Fallen

Chapter 1

October 10th, 2013

The angel turned through the air, desperately clawing at the wind as his wings proved useless. He twisted, looking over his shoulder at his once-white wings. Slowly, slowly, the pure snowy feathers were darkening into a deep inky black. He vainly tried to flap them, but that was useless as well; he couldn't move them, not while he was in a Fall.

He didn't ask for this; he was framed. Someone had singled him out and did... that to the human he was guarding. He was a guardian angel, and he had failed them. . . So now he had to be punished. His wings felt like they were on fire as the black spread across the once-blinding white. Agony seeped throughout his veins like dark, thick poison.

He screamed suddenly as the final white feather faded to grey, then to black. He could finally move his wings, now that he had been turned. But it was already too late.

The last thing he saw before his world went black was a large, unnaturally grown redwood tree rushing up to meet him.

And then darkness.

...

He woke up on top of a branch, facing the cloudy night sky. The angel groaned and turned over, unfolding one wing that was pinned underneath him. "Dammit," he muttered in a thick Bulgarian accent. "That wing just got better from a few weeks ago."

'A few weeks ago' was when he had gone skydiving like a normal human, with his wings tucked up in his shirt so other humans wouldn't know what he really was. The parachute had failed, and he had about one minute to unfold his wings from under all the equipment that he had put on. He had only gotten one wing out before he hit the ground. His wing had been pulled, and it pained him to even move it. It had finally gotten better a day or two ago.

And now it looked like he wouldn't be flying much. Maybe a short glide, but nothing more than that.

The angel sighed and rolled over onto his stomach, dark wings flaring out when he moved. He groaned and stood shakily. The pain was slowly starting to sweep across his body; an angel took no fall damage, but a Fallen was vulnerable just after their Fall. This was a very known fact since most Fallen were killed right after they hit the ground. Usually they would get trapped by demons, or humans would find them and capture them. But most Fallen almost always died after their Fall.

He would not be one of them.

The angel dusted off his suit, adjusting the orange and yellow colored tie that was loosely strung around his neck. He rolled his shoulders, flapping his wings slightly to ruffle the inky feathers. "Alright, let's get going," he muttered to himself. The angel walked straight off the branch that he was on, falling into a graceful swan dive.

After a few moments of free-falling the angel tilted his wings and opened them slowly, shortening his dive into a glide. The wind filled the feathers, running past them like water. The angel smiled and spread his arms out like his wings. Notch, he loved flying. It was amazing how you weren't tethered to the earth by the chains of gravity. He felt sorry for the normal humans, who would never swim through the skies like this.

He sighed happily, sneezing as he passed through a cloud. He looked down, bright eyes watching a group
of humans curiously. Strange, why did it look like two humans were falling? It looked like they were tumbling through the air, head over foot.

That's because they were.

The angel gasped and dove suddenly, folding in his wings and falling into a nosedive. His guardian instincts kicked in and he did everything in his power to speed up so he could save them both.

The first human he reached wasn't even human. It had six long, navy tentacles whipping around from its back and grey skin. It shouted something at the man below it. The angel couldn't pick up the words over the roar of the wind, though.

When he was right above the first, he wrapped his black wings around it. Quickly, before the mutant could do anything, he touched its forehead. Immediately, hate and fear rushed through the angel. He winced and dug further into the mutant's mind. Memories and pictures flashed before his eyes, and the angel slowly started to feel something that no angel should: hate.

This thing that he had been about to save was a monster—it had tried to kill the human's friends for revenge. The angel scowled and moved his hand down to the animal's throat, summoning the hate within him. The power rushed to his fingertips, and the angel pushed.

Suddenly the mutant jerked his head back, mouth falling open in a silent scream of agony. The angel killed him quietly, not even drawing blood with the hate-fueled magic. The navy blue-grey color of the animal's skin faded to a pale and sickly grey. Its eyes rolled back in their sockets, and then the mutant fell limp.

The angel sighed and fell away from the body, looking down at the human who was staring at him, chocolate-gold eyes wide. Once again, the angel was thrown through the human's memories and thoughts. This one was innocent. He grabbed the human's shoulders, spreading his black wings to halt their fall.

The angel smiled at him, orange eyes glowing brightly. "It isn't your time," he said in his best English. "Not yet..." He waved a few fingers at the human, shaking his arm to stir up the sleep powder that was hidden in a small pouch in his sleeve. The human would only remember being saved, not what he looked like or his wings. The angel had saved yet another life, even though he was technically not a guardian angel anymore. He was a Fallen—a grim reaper. He was an angel of death.

That was what the others expected him to be now that he was a Fallen. But he refused to turn dark. He didn't have the choice to Fall in the first place, but only he could decide if he wanted to become a demon. And the angel was pretty sure that becoming a demon wasn't on his to-do list.

The angel gently set the human flat on his back, folding his hands onto his chest. He hovered above the man, looking over him. It would look like he had been asleep. Which was good. The angel thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers.

"Light bulb," he murmured, landing and running over to a rose. He touched it and it turned bright green with yellow splotches; they were his signature colors. The angel smiled and plucked the rose from the ground, running back over and gently folding it into the human's armor plating. With a soft brush of his fingers, the rose became indestructible. Now nothing could harm it-no matter what.

He looked up and frowned at the elemental spiral that was slithering across the air. He wished he could help, but he knew that whatever it was, it was the humans' fight and not his. The angel sighed and started running, planning on getting away before other people showed up.

He glanced up, noticing that the clouds were starting to clear. The angel jumped into a tree, using his wings to get some leverage. When he was safe in the branches of the tree, he turned and watched a small group of humans approach the one that he had just saved.

He smiled, 100% sure that they would live. But he needed to leave. The angel sighed and turned back to the forest, jumping from tree to tree.

He grinned as he ran, happy to be free. Sure, he wasn't as free as he was in the air, but doing this running and jumping thing felt free to him. That was why he makes those maps that the humans always enjoyed. Parkour maps, they called them. He always came down to their world and build the maps, then quickly disappear soon after they were finished. He couldn't ever let the humans see him.

That was a big no-no; letting a human see him would mean almost certain death. But he always thought that, if the humans didn't realize what or who he was, he would be safe. So, he doesn't show his wings. Plain an simple as that.

The angel sighed and jumped into the air, ignoring the pain in his wing. Some time had passed since he had saved that human from falling to his death, and now the crescent moon was high in the sky.

He turned around in the air, hovering as he watched a bright purple glow erupt from under the redwood tree. He smiled again as it faded. Humans, even though they were only mortal, could sometimes do amazing things.

He wished he could be one of them.

And that was when he decided that he would. He would become a human. He would live like one, eat like one, socialize as one, and act like one.

Maybe, just maybe, it would work.