The day it happened I was sitting on the fountain with my
girlfriend, Shadow. We were having lunch like we always did. There were people
all around us, and we were making fun of the way these people were being all
furtive and discreet about everything. A man in an uncomfortable looking suit was
trying to hide the fact that he was texting. Shadow splashed water on me, and
laughed.
“Hey,
Tiger, whatcha looking at,” I turned back to her and laughed at the stupid
nickname she used for me.
“Tiger,
I like that. Hmm, does that mean I can call you Lemon?” She narrowed her eyes
at me aware that I was trying to change the subject. But pushing it off, she
took the bait.
“Nope,”
She answered. I laughed, and then tried again.
“Kitten,”
She looked at me, cocked her head, and then flipped her hair and nodded
enthusiastically. “Kitten and Tiger,” She tried experimentally. Then her face
lit up. Mine wasn’t smiling though. She frowned and asked “What’s wrong,” I
said very seriously managing to keep a straight face
“Tiger
and Kitten,” She threw her head back and laughed. Now I smiled, Shadow’s laugh
was a wonderful thing to hear. But today wasn’t a day to smile. I had a bad
feeling, and I knew what this feeling was.
Shadow
had saved me when I fell. From Heaven that is. My name is Blayze. And I’m a fallen angel. Shadow and I, chose our
love over our love of ‘The Almighty Light’. She was kind enough to have Gabriel
cast me out of Heaven, and not send me to hell, and not tear out my wings.
Wonderful and pristine as they may be, our wings are our greatest weakness. If
they are even touched we could be killed, they are a bit like our Achilles’
heel.
Shadow
couldn’t feel the same as I could we were affected differently. Obviously ‘The
Almighty Light’ gave me this gift so I would know what to do when the time
came. I stood up and took Shadow’s hand. She was confused at first, but she’d
learned not to question my motives after a few years. So, she followed happily
chatting, pointing out the clarity of everything.
She
stopped a couple times to gather dandelions, and put one behind my ear and then
pressed her lips gently against mine, listening to the sweet singing of birds.
She did this at times. Sometimes she was so . . . human. The prospect seemed so
strange to me, but these were just the things about her that I endeared most.
The humanness of her thought processes. Wrapping an arm around my waist,
smiling in bliss, Shadow asked.
“What’s
happening, Tiger, what’s wrong?” I looked down at her and kissed her forehead.
Her smile grew even wider. “Something bad, Kitten, something real bad, you know
how a few years ago, we had to stop seeing each other for a while, while I
healed.” She nodded understanding.
“Well,
something worse is happening now.” She wrinkled her forehead in thought, and
then asked once again. “What?”
“Well,
you’ve read the bible.” She scoffed and answered
“Like
four times!” My only reply to this was, “1 Corinthians 15:51-52. . . 1 Thessalonians
4:16-17. . . Philippians 3:20-21.” She thought for a moment, then easily,
confidently recited “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but
we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and
we will be changed. . . For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a
loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God,
and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and
are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in
the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. . . But our citizenship is in
heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who,
by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will
transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” Then
seeming to absorb all of what she’d just said on what seemed like a command.
She kind of whispered to herself “Oh-” Then to me. “Rapture,” I nodded,
thinking to myself, right on the dot.
I started walking faster; the
feeling had become stronger than before. What did she want me to do? How was I
supposed to help any of this? Save myself, save Shadow, save the innocents,
what? The only thing I could think of right now was to get to the one place no
one still a resident in Heaven could touch. There was only one I absolutely
knew of, but it was at least seven kilometers away. We needed a ride. Then in
one will, a man pulled up next to us. He asked if we needed a ride, we
gratefully accepted. Just as we got in, baseball sized hail started pouring
down. The man smiled at me from the front seat.
“Hail in June, huh? Who’d have
thought?” He said attempting at friendly conversation; Shadow reached over and
put her hand on my knee, I glared at him under my long dark bangs. “Calm down,
Tiger, everything will be okay.” I looked at her and she smiled so reassuringly,
that I might have believed her. But as unfortunate as it
was, I’d been trained in spotting liars, and this wonderfully human girl was
lying through her teeth. There it was in her eyes, that one little emotion that
spoiled everything for her. Fear. The emotion that drove people to do the crazy
things they do, fear was worse than hate or anger at cause and effect.
Then
knowing I would see through her shield she moved her hand up to my forehead,
and let actual concern peek through. “You’re warm.” She said. I laughed at her.
She knew my temperatures always varied between freezing point, and 180 degrees
Fahrenheit. I would be worried if my temperature was that of even relatively
close to hers. She leaned into me, and fell asleep. I woke her up in the ten
minutes it took to be at our destination.
The
one place heaven residents couldn’t touch. Actually, it was more pure than
heaven itself, which over the years had been tainted, the strikingly peaceful
eye of the storm. It was the ocean. But that’s not the point of it; it was what
was under the ocean. A volcano, that with the way things were going probably
wouldn’t be dead much longer. The volcano was one of the many entrances to Hell.
Shadow wrapped her arms around my shoulders and said “I hate when you do this.”
I smiled back at her and jumped into the sea.
The
only resistance between me and the dazzling ocean is Shadow, who is stubbornly
holding on to my back. I taught her a long time ago to not strangle me, but
sometimes habit gave into panic. Not very often but today, I could feel her
slight arms slowly constricting around my neck.
She
wasn’t going to kill me, but, it was extremely uncomfortable to have something
tightening around your throat when you’re trying to concentrate while hail is
pouring down on you and you can clearly see a hurricane in a close range. Even
though this was most likely the least problematic all of that day, but this one
stuck out to me.
Shadow’s
grip was tight enough to cut off my head, luckily it didn’t. God only knows how
traumatic that would have been for her. She was hitting my back as hard as she
could with minimal amounts of air and now I could feel it through the numbness
caused by the freezing cold water. I looked back at her and she gestured for
air. The only response I could give her was a nod and a finger for patience.
It killed me, that I kept forgetting how
utterly fragile she was. How could I forget? It was only too obvious every time
I looked at her she would smile and I could see the rising and falling of her
shoulders and chest as she breathed. And when I called her in the middle of the
night, she slept. And she was so . . . wonderful. Now, I wrapped her arms
around my waist for her, so she could hold on as tight as she wanted without me
being uncomfortable. The problem was she wasn’t holding on as tight anymore,
her grip was weakening any second, and with her grip faltering I was afraid to
swim too fast and she’d not be able to keep hold of me.
The
time dragged on, and then I felt it, her grip ceased. She just fell away from
me, I looked around, but the water was so dark from pollution that I couldn’t
possibly see her at all through the murk. I swam down, and everywhere I could
think she might be, I even went up once. I was frantic with fatal worrying, she
couldn’t be gone. Not this way, not in this dark, cold place. She deserved to
be warm and living and loved. She deserved to be able to live. She should be
more than that.
I
shook my head, and after another fruitless search, left. I left everything,
swimming up to the surface of the water. I propelled myself forward without
bothering to even observe the slightest things. I was walking through the city
now, and realized my temperature had risen again; the water was seemingly
evaporating off of my skin. I hated it.
I
hated it. No. I didn’t deserve to be hot, or warm, I shouldn’t be able to move.
I should be wherever Shadow was now. She was so beautiful. I closed my eyes and
slipped my hand into hers. I could feel her warmth again, feel her soft skin in
mine, and feel her lips on my cheek and my lips and my forehead. And then I
couldn’t. The rain was falling down my body, no longer hail, the storm clouds
blocked out the sun and I could feel her fear, I was supposed to save her. I
knew that she was gone, and I knew that she wasn’t coming back, and I knew that
it was time, but what was I supposed to do about all of it? And then there was
just nothing. Nothing at all, no emotions or feelings or senses, I was in a
vacuum inside myself. I was helpless.
Shadow was falling, there was a light and she
desperately wanted to reach it but time was passing oh, so slowly. She couldn’t
imagine anything slower than this. Then she was rushing and she wasn’t ready to
go yet. She still had time with Blayze, he needed her to heal him, and she knew
this. And then there was this white noise in the background. She was sitting
with some other people and they all faintly reminded her of Blayze. The only
reason was that they were the angels. The not fallen, she’d heard Blayze talk
about them sometimes, nothing too nice either.
They
were all looking at her, then a beautiful woman, who looked about Shadow’s
mom’s age - Oh my God, her mom. What was she doing right now, was she worried
about her? Was she already dead? Shadow didn’t know. – Walked up to her and
smiled pleasantly like she was greeting an old friend. And I guess in some
ways, she was. Then she introduced herself as the ‘light’. Shadow faintly
remembered a memory of Blayze talking about ‘the almighty light’ and her jaw
dropped.
“Oh.
My. God. It’s God!” She said to the surrounding angels and they showed no sign
of seeing her. They were all paying attention to ‘the light’. She smiled amused
and replied “Some people call me that, but I rather prefer my friends to call
me Dee.” Shadow just kind of stood there and looked at her. She had floor
length wispy blonde hair, crow’s feet around her eyes from smiling, thin lips.
Not all that attractive, Shadow thought.
Now,
after she’d calmed down, she looked around at the other angels, they looked
completely normal. There were business men and women, and there were college
students and children, and they weren’t dressed in white robes, they looked as
if you’d just passed them on the street. Just a little bit different. Now that
she’d got to thinking, Shadow asked, “Why am I here?”
The older
woman smiled and said “I chose you. A long time ago actually, and then you
became the beautiful girl you took the form of. I assume you’ll want me to call
you Gabby instead of Gabe this time, eh?” She walked on. But Shadow stopped
putting two and two together.
“Gabriel?”
She asked. Dee stopped and looked back at her. She was no longer smiling.
“Well,
Gabriel will work I assume, it’s always been Gabe with you before. I have to
admit, I never expected you to take the form of a girl, and especially not for
your first reincarnation.” Shocked, Shadow forced her feet to move and kept
pace with Dee.
“Why
did I not know before?” She asked.
“Angels
reincarnate every few million years, and when they do, they are given a
lifetime to be human. They forget their entire angel persona. But I’m afraid it
will no longer be the same after this rapture.” She finished grimly. “You’ve
forgotten completely. And while you’ve forgotten you’ve also had one of angel’s
highest ranking officers kicked out of Heaven for you.”
“But
why did Blayze not know who I was?” Shadow asked. She closed her eyes and
answered
“Because
when an angel is going through their human stage everyone who ever met them or
ever will forgets about them. Even me,” She hung her head in sadness.
“Wait,
so I’m the archangel Gabriel, and I’m supposed to remember that I am, but I
don’t. Are you sure you’ve got the right person?” Shadow said in one breath.
“Yes,
you’ve got the same life force you always have had.” She said.
“So,
if I’m an archangel, do I have the power to give people their wings back, and
take them from whatever hell, they come from?” ‘The Almighty Light’, Dee,
looked at me, and nodded with suspicion. Shadow made up her mind and said
“Thank you.”
The
darkness was gone now. I could see everything so clearly, it was ridiculous.
Like seeing through the looking glass, everything was so fine and magnified;
every single detail was broken up into grains of sand. But no one could see me.
I was nonexistent. I was walking through oblivion, darkness was more prominent,
and it was like seeing through Vincent Van Gogh’s eyes. Everything was drawn,
in swirling colours and shades. I couldn’t remember anything from before.
There
was just nothing. A blank space, but now the world was so full of everything,
filled to the breaking point. The hues of the rainbow, the aquamarines, and
robin’s blue for the sky, the deep sea green for the grass, they were
everywhere. It was like a thousand crayon boxes mashed together in a whirlwind
of everything. And the people walking around weren’t people. They were humanoid
but they didn’t have any features, they consisted of colours, there were
colours that humans had never even seen before.
And
then there was one figure that looked positively glowing. The fact being that
she was glowing helped a little bit, her aura was white, almost too bright
white to look at directly. She was walking right in my direction and I was
thankful for the little warmth she brought with her, there was very little in
this place, or a perception of time. There was everything and nothing all at
once and it was positively wonderfully horrid. And then there was her. She was
close now, I could feel the heat emanating off of her, and she wasn’t like the
others. I had a faint sense of familiarity. She was standing right in front of
me stopped now; she had features too, not like the others. Her face was almost
perfect. She smiled at me.
“Blayze,”
She sighed with relief and the light enfolded me. And there she was, every
second of my banishment. There she was holding my hand, kissing my lips,
hugging me with her weak arms, compared to my strength, caressing my wings with
amazement. It was all there in my memory, like a flash of lightning. And then
she was there, her thick black hair falling down her body like waves, her
multitude of freckles, her cute little nose, and pink soft lips, her utter
perfection, Shadow, the most important girl in the universe and beyond.
And
then in less time than that, we were walking side by side.
“So,
apparently I’m the Archangel Gabriel’s reincarnation.” She said casually, I was
still looking around us star struck when this registered. I looked at her with
my eyebrow raised,
“No,
you aren’t, it was Gabriel that threw me out of Heaven . . . for you.” She just
smiled at me.
“Yes, you’ve told me that, I’ve been an angel
for a shorter time, (well what I remember anyway) and already I can correct
you. Time perception darling, heaven always has an archangel, even when we
think that we’re human it will be the future us or the past us, in a second an
entire galaxy could have gone by and we would feel it, but we’d never actually
know.” I squinted at her,
“So,
you’re an archangel, huh?” I was smiling brightly now. I could feel the weight
of my wings and see her black menacing looking wings, and knew that they were
actually gentler than most living things. And my tropical glowing blue wings,
ready to fly. “That means you have the power to restore me to my former rank,
Kitten.” I was already devising a plan in my head. She smiled and said,
“Already
taken care of Tiger, now . . . kiss me. I haven’t had a real proper kiss in
ages. Not since the love of my life was sent to purgatory.” She looked up at me
and fluttered her wings in a manner of flirting before I pressed my lips to
hers. No longer could I be thrown out of Heaven. Two archangels in love was
definitely not a crime against ‘The Almighty Light’. Normally it would be but
we were an exception. I could feel the glowing of her dark aura her wings gave
off, bending closer to mine so I did the same, and our wing tips touched
without any reaction from either of us, we were too busy with our lips. And
this commitment was made, angel wings were never made for anyone to touch, but
when two angels’ wings touched it meant something more than Human Marriage or
Vampire Feeding, or any ritualistic joining. It meant angel’s wings morphing.
Our
wings were now the exact same colour, Elektrick Blue, and they were more
luminescent than any angel’s wings have ever been. And now we looked deep into
each other’s eyes, and breaking away, turned to bow before ‘The Almighty
Light’.
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