2: The Gates of Heaven

Ah, life. What a ride.

Half an hour ago I was floating mid-air, mourning the tragedy of being hit by a bus. Now? I’ve grown a pair of wings and am standing in a line of other winged buddies, waiting to be admitted into Heaven.

Most people would marvel at my emotional control, having sprouted wings yet still keeping it together. Truth is, the moment I realized that warm sensation on my back wasn’t a feather jacket but actual wings, and that one of them was seriously injured and yanking on my nerves, I nearly lost it. Like, nearly-ran-naked-three-full-laps kind of lost it.

But everyone else here, all these winged folks, was completely chill. Calmly chatting about life with the poise of an art gallery crowd. I didn’t want to start howling like a psycho.

At first, I thought these winged beings, angels, I guess, were like me: young, recently killed in some tragic accident, plucked out of the world and sent floating upward. But upon closer inspection, they didn’t have the hollow, shell-shockedness of the freshly dead. They were composed and the only injury they seemed to share was to one of their wings.

Everyone had one damaged wing, and one perfectly intact.

And strangely, the intact wing didn’t feel foreign at all. It wasn’t an awkward, new appendage but had merged into me one hundred percent, like it had always been there. Even though I’d never had wings in my twenty short years of life, I could move it as easily as I moved an arm.

After scanning around, I was completely sure that we were no longer on the Earth’s surface. Because when I looked down, past the cloud layers and thin mist, I could just make out, thousands of meters below, a vast blue ocean, scattered with broken, grain-like isles. A majestic view, but the height was so dizzying it was hard to breathe.

It was dusk, that golden hour when it feels like someone’s holding up a giant round lantern, pouring soft, flowing orange light in every direction. The cloud clusters, once pure white, were now burning a deep blush as we stood surrounded, wrapped in their glow.

At the end of the long line stood a Romanesque archway, dyed with the the colors of the setting sun. Intricate reliefs covered its twin pillars, carvings of angels spiraling upward, their wings and limbs entwined in ascent.

Ahead of me, a gray-haired youngster had also been tinged golden by the light. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the lingering glare, then turned and smiled.

“Haven’t been back to the Heavens in forever. Hopefully I can make it to Jerusalem before nightfall.”

I swallowed the “Do I know you?” , thought for what seemed like ages, and settled on:

“So, uh… how’d you die?”

He sighed.

“See? This is exactly why you keep getting into trouble, Isar. ‘Death’ is a word for the lesser creatures, those demons. For the noble race of God, there is no death, only a return to our origin.”

Isar.

He actually knew that name.

When I was young, I dreamed of an angel whose face I couldn’t see calling me Isar, a good omen that became my online name. Hearing it spoken aloud like this made me feel like I was at a LAN event.

“At least before we died, we were human… right?” I asked, unwilling to let it go.

“The children of God are supreme and sacred. What’s a ‘human’? Never heard of it.”

He said he’d never heard of humans.

No humans?

Then what the hell was I before? What was my whole life??

No matter how I asked, he insisted he’d never heard of the word human.

To prove I was the nutcase here, he even turned and asked the angels in front and behind us.

They all shook their heads and looked at me with sympathetic condescension.

At that point, I started thinking maybe I wasn’t dead after all.

Maybe I just… transmigrated.

A few clouds drifted by, dampening the sunset’s glare. The young man’s wings came into sharper focus.

Unlike the angels we see in TV shows, artbooks, or video games, his wings weren’t pure white. They had a faint silvery-gray tint and one was damaged. The left moved effortlessly, while the right hung limp at his side, barely holding on.

I glanced instinctively at my own. They were just like his, tinged with gray.

Taking in the rest of the line, I noticed that the angels’ wings came in different shades: some gray, some white, some blue. Even those with the same general hue had subtle differences in shade and texture. Like a flock of crowded pigeons.

I had no idea how long we’d been waiting, but eventually, we inched closer to the archway. That’s when I noticed the angel standing beneath it and everything about him, from appearance to clothing, screamed high-ranking. The glamorous robes aside, his wings alone put ours to shame: they were twice the size, and he had six. Six, each a brilliant, molten gold, gleaming in the last light.

“Isar, quit gawking like you’ve never seen an archangel before,” the youngster in front of me said, catching me staring. “Or don’t tell me… you’ve fallen for Lord Tyrael again?”

“You mean the one up there with six wings? He’s a guy.”

“Are you brain-dead? High-ranking angels don’t have genders. Why do you always assume they’re just like you?”

That comment shook me so hard I nearly yanked my pants down to make sure my family jewels were still intact.

“Wait, you mean I… we’re all…”

“Of course we’re men!”

Then after a beat, he added,

“And I’m a young man.”

After a while, Tyrael called out, “Next!”

It was the gray-hair’s turn. He seemed a little excited because when he walked forward, his wings flapped extra fast, like an eager puppy trying to please its owner.

“I’m Caro, Your Grace,” he said earnestly.

Just then, another gray-winged angel walking over from Tyrael’s side spotted me and rolled his eyes. “If you’re not going move forward, at least get out of the way. There’s a whole line behind you, thanks.”

An angel behind me chimed in, “Flattering archangels and playing dumb again, that’s what he’s best at. Bet he’s wormed his way to the front just to suck up to Lord Tyrael again.”

I was still reeling from that barefaced personal attack when Caro came fluttering back with a grin: “Isar, look, look! My wing’s fixed!”

“Oh, your wing is—wait, WHAT? Your wing’s fixed?!”

Caro spread both wings and gave them a vigorous flap, feathers showing me in the face. “Yeah huh, Lord Tyrael is amazing — just one little swipe of his hand and the wing’s good as new!”

If he’d rubbed his hands together and buzzed a bit, I swear he’d be a fly.

I swallowed hard. “So… Lord Tyrael is here to…?”

Caro stopped flapping and frowned. “Did you get knocked out in the Lower Realm? Lord Tyrael is our heavenly gatekeeper. If your wings are busted, he’s the only one who can fix them. Otherwise, you’re not getting back in.”

Heaven was apparently way more technically advanced than I’d thought — wings could be repaired, of all things.

“Next!”

My heart jumped. I hurried forward.

Standing before Tyrael, I realized immediately he was nothing like the other angels. There was something about his visage, a kind of awe-inspiring authority that made it hard to look directly at him.

“Turn around,” Tyrael said.

I did as told.

A light shone from behind me as warmth spread across my back, muscles tightening involuntarily. Tyrael spoke:

“Isar… sometimes I don’t even know what to say to you. Given your original rank and standing, you could’ve stayed up there and sat tight. If you asked for wealth, you could’ve gotten it. If you asked for power, it’d be handed to you, and fame too. We all think you threw it away for nothing. Why do you always get caught up in such… minor detail?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“…Forget it.” Tyrael sighed, “May God be with you. Hallelujah.”

I took a few dazed steps forward when he added, “Oh, and your sentence isn’t up yet, so you’re not allowed back into the Seventh Heaven. Understood?”

I nodded.

I’d thought Tyrael looked pretty cool, until he lectured just like my dad. Kinda killed the vibe. Still, if what he said was true, I really might’ve had transmigrated.

Unable to accept reality, I wandered back toward Caro, who was completely unbothered, going in circles around me with a steady whup-whup-whup of wings.

“Dear Isar, stop walking already. It’s such a bad look.”

Flying. It’s every human’s dream. Whether I was in the middle of demonic possession or not, I couldn’t deny the itch in my heart. I twitched my wings ever so slightly. Behind me, under the now newly arrived moonlight, they spread, their shadow on the clouds both sacred and surreal. My feet slowly lifted off the ground as my shadow unfolded its wings in sync and began beating them—slowly, but with uncanny steadiness. My heart pounded. I could barely breathe.

Looking down at the clouds, the ocean, the scattered islands slipping farther and farther away, and up at the swirling, chaotic sky around me, this vast, boundless Heaven, my very human fear of heights surged to the surface. I froze midair.

“Where are we even going?”

Caro floated over, one leg stretched straight out, the other tucked up, completely at ease.

“I’m heading back to Jerusalem. You’re off to the Second Heaven. Didn’t you hear Lord Tyrael? Your sentence isn’t up so you’re stuck there for now.”

At his full-on barrage of angelic babble, I finally broke down and laid it all out. It took another twenty minutes of back-and-forth before this tsundere finally accepted that I really didn’t know anything and hadn’t remembered a damn thing since we got here.

He stared at me, wide-eyed, mouth slightly open, like he’d just seen me eat a cockroach.

“Isar, even pigs have brains. How is it that you don’t? Did you eat one of those soul-wiping fruits or something?”

More nonsense. I was this close to losing it.

Thankfully, Caro was convinced the amnesia was only temporary and proceeded to give me a rough rundown of the local geography and culture.

The world is divided into three major realms: Heaven, the Red Sea, and the Lower Realm (the Infernal Realm).

We’re currently in Heaven.

Heaven is ruled by the Creator and Lord of the Seventh Heaven. Under His authority, the seven layers of Heaven are governed by seven archangels.

The hierarchy here is strictly enforced. Visually, the fewer wings an angel has, the lower their rank, and the lower in Heaven they reside. The higher the number of wings, the higher their status, and the closer they live to the top.

Although lower-ranking angels technically have the chance to rise through the ranks and gain more authority, their lifespans are less than one ten-thousandth of the higher angels’, so most of them are “recalled to origin” long before they ever get the chance.

Isar and Caro are both Power-class angels.

“Powers” rank sixth out of the nine angelic orders, technically the lowest tier within the “middle” class.

Now, “middle-class” might sound decent and if you think being a Power means things aren’t so bad, well… that’s just naïve.

How do I put this. Powers are the firstborn of God’s creations. Back in the day, during clashes with the Lower Realm, they served as the vanguard of the heavenly army. Even after the wars, they’ve been stuck guarding the border between the First and Second Heavens, standing watch against any demonic incursion.

Sounds noble, right?

The thing is, angel wings are kind of a pain. The more contact you have with the forces of darkness, the more your wings change color, guaranteed. That’s why Caro and I both have wings that look a little off.

And unlike humans with their “the more diverse the genes, the more beautiful!” ideal, Heaven doesn’t play that way. Angels are the top of the chain, the purest of God’s creations and they’re damn proud of it. To them, wing color says it all. The moment your feathers start trending dark, you might as well be a rabid dog by the road side: loathed by everyone, with no one having the guts to come close.

The fate of the Powers, overworked and underappreciated, pretty much speaks for itself. Over time, resentment and hostility toward Heaven festered. Then came the wave of Fallen. After that, the name “Powers” only got dragged further through the mud, lodged in a downward spiral of doom.

I was seriously bummed. Not even a transmigration could land me a good gig. But then again, being alive, technically, still beats being roadkill. So I figured, eh, could be worse.

—Of course, the fact that I could still think that way just goes to show how painfully young and stupid I still was.

Now that we’re on the topic of angels, naturally the next thing that comes to mind is demons. According to Caro, the Lower Realm is very real.

In our time, saying you’ve never heard of God might get you labeled an atheist. But say you’ve never heard of Satan? Man, you had no childhood.

They say there are seven Lords of the Lower Realm. The top dog: Lucifer, King of the Damned.

So why does Professor Yang get treated like a rock star at our school?

Because he has Lucifer vibes.

Of course, none of us have ever actually seen Lucifer in real life. Before landing in whatever-this-is, I wasn’t dumb enough to believe angels and demons were real.

But clearly, people have feelings about the Devil.

Because in shoujo manga, Lucifer is always drop-dead gorgeous, the epitome of evil and allure, light and darkness rolled into one, effortlessly breaking the hearts of every side character over and over, and still walking off with the entire female fanbase. In video games, he’s usually the final boss, ridiculously overpowered with 500,000 HP and a screen-wide ult that wipes your whole party. Guys challenge him again and again, die again and again, and never even get past phase one.

I obviously fall into the latter category. To this day, I still remember getting my whole party wiped in middle school by Lucifer’s “Wrath of Satan” attack. That RPG was the first game in my life I never managed to beat and I’ve been low-key obsessed with Lucifer ever since. Sure, that version of him was really just a bunch of binary burned into a disc by lasers, read by a clunky CD-ROM. But a man can’t help but obsess over the guy who beat him, even if that guy is just a pit of ones and zeroes etched onto organic dye.

So I turned to Caro and asked, “When do we get to meet His Infernal Majesty?”

“You mean Hadar? That lazy, ugly slob? What’s there to see?”

“Hadar? I thought the Demon King was Lucifer?” I blinked.

“Demon King?! Isar, did you just call Lord Lucifer the Demon King?! I swear, I’m telling Lord Raphael. Get ready to be locked up for few hundred more years!”

“…Lord Lucifer… you’re saying he’s in Heaven right now?”

“Duh. He barely leaves the Sanctum these days. Seeing him is about as easy as seeing our Lord God. What is going on with you?”

That’s when it hit me.

Legend has it Lucifer was once the Archangel, seated at God’s right hand. Then he rebelled, was cast down, and became the so-called Lord of Demons.

Looks like… I’ve been thrown straight into that legend’s past.

Then I thought back to that dream.

The kneeling angel, Heaven, the name “Lucifer” echoing again and again… Maybe it had nothing to do with Yang Lu after all. Maybe, there really was some kind of fate at work.

That thought alone made me sigh. I was Mei’s man through and through. Even my brain-dead logic was starting to resemble hers.

But let’s be real. All of this probably was just some last-gasp near-death experience, fueled by how much I resented Yang Lu.

Still, I would like for it to make sense.

“Alright. Then at least tell me, what was I sentenced for?”

“Because—because you and His Highness Metatron…” Caro started, then suddenly let out a loud “Wah!” and pointed toward the sky. “Look! Over there! Look!”

I followed the direction of his finger.

Nothing but the blazing sunset.

I turned back, ready to interrogate him.

But he was already far off into the distance, a teeny tiny black speck.