Wandering Angel

It’s a strange experience to die. At one moment you’re in excruciating pain and the next you feel nothing. No pain, you don’t feel hot or cold. You don’t even feel it when you touch something. At least at first. As I watched my lifeless body fall I begin to feel the cold of the winter night. The mugger took my wallet with about forty-two cents in it and my iPod with the head phones. After he left I walked up to my body and just stared at it. I was really dead. I just couldn’t believe it, but here I was staring at my own dead body.

So now what do I do? Well first I took the coat and boots of my dead body and put them on. Then I went to find a place where I could figure things out. I walked out of the ally and headed down the street. As I walked down the street I found out that people could just walk through me, which felt really weird and was even more proof that I was dead. I eventually got to a path that followed a river. I followed the path until I was alone then I decided to take notice of my situation.

I was dead. It was obvious but still hard to believe. As I came to terms with the fact that I was dead I began to think about what it meant to die. Though I knew I was dead, I didn’t feel dead. I felt cold and hungry. I hadn’t eaten much all day and was going to make supper when I got home, but I was killed by a mugger who didn’t get much out of it. The more I thought about it the more I got angry at the guy. He had taken every thing from me. My family, my friends, my future, every thing! I turned to head back, but realized that there was no way I could find him. I didn’t see his face, and he’d be long gone by now. So I couldn’t do anything about him now.

So again what do I do now? Well as I thought about that I heard a girl behind me say, “Excuse me.”

I ignored it since I was dead and no one would be talking to a dead man, but then I felt some one tap my shoulder, and I turned around to see a girl that looked about fifteen, with shoulder length blond hair, green eyes and was holding a scythe and had a pair of white wings. She smiled and asked, “Are you Kyle Nicolus Allen?”

I nodded slowly trying to figure out what was going on. The girl smiled again and said, “Good, I’m Anna, an angel of death and it‘s my job to escort souls to the afterlife or kill the souls of worthless people like thieves and murderers.”

I nodded then asked, “you’re an angel of death, so is there more than one?”

She laughed and said, “of course there’s more than one. Do you think one person could take care of every person that dies?”

I laughed at the thought and replied, “yeah I guess that’s true. So what’s in store for me?”

Anna pulled out a small book and opened it up. She began to read it out loud, “Subject’s Name: Kyle Nicolus Allen. Date of Birth: July fourth nineteen ninety-one. Life Span: eighteen years five months fifteen days seventeen hours fifty-seven minutes and four seconds. Cause of Dea-”

“Stop! Please.” I shouted. I didn’t want to be reminded that I was dead. I looked at the book and asked “What is that anyway?”

She closed the book and said, “It’s the book of you, everything there is to know about you is in this book.”

I looked at the small size of the book and began to feel pretty worthless. I sighed and asked again, “So what’s my fate?”

She looked at me and said, “What do you think it is?”

I thought for a moment, I hadn’t done anything that great in my life, and I knew I had done a lot of bad things in my life because I regretted do every one of them. So I sighed and said, “I’m guessing I’m going to hell or whatever you do to the worthless souls.”

She look surprised when I said this and asked, “Do you really believe that?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”

She laughed and replied, “You’re certainly an interesting one. Every person I’ve taken has said that they go to the afterlife, even the murderers. But here you say that you think your going to hell.”

I sighed and said, “But isn’t it the truth that I’m going to hell?”

She shook her head and said, “Nope, you’re going to heaven.”

This took me by surprise, so I stuttered, “I-I am? B-B-But why? I mean I’m glad, but I just didn’t think I had earned it.”

She asked, “why? I mean you were a very kind person, and help people when you could. You apologized whenever you snapped at someone, even when you had a good reason. So why did you think you were going to hell?”

Hearing the good things I had done in my life made me feel embarrassed. I answered, “Well, I’ve lied, cheated, stole several times, and pretty much wasted my life.”

She nodded as I spoke and said, “yes you did do all those things, but didn’t you regret every one?”

“Yes, but-”

“But what? You sinned, but you never tried to justify it. You bore your sins and tried to do more good. I believe you tried to kill yourself a few times?”

“Yes, when I was young.” I laughed I as thought about it and said, “I was pretty foolish then only thinking of myself.”

“Yes, but then you were running away from misery, not once did you think about killing yourself to get away from your sins or regrets.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It proves that you bore your sins and tried to atone for them with good deeds.”

I sighed and said, “Well I guess I can’t win. So how are we getting to heaven or whatever the place is called?”

Anna smiled and said, “Follow me.”

She grabbed my hand and lead me to the edge of the river. There she took her scythe and dipped the blade in the water. The blade started to glow and a strange fog began to rise from the river. Soon the fog became so thick that you couldn’t even see the other side. Then to my surprise a small wooden row boat appeared in the fog heading towards us. The boat was completely empty, and looked like it could hold only two people. When the boat reached the shore Anna walked up to it and gestured for me to get in. I climbed in and she pushed the boat away from the shore and jumped in. After a few minutes I noticed a light in the fog a head of us. We got closer until we came out of the fog, and in front of us I saw a golden shore with blue sky.

After we reached the shore we got out of the boat and I looked around and thought, so this is heaven? Not exactly what I imagined, but still nice. After the golden beach, was a forest, with a path in front of us. Anna walked towards the path and I followed. As we walked through the forest I noticed birds singing in the trees, though they sung in a way that it sound like they were in a choir. As we neared the edge of the forest I saw a city with a large spire in the center. The city looked big, but when I thought about how many people died it didn’t seem big enough.

“Does every one who get to go to the afterlife come here?” I asked.

She giggle and replied, “No, some people get reincarnated, some become angels of death or guardian angels.”

I nodded as she spoke, but didn’t say anything. We headed towards the spire in the center of the city. The buildings seemed to be made of a white stone, and were very plain looking on the outside, but I couldn’t see inside any of them. As we walked the people all greeted us as they walked by, they seemed very polite well mannered. As we approached the spire Anna turned around and said, “This is the headquarters of the angels. I need to take you to see Seraph Blake.”

“Why?”

“So that you can get registered into the book of souls.”

“Book of Souls?”

“A big book that keeps track of the state of every soul that exists.”

“Oh, I guess it’s important for them to know how my soul is.”

I followed her into the building. The inside looked like the inside of an office building, there was a large desk with several receptionists behind it. On either side of the desk were two elevators. As we walked to the desk one of the receptionists looked up and said, “Hey Ann, here to see Seraph Blake?”

“Yes, he’s in the same place he’s always at right?”

“Yes. He never leaves.”

Anna lead me to an elevator and hit the button. We waited a few seconds for the elevator to come, and we got in and the doors closed behind us. After we got in I noticed that there weren’t any buttons for the floors, but before I could ask the doors opened and we were on a different floor. Anna walked out and I followed, still confused about the elevator. We came to a door labeled Central Library. When we entered I looked around and all I saw were books. I looked up, but I couldn’t see the ceiling. I began to wonder if we were still even in the same building, when Anna said, “This place has every book every written and then some.”

“I believe it.” I replied.

Anna lead me through the library until we came to a section labeled Record Keeping. We walked around for a while. Anna checked down each row, until we found a man with short brown hair, glasses, and six large wings reading a book.

“Seraph Blake.” Anna said

The man closed the book and turned his head to look at us. He said, “Ah, Anna. Back with another soul?”

Anna nodded and replied, “Yes. So now we need to enter him into the book.”

“Yes, of course. Follow me.”

The seraph led us to the back of the record keeping section to a stand with the biggest book I had ever seen on it. To say the book was huge would have been an understatement. The book was larger than a truck. While the size of the book startled me at first, I soon remembered what the book was for and its size made sense. The seraph walked over to the book and opened it to a certain page. He then said, “Kyle N. Allen your status was alive on earth but now you are dead.

“Obviously” I muttered, annoyed at the fact that I was reminded of my death again.

The seraph ignored my comment and continued with, “So, what will you do with your afterlife?”

This caught me off guard, I hadn’t really thought about it so I asked, “What are my options?”

“Well you can remain in heaven, you can become an angel of death, or a guardian angel. That’s about it for now.”

I thought about for awhile then said, “I think I’ll become a guardian angel.”

The seraph writes in the book, and when he finishes says, “we haven’t had anyone become a guardian angel in a while, well lets get you set up to become a guardian angel.”

“So what do I need to do?”

Blake replied, “Well you need to earn your wings, take spell classes, and-”

We heard the sound of a cell phone vibrating and Blake pulled one out of his pocket and opened it up. I leaned over to Anna and asked “Um, why did he stop to check the message?”

Anna replied “It’s probably from God.”

Seraph Blake looks at me then sighs and says, “You must have been a saint or something.”

“Why do you ask that?”

The seraph turns to an angel that is sitting at a desk and says “Can you get item Seventy-six for me, please?”

The angel nodded and flew off. She returned a few moments later with a sword and handed it to Blake. Blake then pulled out a badge from his robes and said, “As Seraph I present you with your wings making you a full fledged Angel.”

When he put the badge on me there was a bright flash. I looked around to see what happened and caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and noticed that I had changed. I no longer resembled my former self. I had short black hair, instead of my curly dark brown hair. I had been five eleven and overweight but I was now about six foot nothing, and had a slight build. My eyes had become a silvery grey color from the brown they had been. Though the most startling thing I saw were two large black wings on my back.

The seraph remarked, “Now this is interesting.”

“So does this mean anything?” I asked.

The seraph began to answer when he got another text. After he checked his phone he said, “Well God says it’s not important., so, carry on. This sword is to be your weapon.”

Blake handed me the sword and I unsheathed it. The sword looked like a katana, and had a black orb at the base of the blade. Around the blade were four prongs that came from the hilt. The hilt was black with silver for the details. It was beautiful, but something about it made me uncomfortable. I sheathed the sword and put it on my belt. Then Blake handed me a piece of paper and said, “This is who you’ll be guarding.”

I took the paper and read the name, Lucille Williams. I began the laugh, and Anna asked, “What’s so funny?”

“I know her. She’s a friend of mine.”

Blake smiled and said, “So do you have any complaints?”

Shook my head, and he replied, “Good, now Guardian Angel Kyle-”

I interrupted him by saying, “Don’t call me that.”

He looked at me surprised and said, “Why not it is your name and title?”

I scratched my head and said, “I’m okay with the title part it’s the name.”

“Something wrong with calling you by your name?”

“No but I don’t feel that name belongs to me anymore.”

“Then what should we call you?”

I thought for a moment, and looked at myself in the mirror again. I smiled as a thought came to me and said, “Call me Grim.”

Blake nodded and said, “Very well. You are now Guardian Angel Grim. Now go and protect the person you’ve been assigned.”