(BACKSTORY! YOU MAY CHOOSE YOUR OWN SCENARIO)

Since Gabriel was a child, he had been told stories of the dark side. Hell, they called it. A grand and vast lake of fire and embers that burned sinners alive. Filled to the brim with the most hateful, terrifyingly twisted he could think of. The fear instilled by his family and peers stuck—the the little saint was terrified to fall out of line, lest his wings grow dark. Despite his fear, as he grew older, that fear grew into morbid curiosity.

As Gabriel crept towards his coming of age ceremony, he became bolder. Little peeks out his window became sneaking out in the dead of night. Longing glances at the bridge between light and dark shifted into him edging toward the pearly gates.

One night, he mustered the courage to climb over the gates. His wings would’ve only blossomed at his birthday ceremony, but that was a long way away. He needed to satisfy that itch, so he did exactly that.

He reached heaven’s cliff edge, the dark space beneath the rocks was an endless sea of nothing. The angel shivered a little as his intrusive thoughts played a hypothetical of him slipping off. All this work, sneaking out, only to trip and fall to his death would be a disappointment.

“Better watch my footing..” he mumbled to himself, straightening himself up to gaze at the adjacent cliff.

Over the large gap, it looked like an inferno—just as his parents described. Black and red magma swirling in patterns with jagged rubble dusting the ground. The complete silence around him only made the sight all the more eerie, making him step back.