The New Helel

Azazil X

"Mister, I'm hungry," Hope complained as she tugged on Azazil's cloak.

"It's not a problem," he responded. Can you give me, erm, a knife?"

"Sure!" Hope opened a drawer and took out a thin but sharp blade. "Is this one good?" she asked as she placed it in his hand.

Azazil nodded. He reached for the fruit bowl, took out a mango, and began to slice it.

"Mister, aren't you supposed to take the skin off before slicing?"

"W-What do you mean by that? Carrots ... don't have skin."

"Mister, that's a mango."

Azazil almost dropped his knife. "Oh," he said, an awkward tone in his voice. "I didn't know that."

Hope giggled, a smile on her face. "That's okay. Here, let me take it off for you. Then I can have my snack."

*

"Take me to the library, Mister!" Hope exclaimed as she jumped up and down. "I wanna read!"

"Um ... library?" Azazil tried to remember what a library was. He had been adjusting to the terminology in Gehinnom well, but his mind still slipped in some places.

"Yeah, a place where you read books! I've been learning about math lately. It's so fun!"

Math. Another word that Azazil didn't know. "What's math?" The word sounded strange to him.

"Mister, you really don't know a lot of things, do you?" she observed. "But that's okay! I will teach you. Now, on to the library!"

"Do you know how to get to it, Hope?"

She paused for a moment. "But I thought you knew how to get there?"

Azazil opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "W-Well, I suppose we can't exactly go now."

Hope's face crumbled as she looked towards the ground. "Yeah. I guess we can't after all."

"There, there," Azazil comforted her as he patted her back. "We can go when your parents get home, okay?"

Her excitement returned as quickly as it left. "Okay!"

*

"Do you like it, Mister?" Hope pulled Azazil by the hand as she led him to various parts of the library. Her father Luke waited outside — the weather was perfect, he said.

"Uh ... it's very quiet. Are libraries always like this?"

"Yep!" she answered as she pulled him behind a bookcase. Behind it was a circle of bean bags.

Hope sat down on a bean bag and opened up her favorite book, "The Little Human." She began to read out loud, coming up with a different voice for every character.

"Alice liked getting up as soon as the sun rose. She enjoyed watching the wonderful view. Her favorite thing to do in the morning was to stare out the window while eating an apple."

Azazil listened intently as Hope read from the book. When she was done, she asked, "Can you read me one now?"

Azazil wasn't sure how to respond. He hesitated for a few moments before finally deciding to tell her the truth. "Well, a-actually ... the truth is, I c-can't read."

Hope blinked, curiosity rising within her. "Did your parents never teach you how to?"

"You could say that," Azazil responded. "M-my father wasn't very involved with my life. I only had m-my older brother to raise me."

"What about your mother?"

"I don't h-have one. I've never had a proper family, I think."

In response, Hope stood up and kissed him on the nose. "It's okay, Mister! We can be your family from now on!"

Azazil chuckled and spun her around. "Thank you, Hope. You have no idea how much that means to me."