’s very pretty,” she whispers to the girl. “What is it?”

The girl says nothing, as though she hasn’t even heard the words.

Callis tries to give it back, but the girl shakes her head and pushes her hand back.

“Is this…for me?”

The girl nods.

“Well, thank you.” She puts it in her pocket and looks back at the two men lying in the tunnel. It’s already dark, and they need to reach the safe island. It’s not far, if she can wake them.

She gently shakes the man with a clean-shaven face, starting softly and then with more urgency.

“Hey,” she whispers. “Hey.”

---

---

He suddenly wakes up, looking around in confusion. “Madah!” he nearly shouts, and she quickly puts a hand over his mouth.

“Shh!” she whispers urgently. After a moment, he seems to remember where he is and settles down.

“Madah.” He says her name more quietly, glancing past her at the girl. She approaches, and it seems that “Madah” is her name. “My child! Are you okay?”

The girl nods silently. Callis assumes that she’s just not the talkative type.

A look of relief washes over the man’s face. He turns to Callis and says, “That was an angel. That was Angelfall.”

“Yeah,” she replies. “And if you’re fortunate, you won’t have to go through that again. Now, let’s get him up.”

The other man is in rough shape. They manage to get him to his feet but have to carry him the last bit, through heavy steel doors and down concrete stairs to the island. Once they reach their destination, his eyes close, and he falls asleep again, this time peacefully. That’s probably for the best; she hadn’t liked how his eyes were darting between his partner and the girl before.

Wayfarers call the small safe spots in dangerous areas ‘islands.’ No one knows why angels can’t see them. Trying to understand how angels see the world is as pointless as trying to talk to one. Maybe it’s a fold in the universe, a piece of spacetime that hides them. To Callis, it just looks like an old market district turned crypt, lit only by her lamp and a small chemical fire for boiling water.

After a quiet dinner of rice and jerky, the man with a clean-shaven face tucks the girl into bed and returns to the small glow of a light nearby. He mimics washing his hands, a motion he’s repeated multiple times since they almost drowned during a chaotic event known as Angelfall.

“Luis, he’s a good man,” he speaks softly, though the man with the beard nearby could probably hear him if he were awake. “This journey hasn’t been easy. We started with six people three months ago in a place called Terrasalva, but we lost two to bandits and a third person to a group of fanatic worshippers outside another town called Belin.”

Thinking about the worshippers sends a chill down Callis’s spine. She would rather face bandits than these angel-worshippers any day. They rarely cross her path on this route, at least not in one piece. Sometimes, they come seeking visions from angels, and occasionally, they get what they hope for.

“It was a close call, they tried to take Madah and force her into their odd beliefs,” he continues. “Kaia—Luis’s sister—helped us get away. Since that day…” He shakes his head, lost in thought. “He plays the piano beautifully, you know. His hands…” He looks up, but his gaze seems to look right through her, as if there’s no one there to really see her. “Will I ever hear a piano again?” His expression remains unchanged.

“There are pianos in Cambria,” she replies. She’s not entirely sure, but it seems likely, and she feels a sudden worry about adding to his despair. “At least a few, I think.”

He doesn’t answer or say anything else that night. He just turns his empty gaze toward the camp light and stares. His silence grows, spreading until Callis can almost feel a strange, threatening emptiness at the center of their safe place.

She waits as long as she can stand it, then rolls out her mat and lies down, but she doesn’t close her eyes until he gets up and takes the silence with him to bed.

She doesn’t sleep.

The next day, it rains. When she was a child, her grandmother told her that the swirling patterns in the clouds and raindrops only started when the angels came. The patterns knot and ripple, starting smooth and then twisting into sharp funnels and impossible shapes.

Callis always thought it was just an old woman’s story, but now she knows better. The rain today is heavy and slow, like syrup, and its patterns are hypnotic, almost beautiful if you forget what they mean.

They move more slowly because of the rain. The paths are slick, the underpasses ankle-deep in water. Luis is still weak, leaning on his husband, who Callis now knows is named Yusuf. The girl, Madah, walks between them, silent as ever, her small hand in Yusuf’s.

Callis watches both the sky and the girl. Something about Madah unsettles her. It isn’t fear, but a feeling that the girl sees things that others can’t. When the birds go quiet again, Callis doesn’t wait for her instincts to fully kick in. She grabs Madah’s hand and leads everyone into a narrow alley lined with rusted cars.

---

---

“Down,” she hisses.

They crouch behind a crumpled sedan. The rain thickens, and the patterns in it sharpen into blades. Callis feels the world start to fray at the edges again.

This time, it’s not as bad. The angel passes overhead without stopping or lingering. The rain goes back to normal, and the birds start singing again, though there are fewer than before. Callis exhales.

But when she looks at Madah, the girl is smiling. It’s not a child’s smile, but something older and knowing. In her other hand, she holds another scale, just like the first.

Callis takes it without asking.

They reach the next island by dusk. It’s a half-collapsed parking garage, reinforced with scavenged metal and marked with wayfarer sigils. It’s safe enough for the night.

Luis is recovering and talking more. Yusuf is quieter, his eyes still darting. Callis watches him watch Madah.

In the night, Callis wakes to low, urgent voices. She slips out of her sleeping bag, gun in hand.

Yusuf stands over Madah’s mat, knife glinting in the low light. Luis is between them, pleading.

“She’s not what you think,” Yusuf whispers. “Kaia told me. Before she died. Madah can see them. She can call them. That’s why the adorers wanted her. That’s why we have to…”

Luis lunges. The knife flashes. Blood.

Callis doesn’t hesitate. She fires once. Yusuf drops.

Luis collapses beside his husband, sobbing. Madah stands, untouched, staring at the body.

Callis lowers the gun. “What did he mean?”

Madah doesn’t answer. Instead, she holds out another scale—this one larger, pulsing faintly with inner light.

Callis takes it. The world tilts.

The angel comes at dawn.

No warning this time. No birds to stop. Just suddenly, total unmaking.

Callis grabs Madah and runs straight toward the source, the eye of the storm. Luis screams behind her.

She doesn’t look back.

The Angelfall hits like a wave of pure negation. Reality shreds. Callis feels herself coming apart, then something changes. The scales in her pocket hum. Madah’s hand is steady in hers.

She steps into the heart of it.

And steps out the other side.

The angel is gone. Luis is gone. The island is gone. Only Madah is left, looking up at her with those calm eyes.

Callis kneels. “What are you?”

Madah gently places the last scale into Callis’s hand. Then, without saying a word, she turns and walks away into the ruins.

Callis doesn’t follow her.

Years pass, and Callis now lives in a cozy cabin near Cambria. She has stopped traveling. On a shelf in her home, three scales rest, glowing softly.

Sometimes, a young man named Mateo stops by, bringing news from nearby places. Crows often accompany him, cawing as if warning her of his arrival.

One day, Mateo asks about the scales.

For the first time in years, Callis smiles. “They’re gifts,” she explains. “From someone who could see things that we couldn’t.”

Mateo nods in understanding. A crow lands on his shoulder, its eyes calm and wise.

Callis watches him leave as the crows circle above. She reaches out to touch the scales. Somewhere out there, Madah is still moving forward.

And somewhere, perhaps, the angels are waiting for those who can look without burning.

The end.