//------------------------------//
// Cognizance 
// Story: Binding of Isaac: Beyond 
// by IAmNotSmartest 
//------------------------------//

*The white Angel gave the small boy a patient smile, and asked gently, "Who are you?"

The child shifted the drapes around in his hands, and replied meekly, "I'm Isaac." He looked up from his hands, forcing himself to make eye contact with the Angel. "If you're not taking me back there, what do you want with me?"

She was slightly taken aback by his bluntness, but replied calmly, "We want to make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine," he replied quickly, eyeing the door. "Can I go now?"

The darker Angel gave him a sharp look. "No, not yet. What are you?"

Isaac looked at her with confusion prominent on his face. "What do you mean? I'm..." he hesitated. He recalled the thousand memories of becoming the beast, ascending, and dying, unsure of which was true or false, illusion or real. "I'm a person. I'm me."

The dark Angel shook her head, stomping one of her forelegs impatiently. "No, what manner of creature are you?"

"I'm a human. A person." he answered, not wanting to anger the Angel any more.

"But what is a 'human'?" She demanded.

Isaac swallowed nervously. "Just... one of me. Like me."

The Angel scowled at him. "But-"

She stopped at a gesture from the white Angel. "He clearly doesn't know how to explain his species. He's a child, Luna."

"So he would have you believe," the darker angel mumbled, not inaudibly. "Why are you here?"

Isaac clutched the drapes tightly. "I don't know."

"How do you not know why you're here?" She asked skeptically, raising one brow at him.

"I don't know," he mumbled softly, eyes tearing up. "I just got up out of The Chest and then I was here." he blurted.

"'The chest?'" the white angel asked, cocking her head with confusion. "What chest do you mean?"

He mumbled inaudibly, the tears rolling down his cheeks as he twisted the fabric anxiously. The angel asked him again. He did not respond immediately, but eventually the child wiped his eyes again, refusing to meet her gaze. "The Chest I was supposed to die in." He trailed off.

Both angels turned to each other, equally surprised, if not for the same reasons. Isaac slid down against the wall, sobbing openly. He didn't want to tell them, he didn't want to do what he did, but he had to. The Angels wouldn't get it- even if they did, they'd throw him right back in there. And there's no lying to the Servants of God.

Isaac felt a warm touch on his face, and jerked away violently. The white angel had just touched him, with her hoof. He stared a moment, horrified, unbelieving of her concern. They were taking him back! He knew it, he was right! Isaac shot up and ran between their legs in escape, startling the guard and bolting around a corner. The child could hear the Angels calling for him to come back; he looked behind him, and saw the darker Angel following close behind, hooves thundering, wings flared.

Isaac knew he couldn't avoid it anymore. He let his tears fly, crying in fear and sympathy. The tears flustered the Angel, but only for a moment. It was enough time for Isaac to get out of her sight, slipping into an unoccupied room, flinching as she roared past at impossible speeds, followed closely by the protesting White Angel and the guards. He released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Isaac leaned against wall, slid down to a sitting position, then lay on his side, crying quietly to himself. This place that may have been his chance at freedom was now sure to be a new prison- not of locks and walls, but of pursuit and persecution. He didn't want to hurt them, but they would not leave him be. The world outside was a different danger than the purgatorial prison he'd existed in, and existed for so long. No longer was he struggling against all in a battle of innocence- he now lived the chase of a kind that judged him to be a demon, and to seal him away again in The Chest, the place he'd come from.

He stewed in this tumult of melancholy for some time.