Guardian Angel
Maya didn’t like the shadows at night. The little city she lived in seemed to have aggressive shadows, the light from the lampposts along the road casting bizarre shadows from the buildings and occasional tree branch that peeked through the buildings. They seemed to reach at her. To try and snatch her ankles. She grabbed her braid from behind her head, messing with it to try to relieve the stress from walking home alone. The shadows seemed to grow. She felt the urge to run.
She had to work late every evening, if anything just to keep her rent. The apartment she lived in was too pricey for what she could comfortably afford, but she had nothing else to work with. Maya breathed in the cold night air, speeding up her pace to try to outrun the feeling of loneliness and danger.
Out of nowhere, a whoosh of air brushed past her. She whirled around, eyes wide as she saw the shadows manifest. They tangled into one of another, becoming a physical shape apart from the ground they should have been on. A monstrous creature began to appear, large and bipedal. It appeared to grow horns, and, after a moment, it opened its eyes to reveal deep blue pits. Maya felt the urge to scream, but her voice broke. She stumbled over her feet, and ran.
The shadowy creature howled behind her, and she could hear it following behind. An internal voice told her not to run home--and she listened. She turned down a side street, away from her apartment complex, her stamina rapidly failing her. Her breaths were ragged. She rounded another corner, exhausted from the four block sprint. She scolded herself for being out of shape. It would now be her death. She stumbled over the uneven concrete of the sidewalk, tripping and feeling her speed she previously had disappear. As a last ditch effort, she turned down the alleyway between two buildings casting herself back into shadows to hide from the beast.
The creature howled again, and she heard its cry from the front of the alleyway. It, too, had stopped running, as if it knew that she was cornered. She let out a strangled sob, clawing desperately at the wooden fence that had seemed to manifest in her path. She averted her eyes from the creature’s blue pools, unable to make contact with what she knew was going to kill her as soon as it reached her. She heard it push off of the alley concrete, and she braced herself.
A sudden large thud and another rush of air bombarded her senses. The smell of sulfur burned her nose, and she heard the beast scream. Her eyes flew open, locking on to the new, bizarre form in front of her. It was a person, or so she had originally thought, but it was too large, nearing twenty or more feet. Two large wings, engulfed in dark red flames, protruded from the thing’s back, and it appeared to be strangling the shadow creature that had chased Maya to the alley. The shadow creature’s cries became louder and more desperate, and then stopped. The fire-winged thing dropped the no longer moving shadow beast to the ground, where its body dissipated and sunk back into the shadows of the alley. The person turned to face her.
The person, tough looking and scarred, scowled down at her. A mane of red hair messily brushed over one side of her head framed the outside of her strong, sharply-defined face. Her eyes burned the same dark red as her wings, but after a moment the flames faded. Her wings returned back to their presumably original state: almost the same as a red hawk’s pattern. She crouched down as to make herself more level with the human before her.
“You’re not dead, are you?” she asked, her voice deep and growling. “You should go home. Forget everything you’ve seen.” Maya’s jaw dropped, and she floundered for words. The person got back to their feet, stretching out her wings to the best of her ability within the cramped alley. She growled in frustration when they only extended to half their full length. Maya was still unable to find her words. The person turned back to her, eyes scanning her body for a second.
“Go on, go home! You have to live somewhere, or they wouldn’t have gone for you. Get out of here!” she practically shouted, pacing to the front of the alley to escape the confines of the buildings. She stood at the entrance for a minute, then turned back one last time. “Really. The longer you stay out, the more likely you are to get targeted again. Go home. Get out of here. Don’t stay too long.” With that, the person took the last step needed to escape the alley, spread her wings, and took off into the air.
Maya was unable to move. What she had witnessed terrified her. The winged woman’s words burned in her mind, and she forced herself to shakily get to her feet. She trailed a hand along the building to her right, peeking out of the alley and up into the sky to see if she could make out the woman’s form. Nothing.
The walk home would be much more frightening and tense than last time.
