Alphas and Angels

Alphas and Angels - Chapter 2

The two boys--who introduced themselves as Zach, the eldest, and Mark, the youngest--stop in front of a grand house. Finally looking up from my feet, I take in the house and all its grandeur. It's massive in size, obviously built for hundreds of people, with a redbrick exterior. There are three stories, square windows across the wall equally distanced from each other. The lawn is pristine, with carefully tended hedges and plants, and large oak double doors to enter.

I couldn't tell you how much land it sits on, but a tall stone fence surrounds the perimeter of the land, with steel gates to allow people to enter and exit through. It gives the feeling of safety when you would think that it would scream seclusion.

I start to feel some of the fear retracting as I take in all the happy faces of people loitering around in the front yard. Maybe this place won't be bad if everyone is happy here. No one pays a bit of attention to us, which makes me further like the place. However, almost if on cue, everyone stops talking and all eyes are on my father and me.

Most of them are wide-eyed stares, some of them are laced with jealousy and others with curiosity. I look to my father for help, but as usual, he is completely calm, as if all eyes weren't on us. In fact, he seems to not be paying any attention to anyone.

I look back to Mark next, and he nods his head, telling me to go forward. Following my dad's example, I keep my eyes locked on the doors as we walk towards them.

Stop staring, stop staring, stop staring, I chant in my head, hoping my silent wishing will somehow make them all avert their attention.

Sadly, it doesn't work, and for a moment I feel like hiding myself and turning invisible. However, on the walk here, I realized two things. One being, I can't let anyone know who I really am. There is so much shame in being a fallen angel, not to mention some corrupt people might try using my powers.

I've seen it happen. In my lifetime, only one other angel has fallen. His name was Axel, and he had been kicked out for reasons unknown to me. I had watched him fall, and I had watched him live his life. He was always one of my favorite angels, always playing with me as a child and telling me stories, so I wanted to make sure he was doing ok. A year went by and he had been doing fine, until he met a girl. The thing about her was that she wasn't human; I gathered that from watching her as well. She was a demon--a vampire. She found out Axel's secret, and she reported it to her clan leader.

Axel's gift was the power to freeze anything or anyone. Axel, another year later, was completely infatuated with the girl. She used that to her advantage, and manipulated Axel to use his powers to help them. He did, not realizing their intentions were nothing but evil. Eventually, he had to be killed because of the destruction he was bringing upon God's children--the humans.

It wasn't a happy time for me, but sadness was foreign in heaven, so it wasn't too hard to cope.

And the second thing I realized on my walk here is that even Earth's animals are intrigued by me. Truly, it's weird having a squirrel stare at you as you're walking by.

Once the doors open to the house, I realize it is completely packed, but no one is saying anything, and they've all parted and left a path for us to walk through. No one says a word, no one hardly moves a muscle.

Weird, I think to myself. It's as if they knew we were coming. Then again, there is something off about these people...It's unnerving, to say the least.

We couldn't have been moving fast enough. I wanted to get away from all the scrutinizing stares. I swear, these people act like they've never seen an angel before. The further away we get from the main room of the house, the less people there are and the more comfortable I feel. I'm not going to be completely carefree though; I'm still treading through a strange house with two boys who refuse to explain anything to me.