Icarus Fragment taken from: The Storyteller, Volume III I saw him asleep, leaning on his big table, the one he used to draw in the gray room with no windows. I noticed he was not alone. The black-winged Fallen Angel I had seen years before was with him. I felt uneasy. Fallen Angels were never up to anything good. “What are you doing here?” I asked the Fallen Angel. “So, this one here is your human friend, isn’t he?” he asked me, pointing at the human with his long finger.

I am trying to believe....

“Why do you care?” I asked him.

He seemed older than I remembered him—when I first talked to him—almost ten years before, by the lake. The Fallen Angel stood too close to my friend; I feared he had hurt the human and that was why my friend was not moving.

“I don’t care about him at all; I care about you. Do you remember me?” the Fallen Angel asked me.

“Yes,” I said, still feeling uneasy due to his proximity to my friend.

“Your Mentor has done a good job with you, boy. You have grown to be a True Angel; I’m proud of you, my son,” he smiled, walking toward me.

I backed up.

“Don’t call me that,” I said, getting angry.

“And what else can I call my own flesh and blood then?” he said with a devilish smile while he kept on walking toward me.

My wings touched the opposite wall; there was not enough space for both of us in that small room. There was no more room for me to back up.

“Let’s talk elsewhere,” I said, trying to get him away from the human.

“I like it in here. I have noticed your particular interest in this human over the years.… I want to know why,” he said, looking at my friend. The Fallen Angel then walked back to my friend and spread his black wings around him, as if he were to embrace him, without touching him.

“Please don’t harm him,” I said, concerned.

“That I cannot promise. What is it with you and humans that attracts you so much to them?” he asked me.

I tried to leave the room; he moved fast toward the door, blocking the way. I looked at him.

“What I told you that day by the lake while you waited for your Mentor was true. You are the firstborn to a Fallen Angel and a True Angel. I am your father.”

“That’s not true—you lie!” I said, wishing I could just fly away, but I could not leave my friend alone with that monster.

“It is no lie. Your mother and I fell in love, and despite our clans opposition, we loved each other in secret, very much,” he began to say, looking into my eyes.

“Stop that. I don’t want to hear it,” I said.

We both saw the human waking up and moving. The Fallen Angel with black wings moved to one side to take a better look at the human.

The human stretched and we heard a few of his bones cracking; he then moved his head to one side and the other and his neck cracked, too. The human then got up and looked around; he turned the lamp on his big table off and walked out of the room. I walked toward the door to follow him; I wanted to go with him.

“Don’t go,” the Fallen Angel said.

I looked at him and asked him, “What do you want from me?”

“I just want to talk to you. I loved your mother with all my heart; you remind me of her. You have her eyes and hair; she was very beautiful. She’s always in my thoughts. You were born out of that love. Even Fallen Angels love, you know? That is … before they become pure evil. I have watched you grow up from a distance,” he said.

“You lie. Leave me alone,” I said, walking through the door.

I walked outside the gray room; everything was dark now. I looked everywhere but there was no one there. The human must have already left.

“I can take you to his house, if you want,” the Fallen Angel offered. “You are evil; I will not go anywhere with you. He will be back in a few hours. I will wait here,” I said, feeling disoriented.

“Very well.… For someone who admires humans so much, you know very little about them….”

“I don’t know what you mean…,” I said, a little confused.

“They say that with every human life that is born, an angel is created to guard that human. This boy here is your human, my son. And that is why you dream about him so much.”

“Angels don’t dream,” I said.

“Oh, yes they do. This now is a dream; I can turn it into a nightmare for you, if you want,” he said, smiling.

“My Mentor says we don’t dream…,” I said confused. “You lie!”

“I might be lying; but on the other hand, you can’t deny the fact that you and I look a lot alike.… Even the tips of your feathers have been stained by my Fallen Angel blood; there’s got to be something of me in you, Son.”

“Don’t call me that. Please leave. I am not well now,” I said, walking around. I felt trapped.

“That’s why I am here. Every time you dream, you go to the human world to dream. I have followed you several times, making sure you don’t see me, boy. Today, I have revealed myself to you because you shall not recover from your wounds.”

“Will I die soon?” I asked.

The smirk on his face disappeared. He came closer to me. I noticed he had lost the beauty of an angel; his wings had lost most of their feathers and had grown a black, thin skin, like that of bats. His features had become somewhat gross to look at. His eyes had been blue when I last encountered him; they were red now. He put his hand on my right shoulder; I noticed his hands had grown big knuckles and his fingernails were long and black.

“You were destined to be much more than this; you were born to be an Archangel, like I am now, only we are on opposite teams. But your curiosity for humans has sent you to your own destruction. You were the moth that went too close to the candle. And now you burn, my boy.”

I felt the strength leaving my body with his touch. I slowly fell down on one knee; he knelt down next to me.

“I can’t breathe,” I said, bowing my head down; the skin on my shoulder burned under his hand.

“You are about to wake up now. Listen carefully,” he said while a tear rolled down his cheek. “You are the last strand of purity and righteousness I have left. You are the last pure thing I ever made, and when you are gone I shall turn into pure evil, as you no longer will be around to remind me of love and good things. You need to know your mother and I conceived you with a lot of love, but you also need to understand we could not keep you with us. When you were born, you had equal chances of becoming a Fallen Angel or becoming a True Angel. The Mentor who found you made all the difference in your life. We didn’t mean to leave you behind; I have kept my eye on you all this time. And now, in your final hours, I wanted to come clean for the last time in my existence; this will be the last truth I ever speak to anyone.”

“Don’t hurt my human friend, please,” I said, breathless.

“That I cannot promise,” he said, and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “He’s mine now.”

I saw him smiling as he closed his hand into a tight fist in front of my face.

I opened my eyes. My Mentor was right there by my side.

I looked at him and said, “I am dying.”