"Attention! We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a government warning." The newscaster's face was ashen, her normally coiffed hair looked like she'd run her fingers through it one too many times.

"An event of unknown origin is happening. As of right now, we are unsure if this event has spread out to other parts of the world. To guarantee your safety, and the safety of your family, we urge you to follow these instructions to the letter. Failure to do so will result in the loss of life"

A list of instructions flashed onto the screen as she read them out out loud.

"Open all doors ."

"Open all windows."

"Do not attempt by any means to block or bar entry."

"When they appear, do not move. Do not look at or acknowledge their presence in any way."

"Small children and impaired individuals must be hidden and silenced. Do not risk your life for pets. They are not interested in animals.

"Do not talk or make any loud sounds."

"Do not react. Repeat, do not react."

The newscaster's voice plucked at the chords of fear tethering me in place. "Local emergency crews will be with you as soon as possible. Good luck and God help us all."

For four long months, we'd been sweating away in an unnatural summer. The kitchen clock read 2:15 pm. Between the tick of the minute hand, something blocked out the sun and sucked out the heat. Summer faded in an instant, replaced by a horrible chill that filled the house. That's when we heard the sound, the sound of wings flapping, like a million bats descending from the sky.

I remember my first sight of the angel.

It landed in the yard with a great whoosh that flattened and blackened the grass. My mother was opening the doors, frantic to obey the newscaster's instructions. She backed away from the front entrance with her hand clasped over her mouth to keep from screaming, biting into her palm until her teeth tore the skin.

I couldn't blame her, shock was the only emotion that kept me from crying out. It floated toward us, its wings gossamer fronds that constantly moved like silk under water. A cowl of gauzy flesh hid its features, only the eyes were visible, shining from the shadowed planes of its face with the shimmering luminescence of a predator in the night. It emitted a high pitched sound as it moved, the clear high tone of a vibrating bell. It made me want to run, to cower beneath the kitchen table but I locked my knees, looking everywhere but those glowing eyes. My mother stopped moving; her ravaged palm slipped from her bloodied mouth as her body relaxed. An expression of reverence stole over her face, of worship and warmth, as if the strange being was a long lost friend or lover.

I said nothing, did nothing as she dropped to her knees, lifting her arms in supplication. Do not react. That was what the man had said. Why was she doing this?

The angel moved closer. Its wings drew down across its body in a ragged mantel that ended in bony protrusions. A single click was the only warning I had before it sank those jagged spines into my mother's neck and tore out her throat. Her arms embraced the angel as it fed on her flesh, until they fell limp, her blood pooling on the floor.

The smile never left her face.

My own fear rooted me in place sure as concrete encased up to my waist. I didn't make a single utterance or sob, not as the angel chewed and chewed, until it delicately popped my mother's head free, extracting her spine from her body, a grisly balloon dangling from the angel's maw. My mother's body toppled to the floor, the pool of blood spreading until it reached my bare feet, flowing around my toes.

Do not react.

The angel left with its trophy. I waited until it ascended into the sky, until the return of sunlight and warmth, before I sank to my knees, finally allowing the hysterics to come. My mother was one of thousands that day.

The help never came. There was no discerning pattern, boys, girls, men, women, infants to elderly, the victims were from every creed and race that walked the earth. The only link between them was the method of their death, the embrace, the smile. The angels came and went so fast, there was no time to react, only to watch, to witness the death of your sibling, your parent, your child. No one knew what to expect that first day, but the authorities were quick to speculate afterward.

The loudest were the fanatics, who spewed over the media day and night. The angels represented the Rapture, come to take the chosen to Heaven. It was why some people heard the bell different than others, why the chosen welcomed their death.

The scientists said they were an invading extraterrestrial entity, feeding off the population. People who succumbed to the bell tone were selected genetically predisposed. We all had our own pitch that would bring us to our knees. Neither opinion was very popular.

The government came up with precautions and plans. A memorial was built. The list of Do's and Do Not's was made official. They showed cautionary reels in the town hall of people who didn't follow the rules. The angels killed anyone who tried to save their loved ones, who distracted them. These deaths were different, more violent. There were no smiles. The angels took no trophies from those who interfered.

They did not appear again for months. People tried to forget, to move on, and life began to fall back into a pattern of normalcy.

Children at school would tease one another to be good or the angels would come for them. The local priest included a prayer against the wrath of angels in his sermon every Sunday.

My older brother and his wife took me in. I was just shy of eighteen and I saw the shadow of angels everywhere. At night I would dream of my mother embracing the angel, or her head and spine being ripped away as her blood seeped around my feet, gluing me in place. I always woke up on the verge of a scream, my hands clapped over my mouth. Do not react, don't make a sound. Could I do it again? If the angels came for my brother, for my sister in law, could I stand there a second time and do nothing? Why was my mother chosen? She wasn't a sinner or a saint, just a regular person, with a lifetime of good deeds and mistakes. Why couldn't I move to save her? It didn't matter if I survived because of it. The guilt weighed on me, crushing me a little more every day.

The sweltering summer continued into a long hot autumn. The leaves didn't change color so much as crisp up and drop off. The trees were skeletal fingers, still bearing the shriveled brown husks when the angels returned.

I wasn't home this time, but in public, at the mall. There was no warning newscast to brace the crowd, only a siren's wail that confused more than it helped. When the angels came through the open doors, the people panicked.

Screams erupted as people attempted to flee. Those who darted for the entrance were the first to be cut down. Ripped to pieces by the angels, their wings blurred in agitation. The sweet clear bell was marred, an ugly jangling pitch that made my teeth buzz and they dove and swarmed the crowd. Too much at once, my vision focused in and out, flashing from one victim to the next.

The young mother cut in half as she pushed her stroller, her torso clinging to the handles until both toppled over, spilling the motionless baby onto the concrete floor. The disemboweled fat man, holding his guts and slipping on his intestines as he tried to run. The headless couple, still holding hands in a blood splattered corner.

There were more, so many more the sea foam green walls were swathed in glittering ruby reds. I slowly sank to my knees where I stood, kneeling in bits of flesh, as I took in everything and nothing. Those who didn't die in the first wave were hiding now, ducking into the stores to squat behind clothing racks and perfume displays. As if that would save them.

A choked silence settled across the building as the angels calmed, the harsh note of their anger smoothing back into the bell tones. Like blood soaked wisps, they moved into the stores. I didn't need to see these deaths to know. When the angels emerged, their trophies dangled in their grip, bloody vertebrae leaving streaks where they dragged along the ground. It was almost over now. I curled my hands against my thighs.

An angel approached me.

It wings rippled through the air, coated in rust colored flecks. It was beautiful in a way, like a breathing canvas. The bell tone grated in my ears. I grit my teeth. Was this how I died? Do not react. It didn't matter now.

I looked up into its face, peering into luminous eyes, shards of starlight. It paused, hesitating. Did it want want me to welcome it into my arms? My mother's smiling visage burned in my mind. My face hardened as my nails dug into my thighs.

The wings fluttered around me, the tips brushing my shoulders. I didn't flinch, didn't look away. I wanted to spit in its face but my mouth was cotton dry. The bony spikes hovered over the bridge of my nose, over my cheeks, and lips. I held its gaze, my last quiet act of defiance. The tip of one dipped down and grazed my cheek, a stinging kiss before the angel pulled away and entered a nearby store.

I could feel blood seep from the cut, thick red drops that fell from my chin. The angel passed me, the head and spine of a young woman who could have been my twin in its grasp, her face serene in death. Why wasn't I dead?

Was I not worth killing?

A laugh shattered the silence of the mall, sharp and edged with madness. It took awhile before I realized it was mine.

"Why do you think it spared you?" My brother asked days after. There was no talking to me before that. I was one in a handful of survivors from the mall. Survivor. The word left a sour taste in my mouth, a bitter bile that stung the back of my throat.

The angel rejected me. The very thought brought on a wash of warring emotions, cynical laughter and tears. It went beyond survivor's guilt into something darker, more twisted. Twice, they'd passed me over, leaving me stained by death. The smell of it clung to my hair, my skin, followed me everywhere. I felt tainted.

On the news, science was losing ground to religion, but neither side could come up with a feasible explanation. Alien or Divine, the angels were now a fixture. Only weeks went by before they struck again, focusing on another continent. The death toll mounted and the riots began. People asked why the police didn't shoot them, why the government didn't protect them? By the sixth or seventh visit, there were no more memorials. There were no more warning sirens or broadcasts. Whatever side of the fence you fell on, religion or science, it didn't seem to matter, people continued to die. A strange melancholy settled over the populace. Life went on and it didn't, a stale imitation of life, as if everyone was listening for the song of their death.

How did the angels choose their targets? I obsessed over the question, going through the motions of living.

My hands shook as I washed the dinner dishes, having picked over my sister in law's home cooked meal. Why wasn't I chosen? The cut on my cheek healed slowly, leaving a thick ribbon of a scar, a further mark against me.

There were others like me, other survivors who wondered why the angel's song didn't touch them. What set them apart, made them different? None of them wore a scar like mine, a constant reminder of their rejection. The other survivors shied away from me, afraid my taint would rub off on them.

The day came when they took my brother and his wife. I wasn't home, walking mindless through the local park, as the angels descended. I didn't bother to stop moving as they landed around me. Let them come, let them cut me down for my insolence.

They stopped to watch me, their starlit eyes following me, wings undulating on the air. My footsteps faltered. What did they want from me? None approached me, or attacked. I heard no sound from them at all. There was no song for me.

Anger soothed the turmoil of my thoughts. My fingers caressed the scar on my cheek. Were they mocking me? They nibbled their way through the population, claiming more and more victims each time, but I was the one they scarred and left surrounded by death? A beer bottle rolled at my feet. I seized it, smashing it against the ground so I held the jagged bottle neck in my hand.

"Come on!" I screamed at them. "What are you waiting for?" I kicked the scattered pieces of glass at the nearest angel. They remained silent, the only sound the soft rustle of their wings. One by one, the peeled off, resuming the hunt, leaving me behind until there was just one. My fingers tightened on the bottle. In that moment, I wanted life more than I wanted death. Despite the impulse to appeal to the angels, the wish to be worthy of their song, I knew if this one came for me now I would jam the broken bottle right between its eyes.

The angel left. The glass fell from my fingers, landing with a muted clink on the pavement. I wandered in a daze, trying to find the balance between my desires and my instincts. When I finally wandered home, I found my brother and his wife, their headless bodies lying in pools of congealed blood.

That night I kept vigil beside them. The attacks were overwhelming now. There was no clean up crew to collect the bodies. The television and radio held nothing but channel after channel of static. The power flickered on and off, the last bastion against the impending night. The facade of life was crumbling beneath the thrum of angel wings. I wondered if there was anyone left on my street, if they were huddled in their homes with what remained of their loved ones, waiting their turn.

Was it a matter of choice? Perhaps the first encounter was a fluke. The angel reached my mother first, but the second, the full bracing encounter with the angel, was not one of chance. The scar on my cheek throbbed.

Was it my defiance, staring into its eyes? No, from the first encounter, the angel's song was off, as if heard down a long tunnel. I felt like I could still hear it now, wearing away at my will. Desperate to be alone in my own skull, I stuffed tissue into my ears.

The sound stopped.

It made sense now. How no one fought back, how the government and law enforcement turned a blind eye to everything that happened. How the angels ate up the world without a shot being fired. I was hearing their song the whole time, everyone was. It rang, unassuming, quiet, a constant undercurrent that slowly disarmed us. They'd killed my family. They'd consumed our world and we let them. We were easy prey, convinced by their sweet deception to open our arms to death.

Rage was a useless emotion, now. There was no one left to avenge. They would come for me soon, one way or another. Now I could chose my end. I would welcome it with open arms.

They came at first light, muting the brightness of the sun. The moment their shadows touched I lifted my smiling face to greet them. Three of them, an honor guard just for me. The central angel came forward, reaching for me. I kept my smile firmly in place and a knife flushed against my palm. I held my breath as the angel drew near, waited until those bony spines slid across the skin of my neck, before I drove my knife into its side.

The angel's flesh parted with the consistency of jello, so unbelievably fragile. We would have slaughtered them if we had the presence of mind to fight back. My smile turned grim as I stabbed deeper, until the wet folds of broken skin brushed my knuckles. Milk-white fluid funneled from the wound, drenching my arm. It must have screamed, the sound muffled to a dull vibration through the plugs in my ears. I held the angel as it died, cradling it to my chest until the starlight faded from its eyes. Its wings fell in tangled shreds, dull, colorless like wind bleached cloth.

I stood and faced the two remaining angels, bathed in milk white blood, the knife still dripping in my hand. Their wings blurred in agitation. I ran at them. They tried to flee, but they were too accustomed to docile prey. I slashed one between the wings, slicing through its muscles so it collapsed on the ground, fluttering weakly, a moth with dusted wings. The second was almost through the door, gaining air. I jumped onto its back, gripping the mantel of its wings as my legs dangled through its near intangible lower body. It took too long to secure a hold, long enough for the angel to gain height, for the earth to fall away below us as we shared our vicious waltz in the sky. Each second of hesitation lengthened the distance to the ground. I had a choice. I could let the angel carry me to wherever its path ended, to the fate that waited me there. Or I could die on my terms.

I lifted my face to the wind. The angel's wings pumped beneath me, its flight panicked but strong, beating the air. The world stretched out below us, a brilliant map of green, browns and blues. It was glorious, a living painting, a feast for the eyes. A perfect last view.

I slid the knife beneath the angel's wing and twisted. Milky translucent blood fell away like pearls, catching the morning sun as they tumbled away. The angel's flight juddered to a halt, the movement of its flight tearing the knife through its body. I kept my grip on the knife firm until I felt the angel's final shiver of life. Our dance was at an end. I released it from my grasp and fell, plummeting through the air. I smiled as if greeting an old friend, spreading my arms to embrace the Earth below.