Angelus’s P.O.V

I was born in a small village in the middle of nowhere. Both my parents were Blacksmiths; who made weapons to defend the village from bandits, but they mainly made tools for farming or other work as the village was quiet and peaceful, and bandit attacks were rare yet it still happened. They weren’t poor nor were they rich; they were probably closer to being poor though, but they stilled lived comfortably. My parents were childhood friends and they married young when both for them were eighteen years old, I was born only two years later.

My birth killed my mother. The local doctors did all they could, but she had lost too much blood and unfortunately died. My father had promised my mother that he’d protect me and love me and he did, he held no hatred towards me at all. He was overprotective of me but he had every right to be; I was born small and weak and it never improved, but that wasn’t all.

I was born with wings, angel-like wings. My mother had just enough life left in her to see me before she died and her, as well as father and the doctors, believed me to be some sort of blessing from the gods. Also for as long as I can remember I’ve been able to see the future. At first I thought they were nightmares but soon realised they were true…

My first vision had been of a fire started by a bolt of lightning on a wooden hut, I had woken up screaming, and when my father came through I told him about it. He comforted me, reassuring me that it had all “just been a dream”. However, two days later during a storm a lightning bolt did hit a wooden hut and a fire did start. After that, all my dreams came true and, I began to see things during the day too. Fearing what the other villagers might think of me, my father was determined to keep it a secret in fear of jealous people who may wish to harm me, or people who wouldn’t see it as a blessing and would cast me out. These fears were pointless because once they found out they all agreed to protect me.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here, spoiling the start of my story which isn’t really much of a spoiler, it’s only the start. Now let me begin with my story with the first major event in my life that I can actually remember and was not just told about; the day my village and consequently the world found out about my powers when I was only seven…

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I ran as fast as I could into the open field, I would fly but I couldn’t let them see my wings (I had them strapped down to my back with belts and hidden under my shirt), I had to run away from the bullies; I didn’t want to be beaten up again. They saw me as a freak, I was small and an easy target, they made fun of me for everything from my size to my odd eyes (one blue, one green) to me being a loner. My attempt of getting away from the older boys was in vein they were bigger, stronger and fitter than me and, I was tackled to the ground.

I struggled and tried to get away, but the biggest bully held me down, I tried to kick him off; “Let go of me, Takeshi!” I yelled at the ten year old brunette.

“Shut it! Weakling!” he snapped and punched me in the face. His four friends gathered around me and, I screamed; struggling to get away. They began to bring their fists and feet down on me, hard. “This’ll teach you to run from us, freak!” Takeshi snapped and spat on my face.

I managed to curl into a ball to protect myself as the beating continued. Usually I get a vision of these beatings and mange to avoid them, but today I got no such warning, it hurt a lot and I knew that I was going to bruise. I could feel blood on my body coming from my arms and legs mainly, but also on my face and torso. All I could do was scream for someone to help me, and thankfully help came. A red haired girl had ran over to us, realising I was being brutally attacked. She was in my class at school, her name was Hana.

“Takeshi! Stop!” She yelled at him and tried to pull him off. He pushed her away and, she fell on her butt on the soft grass.

“Piss off, girly! Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“What did Angelus ever do to you!? Leave him alone!” She snapped, getting back up to pull at his sleeve in a desperate attempt to make him stop.

“I said. Piss. Off.”

“I’m going to get my mum!” she yelled and ran off.

I quite liked Hana; she was one of the only ones who was kind to me, I wouldn’t go as far as to call her a friend as I like to be alone, and she was loud and annoying, but she was nice.

The bullies didn’t take her threat, however and continued to hit me, Takeshi laughed at me and mocked me: “You’re pathetic, Angelus, what kind of man needs a girl to come and save him!” His friends laughed at his stupid, sexist joke and continued to hit me, I began to cry quietly. “Aww, look at the weakling! Crying already!”

It just kept on going and suddenly it happened, they began to get tired; so I took the chance and tried to get up and run, but Takeshi grabbed my shirt (it was an old shirt that really needed to be replaced), the thin material tore as I tried to run, we all stopped. My wings, they saw them… I thought fast and quickly removed the two belts that

held my wings down, spread them and took flite but Takeshi grabbed my ankle.

“W-what are you…?” he asked, fear in his voice.

I just yelled and tried to kick him away that’s when Hana, her mother and the mothers of the bullies came running up to us; all staring in awe at me. I knew it was too late to run and when Takeshi let go of my ankle, I landed and looked down to the ground.

“Angelus?” Hana’s mother spoke first. She like her daughter was a kind woman, who worked as a floweriest. She was staring at my wings, “What are those?” she muttered.

I stood there awkwardly and said “uh… wings…”

“Are they real!?” Hana asked, she sounded incredibly excited and was jumping up and down.

“Yeah,” I said.

She gasped and asked with more excitement, “Can I touch them?”

“Uh… Sure?” I said and she squealed and came running up to me and gently stroked my right wing.

She giggled: “It’s so soft!”

The questions kept coming and I told them everything. I told them that I was born like this and that I could fly very high, for a long time before I got tired. (In fact I could fly nonstop for longer than I could walk.) I also told them about my visions of the future. Once I was done explaining they all agreed to help me, Takeshi and his gang even apologised and promised never to pick on me again. They decided to take me home to my father who was still working at the time to tell him what had happened. On the way we avoided as many people as we could and soon we were at my house/father’s work place, we lived at the back of the village we were slightly separated from the rest of it by the mine where my father got the metals from, we had two buildings across from each other, one was our small two bedroom house, the other was my father’s workshop.

We entered the workshop and my father stopped working on the sythe he was making for one of the farmers, and turned to see the large group enter. He looked at me and saw that my shirt had torn and my wings were exposed. Of course he panicked and ran to me “Angelus? What happened?” he asked, pulling me into a tight hug and checked my wounds. “You’re hurt!”

“I’m fine,” I said looking into my father’s forest green eyes to let him know I wasn’t lying.

“I’m sorry,” Takeshi’s mother said “Hana came running to us and told us that Takeshi has hurting Angelus, when we got there he was flying.”

“I told them everything,” I said quietly “I didn’t get a vision for any of this,” I looked to the ground sadly; tears began to fill my eyes and ran down my cheek.

“It’s ok, son. You’re still learning how to control your powers and it’s not like there is anyone to teach you.”

“You’re not mad?” I asked, I had thought that maybe he’d be angry that people knew about my powers.

“No of course not!” he said firmly “it wasn’t your fault!”

We spent time discussing with the others, about what would happen now. Takeshi also promised to make it up to me and promised to protect me.

After that day I stopped hiding and soon the whole village knew. It wasn’t a bad thing I began to use my powers to help the village out as I foresaw bandit attacks, any sort of fire or drought or other natural disasters. I could tell how crops would do and what items would sell best at the shops. My powers did a lot for the village and things looked good for all of us, our small village prospered and went from being on the poorer side of things to being quite rich. Everyone was happy and so was I.

At school I would get crowded by the other children asking me to tell them their future; there were girls who wanted to know about their future husband, or weddings, or children. Others; girls and boys alike who wanted to know if they’d be a great warrior or mage, or if they’d be famous for something. There were teenagers, who wanted to know how they’d do in their exams and so on. It made school days all the more tiring and I ended up hiding high up in the trees where nobody could get to me and I could just to be alone or sometimes I would go flying around the village high up in the sky, it was so beautiful up in the clouds. It was like there wasn’t any stress or pressures at all, and I loved it. Hana helped me out a bit; making those who wanted to know their future stand in line, so I wasn’t crowded or she would help me get away from the crowds. She never asked me to tell her future, or bothered me about it. So I let her sit with me sometimes, if I was in the mood for her cheeriness and silliness. Though, she did quickly become a good friend of mine.

At home my father still fussed over me and continued to be overprotective, but I could tell that he was proud of me. I was close to my father and enjoyed the quiet nights were he would take me into the back garden were we would make a small fire and roast marshmallows and just talk, it was always really fun. I was happy. So, so happy but my happy life couldn’t last long, I knew it wouldn’t because of my dream.

The first time I had the dream was the same day my wings were reviled. The dream was blurry and I couldn’t see much meaning it was going to happen a long time from now and, I knew it would happen. All my dreams happened. In it I was running in complete darkness, running and shouting for someone to help me, but all I saw was blackness. I was grabbed and dragged away, the next thing I knew I couldn’t move or do anything; I couldn’t even speak! It all seemed hopeless, but right at the end there was a bright golden light that seemed to push at the darkness. In fact it was like the golden light and the darkness was fighting, but I always awoke before I saw the outcome of the fight. I couldn’t get that vision to come to me when I was awake, it only happened when I slept. I had no control over it. I saw it every night, and all I knew was that something at some point was going to go wrong, so very wrong and that I would be in danger… Unless I found the gold light.