The Ascended

            It was a quiet night in the city. the gentle glow of street lamps and lights from inside the buildings pushed back the darkness. then a shriek could be heard, piercing the silence. The scream was quick and then all was quiet. In a dark alley away from the soft light, a man had cornered a woman against a wall. She had screamed once, but now her mouth was covered. The man rummaged through her pockets and took her purse. He seemed nervous, but determined to get what he needed.

            A light pierced the dark alley, soft at first but then bright and blinding all at once. When the robber could see again he saw a human figure with bird wings. It was one of the Ascended and this is what the robber was so nervous about running into. The Ascended usually have beautiful skin and hair, with a wide variation of shades and colors, with eyes that are always either bright green or blue. Anyone who sees an Ascended says how beautiful they are, no matter the race or gender of the person seeing it, they all agree. This Ascended looked down at the robber with pity, as a parent looks at a child who has done wrong. The robber began to plead. Then with blinding speed the robber had been impaled on a golden spear. Still alive the robber screamed as his torso was skewered. The Ascended lifted the spear above its head and lighting struck the spear, incinerating the criminal instantly. Without a word, the woman’s rescuer turned and flew off into the night, bringing the glow of morning and the gentle light with it.

            Jake left his apartment, wearing a black hoodie, blue jeans, black running shoes and a white t-shirt. He has dark brown hair, reddish brown eyes and pale skin. The night had grown later, but Jake didn’t seem to mind. He was one of the few people he knew that preferred the night over the day, night was also so quiet and as long as you knew where you were going, you would be perfectly safe. Jake wasn’t really afraid of murders or thieves. It was the Ascended that bothered him. While everyone else was overjoyed to have angels defend them in their darkest hour, Jake saw it as a threat. Anyone who can pass immediate judgment and kill someone without thinking can’t be as good as everyone says. Just being the Ascended shine and have wings, people assume they are holy. Jake also never understood why everyone says how beautiful they are. The few times hes seen one, they were just light shaped like humans with wings. He never saw the hair and eyes and wonderful skin people would go on about.

            Jake was on his way to work, he worked late hours into early morning, hours most people didn’t want. Jake was twenty and living alone. Jake didn’t have a car and the bus didn’t make regular stops by his street, so he had to walk everywhere. On the bright side he did have one of the newest wristband phones that besides calling people, it could bring up a calendar, calculator, messaging system, clock, internet, bank account, pedometer and voice recognition. It could also check your blood alcohol levels and pulse. Jake wondered if maybe he should have bought one of the basic phones or communicators and instead saved for a car, or put all that time and money into finding a girlfriend.

            After about twenty minutes of walking, Jake arrived at his work, a twenty four hour bar called “drink till your dead”. Jake wasn’t sure about the name, but gave the owner credit for honesty. Before Jake could get into the bar he saw someone run past him in a panic. It was a man in his mid twenties, dark skin, black hair with brown eyes. Chasing the poor guy was one of the Ascended, which was quickly catching up to the frightened man. The Ascended had been around so long ‘keeping the peace’, that most people wouldn’t have given this situation another thought. Almost everyone believed that if an Ascended was chasing you, you deserved it. Jake didn’t agree with this and decided to see if he could find out what was going on. If this man was guilty he needed to know for his own sake and if the man was innocent, Jake wanted to help.

            Jake saw the back of the Ascended, just pure light and rippling energy, that seemed to be holding a large jagged, golden sword about its head. “Stop!” Jake shouted. He didn’t know what he could do, but hoped that the protectors of humanity and the planet could be reasoned with. The Ascended turned around in a flash and flew straight at Jake. “Stop! Why are you attacking him? Did you even ask this man his side of the story? Do you things have any compassion?” Jake shouted, letting his emotions get the better of him. “It is not a human’s place to judge. It is the place of the Ascended to Judge those living on this planet. Order will be held, justice served. The only side of the story needed is ours” The Ascended replied. Its voice echoed through the air and sounded more like someone speaking through a microphone than what others have claimed they sound like. Jake remembered people say the voice of an Ascended was like honey for your ears. This felt like sandpaper on the ears.

            The Ascended didn’t seem eager to attack Jake, probably because Jake hadn’t done anything wrong. Jake still had the chance to save himself if he wanted, but if he did, this man would be murdered. The death penalty was used for anyone who sinned, it didn’t matter if they stole a piece of bread or murdered a whole family. “You can’t help me” said the scared man. Jake gritted his teeth. “No! Listen. What did he even do? He doesn’t seem like a criminal” Jake told the Ascended, to which it replied very flatly. “This man is one of the damned. A subspecies of human that threaten the order and balance of the world”

            Jake was confused, he didn’t know what these “Damned” were, but he didn’t believe being born a certain way was a crime. “I’m not a damned, I don’t even have any powers!” Shouted the Man. The Ascended turned around and decided to resolve the situation. He shot a bolt of lighting down striking the man dead and incinerating his corpse. “No! what are you things? He wasn’t a threat to anyone!” Jake shouted. Anger boiled in his soul at the injustice of the world and how everyone chooses to ignore it. “Another damned has been located” The Ascended announced. Jake snapped out of his fit of rage to realize he was on fire. His whole body was engulfed in fire, yet he wasn’t burning. He stretched his hand out as a reflex he didn’t know he had and fire shot forward in a stream. Fire poured out of his hands like water from a high-powered water hose. The flames surrounded the Ascended, setting it on fire and eventually burning it to ash.

            All the fires quickly went out after that. It was just Jake and two piles of ash at the end of a quiet street. Jake was finding more questions than answers right now, but decided to leave quickly. No one knew the Ascended could be killed, but it would make sense that killing one was the worst crime imaginable in this world.  Jake wasn’t sure what to do with his new powers, but he did know that if an Ascended came looking for him, they would have a bigger fight on their hands then they could imagine.