Chapter 1- A New Beginning

2350 Words

The Last Day- 'A smile visibly showed on my face, because today was the most important day at school. I had my whole life ahead of me. Nothing could stop and nothing would... nothing could, right? My boyfriend was going to ask me to prom and my friends even had this whole plan worked out for the day. After school, we would go through the town square and shop at all my favorite places. Right now, I just had to get out the door. My house, which was the equivalent of a trash dump, used to be the home of a beautiful family. A family that stayed when things got tough. But then it got too tough for him. He didn't want to stay, so he didn't. But that's history now. He was replaced like all broken things are, but were we better for it? The truth was that my step-dad wasn't much better and my mom wasn't even the angel everyone thought she was. There was an angel when you needed it, anyway? The only sunlight in the house was the reason why I got out two bowls and filled them with cereal. It wasn't that great of cereal or anything, but Camilla wouldn't care.

She walked into the room, smiling brightly, "Thank you, Azariah!"

I smiled slightly, "You're welcome. Are you excited about school today?"

"Yep. OH! Happy birthday."

"Thanks, Camilla."

"What are you gonna do for your birthday? Do I get to see your friends today?!"

"I don't know. I guess I could ask..." Except, the truth was that I wasn't going to ask them. Why would I? What would that do to fix anything? My friends weren't the type of people to like kids. They don't like that they were even like them, that at one point they were that needy. And, besides, I vowed to never let them see her. I talked to Camilla for a while and I walked her to her bus. Then I went on my way to school. I'm not exactly the favored child, so I don't ride the bus to school... I walk. I couldn't smile the exact way my stepdad or real dad wanted me to so I was just kind of kicked to the curb from the start. I was at least happy my clothes were washed. I had to wear my uniform, but at least it looked nice today. My white button-up and purple overcoat almost actually looked ok with my purple skirt today and my socks didn't look as beat up as usual. Maybe today would be beautiful. I imagined the purple butterfly that represents out great school would look over us. It's not like anything or anyone else was going to.

"Hey, it's Azariah!" one of my friends yelled as I walked through the gates. They all ran up to me and gave me a whole bunch of hugs. "Happy birthday, Azariah!" The day was wonderful and my friends all made the day even better. We walked down the street and looked in all the windows, talking to my friends. Then I stopped dead in my tracks. I don't know what my friends were doing. I could hear yelling, but that was going on before I stopped walking with them, so I dismissed it. But I could see them running away, so I figured they didn't want to be near me.'

-Azariah Carter, Age 14 of Miranda and John Carter.

I was down on Earth being me, Azariah, but then one day when I was walking down the streets of New York, my home, I saw a stairway appear. After a while, everyone was gone and it was just a blurred image of yellow tape and bright red blood. I turned back to the stairs, looking at them for hours and hours until someone came down them.

I looked up and there was a short man standing there with curly dark blue hair, waving in the wind. Then there were his light green eyes that looked like the color of a stink bug. However, despite being such a weird color, they weren't that... weird. Next, there were his wings that seemed to be the only thing lifting him up. But then they quickly disappeared into his back, making me worried he would fall. Finally, there was a humongous gash on his. I kind of thought angels couldn't get scars... wait, are there really angels? Am I dead?

He looked at me with a confused look on his face, "What are you waiting for?" He held his hand, almost seeming... happy. I thought about what he asked and thought back to what happened with my friends. So... with all this on my mind, I decided to take his hand.

"So, does this mean I'm an angel now?"

He nodded his head, "Yep."

"Ok..." I said, but then I thought about my little sister and I could feel tears rush down my face. I turned around, "Can't I just go back? I wanna go back."

"No... you're dead. It'll be ok. Your family's fine and it'll be better when we get there."

"Do you really think so?"

He nodded his head again, starting to walk up the stairs, "Ya... well, I"m not gonna lie, heaven isn't always the best. Sometimes, you'll have to do stuff that you'd rather not do. Just like me. I have to walk down here so much. I miss them so much... my friends, I mean." We eventually got up the stairs and he commented, "Bye, have fun," and started walking off.

I grabbed his arm, "Be my friend, please. I don't know anyone here. I've been living on solid ground for more than ten years. I'm pretty sure I'm about to phase through this cloud and fall down to Earth just to come here again."

He rolled his eyes, "What were you expecting? Some friendship that lasts a lifetime? A perfect person?"

"First of all, I wasn't expecting to come here, yes and yes. Second of all, I just wanna make sure... I'm not gonna fall out of the sky... right?"

"No... angels don't just... fall out of heaven," he replied, acting like it was obvious.

He started walking away, so I followed him, asking him, "Were all angels a human a human at some point?"

"Yep, most of the angels here were actually born on Earth."

"What were you like?"

He smiled, "Well, I was a superstar. I was actually born in heaven, but after a while, I was put in the field as a kid. I lived my life on Earth. I grew up, I loved, I hated(a lot), and then I came back here. I made my home here, but then I got demoted to this job. No one likes this job."

"Showing people around?"

"Ya, I mean, someone has to explain to new angels that it's pretty impossible to go through a cloud," he explained, laughing.

"Why'd you get demoted?"

"The usual excuse for anything the big man does. It's just fate in action."

Then, after a while, we got to this tunnel and there was an angel leaning against the inside, "Oh, another angel! Introduce me!" The other angel was really tall, especially next to Abel. He had straight dark blue hair and a really deep scar on his arm.

Abel walked up to him, "Hey, we got a new angel. This is Domiel. Domiel, this is Azariah. I'm pretty sure they have a daughter about your age. Leah, right?"

He nodded, 'Ya... it's been pretty lonely for her lately. She was moved away from all her friends."

"Eek, that's gotta be rough. Maybe Azariah will be there, now, too."

"Oh, does she have parents yet?" Then he turned to me, "All angels that get sent up from Earth get parents. It's a whole thing..."

"Nope, no parents yet. I guess we'll figure it out once we get to headquarters."

"Bye!" Abel exclaimed, waving to Domiel. When we got out of the tunnel, Abel visibly calmed down.

I turned to Abel, "What was that? Aren't you friends with him?"

"Well... kind of. We don't really talk. Ithuriel and I haven't been able to make friends with them. Oh yeah, I should probably tell you about heaven." So on our way to headquarters, Abel talked about heaven, but it always ended up going back to when he was on Earth. Apparently, Abel wanted to be a dancer when he grew up, but he never really got the chance. He also told me about all of the need to know angels. Pretty much just the angels he knows, though. There's Ithuriel Abel's wonderful wife. Domiel, who is apparently a lot more excitable. Zadkiel, who is Domiel's significant other. Then, lastly, there's Yuko who was made by The Nothingness. I was so excited to meet them, now. I was confused as to how some angels don't have genders, but others do. I just decided that I'd do my best to understand even if it's confusing. My first mission, calling Domiel a them instead of him. When we got to headquarters, they led me into an office. Inside, there was a man sitting in a chair.

He said, "Welcome to heaven, Azariah."

"Who are you?" I immediately asked.

"I have a nickname that I very much prefer. It's pretty close to my heart. My nickname is TBM. Well, The big man. Like the big man upstairs kind of thing," he replied, smiling.

"Ok... so your first name is The? Then that would mean that if you just say your first and last name, you would just be saying The man. Huh, that doesn't actually sound like utter nonsense. Anyway, who are my parents going to be?"

"Abel and Ithuriel. You'll work in records. And, guess what, it all lines up perfectly. You're gonna work next to Leah, too."

As Abel and I walked to records, I asked, "What kind of job is records?"

"Angels keep track of everything that angels do on Earth. We sort the files and that's what you're gonna do."

"Why do we have to do that?"

He shrugged, "I don't know. The big man only ever uses the whole destiny thing for that question. Like he always says, 'I have to because of destiny and fate. It's kind of funny, they affect everything in our lives, but they never seem to be that important.' It's kind of gotten boring by now."

"I'm just glad I won't be alone in records," I said, immediately realizing that Abel is alone. So, I laughed, "So, how's parenthood so far?"

He laughed, "Nope, stop giving me flashbacks." Then he stopped in front of a desk, "This is it." I looked on both sides of my chair to find Leah. Then I saw this girl on my left side. She had blonde curls in a ponytail with a white dress on

I walked up to her, smiling, "Are you Leah? I'm Azariah... I'm kind of new."

She quickly spun around in her chair, "Oh... hey! I've trapped here for DAYS and my parents haven't even VISITED me!"

Abel nervously laughed, "She's being dramatic. Her parents would be very worried... if that were true. I'm just gonna tell you now, you do get to leave at the end of the day."

Leah shook her head quickly, "I don't know what he's talking about. I'm the LEAST dramatic person ever! Oh, did you get new parents?"

I nodded my head, "Abel and Ithuriel."

"Ya, I'm gonna go. I still have to be at work," Abel said, walking away.

Leah turned to me, "Wait, HE'S your dad?"

I nodded, "Yep. He's pretty nice. So, what do we do here?"

"Well, we get a bucket full of files that go on these shelves and then we put them in the right place."

We both leaned back in our chairs and I laughed, "I'm ready for a break." We both laughed even though we knew we'd have to do the work eventually. We walked home together because apparently, we live right next to each other. Yet, somehow, our parents aren't friends...

"Bye, Azariah! See you tomorrow!" Leah said as we both walked through the doors to our apartments.

I walked inside and immediately heard Abel, "Azariah! You're home so early. Did you guys get all your work done?" I didn't answer, smiling sheepishly. He sighed as I looked around for Ithuriel. There was a sound coming from around the corner and then I heard a door open down the hallway and footsteps coming towards us. The person came out of the hallway and held out their arms. She had the prettiest blue eyes. Almost everyone had pretty eyes, for some reason. She had big white curls with light blue highlights and she also wore a white dress.

She exclaimed, "Azariah?" I didn't know what to do, so I just went with it. I ran up to her and jumped in her arms. I didn't really mind her being so outgoing and such... it was nice.

I smiled, "Ithuriel?!"

"Ithuriel? Who's that? My name is mom!" she exclaimed, smiling really wide.

Abel and Ithuriel showed me around, showing me the bathroom, the bedrooms, the living room, and such. Afterward, we watched TV for a while. I sat in between them and they both ended up falling asleep with their heads leaning against me. So, I wiggled out and went to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror, but I saw someone else. It kind of looked at me, but the person in the mirror had a bruise on their fist and their eyes were light red instead of my brown eyes. The worst part is, their hair was red and white instead of my hair that went from light brown to dark brown. I looked down at my fist, seeing a bruise. I quickly lifted up my hair to my eyes to see that I had white and red hair. I stared at my eyes in the mirror, "How could this happen to me?"