The Angel Contract

Prologue

I could only save one. Not two. One. His voice echoed down the hallway, filled with the weight of centuries passed. "Lucky," he whispered, the sound carrying a mixture of longing and despair. My heart, as ancient as the stars themselves, ached with the memories of our love—an eternal bond forged in the fires of time. I could feel the pull of our history, the gravitational force that had kept us intertwined through countless lifetimes.

As I stood there, wings outstretched, the decision loomed over me like a dark cloud. I could save one, bring them back from the brink, but at what cost? The hospital remained frozen, a silent witness to our eternal struggle. The nurses and doctors, mere mortals, oblivious to the epic battle of wills playing out in their midst.

His eyes, those once-familiar pools of green, now seemed foreign, tainted by the madness that had consumed him. Yet, in the depths of that crazed gaze, I glimpsed a flicker of the man I had loved. The man who had stood by my side on that fateful wedding night, a thousand years ago, when our souls had been bound together forever.

One?"

"Yes," I replied, the word leaving my lips like a reluctant sigh.

I turned to Evan, hoping for some answers. But he only stared back blankly, the list materializing in his hands as if by magic. I despised that list. The list that determined who lived and who died, meant to control destiny. The list that bore only one name written in a perfect, magical cursive that only a reaper could decipher. A name that held everything for Tristan.

As I pondered his name, Tristan, my mind wandered to Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. The famous quote, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." He wasn't supposed to have a child. Or a fiancé. Yet here I was in this hospital, waiting for the Angel of Death to utter a name that shouldn't be, that shouldn't exist. None of this was meant to be. The name that I could save. One name.

The hospital's sterile walls seemed to close in on me, the beeping of machines a cruel reminder of the mortal lives at stake. Evan's expression remained unreadable, his eyes reflecting a depth of knowledge I could never hope to fathom. I knew he held the power to alter fate, to bend the rules, but would he?

"Tristan's child... his fiancée... neither should exist," I thought, struggling to grasp the paradox before me. Love had always been our undoing, a force that defied the natural order. And now, as I stood on the precipice of this impossible choice, the weight of responsibility threatened to crush me.

"Why him?" I whispered, the question hanging in the air, unanswered. Evan's silence was deafening, a void filled with the echoes of countless lives he had touched. I could feel the pressure mounting, the unseen forces of destiny converging upon this single moment. In the end, it all came down to one name. One life.