Fallen Angel

☾CHAPTER FIVE

☽ Luke

WHAT SEEMED LIKE THE WEIGHT of the entire sky dropped onto my shoulders, but I couldn't bear it even half as well as Atlas did, and I was due to collapse any second now. Atlas, a Titan who had fought against the Greek gods during the Titan War, was condemned by Zeus as a result of his allegiance to the Titans during the war. His punishment was to stand at the edge of the earth and hold up the sky. And now I think I understood how he felt, standing there with this crushing weight on his shoulders, unable to do anything about it. I felt like that now. The weight of what had been uncovered, of what Grim had said — it was all coming crashing down on me. And what choice did I have but to hold onto it as tightly as I could? No matter how much it hurt?

It all made sense, and yet I was even more confused than before. If JT was an Angel, what had happened to her? Why wasn't she in Heaven with the rest of us? Why didn't she believe in God? And why hadn't I noticed that something was off? Why had it taken me so long to put all the pieces together?

     An Angel who goes rogue is a Fallen Angel. In Heaven, every Angel is taught about Fallen Angels, and how dangerous they are, and how they don't deserve to call themselves Angels. You're taught that Fallen Angels are so angry about being banished from Heaven, that they commit crimes to spite God and His children. They're murderous, evil, aggressive, and promiscuous. They encourage all kinds of sin. They lurk in the darkest alleys, commit the sickest crimes, and try their hardest to create Hell on Earth. When an Angel becomes a Fallen Angel, they're never heard from again. If JT had no memory of her life, didn't know her family, and had "strayed from God's path," there was a huge possibility that she was, in fact, a Fallen Angel.

     But she didn't act like one. Sure, she was a little rough around the edges. And sure, when I first met her she'd been vandalizing the side of a building. But there was no evil in her heart, no aggression, and there certainly wasn't a murderous bone in her body. JT was just lost and scared. Her whole life had been turned upside down in just a few hours. All this new information was being thrown at her faster than she could catch it. And if nothing else, I knew this: JT might've been a Fallen Angel, but she was nothing like the Fallen Angels I'd been taught to fear. Which made me question how much I really knew about Angels after all.

     "As for you, Luke," Grim began. He stood up to begin pacing again, but this time, nobody stopped him. "You just experienced Rebirth."

     "Rebirth?" I asked— but the room dissolved into darkness before he could answer me. The inky blackness deepened, seeping into my bones like freezing water. A crack sounded from the spot Grim had been standing, like a bolt of lightning splitting a tree. Thunder shook the room. I stood up suddenly, and JT grabbed my hand. I ignored the spark that once again set my veins on fire.

     "Luke?" she asked, her voice on the cusp of fearful. I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn't manage a single syllable. The piano had gone silent.

     Half a second later, the flames of the candles relit themselves and light returned to the room. I stood there, staring, my mouth agape. JT rose from the couch and looked around sharply. Her eyes grew like lumps of dough expanding in an oven as she turned to me sharply.

     "Where'd he go?" she demanded. "Where did Grim go?"

     Grim had disappeared. It took a few seconds, but it finally dawned on me what had just happened: Grim had been summoned. It happens when someone is about to die. He's summoned to take them where they need to go, whether it be Heaven or Hell or Purgatory. Grim is only summoned to take the highest ranking souls: the souls of the people whose actions greatly affected the lives of others. Not just celebrities, but the ordinary people who touched other people's lives. The Uber of Death, but VIP only.