I stopped dreaming after that day.
Not slowly. Not gently.
One night the dreams were there—wings, light, the feeling of being watched by something vast and patient—and the next night there was nothing. No images. No sound. Just a black, empty sleep that felt like falling into a pit and never hitting the bottom.
I woke each morning with my heart racing, my body tense, as if I had escaped something without remembering how.
The elders would have called it mercy.
I knew better.
My sister's room had been sealed since her death.
The door was painted shut, a thin white line drawn across the frame like a scar. My mother dusted around it but never touched the handle. My father never looked at it at all.
Some losses were not meant to be reopened.
That night, I broke another rule.
I scraped the paint away with a knife until the door creaked open, the sound loud enough to make me flinch. The air inside was stale, cold, untouched by life. Moonlight spilled across the small bed, the shelves of toys, the little desk where she had practiced her letters.
Everything was exactly as she'd left it.
That was the worst part.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
The silence pressed in immediately, thick and heavy, like the room was holding its breath. I crossed to her bed and sat where I had sat on that final morning, my fingers gripping the blanket.
"What did you see?" I whispered.
The words felt wrong in the stillness.
The candle flame beside me flickered.
Then—moved.
Not from a draft.
From a presence.
My skin prickled.
I wasn't alone.
I stood slowly, every instinct screaming at me to run, but my legs refused to move. The air felt heavier, charged, as if the room itself had become a boundary between worlds.
The temperature dropped.
And then I heard it.
Not a voice.
A memory of a voice.
You weren't supposed to come back here.
I spun around.
The room was empty.
"No," I said, my voice shaking. "You came. You promised."
The candle went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
I backed toward the door, my pulse roaring in my ears, when something brushed past me—cold, feather-light, and impossibly gentle.
I gasped.
Light flared suddenly, blinding white, burning behind my eyes.
And I saw it.
I wasn't in the room anymore.
I was standing beside my sister's bed, watching from above, from somewhere that wasn't entirely me. She lay pale and small, her chest rising weakly. My younger self sat beside her, unaware of what was coming.
And at the foot of the bed—
An angel.
Not radiant.
Not glorious.
It was tall, its form half-shadow, half-light, wings folded tight against its back like they were broken or restrained. Its face was beautiful in the way storms are beautiful—terrible and distant and full of power it did not want to use.
It knelt.
Angels were never meant to kneel.
My sister's eyes opened, and she smiled.
"You came," she whispered.
The angel looked… afraid.
"I should not be here," it said. Its voice shook the air, not loud, but heavy, like each word carried centuries of consequence. "I am not permitted to guide beginnings."
"I'm not a beginning," she said softly. "I'm an ending."
The angel flinched.
"You still have a future," it replied.
She shook her head. "Not here."
Silence stretched between them.
Then she reached out.
Angels were never meant to be touched.
But it did not pull away.
The vision shattered.
I collapsed to the floor of the dark room, gasping, my lungs burning like I had been underwater too long. The candle reignited on its own, its flame steady and unforgiving.
I was alone again.
But the truth remained.
My sister hadn't imagined it.
She hadn't hallucinated.
An angel had come for her.
And it had broken the rules.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside.
I froze.
The handle rattled violently.
"Open the door," my father's voice said, tight with panic. "Now."
I wrenched the door open just as the white paint seal finished cracking, flakes falling to the floor like snow. My father grabbed my shoulders, searching my face, his eyes wide with fear.
"Did you feel it?" he demanded.
"What?" I asked, though my heart already knew.
"The shift," he said. "The pull. The—" He stopped himself, glancing down the hallway. "The elders are coming."
Right on cue, the bells began to ring.
Not wildly this time.
Slow.
Measured.
Judgmental.
They came in silence, five of them, robes whispering across the floor, faces hidden beneath their hoods. Elder Caelum stepped forward, his pale eyes locking onto mine.
"You have crossed a boundary," he said.
"I only wanted the truth," I replied.
"The truth," he said coldly, "is not yours to survive."
He raised his hand, silver symbols glowing faintly along his sleeve.
"You are drawing heaven closer," he continued. "And when heaven comes too near, it does not ask permission."
My sister's words burned in my mind.
They're sad.
"Why?" I asked. "Why are angels afraid of us?"
Caelum hesitated.
Just for a moment.
Because the answer frightened him too.
That night, as they left our house marked with warning sigils and fear hung heavy in the air, I knew something with terrible certainty:
The angel who met my sister was still bound to this world.
Still watching.
And whatever punishment heaven reserved for rule-breakers—
It was coming.