Sofiel doesn't know how long she's been lying there; cheek plastered against the cool hardwood floors, back throbbing, bleeding and smarting with all sorts of pain.

Although, the one thing she does know is that nothing can hurt more than the excruciating twinge she feels so acutely in her chest. Time seems to tick by in slow gruelling seconds and she counts them all. One by one. In tandem to the pulse of the stigma that is slowly but surely crawling across the expanse of her body.

She continues to weep silently into the floorboards. The tears that have since started, had refused to stop. They streak down her face to join the pool of golden ichor fanning out beneath her limp, and broken body.

And that is exactly how Abigail finds Sofiel when she finally returns home from work that day.

Lying in the pool of her own ichor. Shattered, crying, with jagged stumps for wings on her back while the remnants of her atrocity lie, torn and discarded in a corner.

"Sofiel!"

Distantly, she hears the scramble of footsteps building up towards her in a fast pounding crescendo. It ceases abruptly with a loud thump as the silhouette of Abigail hovers over her.

"Oh god, oh my god. Shit, you're bleeding..." There's a tremor of panic to her voice that Sofiel barely registers. Her head feels foggy, her eyelids heavy. And when she blinks up at the face of Abigail, she looks more like a figureless smudge more than anything else. "Shit, you're bleeding!"

"Don't... come near," Sofiel rasps, her voice thin, hoarse from her earlier sobbing and screaming. Feebly, she raises a shaky hand as means to halt Abigail's frantic shuffle towards her. "Don't..."

There's a keen weakness to Sofiel's body that she can't place. It's as if the fire in her has completely burnt out, and all that's left is dying embers. It takes about all her strength to commit to the movement she makes. but nevertheless, she forces her lips to move, her throat to contort – to squeeze out the words she needs to say. Prays that it reaches Abigail.

"St... Stigma," whispers Sofiel, and her hand falls limply back to her side with a laboured breath.

"What?" comes Abigail's confused rush of a response. But Sofiel can only blink blearily up at her in reply, unable to summon any more energy to supply anything else.

Abigail being Abigail, clearly disregarding her warning, clambers in close. She presses her warm hands into Sofiel's bleeding back, and it draws out a pained cry from the angel's lips.

"Stop..." Sofiel grimaces, her voice cracking and dying away in her throat as she weakly tries to bat Abigail away to no avail.

There are so many things she wishes she could say to her – to get away from her and run for hills while she still can, for one – but the fatigue in Sofiel is wearing her thin. It makes her tongue feel too thick, too clunky, and the fog in head is making it hard for her to think.

But the last thing she needs is for Abigail to be branded by the stigma as well, so she tries again.

"Leave..." she manages to gasp a broken whisper.

But Abigail forges on, headstrong and stubborn.

Slippery fingers, now drenched in gold, sweep over the small of Sofiel's back. Gingerly, they pull, tugging away at the tattered shirt that clings onto her trembling frame. Pushing Sofiel's matted locks over her shoulder shakily, her fingers still, hovering over the spot on her shoulder.

A hitched breath.

Abigail jerks away from Sofiel as if scalded.

(As she rightly should have from the very beginning.)

"Shit." Above her, Sofiel hears Abigail mutter, her voice high and tremulous.

She knows exactly what she's looking at. The unsightly mark of corruption that has branded her skin. It must look as bad as it feels. Because in her next breath, Abigail curses aloud.

"Fuck!" The panic rings clear in her voice as she stumbles to her feet unsteadily, nearly falling over herself when she does. "Holy water. I need holy water!"

Sofiel watches Abigail flounder with glazed eyes. Her frantic zipping across the room is making her head spin, her stomach churn. So, instead, she closes her eyes in a vain attempt to escape the pain and nausea plaguing her body.

But in the next second, her eyes are flung open as an unholy screech tears through her lungs, echoing off the walls of Abigail's small apartment and into the night.

Sofiel keens over, gasping and choking. Fresh tears are pricking at her eyes from the sudden splash of holy water onto her back. It sizzles into her skin, searing and burning into the spot where she knows the stigma has sunk its roots in, spreading. Swallowing at the nasty bile scalding at the back of her throat, she balls tight at her fists, nails digging deep into her palms, so much so that it draws ichor.

Unrelentingly, Abigail douses another round of holy water on her, and Sofiel buckles down immediately, screaming in agony. Her body twists, writhing in pain that she has never felt anything like before. A sob escapes her, her shoulders shuddering. When she tries to open her mouth for help, a tortured wail breaks free instead.

"It's still spreading... Why is it still spreading?"

As soon as the pain winks out, Sofiel slumps forwards bonelessly. She sinks into the floorboards, panting. She can only narrowly make out that Abigail is bordering on hysterics, but everything else is starting to elude her, blurring away into white noise.

She seems to be talking away into her phone, but Sofiel isn't exactly sure. Her vision is spotting with stars as it clouds in and out of focus.

She wheezes with a gasp, struggling to pull air into her lungs as her breathing shallows. Her mouth tastes like bitter bile and she wonders if it's even physically possible for her to throw up.

A thick blanket that smells like flowers and sunshine is suddenly thrown over her. It's a nostalgic scent – something that smells almost like home, and it's a comforting, comforting thing. Sofiel finds herself burrowing into it as she's gathered into a pair of familiar arms.

Abigail's lips are moving again, but this time her voice sounds faraway and boggy. As if Sofiel is dunked underwater, and sinking deeper by the second. It takes a bit to focus on what she's saying, but Sofiel manages with some effort.

"You're going to be okay," Abigail whispers, rocking at her gently.

Belatedly, Sofiel notices that her face is wet, smeared with streaks of gold, and her eyes are dewy, like she's been crying too. Sofiel shifts, wanting nothing more than to reach over and to dry Abigail's face, but the arms around her tightens just much so. "Things are going to be okay." Lips brush against her temple in a brief kiss. "You're going to be okay."

Even as she struggles to keep her eyes pinned to the ethereal twinkle in Abigail's silhouette, finding respite in it, she can't stop her eyes from rolling back into her skull. Her eyelids fall shut involuntarily, and as the rest of the world gradually fades to black, she wonders:

Just where do angels go to die?