Chapter 1 - Untitled

"There was an angel once, very different from any other angel. This angel, unlike any other angel, had black wings. Known simply as the Black Angel, he was shunned by every other angel because they believed him to be tainted. Feeling alienated, the Black Angel had now reason to stay in heaven, and so he descended to Earth in hopes of finding a purpose. Once on earth, the Black Angel became interested in the humans he saw there and the troubles they endured. He saw how so many were destroyed and absorbed in their problems and soon found himself aiding them in small ways. After nearly a century of protecting people from their problems, he noticed that he had begun to age from living on Earth. It wasn't soon after that he was surprised to see another Black Angel. This Black Angel had once lived on Earth as a human and had died finding now comfort there. He was reborn as a Black Angel and followed in the footsteps of the one before him. From then on, Black Angels were born from those who found no purpose or happiness in life and most would descend to Earth and follow the path set by the original in hopes of bettering the lives of others."

Emily had once told him this story, but he never believed it and soon dismissed it as nothing more than a fairy tale for those who had problems in their lives. Seth had had problems for as long as he could remember, from issues with his family to relationships with his classmates. He had never had many friends, and those he did have he always felt very distant from. In his classes, his teachers were surprised at his inteligence and some of the deep questions he gave them to answer. Though all this was true, his teachers were always concerned with how he excluded himself from all the students.

The only person that had ever gotten close to Seth was Emily and no one, even Seth, could explain how she was able to do it. The way in which they first met was something that most would think would cause Seth to hate Emily. During school one day Emily was furious with a guy that just never seemed to leave her alone and, fed up with his crude remarks and sexual references toward her, she took a swing at him. As fate would have it, Seth was walking by just as the blow was evaded and Emily punched Seth instead. With a look of shock on both of their faces, Seth and Emily simply stared at each other for a few tense moments. Seth then turned to the person the punch was actually intended for. "I took that one for you but if you don't leave this girl alone, the next one may come from me," Seth said still with that shocked look on his face. The boy nodded in response and walked away. When Seth turned back to see Emily she began to laugh hysterically. "I'm sorry but the look on your face is just funny to me," she gasped out while trying to breathe. One might say that their frinedship, unlike most, began with a fight.

Years passed and the two grew closer, Seth would protect her from others whenever she needed it and Emily would try to help him in any way she could. Manny people still could not believe Seth had formed any sort of relationship with anything. But as the years passed, Seth seemed to get more stressed and excluded from everything except for Emily. He would lock himself in his room at home and tried his hardest to avoid any sort of contact with his classmates. It didn't come to much of a surprise when he was finally spotted standing on the roof of a 10 story building on the edge of the town square. It wasn't long until the roads were closed and the emergency vehicles surrounded the area.

There was so much commmotion in the crowd below, most of which was not of concern but rather comprised of "I told you so"s and "no big surprise"s. The police knew of Seth's past and it was no surprise that they had no luck trying to coax Seth out of his plans with their usually talks of family and friends and how much this would hurt them. The only choice they really had was to bring Emily in hopes that she could talk him out of it.

The moment she stepped out of the door onto the rooftop, Seth turned around on the ledge and just stared with the same look of shock that he had when they first met. Emily tried to supress the smile that was slowly growing across her face. "Go ahead and smile," was what Seth said when he realized what she was doing. The tone in his voice was as if nothing important was happening, as if he wasn't on the ledge of a building and they were simply having a talk in any normal situation.

"What do you think you're doing up here?" Emily got out after she was finished with her soft laughter. "Why are you doing this?" she said, this time more seriously, "I know you have some problems but I don't think they're bad enough for you to do this."

Seth looked down at her and started to explain his reasoning for such a decision. "It's just that, the problems I do have I have had all of my life and I can't stand them anymore. I sit here everyday and worry about what will happen the next, I'm afraid of the future and having to grow up. Soon I will have to go to college and I don't know if I will make it..."

"Of course you will make it!" Emily interupted.

"It's not that I won't make it in there, it's that I don't think I will be able to deal with it and life after I'm done with college," Seth explained. "Everyone thinks that I distance myself because I feel better than them or for some other reasons that they feel are stupid, but I don't. I have tried to fit in and get to know people but it never seems to work out. Except for you, I could never get anyone to talk to me or want to be seen around me. I have so much pressure from my family to succeed in life and to reach all of their expectations and beyond. I can never just be average with them, I always have to be up there above everyone else. For once I just want to be able to be like everyone else, but I can never seem to do that. I just can't stand it any longer!"

After a few tense moments Seth regained his usual calm composure. "But when I meet you it made things a little better. I finally had someone who at least seemed like they cared about it in some way. You always tried your hardest to do whatever you could to make me happier. You knew who I was and you still didn't mind people seeing that you knew and talked to me."

Once again there was silence between everyone on the rooftop. As Emily was about to respond to what Seth had just said, he cut her off, "the thought that held me back from doing this a long time ago was what it might do to you. It took all I had to finally push past that thought and get up here. But I knew that they would use you to try to get me down, so I thought of the only thing that you could possibly do to get me down from here. The only thing I could come up with was if you loved me, so I would really like to know."

Emily looked up at him and gave an obvious answer," yes! Of course I love you." And Seth just stared with that same calm expression he always seemed to have. A smirk began to play at the corners of his mouth as he looked down at Emily.

"You would say anything to make me happy wouldn't you?" he questioned while still smiling. "But you're terrible at lying to me, all I have to do is look in your eyes and you can't put anything past me. I thank you for trying to do just now what you always did for me." Seth reached out and Emily took his hand. "I will protect you just like I always have." With that Seth's hand slipped out of Emily's as he stepped back off the ledge. Emily stared where Seth was once standing as if she were transfixed by what had just happened. It wasn't long before the sickening thud echoed up from the street to the rooftop. Emily dropped to her knees, still staring off into the air. Tears began to fill her eyes and she soon fell forward and caught herself with her hands just inches from hitting the hard roof surface.

Just as she stood up again and started to move towards the edge to see what the gruesome scene she was expecting the roof door crashed open as a young officer burst through yelling. "Stop, don't look!" he yelled running to block Emily's way. She fell into his chest crying and half-heartedly banged on his chest. "Why won't you let me see him? Why?! I have the right to see him!" she managed to get out.

The offier couldn't look at her as he gave the reasons for his actions, "he said he didn't want you to see."

Emily looked puzzled from what she had just heard. The officer continued his explaination, "when he ummm hit, he was still alive for a few minutes. He told me he didn't want you to see him like that." Though she tried not to, she began to cry again. The officer waited for her to calm down a bit before she relayed the final part of Seth's message, "he also said that he didn't want you to think that he jumped. The last thing he said was 'I would rather her think of me as the Black Angel falling to Earth', do you have any idea what that means?"

She gave a sad smile as she realized what Seth had been trying to tell her. He had always tried to make her feel better just as she had always done for him. She left the scene that day, never once seeing the body of her friend.

Ten years have passed since that horrible day and Emily has finished college and has started a life for herself. There isn't a day that goes by the she doesn't remember Seth. Sometimes it's friends that remind her and ,other times, certain places or things. But there are certain times when she thinks of him the most and that's always when she has a problem that is really getting to her. It always seems that during the night when she feels like she can stand the problems no longer, a single black feather finds its ways into her room and always seems to find its way into the hand that Seth last touched.

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