Fallen Halo

Chapter Two: Defeat

Many guardian angels, after completing their training, are given a seraph blade. At the name of a true, God bidding angel, the seraph blade extendes into its full length. My parents never got into the job of guardianship, so they never had a seraph blade. But they are in the counsel, were they make up all the rules.  

 ****

I was walking out of the front door, my bag full of all the things I would need for today's guardian training. I wore simple jogging tracksuit, a nice shade of red and a blue vest on top of it, ready for whatever the preceptor - our trainer- threw at us.

I was on my way out of the gate of my parents two-story, sweet cozy home, when I heard a sudden voice. The voice was strong, careful and taunting. "Hailey...you have something I want," it said. I've heard that voice before, in my dreams. Brushing it off I began my morning walk to the training grounds, I guess some would call it high school, but if you humans consider 15 mile run everyday, demonology and history of angels, tough looking preceptor, ass kicking students, high school, then I guess that's no problem with me.  The walk is a good few miles, but like most of Heaven's realms, the journey seems like only couple of mintues. The pleasant sun was not uncomfortable as I carried my blue duffel bag which contained-extra clothes, my study books and a whole bunch of homework I worked hard on. The heavenly blue sky was the perfect shade of blue, with white fluffy clouds that made you wonder if they taste like cotton candy. All around me was the perfect quiet neighborhood, clean, respectable and dazzling to look at. That's another thing about Heaven, it's pretty, most of the time it's beautiful, but if all of Heaven were beautiful, it would look a little tacky. No, pretty here was perfect.

A few early risers greeted me with a nod or a wave, all accompanied with a friendly smile. I returned their smiles and carried on my way, knowing that I would not get a smile if I were late. Unlike the sweet, merciful angels you humans think we are, our preceptor are far from it, hell, sometimes I even think that they have some demon blood running in their veins. But they have to be like that, to prepare us for guardianship and other horrors that await us. That thought made me speed up a little more, unable to wait till I got into the gym and started punching something. Our day always started off at the gym, to get our body pumping for the day ahead. Then around mid-morning, we would start classes, pausing only for a fifteen-minute lunch and ten-minute break. Then it was back to classes for another four hours, then finally ending the day with a fifteen mile run. Well, no one said guardianship was easy. But I got myself in this and I was going to finish it.

I walked along the road, my footsteps hardly making a sound. Shifting my bag strap every once and a while to get a better grip.

"Hailey," a voice called, at first I thought that whatever had been calling my name since I got outside, had finally decided to show its face. But as I turned I notice that the voice sounded familiar. Andrew Armaita. I should have known. Andrew Armaita is a fellow guardian in training and my best friend since Nursery school. His dirty blonde hair fell into his dark green eyes, his cheeks flushed as he ran to catch up with me. "Were you actually going to go without me?" he asked sarcastically filling the space between us so that we were side by side. Andrew towers over me at 5"10, making me have to look up at him when I was speaking to him. I shrugged, glancing up at him, "You would've found your way without me." we had this conversation every day. Andrew refuses to get up ten minutes earlier so that he would be ready on time when I come by his house. This has been going on since the beginning of guardianship, sometimes I even find myself wondering if Andrew really wants to be a guardian, most of the time he seems to hate it and would prefer staying in bed.

Andrew nudged me with his elbow, grinning. "And what? Miss the chance to enjoy your charming and delightful company?" I resisted the urge to do something childish like stick my tongue out, but only barely.