Angel Engine - by Blushtales

Angel Engine is what happens when humanity prays for a miracle and discovers that miracles can bleed.In year 2033…the world was dying, humanity prayed and Uriel came. Geoff Ernstmann stood before the world with the confidence of a man who believed he had finally found the answer to humanity’s problems. “Now that the Angel is here, all our problems would be solved.” And, for a while, it seemed he was right….For the first miracle a blind boy given sight. For the second miracle, it was the reversal of decades of environmental destruction in mere moments. The planet was healing. The people were hopeful. A child said “when I grow up, i want to be just like him!”An old woman called him wonderful. A man called him a hero who had saved them all. Humanity finally had its saviour. But somewhere, behind the miracles and the celebrations, a boy was listening to screams. “I hear his screams.” While the world watched Uriel restore what humanity had destroyed, Geoff Ernstmann was discovering how much he could extract from the angel who came to help them. Uriel was captured…And when Uriel finally began to resist, they did not let him go.They forced him. “You’ve liquefied my intestines” Those words come from an angel who had descended to save a dying world, now crying out about what had been done to his own body. Geoff’s response? “Yes, but your tears interfere with the experiment.” His tears. Not his injuries. Not his agony. Not the fact that the being they were experimenting on was pleading for mercy. His tears were the problem.Uriel was suffering, and the man responsible was irritated that his suffering was interfering with the work.How cruel. And through all of it, A boy could hear him. Uriel’s voice was breaking. His screams were filled with pain.The same angel humanity celebrated was being subjected to horrors the people celebrating him could not see. The boy wanted to help him. He called out “Uriel”But he couldn’t. “I love you.” Said UrielTwo voices. Two moments of tenderness in a story filled with cruelty. And then the screams return.“Stop!” Geoff commands. But the suffering doesn’t easily disappear just because the man conducting the experiment wants silence.The angel eventually refuses to perform any more miracles.And Geoff makes his intentions clear. “So we’ll force him to.” The world wants its miracles. Geoff wants his experiment to continue. And Uriel, the being who ensured humanity’s survival, is no longer willing to keep paying the price. “I ensured your survival,” Uriel says. “But only his love can make it last!” Geoff’s response is almost more horrifying than the torture itself. “When has love saved anyone?” You know what makes Uriel’s story so disturbing?? He comes to a world that has exhausted its resources, destroyed its environment and brought itself to the edge of extinction. He comes because he loves humanity.And humanity answers that love by putting him inside a machine. The boy eventually says, “I have taken the mark.” And then comes the image of a man wearing a crown of thorns, showing the holes in his hands. “You speak to me of a mark. Can’t you see? I have borne your marks so that you may be free.” The story shifts again….The boy,the angel, the scientist, the miracles, the suffering.Everything seems to exist in fragments, as though the world itself cannot hold a single, coherent account of what has happened. Sadly, the world that celebrated its saviour is not the same world that is willing to acknowledge what it has done to him.Humanity wanted salvation.Uriel came….And somewhere between the first miracle and the final scream, the distinction between a saviour and a sacrifice disappeared.

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