“Mother f-er!”

I blinked, a bit shocked by the vulgar language tumbling from Corey’s lips, not that he actually used the swear word, but I knew what he meant.

“You alright?” I questioned, dragging my hand through my long silver hair, sweeping it out of my face and behind my ear so I could crouch and inspect his foot, “You know, for a ten-year-old, you have a pretty nasty vocabulary.”

He could tell he blushed as I gently retied the shoelace that he’d managed to step on, “I’m not a little kid, you know.”

I chuckled as I stood up, brushing off my jeans absently, “I’m quite aware of that fact.”

We began walking again, like we did every weekday when I took Corey home from elementary school. It was a little arrangement with his parents, I take him home, make sure he starts his homework, and they let me live in their basement apartment. Quite pitiful, yes, but for a homeless girl in her early twenties, it was better than nothing. They were a giving family, and they didn’t mind my silence on my past.

Yes, I remember, everything was crystal clear in my head, every instance, every second of that long life, and now, the three hundred years of my time on Earth. However, if any human ever learned my identity, I’d be a goner, they probably wouldn’t take well to the notion that we actually exist. They especially despise my kind.

“So what are you making for dinner?” Corey asked, breaking through my memories.

I shrugged as we continued down the sidewalk, “I was thinking Mac n’ Cheese with hotdogs. It’s easier, and I’ve got somewhere I need to go tonight, so your Mom has the neighbor kid coming to watch you.”

“Oh come on,” The ten-year-old whined, stomping a foot childishly, “I’m old enough to be home for a little while, and everyone else isn’t any fun.”

It made me smile, despite the reason I actually had to leave tonight. I dreaded this day every year that passed, August 3rd, the day I’d been dumped on this rock of a realm. Now that I was more accustom to it, it wasn’t resting in my mind so heavily, but it was the one day I never looked forwards too, and today seemed even worse than any year before. It was just a bothersome echo in my head.

“You’ll survive. Jason’s fun! He lets you play video games all night, and eat candy till you get sick.”

Corey was quiet a moment and frowned, “But he doesn’t play games with me.”

I reached over and ruffled his pale brown hair, which caused him to groan and protest, “Allie, stop!”

He took off, his camouflage backpack bouncing as he ran down the sidewalk towards his house. I chuckled softly and took a slow breath, letting my eyes wander around and then fall to the concrete beneath the soles of my shoes. Today was the only day I could feel anything from my previous existence, the only day I could recognize the pressure of their extraordinary powers and get a taste of my old home.

To me, it was torture, this life wasn’t all bad, but that one little glimpse of what I once had made it even more unbearable. I would rather forget that and live here forever, as a twenty-four year old girl, with no worry except moving around the world to keep my immortality unknown. I’d rather be left alone, but like clockwork, I couldn’t stop time, not anymore at least.

“Come on, Allie!” Corey shouted and I saw him waiting by a stop sign, waving at me.

I smiled, forcing my lips into that shape as I strode to him, “I know, I know, I’m a slow-poke.”

We crossed the street and I unlocked the front door of his two-story home, with white shutters and a garden that Mari tended daily. We were greeted with Bear, his slippery nose prodding my bare knee, I reached down and petted the Saint Bernard on the head.

“I’m hungry,” Corey announced, leaving his bag by the door, “Can you cook now?”

“Sure, but your mom wanted you to clean your room, go do that now.” I waved a hand when he gave me a sour face, “No arguing, go do it.”

His extra heavy thumping on the stairs made me shake my head. Even after three hundred years, children still amused me greatly. Most humans did. Speaking literally, I am a human, but then again, I’m not, being immortal and all.

Sighing was all I could do before I moved his bag to the little closet by the front door. I cleaned the house most days, it was my job. I was like a live-in maid and babysitter. But I didn’t mind much, it was a roof, companionship, and Corey’s parents were very kind to me. I’d been here for just over a year and I knew I’d have to move on sooner or later. Many people noticed that I didn’t age, and I didn’t like trying to explain it with those pathetic anti-aging creams women loved so much.

I’d miss Corey when I did leave, but I’d left and lost many friends in my time here.

The kitchen was just to the left of the foyer and I quickly emptied the dishwasher and returned the ceramics and silverware to their respective places. Bear was sitting nearby, panting, begging me for scraps, probably because I usually relented and tossed him some. I was the main cook in the house, because Mari and Eric were very busy adults, and had very long hours at their jobs. They liked having me around to make sure the house and Corey were okay when they couldn’t be here.

I made the Mac n’ Cheese quickly, wiping down the counters and the handles of the cabinets and drawers dutifully. I did laugh and tossed Bear a slice of hotdog eventually.

“Corey, dinner!” I hollered and dished some of the Spongebob shaped noodles into a Tony the Tiger bowl and stuck a spoon in it.

I could hear him pounding back downstairs and he appeared a moment later, “Thank you, Allie.”

I smiled and handed him a glass of milk before finishing cleaning up, “Jason will be over in about a half hour, then I have to get going.”

“Is it a date?”

I shook my head, “No, nothing like that, but I can’t not go.”

I’d never touched a human male in a romantic way, much less dated one. Maybe it was my old self, of maybe it was the fact I could never make it work, being alive forever and all. It also never seemed important, not like the wars I’d fought in, or the people I’d saved or killed.

“Will you be back tomorrow?” Corey asked between two bites.

I nodded, “Of course, I’ll be back in time for your soccer game at noon. Don’t worry, it’s not important enough to miss that.”

He smiled, an orange and yellow cheesy grin that made me smile softly back and then pull out a little notepad and scribble down something for Jason to do. “Make sure you shower tonight, I washed your bedding today, so might as well be clean when you slip in.”

“Alright.”

He’d probably forget, but I just shrugged and headed downstairs into the basement. It wasn’t anything special, just a large room with a full bathroom and a large closet for storage. Eric had cleared it out and now it was a nice little studio apartment, minus the kitchen, I just used the one upstairs. It was painted a royal red, with white trim and elegant white designs were painted on one of the four walls, something I’d done right when I moved in. They weren’t anything humans would recognize. But I did. Written in the looping, elegant, script of a language unknown to this world, was my title, my past name, before I became Alexandra. In my past life, I had many names, but they all came back to my real title.

I have never dared to think my true name, for even hearing it in my head brings me grief. It was a dead name, and I would never bother to utter it again. It had been stripped from me, like my power, like my domain. They’d left me a weak human, to fight my emotions and live forever with guilt and shame. They all knew who I was, and they took it from me because I terrified them.

“That’s enough,” I spoke aloud, to myself, shutting down those memories, horrid and potent, and I focused on the bloody red hue of the paint.

My wall clock read five p.m., so I knew it would all happen soon, and I needed to be ready. Changing quickly into a grey tank top and short black jean shorts I tossed my other clothes into the hamper and headed to my bathroom to collect my massive amount of hair into a bun atop my head, the silver gleaming in the light overhead. Silver. The same color from my past life, another reminder of what was no longer mine. It used to whip and float around me like I was submerged, now it was human, though still unnatural and vaguely beautiful, it lay flat. Much like my eyes, blue, blue as a fire opal or a sapphire, but duller nowadays.

People commented on both of my past life attributes many times, but I always told them stories. Dyed hair and contacts, simple enough.

I stared into the mirror, my appearance unchanged for hundreds of years, and thousands before that. My skin was pale, but perfectly so, it almost glowed but had a healthy pink tinge in the right places. My hair normally fell to my lower back, now tied up. My eyes were hidden with feather soft black lashes, and my arching brows were also black. My nose was straight and thin, hovering over full lips that I kept red, a statement perhaps. I was thin, with pixie-like features, a small long neck, pointed chin, muscular arms, wide hips and long legs. I was of medium height in human standards, five foot five, elegantly structured and built. I was perfect, like every one of my kind.

Another sigh left me, I used to be even more beautiful, with pointed ears, elongated canines, red tinted eyes, and talons were my nails resided now. I was once something that no one could compare with, and now I’m nothing but a human.

It’s time.

Welcome.

My head was bowed when the winds faded, and the harsh pressure of power almost suffocated me. I could feel the heaviness of my wings folded tightly against my back, the soft velvet brush of the white robes I was clothed in, and the throb of my own power bubbling beneath the seal. This was it. It was always locked up, contained, held just beyond my reach, dangled like steak before a starved beast.

“We all know very well I’m anything but welcomed here.” My voice, chiming like music flowed, whispering away from my lips in a cool reprieve.

I raised my head, unable to unfurl my wings, to stretch. Even though I was here, I was chained, captured, imprisoned. Weak. I normally held my tongue for the time I was here, I had little to say to them, though they continued to wait for me to breathe those words. They were still wary of me. They should be, for even though Uriel bound my powers and banished me to the human realm. I was me, I was dangerous. I was to be feared.

“Do you wish to be forgiven?” Saraqael spoke, her deep voice reverberating through my being.

I stood silently, being gazed at disdainfully by seven creatures, Gods seven. My Captors. I’d known them a long time, a very long time.

“Redemption, sister,” Gabriel said, his slow words spreading through me, the heat of his roiling power combined with it.

“I’ve never been a sister of yours,” I spat, my wings instinctively straining against their bindings.

They watched me silently, as I waited for the time to end and I’d plummet back to the human world, away from their pressures, away from the agony of how close I was to what they’d taken. It was their favorite form of torture. Though, as the seven archangels, they’d never admit to taking any enjoyment from watching me squirm. It was a lie, a pretense. They were nothing holy. Nothing pure. They were just Archangels, powerful because God said it was so. They obeyed his will, but he wasn’t here. This wasn’t heaven. Heaven was Gods Realm, and it was only for human souls.

Angels of any kind have no soul, and they cannot enter there without forfeiting their very beings. These Archangels did what they believe to be Gods will, though he’d not spoken to them in thousands of years. He was silent, so they did as they pleased, believing he would stop them if he disapproved. So here I am. They took me down, without permission. Yet, I was at a disadvantage because my sire hadn’t raised a hand in my defense either. That fact had sent me into a rage right after I’d been left in the human realm.

“You fail to hide your thoughts,” Raphael murmured.

“Stay out of my head,” I hissed, tugging up any barriers I would muster against the archangel that was staring at me quizzically.

They spoke telepathically to one another, so it was a deafening silence as we all stood there. Each of them glowing with radiant light, a brilliance that would have blinded me, were I anything but what I am. Each had white robes, much like mine, long golden locks, though Saraqeal’s was longer than her brothers. They were all breathtakingly beautiful, words unable to describe the perfection in their features. God had made them perfect, his first mistake with them. He’d made them emotionless, unfeeling, however, they were vain, and had developed emotions much like humans, whom they despised.

Uriel was next to speak, he I hated the most, “We’ve grown bored of you.”