The Aftermath

It took me a long time to calm down. I had dragged myself from lying on the ground up in a half-sitting position leaning against a fallen trunk. I had no strength to hold myself up.

I had mud on my clothes and on my wings though the light morning drizzle was already washing it off. It would not be long till I was back to my glowing, unnatural self.

With an effort, I moved a wing into my field of vision, running my fingers over the soft white feathers. I did not understand. I knew what they were. Angel wings, no way to doubt that. But I did not believe I had deserved them. I had done nothing to achieve them.

And I had not died an innocent child. I had seen a few of those around, and I was not one of them.

As time passed and more people started moving about, I sighed. Every once in a while someone would stop and stare at me. Not the living, but the dead.

I had not seen one single grown angel in the two years I had been around. The children came along every once in a while. Eventually I realised they stuck around till their parents had moved on with their losses.

I had watched my parents grieve. It was hard, but they had had each other. And eventually they moved on. Gerard, though, he simply moved out. And it was then I realised, I was not staying to see my parents through their loss. I was staying to see my brother through.

In the beginning it had wondered me. He really seemed to cope. He even sobered up some, and made it through high school. He made it into college. I thought he really had moved on.

Then I started watching him at night. In the beginning it was not so bad. But as the first year passed he began having nightmares almost every night. Lately it had become every night.

I whimpered slightly, and what I figured to be a ghost, or some sort of spirit with unfinished business, at least, stopped to look at me. I glared back. In turn he began advancing, and the look in his eyes startled me.

He looked hungry. He looked greedy.

“Stay away,” I whispered at him.

He only moved closer his eyes burning stronger.

“Begone!” I screeched.

My wings flared with light, dissolving the last of the mud on them as well as that on my clothes. As the light died down the ghost was gone.

Taking a shaking breath I stood. It had happened a few times before, my scaring away spirits of one sort or another. They always came back, the only difference being how long it took. I could not decide whether it depended on their strength, or the power I put in my banishment. Maybe both. Right now I was sure it would not be too long, and I wanted away from there before the hungry ghost returned.

The only other non-living creatures, and through two years I had met more than I cared for, I could not seem to banish was the child angels. In the beginning I tried; they scared me as much as everything else about this new existence. Nowadays, I merely avoided them. I had no love for anything or anyone non-living.

I had no love for anyone. Anyone except maybe my brother.

As they rain slowly gained strength, I started moving. I was going to visit a site I had not once been to in my afterlife. I had never dared. And for the long time I had thought that Gerard had moved on from my death, it had not occurred to me that it might have been the place he was, when I could not find him.

I walked to the graveyard only unfolding my wings to soar over the cemetery gates. In the beginning I had absolutely refused to fly. Then came a phase where I could not get over the high of freedom, soaring through the air gave me. Now, however, I only flew for necessity. If I could walk somewhere I might just as well do that.

Rather than looking for the one stone in the graveyard, the one thing I knew still had the power to freak me out, I set out looking for my brother. I was slightly scared finding one might mean finding the other, though.

When I finally spotted him he stood frozen in front of a stone plague and I could easily guess it read my name.

For a long time I just stood staring at him transfixed and unaware of the gaining rain. I could not feel the wet anymore, nor could I feel the cold.

It was not until I noticed my brother shivering that I realised how violent the rain had become. At the same time a cloud blocked out the last of the sun's light and Gerard's head jerked up.

Only instants after he started moving, and I followed him. I could literally see him shivering as he made his way through the graveyard, stumbling every so slightly. It confused me when he did not make for the gates, but the gaining rain soon let me understand why. It was so bad that I had a hard time seeing him from the distance I was following him from, and I quickly closed in.

I saw him trip and called out, but he caught himself on a marble stand of some sort, and I was relieved. When he did not move on, I moved in even closer. He was staring at the bird bath, trembling, while the rain continued to wash over him. Worried, I kept advancing.

I did not know what I would do when I finally got to him. Curious and apprehensive I trained my eyes on the bird bath in front of him, hoping to catch his expression.

I did catch his expression. His highly startled expression.

For a second I could have sworn he looked me straight in the eye, and my heart ached so badly it took my breath away.

Gerard spun around staring at me wildly. Or, as I realised much too fast, yet a little too late to spare myself further heartache, right through me. He was scared; I could see it in his eyes. Whimpering I reached my hand out, taking a step towards him. Instants before my fingers connected with his chest, he spun on his heel and ran.

I followed him to the church, just a little slower. I did not dare approach him again. I had spent two years wishing for him to be able to sense my presence.

He just had and it seemed to have freaked him the hell out.

As I reached the threshold I hesitated slightly before taking a deep breath and stepping inside. The experience nearly had me pass out in shock.

Once inside the door I took two steps to the side, hiding behind a pillar. I had just spotted Gerard by the altar, had just had time enough to register that he was knelt down there, clutching his arms around himself. But for a short moment, I could not care.

I had felt something when I stepped into the church. Not something evil, I decided with myself, but something powerful, at least. And definitely something belonging to the world of the non-living.

It was not just a presence, though, and when I realised that, it was what really freaked me out. I shivered. My wet clothes clung to my skinny frame. I could feel my wet clothes.

I could feel the cool surface of the pillar I stood pressed against. I could feel the rough surface of the ground when I crouched down and ran my fingers over it. I felt... almost alive.

I had only just had the thought when I realised what else I felt. I felt the weight of the wet feathers on my back. I felt the soft structure of them as I ran my hands over them. Never had my angel wings felt more real. I whimpered lowly.

Looking at my wings and my hands, I noticed something else. They had a soft glow to them. I had a soft glow to me. I did not know if it was more or less scaring in being gentler than the usual light that would surround me. It definitely was not any less ethereal.

A small voice in the back of my mind questioned me, if the physical world had suddenly become this real to me, how real I had become to it? It nudged at me, wanting me to move from my hiding place behind the pillar, move out to my brother.

With one more look at my glowing self I decided against it, though, and stayed where I was. My sobbing was drowned out by Gerard's scared crying which rang through the church.