Milder was a small mining town quickly drying up in the middle of America. Surrounded by fields a plenty, large meadows and forests it rested as it slowly faded away into the lost generation. While most had moved, there were still some that remained. Older folks that would see the town as their final resting place and families waiting for their kids to get a bit bigger so they could move out.
Ellis and Ricky were two of those kids. About to be freshman in High School, they were both moving this summer to different towns. They had a couple of weeks left to get into trouble and that’s what they did. When the weekend started with a hot Friday afternoon. Ricky looked towards the abandon coal factory as their next adventure. It had closed decades before and had remained a skeleton castle of the past industry. Their parents warned them not to go, but it was mostly fear of the rust and maybe a tetanus shot. They had evaded it long enough. it was now the time.
The sun was high in the sky as they approached from town. Ellis raced forward through the fields towards the giant rusting beast with Ricky nipping at his heels. A large building with silos and chutes rose all around them. Muddy and burnt red smeared every corner of the building. They both crept around the heavy machinery. Each piece lay abandoned in their final resting places. Now stuck being reclaimed by the elements. Worn down by time and neglect. Ellis slowed down as he roped around a large metal bin with a chute coming from the top of it. Ricky rounded the corner and ran into Ellis. They caught each other and stared at the wall.
Red light emitted from a large opened door. The door itself was charred black with stone handles carved with grooves and spikes. The molding around the door was also in stone. Monsters, animals, and faces contorted in strange ways as they stared down and at them. They could feel the heat emitting from the insides.
Ricky moved forward first. Ellis grabbed his arm.
“What is it?” Ellis asked still holding Rickys arm. They both stood still and listened. Sizzling and bubbling leaked out of the steam. Ricky turned to Ellis. His brown eyes wide and full of wonder. They screamed adventure.
“We have to look, who knows what we might find down there?” Ricky glimpsed at the door and then back at Ellis “It looks like something is still going on down there”
Ricky moved forward and Ellis released his grasp. The gray smoke enveloped Ricky and Ellis panicked for a moment, then went in after him.
“Ricky” Ellis coughed as he waved through the smoke. He was descending a set of stairs, smoke emitting from the walls, but the heat was subsiding and as he reached the bottom of the stair well both the heat and steam were gone.
Ellis joined Ricky and they both stood breathless. They were in a large underground cavern and in front of them it looked like a cathedral had been swallowed up by the earth. In full form, the tower and stained glass windows rose into the ceiling. The doors were enourmas,forty feet with massive steel holding them open. Light emitted from the inside casting a array of colors from the stained class onto the caves charred walls.
“I don’t think we are supposed to be here” Ellis whispered.
“No shit, have you ever seen a church underground,this does not seem like a place God would want to be seen in” Ricky said.
This time though, it was Ellis who moved forward. Something emitting form the church called to him, pulled him in before he even thought about it. A moment he was staring at the glass emitting its majestic light and the next minute he was inside. Rows of disheveled pews lay on each side of him and somehow light shined through the stained glass windows from the outside. The ceiling rose into a blackness where chains hung and held the large ornate chandeliers. Black candles the size of his arms sat blazing unnatural gray flames. A thick red carpet ran all the way up to the alter. Beyond the alter was a large slab of gray stone and upon it a man hung from his wrists, which were chained at each corner.
“There is someone up there” Ellis pointed “look” Ricky was now besides him. They moved towards and past the alter. The man was skinny with skin so thin that you could see the rivets in his bones and veins. He had a large gray beard that covered his chest and extended past his feet. His hair on his head did the same. As they studied him, the man gasped for air and shook. The chains rattled and he flipped his head and forth. With his hair cast form his face they could see that his eyes were sewn shut with black string and scars covered his face.
“Who comes” he yelled in a horse voice.
Ellis flinched back, but recovered quickly “What happened to you?” Ellis started to look around “hold on mister, come on Ricky help me look for something to free him”
The man tried to lick his cracked lips “The missionary are starting them so young now a days, how did you slay the abomination?”
Ellis and Ricky stopped and looked at the man. “The what?”
The man took in a sharp breath. “You should not be here”
A roar came from a cave behind the stone slab.
“The tears of the fallen only help one crop grow, the emitting wings of the emissary wont save those that call beyond. We only saw what we were supposed to see” The man grew louder and louder. He then looked straight at Ellis. If he had eyes they would be looking right into him “What lies beyond a fallen angels eyes?”
“Run” Ricky cried as he pulled on Ellis. They tripped down the alter stairs and back through the pews. The man was still yelling and the roars became louder as something monstrously big started to scrap out beyond the stone slab. Both of them look forward and bolted up the stairs and through the steam. They ran and ran until their sight came to the back of the coal collection bin. They both collapsed to the ground and turned back towards the door.
Where the door had carved itself in was now just as rusty wall. Ricky jumped to his feet and rubbed his hands against the course surface.
“That was real right?”
Ellis looked down at his blacked hands and then down at his pants which had ripped when he tripped down the alter stairs. They still held a charred crust on them.
“It was real” Ellis answered breathlessly.
Both Ricky and Ellis returned home in silence. Each one processing what they had experienced. Running the whole thing through their heads over and over again. Going over each detail.
They parted ways and Ellis moved to his room. He sat at his desk in the dark and turned on the desk light. The image of the mans sewn eyes remained with him. Each time he closed his eyes the image was burned into the back of his eyes lids. He could see the fraying in the black string and blood coagulating between the lids.
Then the question rang through him. At first it was a single thought then it repeated over and over until it was painful. He could think of nothing else, it consumed him entirely. His imagination and rationalization started to stretch and tear. He grabbed a note book and a pencil. He tried to get it out on the page, to get it out of his mind. As the charcoal etched the question on the page it became realer. He grit his teeth and tore into the page. The same question over and over again.
He didn’t hear his mom come in. He didn’t hear her scream either.
The only sound was the man asking.
“What lies beyond a fallen angels eyes”
The thought of this came from remembering Roy Battys ending monologue in Blade Runnner.
Seeing things that one would not believe. A question that is thrown out there. It almost seems like nonsense since a human would have no idea what he is talking about. In the context of the movie these lines are unexplained, one-offs, you have no clue what he is really talking about. This is what makes it great. It builds the world, but lets you wonder with your own imagination. It is also showing the difference between the two characters. He is a replicant (bioengineered humanoid), seeing and experiencing things that only a replicant could.
In this story the question is like that, what has this man saw? What does he mean? There is certainly something otherwordly about the place and the monster beyond.