Original Stories Fan Fiction / Romance Fan Fiction / Angels Fan Fiction ❯ The Little Things Give You Away ❯ When Angels Deserve to Die ( Chapter 1 )

“You know you have to do this.”

 

I sighed, glancing at the higher angel. “I know. It's just…harder than I thought it would be.”

 

I looked down once more, taking in the scene before me. A woman silently cried as she exited a hospital room, her two daughters silently trailing behind her, careful not to upset her more. Inside that room was the woman's own mother. She was an extremely fragile thing; tubes, wires, and machinery appeared to be her only companions. I vaguely wondered why she was in such a state, but those matters didn't concern me; I had been assigned my objective.

 

Minutes later, a nurse came and switched the light off, leaving the elderly lady to dream among her motionless friends, if at least for a moment.

 

“Go now,” Simon ordered, giving me an impatient look.

 

I rolled my eyes. “Don't I get to prepare? This is my first time alone.”

 

He only smirked, and I wondered why God had chosen to make this man an angel. This was not the first time, and would probably not be the last. I usually come to the conclusion that it's simply His all forgiving nature. I would wonder why he chose to make me an angel, but I know the answer to that. Maybe it was the same for Simon. For someone I'd spent the past year with, six of those months being exclusive, I had yet to learn much about him.

 

“I know that. So don't screw it up.” I was startled by his amused voice.

 

Then he suddenly pushed me into the fatality vase that I'd been gazing in, making me yelp before falling face first.

 

The fatality vase is our way, the dark angels, of getting to Earth. We see the lives scenes of people and our assignments, and whatever you're seeing, that's where you'll land. Recently, I've grown tired of always having to say `fatality vase', because it really is too much of a big deal. So I've taken to calling it our `death jar'. It's short, sweet, and to the point. Of course, Simon openly disapproves of this, but I think that he secretly finds it funny.

 

The last thing I saw was him waving to me with faked enthusiasm. I swear, when I get back, I'm going to ask God about writing a contract that forbids the pushing of angels into any type of vase, even if it does get them to get on with their job.

 

With a less than graceful manner, I fell through, headed toward the hospital room to join the woman and wires. However, before I landed right on my ass on those cold tiles, I spread my wings and let myself go down with much more poise than anyone would give me credit for up in heaven.

 

I soundlessly stood in front of the woman's bed, breathing just as quietly. Although I don't even need to oxygen since I'm dead, I'd been forced to take it in during my mortal life, so the action just came naturally. Simon told me most angels stopped after a while, maybe a few years. Because the more you hold on to old habits from when you lived, the more human you remained, with more human mistakes and flaws than the standard angel. But there are the occasional ones, mostly old, that never get out of the habit. So I'd just have to see.

 

As I moved around the bed, the woman opened her eyes, something I was sincerely hoping wouldn't happen. She looked tired, but when she saw me, I knew she was wide awake.

 

And as suddenly as she was awake, all my lessons, all the training and coming along with Simon, the knowledge vanished and for a moment I just stood there, keeping my eyes on hers. The people you come for can see you; at least those are the only ones who can see me. It usually depends on your position in heaven, whether your job has anything to do with the mortals.

 

Slowly, getting over my nervousness, I smiled gently, coming closer. She tried speaking, her voice small and muffled. It could be a shout for help, a shocked shriek, or a simple question of who I was. I couldn't answer to any of these, all I could say was what I'd come for. She would find out everything later, actually soon, anyway.

 

“I've come to take you to a better place,” I whispered. I wish I could've added her name to the end of the sentence, but that was classified information and was not for me to know. Knowing small things like that would supposedly make me become more attached to my assignment, and then I would put off my job because I'd want them to live.

 

“Has that ever happened to a dark angel before?” I'd asked Simon once.

 

“No,” he answered, “which shows how well God's plan is working.”

 

This didn't satisfy me. “But why doesn't he give us a chance to show that we can

handle ourselves?”

 

His answer for this left me speechless, but not without more questions. “Look at what happened with Adam and Eve.”

 

Another sound passed from my assignment's lips, bringing my full attention back to her.

 

I placed my hand over hers, watching when her face relaxed as I sent a warm sensation throughout her body, an incredible sensation that sent all the pain away. I know that's what it is because I've been told so, and also from experience with death myself.

 

When I knew she was completely calm under my touch, I began what I was sent here for, what I would come back to Earth numerous amounts of times for in the future.

 

I put my full concentration on taking her life away.

 

She could feel nothing as I pulled the very breath of life right from her stiffening body; she would soon be an angel. I wondered whether she would ever stop breathing up there.

 

She ran her eyes all over me, like most people would and will, and I couldn't help but think about how stunning I must have looked. My wings were what some would call breathe taking, large white feathers with an almost golden hue that gleamed everywhere I went, even when they were tucked behind my back, and a wing span of fourteen feet.

 

Your wings were a representation of yourself; every angel's is different. And from what I've been told, my wings are impressive for someone of my status. I'm not sure how regular people get them; I guess when they pass judgment. Mine, along with around two hundred others, came when Simon told us to let them come, before we started training to see who would become dark angels.

 

A lot of poor souls couldn't even manage to make their wings appear, which was a great reason for immediate expulsion in Simon's book. According to him, you weren't worthy of helping people cross the line if you yourself weren't ready. And even though I didn't feel it then, I suppose I was at least ready enough not to cross Simon.

 

Simon told me that my longer wing span showed that I easily get along with almost anyone, but that I can also very easily get caught up into situations, both good and bad. The color white, sometimes to my embarrassment because I would get teased like crazy, shows compassion and the golden hue that I almost always have good intentions for whatever I'm doing. And for the most part, I agree with what my wings reveal. All of it adds up to why I'm not a normal angel in the first place.

 

The only other angel who knows every detail of my human life, besides God, is Simon. He was given all the information needed to know what kind of people we really were. He knows all about what I've ever done, and probably why I did it. Sometimes he would use little pieces of information to humiliate us if we had the audacity to complain or smart off in his presence. I was grateful most of the time that God didn't let him read our minds, because each and every guy there would've been embarrassed some time or another.

 

Anyway, when angels come to Earth, we really make a big deal out of it, or at least our appearance. My wings added with my halo, white robe, not to mention my over all glowing appearance, made me one hell of a sight to see. Figuratively speaking, of course.

 

But when we return to heaven, we don't even have halos, and we're not required to wear plain white robes. I guess it's like being in a marching band; the show just isn't the show without their uniforms. Whether God just wanted to show people what lies ahead moments before their death or see the completely scared faces of all the nonbelievers, I'll never know. It could've been a little of both.

 

The woman's eyes had by now closed; she was gone. Well, gone from this place at any rate. I looked outside. The sun had set a couple of hours ago, and it was starting to rain. That meant many people would miss her. There were always signs you could look for once your task was complete, little tricks of knowing how people would take the person's death. If a flower somewhere nearby bloomed, a new life was replacing their own. Things like that made my job that much more interesting.

 

Satisfied with my successful mission, I returned to heaven by dissipating right on the spot, another reason why humans who weren't dying couldn't see me. They just might pass out on the spot.

 

Although I never understood why, if we can teleport back to heaven, we can't teleport there. I guess certain things are always complicated whether you're dead or alive.

 

Simon was standing in the exact same spot he had been when I left, or fell. One of my team members was back, too.

 

There are four of us total, not including Simon. Simon is our Dark Wing Angel, our full time mentor and, more or less for me, father figure. He was in full command during those first six months of being dead, and as laid back as he can be now, you would not want to push him then. I knew guys that peed themselves when Simon became angry, and not without good reason. Simon could be terrifying when he wanted to.

 

But we had to cut him some slack; next to God, whose word is of course final, Simon was the sole angel choosing the dark angels. And if someone he chose messed up, I mean really messed up, they would become a fallen angel. And since Simon secretly cares about our well being, he wanted to choose those who knew the difference between right and wrong. Once he had done that, he wanted to choose those who would select right over wrong nearly every time.

 

A fallen angel is sentenced to live on Earth once again, forever. Their wings stay, but they can no longer fly. They would be able to see everything they can see in heaven, such as other angels and demons, but are strictly forbidden to contact them if their business lies with either of the two realms of heaven and hell.

 

“How'd I do?” I asked with a hopeful grin in place.

 

Simon looked my way with a stupid stare, not moving.

 

I frowned, confused. “What are you doing?”

 

Behind him my friend, Christian, laughed. “I think he's being you, Arian.”

 

Christian, I thought, was always a peculiar name for your child, if not ironic. I mean, what if your kid turns out to be Wiccan, or an atheist? They could always change their name legally, but then that leaves the first eighteen years of your life to deal with a name that implies a lot of stuff you might not want to be implied.

 

But I figured Christian could take care of himself down on Earth while he was living. He was built well, and this was before and after training, because all four dark angels were in good shape now, so it had only helped Christian further. He had a tan which was, he informed me, all natural, and long, brown hair that he kept in a low pony tail at all times. He told me that he'd been a life guard, and this hardly surprised me. I thought that maybe he'd died drowning. He said that this wasn't the case, but he didn't want to talk about his death. So I've kept my questions to myself.

 

Simon finally shook his head, rolling his eyes. “You're doing it again. I think you're the most absent minded dark angel we've had in a long while.”

 

I felt my cheeks burn and I crossed my arms, trying to look offended. “That is not what I look like.” I know it is, though. I can't help it if my mind wanders at the most inconvenient times.

 

When Christian just sent me a look, I groaned. “Shut up, Chris.” Chris was my nick name for him. During those six months of training to be a dark angel, Christian and I had been room mates, so we had a lot of time to get to know each other. That's how I knew he was already physically fit, as if you couldn't tell outside our room. We'd pushed each other as much as we could, resulting in us both achieving our goal. It felt good to help him through all the rough times, and it felt like every other week one of us was ready to throw in the towel.

 

I remembered one of those times. It was only three weeks before they announced the dark angels. Chris had been in our room alone for about half an hour, finishing his shower long before me, even with that long hair. Yes, we got sweaty. We weren't technically angels yet; those of us competing were there only because God felt that we should get one more chance.

 

All of us had been religious in our human lives, obviously; otherwise we would've already been rotting in hell. However, all of us had also led not so perfect lives, and I mean much less perfect than the average Christian, no pun intended. But since we had prayed and asked for salvation, He, in His love for His children, decided to let us try and take a job that made up for our faults or else getting fates that I'm not sure of.

 

The two hundred of us that were assigned to train to be dark angels, we didn't get a say in it at all. God goes through the other non-perfect people that die and chooses who will train for what. Most of them are chosen to be guardian angels, miracle workers, things like that which are in large demand.

 

Personally, I would hate being a guardian angel. You're assigned, after training of course, one person to watch over until they die, which sounds easy. But humans can be extremely stupid at times, and then you have to do what you can to get them out of whatever trouble they're in. Or sometimes a demon will come out of no where to try and lure the human into deep sin, like what I assumed happened to me.

 

There are rumors that the people who fail to get whatever task they train for are sent back to Earth where they will wander eternally like a fallen angel, some say they're sent to Earth to battle Lucifer's demons in the fight for good and evil, and some even say they're sent to hell to be ridiculed by the demons for not being good enough to be an angel after all. Personally, while I secretly think these could all be a little true, I don't care much since the rumors fail to apply to me. But I silently thank God every day for all of his `one more' chances.

 

Anyway, I got back in the room to find Chris shaking, sitting on his bunk with an empty void in his normally hazel eyes.

 

“Chris?” I called softly, walking to him. “What's wrong, man?”

 

He opened his mouth, starting to form some word, but thought better of it and showed me his hand, which had been hidden behind his back.

 

When he revealed it, I gasped. “Chris-“

 

But he cut me off. “Look at this, Arian. I'm bleeding.”

 

I could already see that; in fact, there wasn't much else I could see of his wrist. I felt myself begin to give way to panic. “Chris, why did you do this?” I asked as I gripped his arm just above the wrist, squeezing and elevating it to try and stop the bleeding.

 

Christian didn't seem too fazed. “I just couldn't believe that we're really dead, Arian. I mean, they told us we are, but I just feel so alive, so I wanted to see if I could bleed.”

 

“Well, we obviously can.” I pointed out, nervously laughing to keep from really panicking and calling for someone. If they found out that Chris couldn't handle the feeling of being dead, there was no way Simon would let him stay the last three weeks.

 

He nodded, giving me a small smile. I think he was getting light headed. “I didn't think I could feel it, but I guess so. So doesn't this prove that I'm real? Can we die again, Arian?” He questioned me like a small child would ask their parents where babies came from.

 

I honestly had no clue about being able to die again, and I had absolutely no plans on finding out then. “I think this is all there is, man.”

 

Christian chuckled, handing me a roll of bandages. “I think that'll work.”

 

I mentally cursed, taking it and wrapping it around his arm, which had, for the most part, stopped bleeding.

 

When I was finished, he examined it, nodding his approval at my handiwork. “Thanks, man.”

 

Laughing, I gave him a good shove. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

 

At this he looked thoughtful. “Can angels have heart attacks?”

 

I rolled my eyes. What an eventful ten minutes this had been. “Let's not push it. One injury per angel, ok?”

 

“Sounds good to me.” He lied back on his bunk, to my relief. “Promise me we'll both get through this, Arian. Promise me we'll both be dark angels.”

 

After I wiped his blood off my hands I hopped into my own bunk, settling beneath the covers. “We'll both be dark angels. I promise.”

 

He grinned, closing his eyes. “Tell me how good it will be.”

 

About every other night, we would think about how actually being a dark angel would be. We never thought about what would happen if we failed, or if only one of us succeeded; those weren't even options. I think it helped both of us stay sane.

 

I sighed. “It'll be great. We'll get a beating from Simon everyday, and then thank him for allowing us into his presence.”

 

We both laughed, saying our good nights and resting for whatever the next day brought.

 

Crazy stunts like that put us both on edge half the time, although I think that bleeding was the limit of our physical injuries. Some guys broke everything from their toe to their wing, which must have really sucked. Simon, of course, was insensitive to all of this, and thought of those who were injured as morons for becoming injured in the first place.

 

“If you're not going to take care of your angelic body, then why should you even get one?” He'd asked all of us the next morning. I threw a look to Christian and his bandaged arm, and we exchanged grins. Through all the drama we'd helped each other with, training could sometimes be fun. I'd be lying if I said I missed it though.

 

Damian, another of my team mates, appeared on my right.

 

“Where'd you come from?” I inquired.

 

He shrugged. “I had another mission just after you went.” Damian was a bit of a mystery to me, and maybe a secret fascination.

 

He's an albino. And this isn't a bad thing; it's just that he's the only one I've ever known. His wings are crimson, and when I think about the contrast between that and his pale skin, it makes me think of red velvet cake. I don't mean that in a bad way; Damian makes a beautiful angel, or so I've heard Simon say. It's part of why he was chosen as a dark angel. The sight of him brings more of a natural calmness to people. At first I thought this was odd because of his eyes, but Damian told me Simon made it so that when he was on Earth, his eyes were a light blue.

 

“Doesn't that hurt your feelings or something?” I'd asked him awkwardly.

 

He smiled in a way that made me feel like he knew something I didn't. “Actually, it's nice getting a different reaction from people.”

 

Crimson represents his passion for everything he does, and that he suffered just as Christ had in life. They didn't suffer the same fate, but still. His wing span happens to be a more modest length of ten feet, showing his shy, quieter demeanor. Of course, you can't base all of your judgment on an angel's wings; there's only so much personality you can incorporate into them. But from what they incorporated of Damian's personality, I have no idea why he was even in the same league as the rest of us who were training.

 

For some of us, it's not hard to guess what personality traits got them into training when you know how to really interpret wings. For others, you can't imagine what they could've done in their previous life to get them here. Damian is one of those people. Maybe it was that mysterious suffering.

 

Damian is a person who enjoys observing what people are doing, rather than being involved, and I sometimes observe Damian. More than once I've caught him laughing to himself when Christian and I are being idiots, or when Simon makes his sarcastic remarks. And when Damian laughs, it's hard not to at least smile because you

know that one person has appreciated your efforts to pass time.

 

He also has a large sketch pad which he is constantly drawing in. I've never asked to see what he works on, but I can't say that I'm not curious. Sometimes I get the feeling that he draws us, although I can't imagine why, maybe for a lack of more subjects. Who knows; maybe he really enjoys putting us onto paper.

 

Simon nodded approvingly. “Yes, and unlike a certain blonde angel that I know of, Damian doesn't waste his time day dreaming while their assignment could just run away.”

 

Damian and I blushed, him out of embarrassment for being praised, and me out of embarrassment for, as usual, being the subject of Simon's teasing. “They're dying; how could they run away?”

 

“Your first mission alone was too easy- that woman couldn't run anymore than she could fly. Real missions can become a bit more complex than an old hag constrained to a bed.”

 

I fought the familiar urge to roll my eyes at the voice from behind me.

 

But before I could retort, Simon came in. “You should know, Matt, since you have a habit of acting like one.”

 

I couldn't of said it better myself. Mathew Donnivan and I had never gotten along, ever since they announced who would become dark angels. Christian and I were already beaming when they called his name first, Christian Davis, and he put a hand on my shoulder for reassurance. After his was Damian Wells, followed by Mathew Donnivan.

 

Even though I smiled so that Christian knew how happy I was for him, I felt like running, or flying, to the nearest container and throwing up. There was only one spot left, and I just knew it wouldn't be me. Then Christian squeezed my shoulder, and it reminded me that I'd worked just as hard as he had to remain where I was, so I stared back up at Simon.

 

Christian tells me that in this moment, it was the most determined he'd ever seen me before.

 

And finally, after what felt like years of waiting, Simon caught my eyes and said the name, “Arian Moore.”

 

I remember that rush of excitement and relief as if it never left. I'd let out a victorious “YES!” and flew up into the air, getting many dirty looks from those rejected, and Mathew, but I didn't care. This was something I'd finally done right, and I wasn't about to let anyone else rain on my parade.

 

Christian had already flown over to stand with Simon and my new team, laughing merrily. Even Simon cracked a small smile as he made his last comment before all of us.

 

“Congratulations, gentlemen, you have trained hard the past six months, and I'm proud of you. I hope you'll enjoy the new job that you have won-the task of killing people on behalf of God.”