Page 5 of Heart Shaped Wreckage
Their magic was dark and full of hate. Ours was still powered by our former angelic being. We could heal. They caused only pain and suffering.
But our knowledge of the world expanded. Our conceit of who we were strengthened as we walked the world, drank its wine, and ate its food. For a thousand years, we lived amongst the humans. Then tragedy struck. We began to fade as our essences could no longer connect to the heavenly realm. With every magical touch, we grew older.
We were terrified.
We slowly died.
Then we were reborn, but not as what we were, or even what we had become. We became something else. Spirits unmoored and untethered to anything – God or Devil. Lamass was the first to discover that she could possess a human body. I was ashamed of even wanting to follow her down that path. Taking away someone’s identity seemed to be the worst thing that we could do. God had given free will, and who were we to take it from them?
But she lived and thrived in her human casing. The normal lifespan of a human in those days was less than fifty years. Most were lucky to reach forty before they died. She lived for hundreds of years, and we watched her from the realm of nothingness that we had become.
We grew jealous.
We wanted to live and walk the Earth once more.
With her guidance, I took my first victim in the moments before he died. His body was too weak for longevity, but I inhabited his casing for a decade before withdrawing myselffrom him and searching for another. Bodiless, my soul could travel the ether and find what it was I was looking for. A strong body, young with a weak and decaying soul. It took what felt like forever before I found Darrius alone in a sick bed with no one to care for him. I slid into him and could barely feel his presence. He had withdrawn, and I slowly stretched his weary legs and climbed from his deathbed, a new man.
I have worn many humans in my lifetime and lived many lives. I still stay in touch with my brothers and sisters. Technology has made it easier for us. We have had time to stash away our livelihoods. Our riches and the treasures of our past stay safeguarded and secure in the vaults we created many millennia ago.
Finally, a hundred years ago, I found Heath. He was not a normal human, and this intrigued me. He was a magical being, a shifter – a werewolf. I found a kinship with him even before I merged my soul into his body. He made space quickly and, like all the others before him, eventually slipped away to join our father in Heaven.
Now I am he, and his body is mine. It is strong and powerful, and within him, my beast has sprung alive again, even if my magic has faded.
My tale goes ever onward, and Heath from Leath is a happy part of the small magical community that hides right beneath humanity's nose. I wish I could say more about how the mages, witches, and shifters sprouted into being, but that is lost to me. They always have been, as far as they know. I have often wondered if my kind had anything to do with it. The shifters, especially. It feels like home when Heath and I shift into our animal form and run wildly through the woods.
Only my brothers and sisters know me for who I truly am.
Magnus of the Heavenly Horde.
Lost soul after the fall.
Wanderer and faux god.
Skinwalker.
I persevere, but the loneliness of never knowing love beyond its mortal messiness haunts me. How can you love when you know you will never end, and everyone else will?
I close my diary—a project I began because I had a story that I wanted to remember. Time is meaningless and confusing when you’re as old as I. Thoughts, feelings, and timelines shift as I walk ever onward.
I wrote so I would never forget.
I wrote for the hope of one day sharing with someone who I wanted to know the truth about me. Magic and the world and people it had created gave me hope. One day, I might find someone worthy of walking the world with me.
One day, perhaps I would know love.
3
LANDON
“Why didn’t I study harder?” I moaned as I carefully smashed some eye of newt. It was gross.
“Weather witch!” Dandelion spread his wings and shook them.
“I know…” He was right. I always had an affinity for weather. I could create a rain shower with a mere thought, but most of my other powers took time and didn’t always go the way I hoped. Spells were complicated and annoying. “But I can do this, Dandelion.”
“Hmph!” he snorted.
“I’m glad you have faith in me.” I picked up the smashed eye and slid it into the brewing cauldron. This was why I had a dirt floor and a flue that reached all the way down to my basement. Upstairs, I had closed off the fireplaces long ago. There was nothing worse than your house smelling of magic. It could stink badly.
