Fallen Angels

Chapter 5- Hariels Mistake

~~~Start~~~

"Shit!"

"He fell! He actually fell!"

"I'm not getting done for this! I'm outta here!"

"No you're not, this was your idea!"

"It wasn't, Brad said to go after him!"

"You think I wanted it to end like this?"

"We gotta do something! We can't just leave him!"

"I got an idea, we go, claim we were never here, people will think that he jumped."

"Yeah, do what he said! Scatter!"

Felix couldn't feel a single bone in his body, it was as if everything had shattered like a mirror. It was taking all the strength he had left to keep his eyes open wide enough to see Bradley peer over the edge of the roof and then run-away seconds later. Felix doubted he was going to get help. He had fallen in a secluded area of the school site, no one would find him here; without help he didn't expect to last much longer.

'This is where I die' he reasoned.

***

"Why are you still here, Hariel?" Evangelina asked, shaking her friend out of his daydream.

"What are talking about?"

"Your human! You need to collect him, now!"

"Collect him?" Hariel asked, still slightly dazed.

"Yes, collect him, his soul, Reap him"

"Reap him? He is not- he is not dead, is he?"

"Oh Hariel!" Evangelina said sounding frustrated "I thought you had read ahead"

"He is a child!"

"Not anymore, besides you have Reaped infants before, have you not?" Hariel would have preferred to have some prior notice before saying goodbye to the humans put into his care. Hariel was a Guardian angel, he was given a human a birth who he would be expected to take care of them and ensure that everything went as the Script, a large book with every event that must occur written in it, said it would. Felix Dawson had been the two-hundred and thirty-seventh human that Hariel would have raised from birth to death. But even after two-hundred and thirty-six other times, it still hurt inside to go down to the surface and Reap a soul he had been with for so long. Hariel sighed deeply, dreading what he was about to do.

"How long does he have left?"

"Half an hour, you have time to prepare, I know how you like to be down there. Go. Quickly, before Azrael sees you"

***

It had been at least fifteen minutes since Felix had fallen from the roof, in that time he had come to terms with his situation. He wasn't happy to die, and wouldn't go without a fight, there had been so much he hadn't done, things he had left unsaid, and his parent's... losing their third and final child would surly destroy them, they would be broken beyond far repair.

"Felix! Felix! Damn it! Where are you? Felix!" Felix didn't recognise the voice, or the many footsteps following it. He deduced it must have been one of Bradley's gang who had a change of heart, no one else knew where he was. The footsteps grew louder and louder.

"There he is!" Felix felt himself getting weaker by the second, keeping his eyes open had now become a chore.

"What's his name?"

"Felix. His name's Felix."

"What happened to him?"

"He fell, from up there. Help him, please!"

"We'll do our best. Ok Felix, can you keep your eyes open for me? I'm Katie, I'm here to help" Felix tried to listen to her but couldn't find the strength the stay awake and passed out on the floor.

***

Hariel stayed with Felix for the entire trip to the hospital. One of Bradleys' friends had reconsidered leaving Felix to bleed out and had called for an ambulance as soon as the others had left. Within ten minutes Felix was in a sterilised white room with doctors crowding around him, all desperately trying to save his life. It stung knowing that everything they were doing would all amount to nothing and that the boy in front of them would die without getting to say his final goodbyes to those he loved.

The half hour he had been given by Evangelina was not nearly enough time to prepare for how Hariel felt when he heard Felix's heart monitor give off a monotone beep and Hariel could see the golden glow of a human soul hover above the boys' heart. The glow manifested itself into the ghost-like image of Felix.

"I'm so sorry" Hariel whispered. He couldn't bare to look at the ghost that stood before him, he had loved Felix more than any human that had come before and wasn't ready to leave his side yet.

"Am I... dead?" Hearing Felix ask that, his voice cracking with so much emotion nearly brought the angel to tears. What was he going to say? That he was sorry again? That things would be better on the other side? Should he stay silent? Why did Heaven give angels a job if they new how much it would hurt when it was finally over? Was this Hariels punishment for breaking so many rules in his centuries of existence.

"No" Hariel said, moving towards Felix's' now empty corpse. "Not yet" Hariel wasn't thinking straight, he knew he wasn't thinking straight, but somehow that didn't stop him. He had broken so many rules, what was one more? Hariel raised a hand and led Felix's ghost back to the body. With the close proximity, like a magnet, his soul transformed back into a golden light and was absorbed once again by the body's heart.

***

Felix took a deep breath of air and opened his eyes. While all his limbs still ached from the fall, he wanted to get up and dance. He had so much energy all of a sudden, like someone had breathed new life into him.

As he looked around the room, for a split second he thought he saw a strange white-haired man stood next to him, but with the bink of an eye, he was gone. Felix brushed it off and ran through what had just transpired in his mind.

***

Hariel walked quickly back to his station in Heaven with his head hung low avoiding eye-contact with anyone. Did anyone around him know what he had just done? No, they couldn't, if they did, they would be arresting him on the spot.

"You are back quick Hariel. Normally you stay and mourn for a while." Hariel ignored Evangelina's trivial attempts at conversation. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone.

In an instant Hariel found himself surrounded and restrained. Several Peacekeeper angels had teleported around him, two had grabbed him on either shoulder and another, one Hariel would later learn was in fact Azrael, held Hariel's arms tightly behind his back.

"Hariel, what is going on?" Evangelina asked, visibly shaken.

"Hariel." another angel said, this one was taller than the others and looked much calmer, like he had done this a thousand time before. "You are under arrest for treason and going against the Script and the orders of Michael."

"What did you do?" Evangelina half asked half yelled at Hariel. Hariel didn't respond, how could he even begin to explain what he had done?

"You saved the life of Felix Alexander Dawson, aged sixteen, after he was scheduled to die after a fall from a rooftop" The tall angel continued, he sounded like he was reading from a script "You will be brought before the archangels in twenty-eight days' time where your fate will be decided, until such time you will be isolated in the cells. Take him away!"

~~~End~~~