Gabriel's descent began as a whisper, a soft glide through the wounded skies. But what began like a sorrowful lullaby soon turned into a cataclysm, a spiral of violence and despair. The heavens themselves seemed to shudder at his banishment, clouds tearing apart as if mourning their lost son.
Winds howled like beasts as they tore at his body. His once-majestic wings—those radiant banners of white and gold that had carried hymns across eternity—were now torn, charred by celestial fire. Each feather that drifted from him was not mere plumage but a fragment of his soul, dissolving into ash before his weeping eyes.
He fell, and the world blurred into nothing but shadow and wind. His heart cracked with each passing second, as though every moment of descent were another chain tightening around him. Hope disintegrated in the storm of his fall, leaving only grief, sharp as a thousand daggers carving into the fragile flesh of his spirit.
Memories as Knives
As the abyss swallowed him, memories came unbidden—merciless and radiant.
He saw the secret garden where he and Luzbel had once met, kissed by moonlight and hushed by the breath of flowers that bloomed only for them. He saw stars trembling as though they had lit themselves only to crown their love. And he heard it—Luzbel's laughter, low and rich, rolling like velvet across the silence of night.
Each memory was a dagger. Each recollection, once balm, became poison. The sweetness of love turned into the agony of absence. He clutched at his chest as though he could hold the remnants of those moments inside him, but they slipped away, dissolving into the black maw of his fall.
How could love, pure and fervent, lead to this?
The Abyss of Ice
The fall ended not with a crash but with silence. Gabriel awoke to stillness, lying upon a barren plain of frost. Around him stretched an endless expanse of ice and frozen mountains, jagged as broken teeth gnawing at a sky of iron. This was his prison: the Realm of Eternal Ice, where even hope froze and time itself seemed to shiver.
He rose unsteadily. His body ached, torn by the descent, but it was not the wounds of flesh that burned—it was the void where his wings had been. His back, once a throne of light, was now scarred and raw, blood crystallized into shards that glittered cruelly against the frost. Every movement sent shivers of pain through his bones.
The air was heavy with silence, broken only by the cracking groans of ice beneath his feet. Each breath seared his lungs like shards of glass. The cold was not merely temperature—it was judgment. It sank into his marrow, a relentless executioner that gnawed at his very soul.
Gabriel walked. The landscape was endless, yet always the same: frozen rivers winding like serpents of glass, cliffs glittering with frost like cathedrals of despair, caverns that echoed with whispers not his own.
He called out, sometimes. Luzbel's name would fall from his lips, trembling, carried by the wind until it shattered against the walls of ice. But only silence answered, silence so vast it seemed to mock him.
A Crown of Thorns Made of Frost
The torment of the realm was more than physical. Shadows danced within the ice, sculpting illusions. At times, Gabriel swore he saw Luzbel's reflection in the frozen rivers, violet eyes gazing back with sorrow. At other times, he saw Belial's grin carved into the ice, sharp and cruel, whispering that he had been abandoned by both Heaven and Hell.
The ice itself became his crown of thorns. It dug into his spirit, forcing him to relive every betrayal. His brethren, tearing his wings with merciless fire. His lover, striking him with fury born of doubt. Each vision replayed, over and over, until Gabriel could not tell whether he walked in memory or reality.
His voice, once the bearer of hymns, now cracked and raw, broke into sobs that scattered across the frozen plains. His tears froze upon his cheeks, tiny pearls of sorrow that never melted, sealing his anguish into his very skin.
He was alone. Alone with his pain. Alone with the knowledge that his only crime had been to love.
The Weight of Betrayal
In his solitude, Gabriel's mind fractured. He whispered to himself, fragments of words stitched with agony.
"They condemned me… for love. For love."
He laughed then, a hollow, broken laugh that echoed off the cavern walls like a dirge. The sound chilled even the frozen air.
The betrayal of his brethren cut deep—Michael, Raphael, Uriel, the six who had once sung with him in perfect harmony, had now cast him into ruin. They had not seen love—they had only seen treason. They had not seen devotion—they had only seen corruption.
But the deepest wound, the most poisonous, was Luzbel. The memory of his attack—the fury in those eyes, the venom in his voice—pierced him more savagely than the flames of Heaven. Gabriel pressed his hand to his chest as though he could tear out the ache, but it remained, pulsing, relentless.
Was it love, or was it only illusion?
The thought haunted him as the ice clawed at his feet, dragging him further into despair.
Luzbel's Wrath and Ruin
Far below, in the black throne of obsidian carved by flame, Luzbel came to understand Belial's deceit.
The underworld trembled with his fury. Rivers of lava surged higher, spitting fire like serpents at the sky. Demons shrank back, trembling, as Luzbel's roar shook the very foundations of Hell. His rage found its victim swiftly: Belial, the serpent who had whispered poison. Luzbel bound him in chains of fire and hurled him into the deepest abyss, a pit so dark even despair had no name. There Belial would suffer without end.
But punishment could not undo the wound. Gabriel was gone. And Luzbel was left with guilt, heavier than any crown of shadows.
A Throne of Ashes
Alone, Luzbel sat upon his throne of obsidian, the flames around him flickering as though mourning too. His anger faded, leaving only silence—an unbearable silence that pressed like stone upon his heart.
His hands trembled as he remembered. Gabriel's smile. The warmth of his touch. The whispered promises of eternity. All gone, all shattered, because of his weakness, his blindness.
Tears fell, and where they touched the ground, fire burst forth, flames devouring the stones of Hell. Each tear was agony made visible, his grief so fierce it scorched even the infernal air.
The prince of darkness had won wars, defied Heaven itself, but now he could not win against himself. His heart beat only for Gabriel, yet Gabriel was gone, cast into the void by his own hand as much as Heaven's decree.
"I should have seen… I should have protected him," Luzbel whispered, his voice breaking. The words turned to smoke in the air, curling like ghosts above him. His obsession grew with every moment of solitude. He could not endure the silence Gabriel had left behind.
His guilt became his obsession, and his obsession, his vow. Luzbel would find a way to bring him back. Even if he had to tear the gates of Heaven from their hinges. Even if he had to shatter the underworld itself.
Gabriel wandered the frozen realm, stripped of wings, stripped of light, his body broken and his spirit bleeding beneath the crown of ice. His love had been both his salvation and his ruin. His only crime—too great for Heaven to bear—was to love a fallen angel.
And Luzbel, prince of night, sat upon a throne of ashes, drowning in grief and guilt, consumed by the single thought that haunted his every breath:
Bring him back. At any cost.