Escaping Paradise

Prologue

Falling hurts. And I’m not talking about your typical ‘I-missed-the-last-step’ or ‘that-jerk-just-tripped-me-and-I-totally-ate-it’ falling. I’m not even talking about ‘my-parachute-didn’t-open-and-I-died’ falling, which is no laughing matter. No, I’m talking about ‘falling-from-the-edge-of-space-and-hitting-the-ground-really-really-hard-and-LIVING’ kind of falling. Trust me, death is preferred. At least if I was human then I could have died and returned to Heaven, but no, I had to fall an Angel. The difference between dying a human and dying an Angel is simple. Most human’s die, go to Heaven, hang out for a bit to keep an eye on family, and then, when they’re ready, they pass on. Where they go depending on their beliefs, some return to Earth to live out another cycle, others move on to explore the unknown, a small portion remain in Heaven to look over the people who have arrived for the first time. That’s the job of Angels. The problem is people don’t choose to be Angels, they’re chosen. So even if you wanted to bail, you couldn’t. The only way to get out of your duties up there is to Fall and NO ONE wants to do that. In the process, you flair your wings to catch yourself and they end up being torn apart by the speed and then there’s the impact. Oh, did I mention the agonizing pain? There’s a lot of that.

Every Angel has Fallen once in their cycle, it’s actually required. Down on Earth there are mini-tasks that need to be taken care of, so a certain number of Angels need to fall in order to keep the balance between us the Risen Demons. The Risen Demons are Demons who have found and escape out of Hell and wreak havoc. It’s easy to spot them, horns and tail, but the problem is that humans can’t spot them. They catch them if they do too much wrongdoing, but other than that, they get away with a lot. Some Angels are assigned to spot Demons and point them out to humans and some are even tasked with dragging them back to Hell, but most of the jobs are much easier and only last a few years. Once you’re done, you are allowed to return and regain your place in Heaven. And that’s where we begin this tale, with a freshly Fallen Angel. Me.