Fallen Angel

Afghanistan or Iraq?

Chapter Two

Disclaimer: See chapter one.

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1st POV

I woke up in a body bag. My reaction to this was most incredibly normal- after awaking with a gasp and inhaling plastic, opening my eyes to only see blackness, and trying to move only to be relatively paralysed, I started calling for help. And, after hearing footsteps on vinyl, the noise of a zip and seeing a young lady with mousy-brown hair peering down at me in shock, I promptly burst into tears.

I will take the time to explain why this reaction is perfectly ordinary. Now, despite being a hundred-or-something year old being from the heavens, I was currently in a ten-year-old girl's body. This meant that I had the emotional control of a menstruating teenager on a sugar-low. Also, I was under a great deal of trauma- How would you like it if one moment you were talking with your friends and the next you had fallen out of the relative clouds into a little girl's body? Not very much is the correct answer. Tears were inevitable.

The lady (whose name was Molly) immediately adopted a shocked expression and began apologising profusely while she picked me up, placed me on a chair and went to get some clothes after wrapping a blanket around my petite body. I took the time I was alone to examine my body- I looked around ten, and I had exquisite brown curls that cascaded down my back and contrasted beautifully with my pale skin. I was sure that if you looked at my face you would find bright blue eyes and rosebud pink lips. Call me vain, sure, but I was all about the innocence- no one would suspect a little girl of being capable of, well, anything.

Molly came rushing back into the room, holding a baby-blue dress that looked as though it would fit me perfectly. Goodness knows where she had gotten that from. She gave it to me to put on, and I must have looked cold, and my pale skin definitely hinted at it, because she had brought a silver overcoat to put on as well. She seemed nice- her aura was a very light grey, almost white, and only the best of people had that shade. If she had a boyfriend, he'd better appreciate her.

"Do you want a drink, sweetheart?" She asked me once I had dressed, and I nodded once, trying to keep a shy, sweet facade.

She smiled, and I jumped off the chair, landing on the floor with an 'umph'. It would take a while to adjust to the stronger gravity, though the wings helped, even if they weren't fully tangible upon this plain of existence. Molly took my cold hand in her warm one, and we started walking up the stairs.

As we passed the lady at administration, Molly seemed to have a silent conversation, though it was more like an argument, with the woman at the desk. Molly won, apparently, and ten minutes later we were sitting inside a cafe with a mug of hot chocolate. Well, I had hot chocolate- Molly had opted for black coffee - three sugars.

"Where's mummy?" I asked innocently in a sweet, childish voice. I already knew that Kayla's mother was dead, but a normal ten-year-old wouldn't, and I had to keep up the act.

"Uh, you see, well..." Molly stuttered, and I felt a pang of sympathy for her. How was someone supposed to break it to a ten-year-old that her mother was dead? However, she was saved answering me for the time being when she spotted a short man in his late thirties wearing a jumper walking in. He had a cane, and was limping, favouring his left leg, but he had the cane on the wrong side. There must be something wrong with his shoulder.

Molly beamed. "Oh, there's John!" she said brightly. "You stay here, I'm going to go invite him to sit with us. You don't mind, do you?" she asked me, and I shook my head. Kayla's mother had always told her to be polite, and I didn't see any harm in having an old army soldier sit at the table with us- what was the worst that could happen?

So, when John with the jumper came and sat down beside Molly with a coffee in his hands and a smile on his face, the first thing I asked was exactly what, unknown to me, the world's only consulting detective had asked as well.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" came out of my mouth in a surprisingly well-developed tone, though rather high. And I'm sorry to say I took great delight in watching the smile slip off his face and Molly go into preliminary shock.

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