Dark Agent - II

For Qudsia, Who Believes In My Creative Genius

Ascent

The corridor reeked of human excrement. The walls were plastered with mouldy, damp wallpaper that was patched and torn along the length of the hallway. He walked in towards the first room and took a survey of his surroundings. A couple of cardboard boxes served as chairs. They were positioned around an old rickety table, on which stood a dozen or so empty beer bottles. More of these were found rolling or shattered on the floor. A solitary bucket tried in vain to keep a leak in the roof in check. “They’re going to have trouble if those storm clouds open up”, he thought to himself, “Then again, after I’m through here, that’s going to be the least of their worries”. He spotted an open-door and went through it. In the corner, sat a young girl, no more than 14, writing in a notebook by the light of a lantern. He stood right behind her and peered over her shoulder. He could easily make out what she was writing in her child-like spidery scrawl:

12^th April 2022

He did it again last night. I didn’t want to but he forced me. It hurt so much, and afterwards he grabbed me around the throat and nearly strangled me. He told me he would kill me if I told anyone. Then he raped me again. My own father. God I wish I could die………

He turned around and started walking back. He was disgusted and angrier than before. He found the stairs and made his way up. He was now in the master bedroom, if it could be called that. The bed-sheets were dirty and stained. The bed, itself, looked as if it would collapse any minute. There were no other furnishings in the room. Right in the middle, a couple was standing and arguing with each other. The woman, he noted, was pregnant and screaming “Your own daughter? How could you?” The man’s speech was slurred and he reckoned the empty beer bottles downstairs were responsible “That’s all she’s good for. She’s going to turn into a whore anyways, might as well put her on the right footing” The woman turned crimson with rage and slapped the man across the face. “You bitch!” he snarled and leapt on her, bringing them both to the floor. The man got up quickly and started kicking her. It was then that the woman saw him and started to scream. “Not my child, please take me!” she pleaded. Time slowed down and he could see the man’s boot going up slowly to connect with his wife’s belly. Then time stood still, as he looked up again and asked “You want me to take this woman and her unborn child and leave her daughter alone to this man’s devices? Indeed, my Lord, you are most merciful, as you claim to be”. He knew he was overstepping the mark, but he no longer cared. There was no answer still. Infuriated, he started to scream again “You preach equality, yet You let your subjects suffer this degradation. You preach tolerance, yet You push your subjects to the very edge. You preach mercy, yet You let a father violate his own daughter. Indeed, I do serve a just, merciful King” He waited for a while, looking for a sign that he had been heard; waiting for an answer he knew would not come. “Alright then, Your will shall be done”. He looked down and time resumed its normal course. The man kicked his wife in the stomach again and just as she miscarried, he reached right into her gravid belly and snatched the life from the unborn child within. He waited for a while as the husband continued to pummel his wife’s battered body, for he knew that everyone had to be taken at their own time and he was no one to determine that. Then, he reached down and took the woman’s hand in his own and gently drew out her soul, as the man collapsed in a heap and fainted next to his wife’s body. He drew back and spread his arms as his wings unfurled from under his clothes and he grabbed the woman by the arm to take her to her Lord. He looked at her and she was smiling. He was stupefied, for he was sure that the mother would be worried about her remaining daughter. He asked her, “You’ve lived a miserable hard life and you know your daughter is destined for the same. Yet you smile. Why?” The woman’s mile grew broader as she answered. “I can see it now, the Lord has singled out my daughter to grow up and put an end to suffering such as I myself have endured during my life. She shall grow up and fight for her kind and free us from the tyranny that you have no doubt witnessed just now. Her road will be hard, but it is a just Lord that she serves, and a merciful Lord that looks over her”. Hearing this, he folded his wings again and made his way downstairs. He walked into her room and saw her coiled up in the corner, shaking with fear, having heard her mother's screams. Against the wishes of his Lord, he reached down and took with him the soul of the one chosen to free her kind from man's rule. He opened his wings and took flight for the heavens. He knew he would be punished severely for what he had done, but he could not help himself, for he too was male.