Flickering.

Everything seemed wrong at that moment, nothing was going the way he was promised, the way he expected. The way it should've been going. What was he supposed to do now? Fight them off by himself? He couldn't do it alone, no one could. They couldn't even do it as a whole together, every one of them in their glorious power uniting and they still couldn't get it right. He broke the pen in his hand, ink droplets flying onto the piece of his scribbled on parchment and to his bare chest, staining it with the black liquid. He yelled out of frustration and threw the broken pieces of plastic into the darkness that was fighting to consume the flickering light around him. He huddled closer to it, though the light didn't bring him the warmth and joy he had once obtained from it. A time not so long ago when he trusted that the plan for him would stay on it's course.

He put his wide hands on his furrowed brow, pressing down as if it would push the doubts and darkness out of his mind and the grand ebony wings on his back ruffled with irritation. He didn't know how to do it anymore, he didn't understand what he should be doing differently. The tortured whispering started again and he gripped his skull, wishing he could tear them out and burn them in the flickering candle. He couldn't go out like the others, he had a mission to complete. But the mission was pointless now.

"Why are you still trying?" Something hissed and the angel flinched. It had been the first time the whispers had actually spoken something other than nonsense. He slammed his fist on the desk, clenching it until his knuckles were white and his short nails were digging into the flesh of his palm.

"They left without you," a more high pitched voice said and it reminded him of a child.

"Enough!" He yelled out so that even the voices deep inside his mind could hear him but he doubted they would stop no matter how loud he wanted to yell.

"You remember," The first voice hissed further, it reminded him of a snake talking, the being's forked tongue creating a slight lisp in his poison words.

"Stop!" The angel screamed, digging his nails into his flesh, wanting so badly to rip out the unknown voices.

"You remember how they looked," a new third voice continued, this one sounding more like nails running down a chalkboard. Before the angel could put up his mental shields the images ran in front of his eyes, his supreme power unable to fight off the dark twisting clouds of black that slunked closer to his being. The candle flickered violently, its warm light threatening to end it's existence as the shadows consumed it's pale contrast hungrily.

His brothers flashed before his eyes. Not in all their endless glory like he chose to remember them, but in their final days, the sky blood red and their wings tattered pieces, ghosts of what the angelic beings had once been. The oldest one, Gabriel, his ink black hair in his hands and the wrists that supported them bloody with the chains that secured him to the dry and rotting ground. He was crying, howling out of gripping pain, but the tears were crimson and stained his once beautiful face that now twisted with misfortune. His shredded wings hung limply, their dingy feathers broken and flapping awkwardly. wishing to fly up into the bleeding heavens just to get away from the agonizing hell.

His younger brother was in a similar shape, his ankles and wrists chained to the barren ground, his torn wings flapping in horror, but his hands weren't full of hair like the brother before him, but gripping his face. They were bent back, broken, each finger twisting sickeningly into a different direction, but they gripped his face, the knuckles turning white with the force he put behind them. "Take me!" He screamed to the bloody skies, though his face was covered.

Michelangelo's heart broke with the images and he cried out. Somewhere in the back of his mind, somewhere he couldn't reach but was conscience of, told him that it wasn't real. That his brothers weren't actually suffering. None of it had actually happened, but right as he was about to acknowledge it, the images pressed back down on him. His brother's screams were louder now, calling out to him.

"You know you did this to them," the hissing whispered again and every muscle in the angel's body tensed with the need to tear the evil out of his body.

"I didn't!" He screamed, desperately trying to convince himself, but in his heart he knew it was true.

"You did." The child's whisper acknowledged. Michelangelo shook his head violently, the image of his screeching brothers melting away. The candle seemed dimmer though the flame seemed the same size and all the angel could think is how much he wished it were the size of the sun. Of heaven itself because he needed the light, the light was his strength.

"You're the one who should be dead!" The third voice accused loudly and it rose goosebumps on his golden tanned skin. Michelangelo pulled on his thick white curls, tugging on the roots, wishing a passage way into his brain to dig out the demons that lived inside the various cracks and tunnels.

"I know!" He screamed, the tears pouring down his face. "I know I'm the one who should be dead." he whispered to himself. The candle flickered again. but he didn't notice this time. The darkness was getting inkier, it was tainting the air he was breathing.

"Why?" He asked, tilting his head up to where he knew the sky was though he couldn't see it. "Why have you taken so many of my people and left me here?" He wasn't talking to the voices anymore. But to his Father. "Why have you left me here, left me hear with torture? Why don't you care about me anymore." The last wasn't a question but a statement the angel had developed to be true in his mind. He knew it was true, he didn't need conformation from the man himself. 

With that, the struggling light of the candle snuffed out, submerging the angel to the craving beasts, the inky blackness clawing at his skin as soon as it reached it, stealing the heavenly light that rested in his bones. It devoured him, selfishly, ravenously consumed him. Tearing his wings and seeping into his lungs through his breath.

The angel couldn't scream, he choked on the evil. He couldn't pray, the voices in his head suffocated his thoughts. He couldn't fight, the demons were holding down his arms.

But worse than all of that, the angel had allowed himself into the darkness. He had allowed himself to be eaten alive by the demons that had lurked inside of him.

He had chosen not to be saved. The guilt, the want, the self hate. He had allowed it to eat him alive.

And no one came to save him as he drowned in the darkness, because he had pushed everyone that had ever cared about him into the flames.