On a cold dark night, a little girl was wandering about, her clothes in complete tatters.
However, despite her appearance, she seemed unbothered by it, passing through the crowds of people until she finally arrived in front of the theater she always visited.
The performance took place once a week, and she had always attended for as long as she could remember.
It was an outdoor type of theater performance, a few people were gathered to watch it, it was mostly the same people over and over again.
However, each time she came here, there were less and less of them.
But nonetheless, she continued to attend, as if entranced by the performance.
‘It’s starting’ She looked on and her eyes lit up, a small smile appearing on her face.
The curtains lifted to reveal two small toy figurines, a demon and an angel.
Every single time she saw them, her heartbeat sped up, she did not know why, but she chased after that feeling, it made her empty self feel whole.
The story portrayed a rivalry between the two figurines, they were named Astraea and Michael.
‘Astraea…’ The little girl looked on, this particular figurine was portrayed as pure evil while the other, as some kind of a holy being of judgement.
Yet deep down, she felt like this story was twisted, it did not make sense even as she heard it multiple times.
However, that did not stop her from continuing to watch the performance, even though the figurines were shapeless, with only horns and wings plastered onto them. She found the performance to be immersive.
One figurine had two horns on its head, while the other had four pairs of wings.
Her smile had not disappeared throughout the entire performance, in fact, she was the most eager out of all the people gathered.
And like all good things, they must come to an end eventually.
The performance ended, and unlike the last hundreds of times she watched it, something was different.
And the other people seemed to notice it too, most of them wore sad expressions on their faces.
However, the little girl could not understand what was going on. Why was the voice actor behind the figurines not coming out?
He always came out to greet the others and he always patted her head, but now there was only silence.
The others began walking away, leaving the lone girl standing by and waiting for the man to come out and pat her on the head.
Yet even as the seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours, nothing happened.
The figurines had not even been moved, they were still standing by one another.
And the close proximity made her heart race once again, how could the two of them ever be enemies?
They looked perfect together.
The little girl looked around, trying to see if anyone was around, and then quickly pocketed the two figurines before running away.
She ran and ran, the smile not disappearing from her pale face, she finally had the two things that made her life less miserable.
“Astraea… Michael..” The little girl kept repeating the figurines names as she finally got exhausted and plopped down near the alley where she had been staying since she could remember.
She looked down on the puddle of water by the side and saw her own reflection. Her black hair and silvery eyes were being clearly reflected.
But the more she stared, the deeper her trance became.
And in the next moment, she felt her spine begin to tingle, it was mild at first, however, it soon turned to something unbearable.
She could not even scream since her throat hurt from the cold, her consciousness did not fade either so she was feeling all of the pain.
It made her mind blank out, however, that only lasted for a moment, as the next, she noticed one of the figurines fall to the ground and break in half.
The little girl looked on with tears flowing out of her eyes like waterfalls at her inability to do anything but endure the pain.
Soon, the pain began dying down and she finally looked around herself, taking her eyes away from the broken figurine lying on the ground.
She was left speechless by the sight in front of her, the once cozy little alley turned into nothing but rubble that surrounded everything around her.
However, she could not care less about that as she reached her little hands for the figurine on the ground, trying to reattach the two parts.
But she failed, instead, she accidentally broke off the wings and the head, her strength shouldn’t have been enough to do that.
Yet as she stared at the broken figurine, she couldn’t help but let out a muffled cry.
“Michael…”
She remained quietly crying for a few moments before checking up on the remaining figurine in her pocket, it was still safe.
However, upon taking it out, she noticed the two horns had broken off, but she was not as sad, at least it was intact.
But now that everything had finally set in, she began to panic at the sight around her. She was not sure how she managed to survive.
Initially, she thought that someone purposely dropped a bunch of rocks on her, it wouldn’t have been the first time someone tried that.
However, that was not the case, as she could see the buildings right above her perfectly cut in half with some people even looking down from them.
‘What happened..?’ The little girl looked confused as she put the broken figurine of Michael and Astraea inside her pocket and climbed her way out of the rubble, eventually coming out of the alley.
But much to her surprise, the surroundings were not fairing any better, she could see a bunch of things cut in half, whether it was buildings or carriages, nothing was spared.
And as she looked around, a look of horror appeared on her face.
In front of her were some of the people who used to watch the small performance with her.
However, now they were not whole, their bodies dismembered as if by some kind of demon.
The little girl trembled in place before running away, she could not bear the sight of whoever had done this.
Due to her moment of panic, she didn’t really see that there were people in front of her, so she bumped into them, causing them to fall to the ground lifeless.
Yet she was not paying attention to that, all she wanted to do was run away, run away from the horror that she had just witnessed.
Not only were her figurines ruined, but also the people she had known for a long time died.
‘No… Michael.. Astraea.. what should I do..?’ She kept repeating those words inside of her mind as she finally reached her destination.
That was the little outdoor theater that she watched every week, yet for some reason, the atmosphere around it was not what it used to be.
There were 2 words plastered on a small sign in the very front, yet she couldn’t read them because she never learned how to.
However, a man who had been passing by saw her and approached her.
“It says closed indefinitely, kiddo, meaning it won’t be open anymore, too bad, apparently they ran out of funding.”
However, the little girl showed no reaction, instead, she looked at the sign with blank eyes.
‘..Closed forever?’
