Saeriel

Backstory: 

Saeriel was a good angel. A warrior. At least, that's what she'd told herself. As any angel, Saeriel lived to serve heaven, participating in war after countless bloody war in the name of a Father she had never met. All in the name of faith.

Saeriel was one of the many  angels in Anael's garrison, the garrison charged with Earth. Saeriel knew her superiors merely by name, as she was fairly low on the totem pole, so to speak. Still, she did her duty without hesitation. She was a good angel.

She was a good angel.

She repeated the words in her mind

She was a good angel.

Her heart seized.

She wasn't supposed to have emotions.

She was a good angel.

Why was she crying?

***

Saeriel had always loved Earth. The beauty of His creation. The perfection of nature. The effortless balance of life and death. It was a work of sheer art. Even after His departure, she could feel His love in every cell of the planet. Just to be and exist within the lives of so many trumped the beauty of Heaven, she thought. To be on Earth was to truly be with God. With that, she found herself blessed to be a soldier in the Garrison of Earth.

"Look," A brother once told her. "Look. But never interfere. It is not our place." She sometimes found it unfair. Unable to manifest, to physically exist with God's creation. Living in the space between seconds, between thoughts. Invisible to the world. To manifest would be to harm God's creation with pure angelic grace. Blinding holy light. She kept these thoughts to herself. Stoicism suited an angel. After all, the last time an angel exhibited free will, Heaven had fought the second bloodiest war in the history of creation, resulting in that angel's imprisonment, and their Father's disappearance.

So, Saeriel watched.

Saeriel watched oceans carve out canyons. Continents transverse oceans. The formation of islands. The extinction of species and the birth of others. And of course, Saeriel watched the rise of God's children: Humanity.

Humanity intrigued Saeriel. It had long before it was anywhere close to civilized. Hatred of humanity was the cause of Lucifer's fall. It perplexed Saeriel, what was it about Humanity that made it so special? By all intents and purposes, Humanity was fairly unremarkable. Some angels bragged upon Humanity's intelligence, but she did not see how Humanity was any more intelligent than any of God's other creatures. Humanity could build tools, build homes. Other creatures were born with tools, used nature as their home. Other angels claimed Humanity was created in God's image, but she had never laid eyes on God. But, who was she to argue? The souls of Humanity had a special place on both Heaven and Hell. It simply was beyond her.

Saeriel did not understand the true worth of Humanity until 1988 AD.

Saeriel was a good angel.

Why did she listen?

***

Humans prayed all the time. They prayed for healing, prayed for strength. Money. Fame. The stream of wishes came daily, a semiconstant stream on the edge of her consciousness. Like the others, she too had forced their voices away until they were only a dull vibration. Why should she listen, if she was not to interfere?

Why did she listen?

The voice in her mind, clear as a bell, did not want healing. No strength. No money, nor fame. No, all the voice prayed for was a friend.

"Hello," the voice came. Soft and sweet with childhood innocence. "Mama told me today about Heaven an' stuff. 'Bout the people in the sky that are watchin' over us. All the angles protectin' us from all the bad stuff!" Saeriel could sense the grin on the child's face. "I wanted to say thankuu' and... Uh..." A pause. "I wanted to ask ... If is not much trouble... If the Heavens could send a friend. Mama says I can't go to kindergarten anymore after what happened to dad, an' none of my friends come to visit me..." Another pause. "Mama says she's gonna homeschool me from now on. She got a bunch of books and everything." Saeriel could sense a deep sadness, now. "An' I guess I'ma miss all the other kids..." Another pause. "An' I understand if the angles are too busy savin' people... Anyways I gotsta' go to sleep now, mama says its bedtime. G'night angles and amen!"

Saeriel was baffled, why did this child's prayer echo so clearly above the rest. How did this child get through to her, despite all her efforts to barricade the tidal wave of prayer?

The child's voice came again the next night. And the night after, describing her day to day activities, the games she'd play by herself, what she ate for lunch. Simple mundane things. Nevertheless, Saeriel found a sort of comfort in the child's prayers, and felt an inexplicable warmth inside her she'd never experienced before.

Saeriel would soon learn that warmth was the feeling of happiness.

***

Saeriel had come to look forward to the little girl's prayers every night. They brought light to the monotony of her life. And the best part was, it seemed as if her brothers and sisters could not hear her. The little girl was her own little secret, her own little joy.

So, the night the little girl's prayer did not come, Saeriel found herself disappointed. By the third prayer less night, Saeriel was worried.

It was that worry that evoked the sequence of events that would lead to Saeriel's fall. The first of which being sneaking away from her post to find a little girl lying bruised and broken in a hospital room connected to a ventilator.

A question Saeriel would ask herself later, Did she regret it?

***

She had never entered another's dream before. Yet, somehow she knew exactly how to do it, as if the instructions were etched into her very core.

The girl's mind was very bright, filled with colours of pastel. It reminded Saeriel of chalk. She found herself in a little girl's bedroom. Happy little decals of animals frolicking and playing adorned the walls. Tiny glow in the dark stars littered the ceiling. In the center of the room sat a small bed covered in fuzzy green blankets. There was a chest of toys open, situated just under a large window. Beside the chest sat a little girl with a head of long thick blonde curls wearing a soft green dress. In her left hand was a little stuffed girl with long black hair and a lacy blue dress. In her right hand was a yellow dump truck.

"Mama says I shouldn't jus' play with dollies, that I should play with trucks an' stuff too." The little girl spoke. "I don't really mind, I thinks all the toys are nice." She turned, giving Saeriel a big grin. She was missing one tooth, but other than that she looked entirely whole, unlike her counterpart in the hospital bed. " 'Sides, it means I get more toys!" The girl giggled "Some of the other kids thought I was weird, but mosta' 'um were jealous."

The girl dropped her toys and walked over to the chest, rooting around until she emerged with a little gray bunny. She walked over to Saeriel and shoved the plush animal into her hands. Hands. Saeriel realized she'd taken on the visage of another child in the girl's mind. "Wanna play?" She giggled, returning to her spot and picking up her doll and truck, making it drive around in circles on the floor.

Saeriel turned the small rabbit over in her hands, before slowly walking over and sitting next to the child. "My name's Gracelyn." She piped up, still driving about. "But everyone calls me Grace. 'Guess cause its easier to say." Grace looked up at Saeriel. "S'your name?"

Saeriel blinked curiously, looking up from the rabbit Grace had handed her. "Saeriel." Her voice eminated English rather than Enochian.

"Say-reeeel" Grace mimed. "That'ssa' pretty name." She made the truck do a wheelie, before standing up and grabbing Saeriel's wrist. "C'mon!" She grinned, coaxing the angel to her feet and the rabbit into the truck right next to the doll. "Les' go on an adventure!" She giggled, hunching over and grabbing onto the back of the truck, urging Saeriel to do the same, and together they ran through the house until all the light was drained from the sky.

***

Time seemed to pass in the little girl's head just as it did on Earth, which surprised Saeriel. She had heard stories about Man's erratic dreams. Gracelyn's dream didn't fit any of those standards, it was simply a little girl playing in a big empty house.

Saeriel visited the girl day after day. The happiness that emanated from Grace upon each meeting warmed Saeriel. She knew she shouldn't abandon her post this often, or for this long but... Somehow the repercussions didn't matter to her. All that mattered was bringing a smile to the face of a little comatose girl.

"Mama's been gone for a long time." The girl said once over a bowl of cereal she shared with the angel. "I miss her..."

Slowly but surely, day after day, Grace's dream home became fuzzier. Words became smudged. Toys misplaced. Entire rooms vanished. Outside Gracelyn's large window, the sky was an eternal night, a deep dark consuming void.

Gracelyn was dying.

Two weeks ago, Gracelyn was learning to ride her bicycle on the sidewalk, riding alone for the first time, her mother cheering her on several feet behind her, when a drunk driver swerved off the road and hit her.

Gracelyn, a young innocent child, was lying bruised and broken in a hospital bed, the left side of her skull caved in under a thick layer of bandage. Her left limbs broken. Several ribs shattered. A drain placed in her left lung to vacate the fluid that accumulated in it. A tube lodged in her trachea to keep her breathing.

Gracelyn was dying, and Saeriel just could not allow it.

***

On the start of the third week, just before they pulled the plug, Saeriel interfered.

Saeriel interfered, and Gracelyn choked on her intubation tube.

Saeriel interfered, and miraculously Gracelyn's injuries were healed.

Saeriel interfered, and for the first time in Eons, she was ripped back into heaven.

Saeriel interfered, and she was punished.

But it didn't matter.

Saeriel interfered, and Gracelyn lived.

***

It was ten years before Saeriel was allowed back on Earth, back to her post, a silent observer with broken will. Her brothers and sisters said nothing of her dissapearance, of what happened to her in heaven. The reprogramming itself did not take ten years, but it might as well have. Her punishment was merely a warning of what was to come if she disobeyed again, alienation from all she knew.

Saeriel learned in her ten years of exile that the connection she felt to Gracelyn was because the girl was a vessel. Her vessel. The thought made the angel nauseous. Saeriel didn't want to take a vessel, let alone Gracelyn. Besides, angels had been forbidden from taking vessels for more years than Saeriel cared to count.

Saeriel was a good angel again, until the girl's prayer came to her once more. Why couldn't she block it out?

Grace was older now. She prayed for nothing for herself, simply sending out thanks for all she and her mother had. There was a desire for aid to those in need. It was different from the girl's past prayers, but it still lit a spark deep within the angel.

Saeriel would not interfere, simply observe.

That's what she told herself as she entered the girl's dream that night. One can't interfere from within a dream.

***

The world was no longer pastel, but instead crisp and vivid. Saeriel found herself in a lightly wooded area, taking on human form once again. Sitting in front of her on a fallen tree was a teenage girl, her curly blonde hair was shorter this time, about chin length. She wore a hunter green hoodie and ripped blue jeans. Clutched in her hands was a sketchbook, Grace's graphite dusted hands were working away at a depiction of what looked like a Cardinal.

"Hello." She didn't look up. "Hope you don't mind, I have an art project due in a few days." She held up the sketchbook, blew away the eraser shavings, and turned it this way and that, examining it. "Still life. Its worth about a third of my grade. Mom would kill me if I left the honor roll." She giggled and put the book aside, satisfied for now. Grace looked up at Saeriel, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear. "You're Saeriel, aren't you?"

Saeriel furrowed her brow in confusion. "You remember." She said simply.

"Sorta." Grace swung her legs off the log. "You have one of those faces... You know?"

Saeriel didn't. In fact, she had no idea how Grace perceived her.

"You saved me, didn't you?" Grace spoke again. "When I was five." Grace was very forward, confident, curious. "The doctors didn't think I was going to wake up, let alone make a full recovery." She stepped closer. "It made the news. Mom kept the papers." She shrugged. "She said the angels saved me." She eyed Saeriel up and down. "Are you an angel?"

Saeriel quietly closed her eyes. Around them, the sky darkened, as if a storm had suddenly rolled in. Lightning crashed somewhere in the distance, the flashes of light bringing forth grand shadows behind Saeriel, shadows of wings. The final crash of lightning struck between them, and after the blinding light left her eyes, Gracelyn could see two large soft lavender wings outstretched behind Saeriel.

A smile touched Grace's lips. "Angel it is." She leaned back against the log once again. "So, why do I have an angel on my shoulder?"

Saeriel neatly folded her wings behind her back as light returned to the sky above them. "I heard your prayers ten years ago."

"Hm." Gracelyn looked up thoughtfully "Why me, though? I mean. I'm not the only person who prays."

The angel shifted her wings slightly. "I know not." She admitted.

This evoked a laugh from Gracelyn. "Guess you and I are in the same boat, sister." She ran a hand through her hair. "So what, are you my guardian angel or something?"

"If you would like me to be." Saeriel responded coolly.

Gracelyn grinned "Why not? God knows I could use some heavenly assistance." She paused "Uh. Sorry."

Saeriel merely quirked a brow, unoffended. It was a strange human quirk, she decided, considering God's name offensive. She never did understand that.

"So uh." Gracelyn peered at the angel curiously. "Now what?"

It was a good question, Saeriel decided. "If you are in need, pray and I will come" she answered. "If only for someone to talk to. I will be there."

The answer brought a smile to Gracelyn's face, and Saeriel found she was smiling, too.

***

Over the coming years, Saeriel found that Gracelyn could hear and understand her true voice. Saeriel spoke with Gracelyn often, giving her advice in times of trouble. Talking when she needed a friend. Saeriel never directly interfered, so she flew under Heaven's radar for the most part, hiding in Heaven's blind spot to stay with Gracelyn. To protect Gracelyn.

It wasn't hard to hide from Heaven in those years, the archangels were far too busy with their duties to care about one rogue angel that wasn't interfering with their mission.

Still, Saeriel could feel herself falling. She didn't fly nearly as fast as she use to. She found it took more energy to enter Gracelyn's dreams. She found herself having to rest more often.

That would turn out to be both her and Gracelyn's downfall.

***

April 14, 2011, the night that changed Saeriel's life forever.

Saeriel was awoken from her restful state by the sound of screaming. Her name.

"Saeriel! Saeriel, help!" The voice came "Saeriel please!"

In an instant, her wings were spread, following the voice, Gracelyn's voice.

"Please don't hurt me!"

Saeriel flew as fast as her wings could take her, cloaked away from human perception, bursting into the reality of a dark alleyway to the sound of a gunshot.

Saeriel's heart seized.

Gracelyn fell to the ground with a scarlet hole in her chest.

A man clad in black dropped a pistol and ran, clutching a purse Saeriel recognized belonged to Gracelyn.

Saeriel knelt next to Gracelyn as she my on the ground, bleeding, choking on her own blood. She reached out over Grace, willing the wound to close, the tissue to knit back together, the blood to stop, but nothing happened.

Saeriel panicked. Gracelyn struggled to breathe. Saeriel was out of options.

"Gracelyn." The angel called out urgently "I can not heal you unless you allow me in." Her voice wasn't as steady as it usually was. "I am too weak. Do you allow me in?" Taking Gracelyn as a vessel was the last thing she wanted to do, but if it meant saving Grace's life...

Gracelyn's eyes focused on the empty air above her. She could not speak, but between gurgling gasps her blood stained blue lips mouthed the word 'yes'.

Immediately, a bright light enveloped Gracelyn as Saeriel took possession of her body. The angel expelled the bullet from Gracelyn's chest, knit the punctured lung back together, and stopped the internal bleeding.

But it was too late. Saeriel was alone in her vessel, fallen completely from heaven.

Tears spilled from eyes she did not own.

Sobs wracked her body. Gracelyn's body.

Saeriel was not a good angel. Not anymore.