Laughter greeted him from the back seat. He held his wife’s hand as they rested their arms on the middle console. He was in the driver’s seat of his truck. They were heading down a two-lane highway on their way home from the beach. Oldies were playing on the radio as he tapped his left hand on the steering wheel in rhythm with California Girls by the Beach Boys. He turned his head to look at his wife as she spoke. He looked back to the road in time to see a white SUV jump the median just in front of them. He didn’t even have time to move his foot to the brake before slamming into the oncoming vehicle.

Sam awoke in a cold sweat. It took him a moment to orient to his surroundings and realize he was in his own bed. His loft was layered in shadows with the only light coming from the windows on the far wall. The streetlamp outside overpowered the thin drapes, allowing a faint light into the apartment. A quick glance at his phone told him it was 3:23 a.m. He was waking like this often and usually only got a few hours of sleep each night. His dreams were always waiting for him when he closed his eyes and tonight was no different. Insomnia and nightmares plagued his nights for the better part of eight months since his family was killed.

Initially, the dreams had been flashbacks to the car accident that had stolen his family away. He had woken up in a hospital three weeks after the wreck occurred. His family never even made it out of the car. He relived the car wreck every night for the first five months; the same scene playing on repeat whenever he closed his eyes. Initially, he avoided sleep altogether, trying to keep the nightmares away. He couldn’t sustain himself long, however, without some semblance of sleep. The psychiatrist kept telling him he had a combination of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and it would take time to get better. Sam tried several different cocktails of drugs in an attempt to get him sleep and pull him out of his depressive state. After the addition of a third antipsychotic, his dreams slowly changed. He would still dream of the accident most nights, but every so often, his dreams would take on a more religious connotation. It started out as seeing angels, but eventually transitioned to seeing a battle waging between angels and demons. This change in his dreamscapes was odd since he didn’t count himself as an overtly religious person. He believed in God and had attended church, although that was more for his wife and children. His loose association with the church devolved even further after the accident. He had needed someone to blame. The drunk driver that hit them had died in the crash, so that just left God to blame. The dreams would seem so real until he inevitably woke again in his bed. His religious dreams would always end with the demon side overtaking the angels and his bed drenched in sweat.

            Tonight had been a return to reliving the wreck. He rotated out of bed and grabbed a glass of water on his bedside table. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep, so he got up and went to the couch. The television flicked on as he searched for something to distract him from the nightmares. The early mornings followed a routine. Usually at about five, he would get dressed and go for a run. The run helped wake him up and gave him just enough endorphins to make it through the day. He would eat a quick breakfast, shower, and drive into work. This morning, he was halfway to the hospital when his vision suddenly filled with the angel that he had seen in his dreams the past several months. Instead of being part of the battle, the angel stared at him a moment and spoke.

“Samuel Phoenix.”

The vision only lasted a minute and then it was gone. His eyes refocused as he was rapidly approaching a traffic light and a line of stopped cars. He tried to swerve out of the way of the dump truck stopped in front of him as he slammed on the brakes. His car swerved left into the turn lane and eventually skidded into the intersection. He looked around and noticed a white van barreling toward him from the left and then everything went dark.

            The next time he opened his eyes, he felt like he was in a long tunnel. He could see light at the end of it but nothing on either side. He didn’t have time to think about it as he was shot toward the light. Upon entering the light, he felt his body thrown against the ground. At this point, he was completely disoriented. His face was covered in sand, and he had gravel in his mouth. His ears were ringing, and his eyes were squinting against the brightness. He tried to look around and orient himself but only saw a haze of orange and tan. His eyes slowly started to focus on his surroundings, and he pushed himself to his hands and knees. He still didn’t understand what was happening as the last thing he remembered was bracing for the incoming van. He couldn’t see the street, the other cars, or even any signs of the city. He pushed himself up to his feet and was hit with a sudden wave of nausea and dizziness. Reaching out his hands to stop himself from falling, he felt a rock wall next to him. The spinning sensation settled down and his ears finally stopped ringing. There was still a cacophony of noise nearby, and he continued to look around to further orient himself.

Sam was gripping a rock wall that rose about twenty feet above him. The wall towered behind him and to the left. In front of him, he saw an opening in the rock. He was on the edge of a small canyon in the rock that extended out toward his right. The entire canyon was only about ten feet wide with jagged walls of rock on either side. The rock was an orange hue with an occasional shrub peeking out from between the deeper crags. There were also several of the same shrubs jutting out of the sandy ground. The shrub came up to his ankles and was a swirling mix of purple and blue. Sam focused on the noise and realized it was a mix of shouting and metal clanging together. It seemed to be coming from the other side of the rocky outcropping he was behind. Slowly, he moved forward using the rock as support. He didn’t think he had any broken bones from the fall since he was able to walk without pain, and his only issue now was the occasional waves of vertigo. He came to the edge of the rock wall and leaned out to get a better look at his surroundings and the source of the noise.

At first, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A large field opened in front of him, spanning at least a half mile. Within the field was a raging battle. It was like the battle from his dreams as he could see two separate armies clashing across the field. At least a couple hundred people were engaged in the battle. Within the swarm of people, there were angels and demons battling each other. The angels were slightly larger than the other warriors and had white wings stretching from their backs. They would occasionally fly into the air and strike their enemies from above. The demons on the other hand were enormous. They seemed to be the size of two men and had black and red skin. Horns sprouted and twisted from their heads.

Sam started with a cold sweat again as his brain tried to understand what was happening. He withdrew behind the rocky outcropping and fell onto his backside. His dizziness had returned but he wasn’t sure if it was the vertigo from before or the utter confusion he felt. He put his hands over his head and started trying to make sense of the situation. He had to be dreaming again. He would wake up any minute in his bed in the middle of the night. The scene he just witnessed was so familiar, yet this time it seemed different. His prior dreams were like watching a movie and he was just the audience, but this was tangible. He could feel the sand under his hands and the roughness of the rock wall next to him. The heat of the sun felt warm on his skin and a small breeze blew through the canyon carrying a slight stench of death. Maybe he was back in the hospital after another car wreck, and he was just under the influence of some very strong drugs. Or maybe his mind had finally had enough, and this was his psychotic break. He had seen patients before that spoke of speaking to angels, demons, or even God. They were so convinced it was real and maybe this is what it felt like. Another option popped into his head as he ran through what just happened. He knew the van was going to hit him and then he awoke in a tunnel of light. Did he die? Is this what the afterlife was, with a light at the end of the tunnel? That didn’t make sense, as it didn’t fit with any of the religious teachings that he was aware of. He was either supposed to be in heaven surrounded by angels or in hell being tortured for eternity. This felt more like Arizona, just with angels and demons.

His thoughts were interrupted as the noise just outside his hiding place escalated. Men were shouting at each other. He got himself back to standing and pushed his entire body into the rock wall, willing himself to become a part of it. A man suddenly fell face first to the ground. The top half of his torso visible past the edge of the rock Sam was hiding behind. The man started to turn his head toward Sam when a spear was driven into his upper back. Sam watched as the man’s body convulsed for a moment and then stilled. A boot positioned itself on the man’s back as two hands gripped the spear and yanked it back out of the body. Sam didn’t dare to breath as he stood motionless before the scene. The boot, hands, and spear pulled back beyond the edge of the rock wall as he heard the man scream something and run back into the thick of the battle. Sam slowly let out his breath, staring at the man on the ground knowing that he was dead. His lifeless eyes looking in Sam’s direction with a small pool of blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth and mixing with the earth. Sam’s mind went into another state of confusion as his frazzled brain tried to comprehend what was happening around him and how he ended up here. He closed his eyes to try and use logic, but he couldn’t come up with an explanation that made sense. He just kept hoping that every time he re-opened his eyes, he would find himself in his bed at home or in the hospital. Unfailingly, he kept finding the same scene of death in front him and the same tumultuous battle just out of sight.

Sam decided to start moving away from the battle just to give his body something to do as his mind continued working. There was a spear still clutched in the dead man’s right hand. Sam moved forward along the wall to his left, toward the dead man and the spear. As he moved closer to the body, he dropped down to his hands and knees and started inching forward. He moved his hand out past the edge of the wall and gripped the spear. The dead man’s grip was tight, and he couldn’t wrestle it free. He leaned his body forward to use both hands to pry the man’s fingers off the spear. As he did so, he looked to the left again and saw the same scene, this time noticing bodies scattered across the field. He also noticed animals moving within the ranks of the demon army. The animals appeared more like black dogs that occasionally pounced on unfortunate victims. He looked back down at the man’s hand and was able to pry his fingers off and slide the spear out of his grip.

As he pulled back behind the wall of the outcropping, he looked left one more time. His fear gripped him as one of the black dogs had started moving his direction. He used the spear to get back to his feet and stumbled back into the corner he had been cowering in before. Gripping the spear in both hands, he started moving to his right, scraping his back against the wall as he moved. He was holding his breath again, waiting to see if the beast had seen him. Sam continued to move against the wall further from the battle and the dead man. He took one breath, then another. The beast should have arrived by now and Sam started to relax as he continued moving away.

Enough time had passed that Sam hoped the beast had gone a different direction, but then he saw the head of the animal poke past the wall and start sniffing around the legs of the dead body. Sam froze again as he watched. The beast sniffed further up the body and slowly took a few steps around the edge of the rock wall. Sam had moved about ten yards away by this point and stood amongst the jagged rocks, not moving, not even breathing. He could see the entire beast by this point, and it was wilder than a dog, more akin to a coyote. Instead of fur, the skin was smooth, and there were two little horns protruding from its skull that angled backward along the scalp. The beast sniffed a little more on the dead body and then lifted its head as it caught a new scent. It looked in Sam’s direction and snarled. It bared its yellow teeth, and Sam could see fresh blood dripping off the lower teeth. The beast crouched down slightly before springing toward Sam. That movement jolted Sam into action as he started to scramble away along the canyon wall. He knew he couldn’t outrun the creature though and after only a few short steps, he looked back to see how close the beast was. His foot got caught by one of the colorful shrubs on the ground as he twisted back to see his attacker. The beast was faster than he expected and was already leaping off the ground just a yard away. As he twisted, he brought the spear around in front of him to try and block the beast. He fell backward hitting his tailbone, then his head, on the hard ground. He had closed his eyes as he fell not wanting to watch as the beast’s mouth closed around his throat. As he hit, he felt a heavy weight push against his arms and the beast let out a squealing yelp.

Opening his eyes, he saw the beast had impaled itself, the spear puncturing between the beast’s fore legs. Blood flowed out of the wound, down the spear, and onto Sam’s arms and torso. The beast’s body slowly slid further down the spear as the yelps turned into vicious convulsions. The dog started to thrash its legs around ripping Sam’s shirt and scraping into his skin. It slid down the spear even further and drew close enough to latch onto Sam’s left shoulder with its blood-stained teeth. Only a few of the teeth were able to puncture his skin when a final convulsion stilled the beast forever. Sam rolled to his left and pushed the animal and the spear off him. He looked around for any more beasts and luckily found none. He looked back at the beast as a white haze slowly lifted off the body and into the air. The haze hovered in the air for a minute until it drifted forward into his body. Sam felt a surge of energy as the mist struck his chest, and the pain in his shoulder decreased slightly. Sam wasn’t sure what to make of this, but it was just another odd occurrence to add to a long list of odd occurrences. He reached over to pull the spear out of the beast. Laying his left hand down on the beast, he gripped the spear with his right. As he was about to pull on the spear to remove it, the beast’s body started to dissolve into dust. Where the beast had been moments before, there was a small pile of dust with two slabs of meat and a rolled-up animal skin matching the beast’s coloring. The spear hadn’t dissolved with the beast, and he noticed that the shaft of the spear had broken as the animal thrashed. He grabbed the top half of the spear and stared down at the remains for a moment trying to comprehend yet another mystery.

A clamor rose once again in the direction of the battle, and Sam felt it was time for him to get as far away as possible. He slowly moved down the canyon with an occasional glance back toward the battle to make sure no other beasts had caught his scent. He didn’t think he would be so lucky if he was attacked again. The width of the canyon fluctuated from as wide as fifteen feet and as narrow as three feet, with his shoulders scraping against rock as he passed. Sam’s brain returned to creating possible explanations but still nothing made sense. He eventually came to the end of the path where the rock walls opened to another field. This field was smaller at only two hundred yards across with random rock formations scattered about. The small plateaus ranged from five to thirty feet tall. He placed his back against the wall nearest him and tried to look out past the end of the rock formation to the left. He couldn’t see anything in that direction except more of the same desert landscape. He twisted slightly and eased his head past the wall next to him to look the other direction.

He was startled to see a demon standing about a yard away with his back against the wall. The demon immediately turned toward Sam upon noticing movement out of the corner of his eye. Sam instinctively tried to stab with his broken spear. The thrust was not straight; however, and it hit the demon’s armor, with the spear tip sliding left and piercing into the demon’s left arm. The demon grunted and knocked the spear away with an axe. Sam had only caused a small wound and had lost his only weapon. The demon was larger than Sam by about a head. His skin was pitch black with red veins running along his arms, neck, and face. He was covered in dark leather armor over his chest and legs. In his right hand, he held an overly large axe with a blade on one side and a sharp spike on the other. The demon’s face was initially angry upon getting stabbed but then turned up into a smirk as he looked at the pathetic human in front of him, now weaponless. Sam started backing away, eventually running into the corner of the wall at the other end of the canyon opening. The demon was slowly walking toward him raising up the axe. Before he could bring it down and end Sam’s life, he was hit with two arrows, one in the side of the neck and one in the side of his head. The demon’s smirk turned to shock as he looked down the path to the left and fell lifeless to the earth. Sam turned toward the source of the arrows. Two humans and an angelic figure walked slowly toward him. The humans were about his size, also clad in leather armor. They held bows, each nocked with an arrow, and aimed straight at him. The angel stood above seven feet and held a sword out in front of him. His skin was more of a fine silver that emitted a glow from any part of him that was exposed. His hair was white and shoulder length brushing the top of his steel breast plate. Even more impressive were the two white wings that seemed to be folded up behind him with the crest of the wings reaching the top of his head on either side.

Then the angelic being spoke, “What side do you fight for?” Sam didn’t respond immediately due to the utter shock of almost being killed by a demon and then now standing across from an angel, who apparently spoke English. “I will not repeat myself again, what side do you fight for?” the angel demanded.

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam stuttered. The angel’s face hardened but before he could say anything else, Sam heard another voice from above him.

“We don’t have time for this shit.” Sam looked up in response to this new voice only to find another man plummeting toward him. The man had jumped off the top of the rock wall. Sam only had time to curse before the man crashed into him and Sam went unconscious.