Gloom and Doom
Please enjoy the first two chapters of Gloom and Doom below.
It’s still a work in progress, so please follow my blog for updates!
Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Video Store
You know what I hate about working at the video store on Christmas? Not much at all, to be honest. I kind of enjoy it! I know most people have other things to do, like family gatherings and parties, but I don’t go to parties, and my foster parents don’t have many Christmas traditions. Todd would be watching sports on TV, and Janelle would do whatever she does in the kitchen. Probably hiding from Todd so that she doesn’t have to listen to him explain sports rules she’ll never need to remember. So all in all, I really wasn’t missing out on much by spending Christmas at the video store.
If anything, there was more Christmas cheer here than at home. We have a little plastic tree next to the front door, we’ve got tinsel hanging from the fluorescent lamps, and there’s a Christmas movie playing on the TV. On regular nights, we have to put on a new release movie after six, but during the week leading up to Christmas, the boss lets us watch any classic Christmas movie (except Die Hard). Tonight, I’m playing Home Alone 2, the one where Kevin has to protect the toy store.
Even if it wasn’t Christmas, I’d still want to be here. Unlike my peers at school, I enjoy my part-time job. I get to work with movies, and I can walk around the shelves and pick up any random box to start reading the blurb of some obscure indie movie with a unique plot. The new blockbuster releases are great too, and it looks so cutting when you’ve got a shelf of them, all with their amazing cover art on full display.
Old movies, new movies, movies with subtitles… I don’t love all of them, but I love that there are so many of them, and they’re always here for me.
Haters will tell you that movies are now mostly contrived. They’ll say things like modern movies are factory-made, with conventional plots that recycle the Hero’s Journey, starring the same few people in the same few roles. They’ll say that movies are boring because the hero always wins, and good always predictably overcomes evil in the end, even when faced with ridiculous odds.
Maybe, but I need that in my life! I need to know that if someone works hard enough, they can beat the odds and save the day. I need to know that things can end happily as long as you try your best. I need this because I don’t see much of it happening in the real world around me, and that’s just really depressing. I need hope, even if it comes in little ninety-minute bursts. And that’s what I get from this job: a continual reminder that hope is out there. Because I need to believe I can overcome my destiny as the girl who ends the world.
Okay, maybe that came out of nowhere, and you need more context first. My name is Wynona. I’m fifteen years old, and I like watching movies and listening to sad songs. I don’t seem to have much control over my life. In a lot of ways, I’m a pretty regular teenager… except that I’m also the Doom Bringer. No, it’s not a video game nickname or an Internet profile name. It’s what I call myself because I’m destined to bring doom to the world.
What? You think it’s weird that I would introduce myself to a stranger as the Doom Bringer? But you wouldn’t think twice if someone were to introduce themselves like, “I’m Christina, and I like to sing,” or “I’m Gena, and I drive a taxi.”
We all have our own ways to self-identify, with some element of our personality that we set up as our big hook. Some people identify most strongly with their hobbies or their jobs, or even their hair color. For real, there’s this girl in school who introduces herself to everyone by saying, “Hi, I’m Kristy, and yes, I’m a natural redhead!”
Big deal, Kristy. I’m a natural redhead as well, but I don’t feel the need to announce that to everyone within earshot. Anyway, you don’t care about Kristy; you want to know more about the whole Doom Bringer thing. Of course, you do. There’s not much else about me that’s interesting. I’m the Doom Bringer, and I am destined to bring doom to the world on a scale never seen before. But please don’t get me wrong; it’s not something I actually want to do. I’m not a terrorist or a revolutionary, and I’m not even that angry at the world. I know teenagers are supposed to hate everything, but I don’t. I sometimes think I should, but I genuinely don’t.
But regardless of how I feel, I’m cursed to end the world. I don’t really know how or why, but I know it’ll be me. I don’t even know how I know, because it wasn’t revealed to me by some old guy with a big bushy beard, and to my knowledge, there isn’t some corny poem in a dusty old book describing how I will end the world.
I just… I feel it in my heart. You know when you just know something even though you don’t have any tangible evidence? Like when Chris from my physics class told Julie that he loved her, even though they’ve never even been on a date before? It’s something like that.
But I never asked for this, and I don’t want it. I know plenty of people in school who would love to be the central focus of some prophecy, just so they can feel special and powerful. Not me. I don’t want to be special, and I’d prefer to be normal and unexceptional. Let me blend into the lonely background.
Why does it have to be me?
This whole arrangement is the worst. I don’t feel powerful because of the impact I’ll inflict upon the world; I feel powerless because my destiny was chosen for me. It’s like when I couldn’t pick my classes at school because the form was misplaced and the school just slotted me into whichever classes were available. Why don’t I get to decide for myself?
The doorbell chimes, and this frowning old customer walks in. Christmas means there are less customers, but less doesn’t mean zero.
I flash a quick smile at the customer and greet him politely. No reply from the old guy. My boss told me before to give customers some space, so I watch him browse aimlessly for ten minutes before I offer to help.
“Merry Christmas, how may I help you this evening?”
“I’m looking for a movie,” he replies without even looking at me.
Being the Doom Bringer doesn’t give me clairvoyant powers or anything, but I promise you, I already knew that.
“That’s great,” I reply with a semi-sincere smile on my face. “Which movie are you looking for? Maybe I can help you find it.”
“I don’t know the name of it. It’s an old action movie.”
Shit-sticks! These are the customers I hate the most. Now, I think it’s perfectly okay to walk into a video store with a vague idea of a movie without knowing exactly what it’s called... Not every person is a film historian, after all. However, there must be a special place in hell for this type of customer, because not only are they unable to articulate which movie they’re looking for, but they will also blame you for not being able to read their minds and translate their stammering nonsense.
“Can you tell me anything about it?”
He scratches his chin for two minutes straight while stammering “umms” and “ahhs” without much progress. He should try scratching his brain instead.
“Do you remember any of the stars in it?”
“Yes, it’s Michael something.”
“Michael Biehn? Michael Douglas? Or Michael Keaton, perhaps?”
And as I predicted, he snaps. His face changes from one of frustrated confusion to full-on indignant rage. “I can’t be expected to remember their full names! I’m not some tabloid journalist!”
I back away slowly, and my smile slips from semi-sincere to awkward. Was my tone sarcastic or in any way offensive? Did I do something that pissed him off? I don’t think so.
“I do remember something about the cover, though.”
Great! Thank the video store gods! Cover art is something I can work with. Having spent so much time browsing the shelves, I’m able to recall most of the covers in the store. If I can’t remember the name of the movie, I can at least remember where it is located.
“He’s a guy, and he’s got a gun. And there’s this girl he has to save. Yep. A guy with a gun and the girl he has to save.”
I hold onto my smile like it's a life-jacket in open water, but I allow myself to blink incredulously. Did this guy really think this description would help?
I ask if it was The Naked Gun. That movie had a guy with a gun and a girl.
“It’s not a comedy. Have you been listening to me? I said it was an action movie!”
“How about Falling Down, with Michael Douglas?” I ask with my fingers crossed behind my back. I know this one doesn’t fit the full description, but maybe he remembers the details wrong. “He’s holding a gun on the cover.”
“Is there a girl with him?”
“I don’t think so, but it’s a really cutting movie with themes about social inequality and mental health.”
“No, I want the movie I want.”
But of course you do. I take a deep breath, readjust my smile, and ask if he remembers any more details.
“No, and this should be enough for you already!” The old guy’s voice is getting louder. “How hard can it be to remember a cassette box with a man with a guy, and a girl he has to save? You work here, and you should know your wares.”
Oh geez. Just kill me now. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t figure out which movie you’re looking for. Perhaps you can browse through our older action movies at the back of the store?”
“Where exactly? There are so many movies here.”
“Over there, under that big sign that says Action. You can start looking there, and hopefully you can find what you’re looking for.”
The old man glances over his shoulder and pouts. For good measure, I use emphatic gestures to point to the shelf.
“I don’t want to waste my time doing that. I have… I have a date that I’m late for.”
What a lying asshole! Who stops by a video store at ten o’clock before going for a date on Christmas?
The old man puts his hands on his hips, as if he had to put on a more authoritative stance. “Why don’t you go and search for me? I think you’ll be able to find it faster than I can. You work here, after all.”
I bite my bottom lip and suck in a deep breath of air. It usually helps to keep me from either crying or flying into my own rage. “Yep, I can do that for you. Perhaps you can leave your number and I’ll call you when I find it?”
“That’s a good idea. Write this down.” He gives me his number, and then identifies himself in a peculiar way. “My name is Jeff. With two F’s.”
It would have been more helpful to tell me if his name was spelled with a G or a J, but I just want him to leave at this point. In my nicest possible tone, I assure him that I will call him when I uncover his mystery movie.
“Call me by the time you open the store tomorrow, please.”
“Sir, I’m closing up for the night now. As you’ve pointed out, there are a lot of movies back there, and it will take a lot of time to go through them all.”
“You’re closing up for the night?”
Hmmm, maybe he isn’t a complete douchebag, after all.
“Good! Without any customers after you close, you should be able to search without distractions then.”
The sense of entitlement in this guy!
He opens the door and leaves, but not before reminding me once again to call him at opening time tomorrow.
This reminds me of a time I saw a customer giving some advice to her young niece, and I’ve kept that advice in my heart since. If you’re not ready to deal with assholes at work, don’t be a colorectal surgeon and don’t work in retail. I wish someone had given me that advice when I was ten years old, too. Maybe I would’ve chosen to work in another part-time job. Nah, I love it here in the video store.
Still, people like Jeff with two F’s make me question if it’s really worth all the effort trying to prevent the apocalypse. Maybe this world should just burn to the ground so we can start over… hopefully with fewer people like Jeff with two F’s. But I promise you, there are plenty of nice folks out there! The customers that I spot rearranging the shelves when they find a box cover that’s been misplaced by someone else, a couple of teachers at school, Dr. Robin… good people are out there if you look hard enough. And maybe they’re hopelessly outnumbered by the loud and attention-seeking assholes of the world, but I’m not about to let them burn just because of the actions of inconsiderate folks. Trust me on this: anything I can do to stop this impending doom from coming, I’m doing. That’s pretty much what I do with my spare time. While my peers go out to parties or learn to kickflip a skateboard, I’m spending my time figuring out ways to prevent the apocalypse. If the world doesn’t end during your lifetime, you can thank me later.
I look at the TV, and it’s now the third act of Home Alone 2, when Kevin is about to punish the Wet Bandits with a world of pain. I’ve been looking forward to this sequence, because I want some laughs tonight. I look at the TV, and then I look at the post-it in my hand with the contact details of Jeff with two F’s and the two clues I have: it stars an actor named Michael, and the cover art has a guy with a gun with a girl he has to save. Lastly, I look over at the back of the store, with its many shelves of old action movies. We have hundreds of titles in the Action section.
On the screen, Kevin is taunting the Wet Bandits. “You guys give up? Have you had enough pain?”
I take a deep breath and walk towards the back of the store. No, Kevin. I can take it. Bring on the pain!
Chapter 2 - The Tragic Reality of being Undead
The night was still young when Gloom returned to the old house after disposing of Roger’s body. While it was convenient to lure the incubus to his home using that hired girl, it also meant he had to do something about the body after the kill. Not that Gloom kept his home particularly clean, but a rotting corpse would really stink up the place. Demon corpses decomposed at a faster rate than human ones, but it would still be a week of the smelly ooze.
What you never saw in horror movies was the aftermath of a haunting. Dead victims didn’t clean up after themselves when they were killed in an old haunted house, so the task fell on the haunter. Most people only knew about the exciting side of haunting, like the stalking and jump scares. Few were aware of what happened behind the scenes. Gloom envied the people in this TV show he watched, where vampires decomposed into dust the instant you staked them. That would make cleaning a lot easier and faster.
Gloom closed the main door behind him and stared at the empty house. It was going to be another long night in this old place. Another long night of pacing around, trying to will time to pass more quickly. Horror movies usually directed your sympathy toward the human victims, but you should be feeling sorry for the undead creature instead. When you don’t die, the torment lasts forever.
The rain had died down by now, but the wind was unusually strong, and the windows rattled loudly. New Atlantis was not a city that experienced snowy weather, but it did get colder during this season. Not that Gloom would feel the cold, because he was a wraith who didn’t feel much. Not cold, not heat, not pain. Every sensation was numbed.
A problem with being a wraith was that he never slept. It wasn’t something wraiths could do, so he was awake for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all fifty-two weeks of the year. And lately, most of that time was spent in this old house.
It wasn’t as if Gloom was a ghost, doomed to haunt the same location forever. As a wraith, he had the freedom to travel wherever he wanted, day or night. It was his conscious choice to stay in this old house, and that was how he differed from a common ghost. He could effortlessly float across oceans or up the highest mountains, and had done so plenty of times. There wasn’t much of the world that he hadn’t seen. He’d been inside the pyramids (the passageways were too tight for his comfort), spent weeks underwater to observe the marine life of the Maldives (wraiths don’t need to breathe), and played hide-and-seek with the leopards of Java (a fun way to hone his stealth). He’d even heard a wolf cry to the blue corn moon (which wasn’t the life-changing experience it was made out to be).
Gloom was aware that many mortals would perceive this freedom and capability to travel the world as a luxurious gift, but there wasn’t any place in the mortal realm that he cared to visit anymore. He’d seen everything he wanted to see, so now he was content to stay in this old house in Hartford Hills.
The only luxury he wanted was to be able to sleep so he could pass time more quickly, but sleep was a luxury withheld from wraiths. He couldn’t dose up on sleeping pills, he couldn’t drink herbal teas… he just had to bear with the monotony of being conscious for his entire existence.
Being alone and fairly inactive for long periods of time could really mess with your head, so Gloom found it best to keep himself occupied while in between his hunts. He floated over to the TV and remembered how close Roger had come to knocking it over. Gloom decided that there would be no more luring of marks to his home. What was that phrase he’d heard before? You don’t sleep where you shit. No, that wasn’t quite it. But he understood the wisdom, nonetheless.
Gloom thumbed the remote and switched on the TV. Since it was that time of the year, there were many Christmas-themed shows on, and Gloom avoided those as he was not much of a Christmas person. Santa was fake, and he didn’t want to celebrate the other big Christmas celebrity either. Channels switched rapidly as Gloom’s thumb machine-gunned the remote, looking for something he hadn’t already seen. Mortals have a common complaint that they lacked enough time to watch all the shows they liked. His experience was the opposite. Time was an infinite resource, but the studios could not produce enough movies and TV to help him pass the time, and there were only so many times he could rewatch his favorite shows.
A new show caught his eye, and his thumb eased off the remote. On the TV screen was a guy covering his crotch with thousands of bees. What the hell was that? In another scene, another guy stapled his butt cheeks together. Was this how mortals liked to test their own mortality?
He flipped to another channel, where he found a show about people working in the White House. After twenty minutes, he realized that this show was almost entirely driven by people walking and talking from room to room, all within the same setting of the White House. Nothing exploded and nobody fired a gun, yet Gloom was still riveted by the show. Can a story be interesting if people aren’t chasing bad guys or falling in love every few scenes? Would every press conference scene with that funny tall press secretary be as amusing?
There was something else going on that appealed to Gloom. Every person in the president’s senior staff seemed so good at their jobs and they worked so well together. They didn’t just walk and talk… they walked and talked with purpose. They seemed more at home in their workplace than in the scenes when they weren’t. Envy developed inside Gloom’s empty heart.
When the episode ended, he thumbed the TV off, and floated to the window for a glimpse of the moon. With the rain subsided, the bright full moon was easy to spot in the sky. Judging by its position, Gloom knew there was a lot more night to go before the sun came up. While Gloom didn’t have a preference between day and night, he felt that the twilight hours passed more slowly, which in turn made him more restless.
Without anything better to do, Gloom started inspecting the area around him. If you spent as much time in the same place as Gloom did, you’d become quite observant and start to notice every little detail around you. Even simple objects would start to develop a life of their own, and minor changes could become big dramas.
Gloom looked down at a shard of glass on the floor that had broken off from the window about a month ago.
“Hey, what happened to you?” Gloom asked out loud. “You’ve changed since you broke away from your friends. Your color is different… paler.”
He leaned in closer to the glass shard. “Is it because you’ve fallen from the light? Or is it the anguish of separation?” He picked up the shard and held it lovingly against his forehead. “Cheer up, glass. You’ve changed for the better. You’re stronger and more resilient than those you’ve left behind. Had you stayed, you would never have uncovered your potential.”
After holding the glass shard for another few minutes, Gloom placed it gently on the window ledge, near the window it came from. “Here,” he said. “You can show the others how you’ve improved yourself in the past few weeks.”
As he completed that last sentence, a passing cloud obscured the moon and darkened the sky. It was only a minor change, but it sent Gloom into a rage.
“What is this?” he asked angrily. “The rest of you won’t accept the return of your fallen brother? Perhaps you look down upon him because he took a different path than you did?”
Gloom’s fist shot out and smashed the window, sending other shards of glass clinking onto the floor. “Pathetic window. Try spending some time in the depths below, and let’s see how much of your precious morality you can retain. It’s easy to make good choices when you’re up there in paradise. Down here, things are more unforgiving.”
The immortal wraith spun around and floated away from the window. He was deeply upset by the shards of glass, and knew that he would do something stupid if he let his rage boil out of control. Gloom had to focus his thoughts on something else, and there was only one way for him to do that now.
He went back to the TV and started flicking through channels again. As a wraith, he had all the time in the world to watch every show there was.
“Hey Glooooooom!”
Gloom snapped out of his daze. Wraiths couldn’t sleep, but watching pointless shows on TV for too long still sent his mind into a low-functioning autopilot mode. And if you watched TV for long enough, the shows all become pointless. He shook the fog out of his head and tried to gather his senses.
That voice… When Gloom realized who was approaching, he quickly roared. “Michael! Use the…”
Gloom was unable to complete his sentence before an angel crashed through the roof and landed heavily onto the floor, his dark gray wings spread wide. A cloud of dust billowed around him as he slowly stood up to his full height, just half a head taller than Gloom.
The irritated Gloom looked at the new hole in his roof. For the past few visits, Michael had opted to make dramatic entrances. Gloom had reminded the angel to enter through the door, as the roof's structural integrity would soon fail if he continued punching holes through it. Michael had agreed to do so at the time, but evidently, he didn’t remember.
“You’re destroying my roof,” Gloom said, now barely above a whisper. “Use the front door, or at least glide through one of the existing holes.”
Michael used his right hand to dust off the shining golden armor, which matched the ceremonial gold mace that he carried in his left hand. His long, hooked nose was pointed into the air, nostrils flaring and pulsating like the speaker cones of large stadium speakers. An untidy man bun secured his long, curly hair.
“Apologies, my friend! I have quite a few appointments today. It is Christmas, after all, so I am in a bit of a rush. But this looks like simple carpentry work that you could repair in a few days, given your extraordinary strength and skills. Why, you could probably even improve on the original architecture.”
Every angel had a unique quality. Nathaniel was the wise one, Gabriel had the gift of prophecy, and there was even one who sneezed a lot. Michael was special because he was the most annoying asshole in all of heaven. However, Gloom needed his help, so he put up with Michael’s quirks and often unreasonable requests.
“Anyway, Merry Christmas, Gloom! How is my favorite wraith doing? I hope I am not interrupting any important holiday discussions between you and your furniture. I have been told you enjoy your conversations with your chairs and tables.”
Gloom’s skull face remained impassive. “No, it’s a good time.”
“So did you take out Xorgrath as I requested?”
Without taking his burning eyes off Michael, Gloom reached into his robe and pulled out Roger’s horns. “He goes by Roger now.”
“I see… well, I do prefer the old ways,” Michael replied. “Everyone is chasing these modern trends now. I caught one of my Seraphim referring to himself as ‘Kush’ instead of Kushiel. I had to make an example out of him, so I stripped him of his rank and transferred him to the Watchers. You might recall what happens when we allow the angels to entertain the concept of change, after all.”
Gloom chose not to reply, preferring to change the topic by tossing Roger’s horns to Michael. The angel caught both horns in his free hand and studied them.
“Why do you need all these horns, anyway?” Gloom asked. “Can’t the Watchers verify my kills?”
For a brief flicker of a moment, the smile on Michael’s face drooped before quickly recovering into an even bigger (and more insincere) smile.
“Oh, you know. Just for our war records.” Michael held the horns up to his face. Once he confirmed they were incubus horns, Michael dropped them into a pouch.
“This is fantastic. I know I can always trust you to get the job done. Well, I have places to go and many other appointments.”
Michael dropped into a crouch and began to open his wings.
Gloom landed a heavy hand on Michael’s shoulder, preventing him from leaving. “We need to talk,” he hissed into Michael’s ear.
The golden-armored angel folded his wings back. “And what do you want to talk about?”
“Am I done yet? Haven’t I atoned enough?”
Michael threw his head back and laughed. Gloom had always hated this laugh. It was arrogant and shrill, like the laugh of a bad theater villain. A few decades ago, Gloom might have pretended to laugh along to avoid awkwardness, but he no longer had the patience. Now, he just glared at Michael.
“Oh, come on, Gloom,” Michael protested. “Put away that frown. I understand your plight, but it is too funny not to laugh.”
“Why is it funny?”
Michael’s mirth faded. “Gloom, listen. You are not quite there yet.” He walked to a corner of the room and carefully rested his weapon against the wall. “More patience is needed.”
“I’ve killed more demons than any other being in existence.”
Michael spun around sharply on his heel and pointed an outstretched finger at Gloom. “But you have also killed a lot of angels, have you not?”
The archangel was a weasel, but he did not lie. Before Gloom began his service to Michael, he was quite the killer of angels.
“So you accept that you have killed a large number of angels, yet you want to enter Heaven,” Michael said with crossed arms. “Heaven. The most sacred place there is. You need to understand that you have much more penance to serve before we can open our gates to you.”
Gloom asked the obvious questions. How many more? Is somebody even keeping count? Michael started pacing in a circle and laughed.
“For a case as important as yours, of course! My Seraphim keep careful track of your progress. But… I do not think it is wise to go into specific numbers. You will not like the answers, and I myself feel awkward broaching the subject. It will just result in unpleasantness for the two of us, so I believe it will be easier if you just keep doing this together with me, and trust me to do my part for you.”
“It’s been four hundred years of killing, Michael,” Gloom hissed as the green flames within his skull flared out. “Four hundred years!”
Michael took a deep breath and lightly scratched his nose. “Yes, it has been a long time, and I respect you so much for your continued service to Heaven. Your faith and strength are impressive.”
Fortunately, Gloom did not have physical eyeballs, so Michael could not see him roll his eyes back in annoyance.
“Alright, my friend, here is the truth. For all of His teachings, the Big Boss does not forgive all that easily.”
This was not news to Gloom. There was a certain level of hypocrisy in heaven, and everyone knew it.
Michael sat on the couch next to Gloom. “I understand your frustration. This really has been going on for far too long without any significant progress. And the Boss keeps tasking you to dispatch pawns like Xorgrath, who are… well, pawns. Removing them from the board helps, but it does not significantly turn the tide of the war.”
Gloom understood the metaphor, but he also disliked it. Relating war and violence to a chess game was a common tactic among pseudo-intellectual commanders like Michael, but it distorted your perception of the situation. When you refer to your units as playing pieces, you tend to forget about the horrors of war and why violence must be a last resort. Roger was a despicable pest, but he did not represent all pawns. Many front-line demons were enslaved battle thralls forced to fight. It was hard to see this from a distant command post in the rear, but soldiers like Gloom faced this truth whenever they charged into battle.
“We need you to do something more compelling,” Michael said, scratching his chin. “Something that the Big Boss cannot dismiss. What can we do to prove your worth?”
“Give me a queen to take out,” Gloom replied, uncomfortably playing along with Michael’s metaphor.
Michael stood up and unleashed his shrill laugh. “Yes, what a great suggestion! A queen! A target of consequence, and I know just the right one that will get His attention. I might get in trouble for not running this by Him first, but I do not care. I will undertake this risk with you, friend. You and me! Together we are going to get you through those gates in no time.”
When Michael named his target, it was so obvious that Gloom wasn’t sure why he wasn’t tasked with this earlier.
Joh’teolath, the Mistress of Suffering. Gloom hadn’t been enthusiastic about Michael’s tasks for a long time, but this one excited him. It could finally get him into heaven, and Joh’teolath was someone he hated as well.
“She will be dead tomorrow night.”
“I have always liked your confidence. You know, this could be your very last job before I get the gates opened for you,” Michael replied confidently. “But beware! Joh’teolath is a high-profile target, and she commands a small army of plague demons as protection. Do not expect this to be as simple a task as Xorgrath. After all, I would not want anything happening to my favorite wraith!”
Michael tilted his head back and guffawed. Gloom imagined how simple it would have been to reach out with his spectral blade and slash Michael’s throat. It had been a while since he had smelled angelic blood.
“Well, I really have to go now,” Michael said with a pout. “That is the problem with being an archangel. You are always needed somewhere, to make decisions, approve plans, or meet people you genuinely do not want to meet. I envy your simple life down here, Gloom. Do not take it for granted.”
Michael picked up his mace and crouched down in preparation to leave.
“And one last thing, Gloom. She is very fortunate that you are so determined to return to her. I will send her your regards.”
Gloom’s eye sockets immediately narrowed and his teeth gnashed together.
“Farewell!” Michael yelled in a sing-songy manner as he sprang into the air and flew back to Heaven, further damaging Gloom’s roof.
After a few moments, when Gloom was certain that Michael was out of earshot, he muttered a single word to himself: “Asshole…”
These are the first two chapters of Gloom and Doom! Thanks for reading, and if you’d like to find out what happens with Wynona and Gloom, check for updates on my blog.