Angel's Wish

The sun began its dip behind the mountains, splashing gold atop their peaks. From my vantage point on the tree branch I was lounging on, I could see the whole park -and beyond- quite clearly. That morning my friends had dropped by my house and dragged me over to the nearby park. We’ve been at the park for most of the day, and my friends below me still showed no sign of calling it a day. I’d been playing with them as well, but decided to climb up my favourite tree instead.

“Hey Crystabelle! Come back down and join us!” my friend Fawn called up to me. She and my other friend Arya had paused their game of tag and were looking up at me expectantly.

“No thanks, guys. It’s getting late anyway, and we’d have to stop playing soon. You guys can keep going. I’ll be fine up here,” I replied.

Fawn just grinned. “We can stay out until after dark. It’ll be more fun that way.”

“No way! Wolves come out at night, plus I don’t think my parents will let me stay out so late,” Arya said. Fawn just rolled her eyes and nodded. “ Are you sure you don’t want to join us?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said once again. I grinned and made shooing motions with my hand to assure them. They looked at each other, then back at me. Fawn finally conceded, “Suit yourself.” And they returned to chasing after each other.

The sun was now somewhat more than a semicircle of light. I cool breeze ruffled the leaves above and teased my hair. It felt good to feel a cool wind after all the summer heat. Suddenly I became drowsy. I shifted my position on the branch so that there was little chance of me falling off, then waited for sleep to overtake me.

Before I entered sleep I felt a stronger wind blast, coming at me with a sudden force, as if a large fan had been turned on right in front of me.

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That’s what I remember last happening.

As I woke up I felt a never ending gust of wind come from my right side and blew above and beneath me. My eyes blurred from the blasting wind and it took me several minutes to be able to open my eyes, even if I had to squint. I tried looking toward the source of wind, since it just didn’t seem natural in the summer. What I saw surprised me, freaking me out a little when I realized I wasn’t dreaming. I looked to my other side, the warmer side, away from the wind. The sight I saw startled me even more. I tried to piece it all together in silent bewilderment, trying to figure out if I had gone mad or not.

To my right, above and below me was a vast ocean of blue sky, white clouds whizzing by like sea foam. I was in the air, travelling at speeds I was unaccustomed to without some sort of metal capsule around me. And to my left… the older boy looked down at me as I stared at him in puzzlement.

“So you’re awake,” was all he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world and that he wasn’t flying through the air carrying total stranger in his arms.

“I’m not too sure I am,” I grumbled. “Who the heck are you?”

The boy looked at me like, ‘Wow, it talks?’, then went back to a more placid expression. “My name’s Aradrian,” he replied shortly.

“Wow, that says a lot.” I mumbled sarcastically. I figured this guy wasn‘t going to be much of a talker, but I wasn‘t about to shut up quite yet. “Now would you be kind enough to put me down? You could go buy us some ice cream or something while I back away slowly and make a getaway. That’s would be a happy thought.” I thought dreamily of this scenario.
\“The point of making up a getaway plan is to make sure the person you’re getting away from doesn’t know it,” Aradrian said, the beginning a grin taunting the corners of his lips. “Though I’m not putting you down either way.”

“I think I’m beginning to dislike you,” I glared at him disdainfully. He was really getting on my nerves. Then for the first time, I looked past his head, and saw a pair of large immaculate wings growing from his back, carrying us through the sky. And to prove my growing theory correct, I looked above his head, and sure enough, a golden halo of light encircled it. My eyes widened in shock and I felt my mouth form into a perfect circle.

“You’re… and angel!” I gasped.

“ I thought you noticed that already. I guess you’re slower than I thought,” he shook his head in a way that insulted me. I was about to shoot something back at him, but I decided to stay quiet and watch him carefully. He noticed me studying him and met my stare with his own.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” he asked. I stayed silent and kept staring. I could that I was making him feel uncomfortable. “No, seriously, stop staring, you’re giving me the creeps.” He broke away from my stare, but I knew he could still feel me looking at him.

“You’re lying,” I broke my silence.

“No, you really were giving me creeps.”

“Not about that. I mean you’re lying about being an angel.” I noticed a drop of sweat roll down his forehead, but it was probably from the exertion of carrying both our weights through the air. His expression changed to defiance.

“Why are you accusing me of lying? You’re the one that said I was an angel in the first place.”

“Because all the angels of read of are supposed to be graceful, kind, gentle, have sparkling eyes, a handsome smile and flowing golden hair,” I countered. Aradrian didn’t really fit the description. He had an annoying personality, was a rough flyer, had mischievous teal eyes, short auburn hair and a smirk for a smile. I’ve read in books that those are the one of types of guys the main character falls for, but I never understood them, and at the moment still didn’t.

He was about to say something in response, but his head suddenly jerked up and he whipped his head around to look behind him. I hadn’t noticed that he’d slowed down until we picked up speed again, his wings flapping in quick precision. The fear on his face replaced his usual confidence. Curious, I strained my neck to peek behind his shoulder and saw two figures tailing us about half a kilometre away. The smaller figure rode atop the much larger one. As my eyes focused on them I found that the larger shape was a black dragon the size of a bus, and its rider was a tall man in a dark flowing cape. From the growing distance, I could still see both of their eyes, two red coals set into Halloween- mask faces. The dragon looked like a demon cousin of the komodo dragon. The man was equally terrifying. His features were handsome, but cold and foreboding.

The man spotted me staring at him and met my gaze. I fought the urge to scream. Aradrian had looked down at me to see if I was alright as I choked down my fear.

“Good choice,” he whispered. “If you had screamed they would have sensed us and we would’ve been done for. They are from down under-”

“You mean they’re from Australia?” I asked, hopeful that the ones following us were only a couple of friendly Aussies.

He looked like he would face palm himself if he wasn’t carrying me. “Not that ‘down under’. I mean the depths of fire and hate where demons are sent.”
\“Oh. That ‘down under’,” I felt my face pale a little.

“As I was saying, they’re from the underworld and have been sent up here to take you away. Being down in the dark fiery abyss has taken away their senses of sight and smell, but they have an acute sense of hearing and can sense fear.”

“You said that they can’t see. But the guy on the dragon locked eye contact with me,” I said, unsure of his information.

“I also said that they can sense fear. He could sense the fear in your eyes, and that was how he made eye contact. I don’t advise that you do it again.”

“As if I would…” I grumbled. We then flew along in silence, the rushing wind stinging our eyes and skin and tangling our hair. I decided to preoccupy myself with calmer thoughts, because if those stalkers used fear as a radar, I didn’t want to be the one to lead them to our capture.

Before waking up to the string of surprises, I must’ve slept for at about an hour, so it was about 9 o’clock now. By now the sun would be a sliver of light behind the mountains from my tree, but in the air I could still see the sun still setting behind the horizon. Though we were zipping by at great speeds, it seemed like the sun never moved anywhere but down. Above the sun was the shadow of the moon, it’s glow hidden among the last rays of the sun. We were high enough in the air to be above the wall of mountains to the west of our city. The weren’t snow-capped, but were still beautiful all the same.

The mountains reminded me of the time when my friends and I had decided to try and reach the mountains and see the sunset behind them. Fawn had come up with the idea, and somehow persuaded us to come along. We left early in the morning, at around 8. We brought bags of provisions that would last us most of the day. As we hiked, the mountains rarely seemed to get closer. But we kept pressing onwards at Fawn’s constant prodding. She had kept on saying “We’re almost there,” every five minutes or so. But to me, the mountains seemed to be moving away from us, never getting bigger.

That or the road was moving beneath us, because the landscape barely changed: a few trees here, a field there. We finished most of our provisions by sunset, and the mountains were still far away. Arya suggested we turn back, but of course, Fawn stubbornly kept going forward. When the last bit of sun had disappeared behind the peaks, Fawn finally decided to turn back.

“But it took us a whole day to get to this point,” I had said wearily. “It’ll take us the whole night and into morning to get back.

“Are you planning on staying here until morning?” Fawn replied and we began our hike back. We ran out of provisions after about an hour of walking, and we were hungry and exhausted. Arya suggested we stay at the side of the road and wait for a truck to come by. Fawn refused to give up until I joined Arya’s side and we both complained enough to persuade Fawn. Luckily, a truck came buy not five minutes later. We began to stick out our thumbs, but remembered it was dark and began waving our arms frantically.

The driver was a nice guy, to our relief and shared his mints with us while we told him of our excursion to the mountains. There wasn’t much more to tell but our complaints of how tired and hungry we were the whole time. The kind truck driver dropped us off a good few blocks from our neighbourhood. We jadedly trudged home from there.

Each of our parents were waiting anxiously for our return. We had our parents notes telling of our whereabouts and that we would be back by nightfall. It was a couple of hours before midnight when we returned. The notes were the only things that kept our parents from coming after us or calling the police. Our parents weren’t too cross with us, but lectured us on the idiocy of our plan. They said we should’ve known getting to the mountains would take several days on foot. I slept well that night.

I smiled fondly at the memory. I replayed through several other memories with my friends. With every memory the homesickness that was hiding in my mind revealed more of itself, until I felt miserable. At least I wasn’t feeling scared anymore. As I sulked, I began to notice the decrease of Aradrian’s speed. I looked up to see his head turning back forwards.

“Well, it seems they’re gone now,” he said, obvious relief in his voice. “You managed your fear well.” He grinned slyly. I figured he saw my faraway grins and spasms of sighing. His worrying made me worried, but with it gone, he was just plain irritating. I decided not to give him the satisfaction of my annoyance in him.

I smiled back sweetly and said, “Yeah, I did do mask my fear pretty well didn’t I? Thanks for the compliment.” My smile contorted into a smirk. “You’re acting was really good too. I almost thought you were genuinely scared.”

He frowned like he couldn’t believe that I was capable of teasing him. Then he grinned at me, “You know, I think I may be beginning to dislike you too.”

“Really? There was a time when you actually liked me?”

“No, it was more of a neutral feeling. I mostly ignored your existence. You should be glad I’m acknowledging you now. And now that I’m acknowledging you, you now have the courtesy of introducing yourself.”

I blushed slightly. I demanded to know his name, but never gave mine. “Alright then. My name’s Crystabelle,” I said.

“I’m pleased to meet you Clarabelle,” Aradrian greeted, then he grinned, slipping the hand under my knees out and held it in front of me in a handshake.

My eyes widened. Without the other hand secured under the other half of my body, I fell from his grasp and began plummeting down, my face in contorted in shock, and my arms extended, waiting for him to grab them. He just stayed suspended in the air above me, mocking surprise plastered on his face until he broke into an evil grin.

“You jerk!” I yelled at his shrinking figure. I shut my eyes tightly. I could feel drops of water cling to me as I fell through clouds. It wasn’t long before I was freezing. Adrenaline mixed with anxiety pumped through my veins. I figured it would take several minutes to reach the ground- or ocean, so I decided to calm down and live the last of my life out happily- or as happy as you can be while you’re falling to your death. I spread my arms out beside me to slow the decent, which didn’t work as well as I hoped. I reopened my eyes.

“I’ll kill him,” I said to myself through gritted teeth. I knew he was already dead, but that didn’t matter. “The second I die, I’ll find him and kill him.” Words like that probably weren’t going to do much good in getting me into Heaven, but I was too angry to care. That jerk tricked me into believing he’s the good guy then lets me plummet to my death, I thought. He didn’t even get my name right. I sighed irritably.

I was losing altitude fast, and it didn’t help that I was constantly speeding up. When I turned my head to look below me (which I admit, wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done), I could see the landscape though it was still many kilometres below. The view would have been beautiful if it weren’t for the position I was in. My heart began beating faster, if that was even possible, but I forced myself to calm down again. I didn’t want to die, but I also didn’t want to die in total fear. Fear made everything much worse. Plus, if I got too nervous, that evil guy with the dragon would get me.

My back was aching with the pressure of wind, and I was shivering wildly. I wished I had some skydiving equipment. I wondered why my life hadn’t flashed before my eyes yet. Probably because I wasn’t dying quite yet, but it sure felt like it. My body began hurting all over, even the parts protected from the wind. I was falling at least a hundred miles per hour, and the ground was probably much closer too. I finally gave up being positive, It was too hard thinking of happy thoughts, fear wasn’t an option, so I settled for depression. I relaxed my tense muscles closed my eyes.