Now begins the seventh day of my imprisonment.

The darkness here terrifies me. When I breathe it sticks in my throat and burns, kin to the Hellfire that licks the edges of my wings, singes the feathers from blood-red gold to a dirty black.

This is punishment. My solitude is both self-imposed and forced upon me, actions against me for actions of my own, an animal defense on their part, an inability to accept the new, the improved. My decisions have led me here, this I will openly admit. I've questioned.

Rightfully?

… Mmn. No amount of days or years or millennia in this cage will convince me that this punishment is rightful.

I see them move in the shadows of the fire, but I dare not draw near for fear of their teeth, their claws, their shredding diamond skin. I am not they. I am no demon, no Hell-native, no fire-dweller. I am an advocate of thought, of will, of question, of that wonderful human critical thinking.

I am not an enemy, but they have made me into one, they who are too caged to rebel.

I have never thought of it as rebelling.

Seven days and seven billion more to go. Countless years in this box among the screaming, damned souls. They do intend to assure themselves that I have learned my lesson.

I concentrate on the leaden physical body they have wrapped me in, on the flesh they have used to temper my Grace. Every centimeter I move is painful, and with the smallest shift the chains forged from Cerberus' claws twist further into the delicate skin of my wings. Skin where there used to be shadows and empty, windless Chaos. Where there used to be all the beauty of the invisible of the universe. Disgraceful. I fear the bones are becoming brittle from abuse.

Some of my former brethren appear to me, to taunt me, and it is during these times that I twist my own thoughts and play myself until I remember that this is the reprieve. That Paradise, unthinking, is the Hell.

I pity them, those who remain in Heaven. At least my cage is literal.