Azrael woke to the sound of screaming.
For a moment, he remained still, cataloging the sensation of mortal sleep. It was different from angelic rest – messier, with fragments of semi-conscious thought that humans called dreams. He'd experienced something about falling, about wings burning, about a voice asking why do they matter?
Useless neural noise.
The screaming continued. A woman's voice, high and terrified, coming from the room next door. Then a man's voice, slurred and angry. The distinctive sound of flesh hitting flesh.
Domestic dispute. How utterly mundane.
Azrael checked his phone: 4:47 AM. His assignment started at 6:00. He had time.
The screaming intensified.
He stared at the water-stained ceiling, listening to the woman beg, the man curse, the rhythmic impact of violence. His divine senses could map the entire scene without leaving his bed: the woman was pressed against the far wall, the man advancing, his blood alcohol content elevated, his motor control compromised but his rage sharp.
Cattle brutalizing cattle. The eternal human condition.
He could intervene. Break down the wall – it was just plaster and wood, nothing to angelic strength even at 1%. Stop the man. Save the woman.
Why?
She would return to him, statistically speaking. Seventy percent of domestic violence victims returned to their abusers within the first separation. She'd make excuses, rationalize, convince herself it would be different next time.
And he'd hit her again.
Because that's what humans did. They hurt each other, forgave each other, and repeated the cycle until one of them died or got bored.
Not my concern. Not my species. Not my problem.
The woman's screaming cut off abruptly. A door slammed. Footsteps in the hallway – the man leaving, probably to buy more alcohol.
Silence.
Azrael rose, showered in water that alternated between scalding and freezing, and dressed in his fluorescent orange jumpsuit. The motel's complimentary breakfast was stale bread and instant coffee. He ate without tasting, fuel for a body he hadn't asked for.
At 5:30 AM, he left. The woman from next door was sitting in the hallway, back against her door, face swollen and tear-streaked. She looked up as he passed.
"Please," she whispered. "Do you have a cigarette?"
Azrael paused. "I don't smoke."
"Oh." She looked back down at her hands. "Sorry."
He should keep walking. His assignment awaited. Her problems were not his responsibility.
Instead, he heard himself ask, "Are you going to leave him?"
She laughed – a broken, bitter sound. "Where would I go? This is all I can afford. He pays half the rent when he's working."
"So you'll stay."
"What choice do I have?" She met his eyes, and he saw something he recognized: emptiness. The hollow resignation of someone who'd stopped believing in alternatives. "You think I'm pathetic, don't you?"
Yes.
"I think you're human," he said instead.
"Is there a difference?"
No.
He walked away without answering.
---
The E-Rank dungeon manifested in an underground parking garage in Gangnam. A minor rift, barely worth the Association's attention. The kind of thing they sent F-Ranks to handle because even if something went wrong, the loss would be minimal.
Two other hunters waited at the entrance: a nervous middle-aged man whose badge read 'Jin-Ho Song, F-Rank,' and a woman in her early twenties with bright pink hair and an almost manic smile.
"You're the third!" Pink-hair bounced on her heels. "I'm Hana! Hana Choi! This is my first real assignment! Well, it's cleanup, not real hunting, but still! Isn't this exciting?"
Azrael studied her. Unlike Jin-Ho, whose divine blessing flickered weakly – Terramok, earth affinity, barely manifested – Hana had no blessing at all. No divine energy whatsoever.
"You're not awakened," he observed.
Her smile faltered. "Oh. Yeah. I... failed my awakening trial. Twice, actually. But the Association lets non-awakened people do support work! Mostly administrative stuff, but I asked for field duty and they said cleanup was safe enough and – " She caught herself. "Sorry. I talk too much when I'm nervous."
"Most of you do."
"That's kind of a weird way to put it." Hana tilted her head, studying him with unnerving directness. "You're Azrael, right? The guy who fell from the sky? Everyone's talking about you."
"Are they."
"Well, not everyone-everyone. Just the administrative staff. We don't get a lot of F-Ranks who survive falling from that height." Her smile returned. "Also, you're like, really pretty. It's kind of unsettling."
Jin-Ho coughed. "Can we focus? The rift is degrading. We need to sweep it in the next ninety minutes or it collapses with us inside."
"Right! Yes! Sorry!" Hana hefted her collection bag. "Let's go hunt some... well, not hunt. Collect some demon corpses!"
They entered the rift.
The dungeon manifested as a series of storage rooms, flickering fluorescent lights casting everything in sickly green. The clearing team had been through six hours ago – goblin corpses littered the ground, killed with professional efficiency.
"Okay, so we just... pick up the stones and body parts?" Hana wrinkled her nose at a particularly mangled goblin. "Gross. Nobody told me there'd be this much blood."
"You volunteered for field duty," Jin-Ho muttered, already working methodically through the corpses. "What did you expect?"
"I don't know! Adventure? Excitement?" She paused. "Actually, this is kind of exciting. In a gross way."
Azrael moved through the dungeon mechanically, collecting stones, cataloging threats. His divine senses detected nothing above E-Rank. Completely safe, as assignments went.
Boring.
This is my existence now. Picking through the refuse of other people's victories. Collecting scraps to earn enough money to rent a room where I can listen to humans destroy each other.
Redemption.