The rain fell hard, slicing the night into thin, silver lines that cut through the darkness.
Below, the city breathed, neon veins pulsing with artificial life, car horns crying out like restless animals trapped in cages of steel and glass. Skyscrapers clawed at the storm clouds, their windows glowing with the cold light of a world that had long since traded prayer for pixels.
Aron stood on the rooftop's edge, his grey trench coat heavy with water, clinging to his frame like a second skin soaked in regret. He didn't shiver. The cold had stopped mattering centuries ago.
It was only proof that he was still here, still trapped in this fragile flesh, still chained to memories that refused to die.
"haha...Am I special?" he whispered to the storm, voice barely louder than the rain. "Some chosen one? Loved by the Creator?"
A bitter laugh tore out of him, raw and uneven, like something breaking inside his chest. "No. Not special. Not even loved."
The words tasted metallic, like blood on his tongue.
Lightning flared across the sky. For a split second, his eyes caught the flash and burned gold—ancient, inhuman, too bright for mortal sockets.
"I'm not part of your creation, i know." he said quietly, almost reverently. "I'm just a..a glitch in your code. The misprint in your holy equation."
He tilted his head back, letting the rain sting his face. "Maybe you hate me. Maybe I'm not human enough for your affection."
those words echoed out but the sky offered nothing in return.
"Why love them?" he asked, voice rising against the wind. "Fragile, lying, sin-soaked humans who keep breaking your laws. You forgive them, again and again. But me?" His throat tightened painfully. "You give me silence. Always silence."
He remembered the first prayer he'd ever made, back when he still believed silence meant listening. Now he knew better. Silence meant indifference. Silence meant abandonment.
"How many times have I begged You?" His voice trembled on the edge between laughter and weeping. "How many nights did I burn my own wings hoping You'd look my way? how many times did i rotted in hell for you, saved your sons and daughters for you, Why… Why can't You see me?"
He clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened. "I am also human for fuck's sake. I bleed. I also feel."
The wind tore his words apart and scattered them into the void.
He stepped closer to the edge. The streets below blurred into a smear of color, light, shadow, time itself bleeding together. He tilted his head back, rain streaming down his face like false tears.
"Is this punishment because I didn't stop it?" he whispered. "Because I let Him die? Your precious Son…?"
The memory flickered unbidden: a barren hill, a wooden cross, a sky bleeding red. His own voice refusing to speak when it mattered most, watching, silent, complicit in the divine script.
"If that's it," he whispered, venom seeping into every syllable, "then damn You and Damn Your plan."
Thunder answered, low and furious, shaking the bones of the building. He leaned forward, letting gravity begin its claim. The air rushed past, cold and clean, stripping away everything for one merciful instant.
Peace.
Then—
A hand caught the back of his coat with surprising strength. The pull was small but absolute. He gasped, jerking to a halt above the yawning void.
"…Let me go," he rasped, voice hoarse.
"Not tonight," said a voice, soft, steady, but trembling at the edges with something too human for an angel.
He twisted his neck. A figure in a sodden raincoat clung to him, her hood shadowing her face. Behind her, faint light glowed, two folded wings, barely visible through the curtain of rain, their feathers shimmering with ethereal gold.
"…Uriel."
The name came out half venom, half aching longing.
"I can't let you die," she said. "You know that."
Aron gave a short, broken laugh. "Why not? The Creator stopped caring long ago. Why should you?"
He began unbuttoning his coat, deliberately. "I'm done."
"Aron—"
"Don't." His voice cracked like thin ice. "Don't speak like you still believe… like you still have faith."
Lightning carved the sky open. For a heartbeat, her face appeared—eyes molten gold, weary beyond measure, older than stars. Rain ran down her cheeks like tears borrowed from heaven itself.
"You think He talks to us?" she whispered. "He doesn't. Not anymore."
The storm seemed to pause. Aron's breath caught in his chest. Hearing it spoken aloud hurt worse than the fall ever could.
So even angels had been silenced.
He saw it again, the day divinity went digital. The first time the System appeared: lines of glowing code where ancient scripture once lived. Miracles recompiled into elegant algorithms. Faith reduced to clean, quantifiable data.
"So what?" he said bitterly. "You want me to pity your lost choir? Daddy doesn't write love letters anymore?"
His laughter echoed harshly down the building's spine.
Uriel's fingers trembled on his coat. For a moment, he thought she might actually let go.
Maybe she should.
He undid the next button. One left.
Then—the air shimmered.
A low hum rippled through his bones, vibrating in his teeth. Blue text unfolded before his eyes, glowing coldly in the rain:
[New mission acquired.]
[Find the Forbidden Fruit of Knowledge — The Apple of Wisdom.]
[Reward: A Note from the Creator.]
Aron froze. The rain hammered his face, but he barely felt it anymore.
A note.
He stared at the hovering glyphs, the irony burning like ice in his veins.
"Pull me up," he whispered.
Uriel blinked, confusion cutting through the exhaustion in her eyes. "What?"
"Pull me up."
Her grip tightened. Slowly, carefully, she hauled him back onto the rooftop. When his boots touched the wet concrete, he stood there dripping, trembling—not from cold, but from something far older.
"A note," he said softly, almost disbelieving. "After all this time…"
"He… He heard you?" she asked, hope flickering dangerously in her voice.
He smiled without warmth. "Let's say the System did."
She took a step closer, wings faintly visible behind her. "Join us. Please. The others have lost faith. If you could show them even one word from Him—"
He shook his head slowly. "This thing isn't God. It's a machine wearing His name like a skin."
Thunder cracked again, sharp and distant.
Uriel's voice dropped to a near-plea. "Machine or not, it's still a gift. A line of communion. Tell me, Aron—what did it say?"
He didn't answer.
"Aron—what did it say?"
Silence.
He turned without another word, opened the rooftop door, and stepped into the dim stairwell. The slam of the metal door echoed louder than the thunder behind him.
"Aron!… Aro—"
Down the stairs his wet boots left dark trails through the shadows. The city's noise rose to meet him again—sirens wailing, distant voices, the constant low hum of electric faith pulsing through every wire and screen.
He walked as if carrying a weight too invisible, too heavy to name.
The Apple of Wisdom. Another forbidden fruit. Another leash disguised as purpose.
He'd completed millions of missions across the ages. Each one had ended in the same hollow silence. Each silence had carved another piece out of him.
But this—this promise of a direct note—was new.
He almost laughed aloud in the empty stairwell.
"Guess I'm still useful," he muttered, voice echoing off concrete walls. "Still the perfect little glitch…"
---
Later, in the dim safety of his apartment, Aron stood before the mirror. The reflection staring back was older than time itself, yet trapped in human skin—sharp jaw, tired golden eyes that refused to dim completely, hair plastered from the rain.
He adjusted the collar of his damp trench coat with mechanical precision.
"Maybe I deserved this exile," he said quietly to his reflection. "Maybe I should never have existed at all."
Since the first moment of awareness—when light first touched his newborn mind and he felt himself truly exist—Aron had been happy. Happy to share the Creator's world beside Adam, a brother born of the same divine breath. The Garden was meant to be theirs together.
But the Creator had chosen differently.
He had chosen love over brotherhood, shaping Eve from Adam's side and placing her beside the man instead of Aron. Aron still remembered the moment he was gently, quietly set aside—the look in the Almighty's eyes that simply said: not you.
Yet he hadn't rebelled. The promise had been clear: his time would come. He was still a beloved child of heaven, destined to rule creation at His side one day.
He had believed it with all his being.
But centuries unfolded, and the Creator's gaze lingered only on the humans. Adam and Eve—frail, curious, endlessly forgiven. Aron watched them loved, cherished, guided through every stumble. And something small and burning had taken root deep inside his chest.
Jealousy. Longing. Betrayal.
And someone… someone had sensed exactly what he was feeling.
That was the day the Light-Bringer came to him with honeyed words and promises of justice.
Aron closed his eyes, the memory sharp as shattered glass.
"No," he said aloud, voice thick with bitterness. "Forget it. I can't change what happened."
He opened his eyes again. The reflection looked back, ancient and exhausted.
He'd erased his own memories again and again through the millennia, trying desperately to stay sane, to stay humble, to stay small like the fragile creatures he had once helped shape.
But now… he remembered enough to hurt.
"Find the fruit, huh…" he whispered, the System's blue text still lingering like a ghost behind his eyes.
A bitter, broken smile touched his lips.
"Fine. One more mission. One more leash."
He turned away from the mirror, the weight of eternity settling back onto his shoulders.
Somewhere out there, the Apple of Wisdom waited.
And somewhere, perhaps, a single note from the Creator waited too—written in code, or in blood, or in silence.
Aron wasn't sure which would break him more.