I was falling.
The High Heavens burned behind me—gold and white collapsing into ash as the Celestial Tribunal’s voice echoed across eternity.
“You are banished.”
Then came the fire.
It consumed everything. My skin. My hair. My power. My very being. I reached for it—for anything—but there was nothing left to grasp.
Only the fall.
Only the burning.
Only—
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
I opened my eyes.
What in the seven hells was that sound?
I was lying on something soft. Too soft. The ceiling above me was flat and white—no constellations, no marble pillars, no eternal light that stretched into infinity.
Just… a ceiling.
I sat up.
Every muscle in my body protested.
…That was new.
And then I saw the room.
I froze.
What is this?
The walls were an unsettling shade somewhere between pink and peach, like a sunrise that had lost the will to rise.
A desk sat nearby, cluttered with strange objects—rectangles, cords, containers with labels I couldn’t parse.
Clothes hung limply over a chair like something had tried to escape them and failed. A shelf held an array of little figurines with oversized heads and tiny, unsettling smiles.
But the walls—
I narrowed my eyes.
Faces.
Nine of them. Repeated over and over across dozens of posters. Young men with flawless skin and elaborate hair, dressed in identical outfits, staring at me like they knew something I didn’t. Some were mid-dance. Some were gazing soulfully into the distance.
One of them—tall, sharp-eyed, with a jaw that could cut glass—had words written above him in bold letters, in a language I had never seen but understood:
I’M GOING TO MARRY YOU SOMEDAY.
I stared at it.
It stared back.
Why? How do I know to read this?
What in the hells is a “BT…“?
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
I turned.
The sound came from a small black box on the desk.
It was… aggressive.
I didn’t trust it.
Before I could decide whether to destroy it, the door slammed open.
I flinched.
My entire body jerked. My heart slammed against my ribs. My breath caught in my throat.
That is unacceptable.
I, Seraphyne, daughter of the Empyrean Choir and the Abyssal Court, did not get startled by doors.
This was going to be a problem.
“How long are you going to let that alarm ring?!”
A girl stormed in.
Her hair was a battlefield. Dark, tangled, and entirely out of control—like it had fought a losing war with sleep and surrendered hours ago. She wore an oversized shirt slipping off one shoulder and pants covered in weird looking creatures with four legs in different positions. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her expression murderous.
She walked straight past me and smacked the black box.
Silence.
“You know I came home late last night!” she snapped, whirling on me. “I need to sleep! I stayed up all night trying to finish that damn webtoon of mine!”
I stared at her, feeling a sense of disbelief that I understood her perfectly, even though I knew it was not the old language we spoke in the Courts or in any realm I had been in.
She stared back, chest heaving.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Oh my — I can speak this foreign language too. How useful, or should I say, how convenient?
She blinked.
“Say that again?”
“Who are you?”
She grabbed my arm and yanked me out of bed with surprising strength.
“Get to school! Mum!!”
She stormed out.
I stood there in the middle of the strange room, my arm tingling where her hand had gripped it.
The audacity!!!
Wait! What? School? I didn’t attend mortal institutions designed to herd young minds into mediocrity. I didn’t even know what that was, aside from some place where humans corralled their young like livestock.
And who was she to command me? A small, fragile human with tangled hair and strange looking creatures covered pants?
Before I could process further, another figure appeared in the doorway.
An older woman.
She had the same dark hair as the first girl, though hers was styled in neat curls that framed her face. Her hands were planted on her hips. Her eyes were tired in a way that suggested she had long ago made peace with disappointment.
“Sera,” she said. “Stop being difficult and get ready for school. I don’t want to get another call from your school about you being late. You’re in your last year of university now. Act like an adult.”
Sera.
She was addressing me.
How Interesting.
I studied her posture. Her tone. The authority she carried so casually—like someone who had spent years perfecting the art of being ignored and had decided that was no longer acceptable.
Heat of anger rose in my chest.
“Who are you peasant?” I demanded, my voice flat and cold. The voice I used when I wanted lesser beings to know exactly where they stood. “You do not give me orders.”
She blinked.
She didn’t look intimidated. She looked… surprised. Then curious. Then something else I couldn’t quite name.
“Did you just call me a peasant?” she asked slowly.
“Yes. Peasant.” I lifted my chin. “Now. Go fetch me a glass of water.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Charged. The woman’s eyes narrowed, and a slow smile spread across her face—a smile that, I realized a moment too late, held absolutely no warmth.
“Oh,” she said softly. ”I see."
Something moved.
A blur.
Impact.
A footwear collided with my face.
Pain exploded across my nose.
I staggered back, hands flying to my face.
“What—how dare you—”
“That hurt, huh?!” she snapped, advancing with another footwear raised. “Call your mother a peasant, one more time! I dare you! and you shall meet my all fearsome pink and shiny super comfortable slipper”
Mother?
This woman is my mother? Impossible? She looks nothing like my mother. Then again, I have never seen my mother before.
“I will incinerate you, you She-devil” I warned, raising my hand in what should have been a devastating arc of celestial flame. “I am not someone you strike!”
Her eye twitched.
“Now you call me a Demon.” She didn’t stop. “Show me since you are so powerful.”
I tried the incantation.
Nothing happened.
Not a spark. Not a flicker. Just… an invincible pathetic puff of air, just poof out like a dying candle.
And then—
Impact.
OUCH.
I scrambled onto the bed, putting a pillow between us, my heart racing.
This was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
I, Seraphyne, daughter of heaven and hell, was being driven back by a mortal woman wielding footwear.
This was humiliating.
“You just called your mother a peasant! And then a demon!” the woman repeated, trying to get around the pillow. “I’ll show you what a demon I can be! Ahhhhhh…..!!!”
“I am powerful! I would burn your precious comfortable slippers before you can even say another word You pathetic puff” I insisted, trying another incantation. More nothing. More pathetic air.
OUCH.
“I said stop! Peasant! She-devil Who are you?”
Her eye twitched again.
" I AM YOUR MOTHER!! You imbecile!! Ungrateful little racoon!!”
“I am not—I am a celestial being—”
OUCH.
Just as she wound up for what looked like a truly devastating throw, a man appeared behind her. His face looked weird. What was that on his face? It looked like flying saucers nestled on his nose. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back; his expression caught somewhere between amusement and alarm.
“Honey,” he said gently. “Your blood pressure. You need to watch your blood pressure.”
“She called me a peasant! Then demon!!” she snapped, still trying to aim around him.
“She called you a She-Devil. Not a demon. Now Now, I am just explaining the difference. You don’t have to twitch that eye of yours more. Besides, she hurt her head yesterday, remember?” he said calmly.
“So?! That doesn’t give her the right to—”
“She climbed out the window... The mini explosion,” he added meaningfully.
The woman froze. Her footwear arm lowered. Her expression shifted from fury to something that looked almost like guilt.
“Ah,” she said. “I… forgot about that.”
“She also stayed up very late recently due to school,” the man added. “Maybe she’s just… tired.”
“Tired people don’t call their mothers those names.”
“You called your mother a big ass, humpty dumpty, shrivel potato last Christmas.”
“That was different.”
I watched this exchange with growing bewilderment. They were talking about me like I wasn’t standing right there. Like I was a pet that had misbehaved and they were trying to figure out why.
I needed to establish dominance. Clarify my position. Make them understand that I was not to be trifled with.
“Who are you, you unholy piece of magworm?” I demanded, pointing at the man.
Magworms were human-sized worms with flat, disc-like eyes that eerily resembled flying saucers—bulging, unblinking, and utterly alien. To call someone a magworm was to accuse them of being not just repulsive, but fundamentally wrong, a creature that slithered through the world with an unnerving, otherworldly gaze.
The effect was immediate.
His eyebrows shot up. He turned to the woman, lowering his voice to what he clearly thought was a whisper.
“Honey,” he said slowly. “I think our daughter has hurt her head very badly. I think we should take her to see a doctor.”
The woman frowned at me, then back at him.
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t think of that. I thought she was just being rude.” She tilted her head, studying me. “But now that you mention it… she did climb out a window. And there was an explosion. And she is standing on the bed like a startled cat.”
“I am not standing like a—”
“YAH!”
The girl with messy hair popped out from behind the door, where she had apparently been hiding and listening the entire time. Her tangled mane bounced as she pointed at me accusingly.
“When I screamed at her earlier, she just stared at me! She didn’t say anything! She just stared!” She turned to her mother. “She look as if she doesn’t recognise me! I think something’s wrong! Bring her to the doctor and let them chop her up!”
Chop me up?
The woman—my supposed mother—nodded slowly. Clearly ignoring that part. She looked at me, and for the first time, I saw something other than irritation in her eyes. Something almost… concerned.
“Sera,” she said, her voice softer now. “Do you know who I am?”
I considered lying. Considered playing along until I understood more about this situation.
But something about the way she was looking at me—the same way the messy-haired girl was looking at me, the same way the man was looking at me—made me pause.
“Do I look like I need to give you an answer,” I said. “Who are you to question me? You all are beneath me. Pathetic. Low level creatures”
The silence that followed was different from before. Heavier. More fragile.
The woman’s face did something complicated. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
“Well,” she finally said, her voice a little too bright. “That’s… that’s answer everything.”
“Maybe we should call an ambulance,” the messy-haired girl said quietly.
“No,” the woman said firmly. “We’ll drive. I’m not having paramedics see the state of this house.”
“Mum,” the girl said, “my sister might have brain damage and you’re worried about the house?”
“Your father left dishes in the sink.”
“I was getting to them,” the man said.
“Three days ago.”
“I’m a slow processor.”
I watched this exchange with something that might have been fascination. These people had just discovered that their daughter didn’t recognize them, and they were arguing about dishes.
Humans were strange.
“Get dressed,” my mother said, pointing at me. “We’re going.”
I outright refused.
Then she picked up her slipper.
…I got dressed.
A note from B.R.LEE
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