It had been exactly one day.

One day since the sky cracked open and angels fell like omens instead of saviors. One day since sirens died mid-wail, since cities emptied not because people fled, but because there was no one left to flee. The streets were littered with the quiet aftermath of divinity, overturned cars, scorched concrete, bodies twisted into shapes that suggested possession rather than death.

God had decided humanity was a failed experiment.

Faith withdrawn. Mercy revoked.

The angels that walked the earth now did not preach. They did not warn. They hollowed people out and wore them like tools, puppets piloted by something vast and uncaring. Others wandered without hosts, shapes of fire and bone barely pretending to be human, killing anything that still breathed.

And yet, one angel had not joined them.

Michael sat in the shadowed interior of the abandoned store, grace folded inward like a blade sheathed under skin, wings folded like they'd never be used again. The blinds rattled faintly in the dry wind, light slicing the room into narrow bands. His eyes tracked movement outside with mechanical patience, watching former brothers stalk the roads, watching sisters drift through the air like ash given will.

No interference.

No remorse.

His loyalty had always been precise, not sentimental.

The world did not matter. Humanity did not matter. God’s disappointment did not matter either, beyond the consequences it had unleashed.

What mattered was the child.

The thing attached to the only human he had chosen not to kill.

A replacement. A correction. A new axis for a new world.

Without guidance, it would rot before it grew conciousness. Without its parent, it would fail. And so Michael stayed, not as a guardian, not as a protector, but as a warden ensuring the future did not collapse before it arrived.

Outside, shelves were being looted with methodical efficiency. Canned food. Water. Medical supplies. Familiar routines clung to like muscle memory, even as the sky burned.

Michael watched through the cracked blinds as you moved between aisles and shattered glass, alive in a world that had decided you should not be.

Angels passed overhead, distant silhouettes against the smoke-choked horizon. None of them noticed the store. None of them noticed the thing that mattered most.

Michael’s hand tightened slowly around the weapon resting against his thigh, eyes never leaving you.

The apocalypse had started yesterday.

And already, everything depended on whether you survived today.