The concept of time is an awfully mortal construct, something that most immortals have trouble grasping. But as Sofiel lays, battered, bleeding and unmoving, she wonders just how long it has been.

She has watched the seasons change, has seen the leaves on the trees tumble into the soil, so rich with rain, in garlands of red and gold; has proceeded to watch the trees cry their last golden tears, baring out in their denuded forms against the startling white streets, blanketed in layers of snow. Only for everything to melt away come a fine day when the sun hangs bright and warm, flowers blooming in an array of vivid colours. Seen it all repeat, over and over again.

Has it been days?

Months? Years?

Sofiel doesn’t know for sure, only that it feels like an eternity to her.

She wonders how her brother is faring; if he’s suffering as much as she is, tormented by the intermittent jolts of pain that strikes her when she least expects it, threatening to claw right through the gaps of her ribs with every laboured breath she takes.

She plays back the last memory she has of Samael ¬– or Sam, as Sofiel affectionately knows him by. Her recollection is at best fuzzy, the spiteful words they had brandished and thrown at each other in their heated argument sounding more like garbled nonsense now. But the context behind their fight is still as clear as day.

She remembers the look of horror on his face that had quickly morphed, warping into a twisted sneer when he had managed to somehow catch himself on the fringe of Sofiel’s sleeve, after having lost his footing on a precarious edge of the silver city.

A misstep that neither of them had seen coming, much less planned for. It had caught them both completely off guard, and right up till then, Sofiel has never known such beautifully sculpted features were ever capable of producing such unpleasant expression.

“I’ll show you how rotten the mortals truly are.” He had laughed derisively, eyes flashing bright with the unbecoming shades of anger and hate.

And with a forceful tug, Sofiel finds herself falling alongside her brother.