Chapter 10

When I was young I had been at the park, reading a book as my little brothers and sisters wrecked havoc on the playground. I was supposed to be watching them but I had been too enthralled with the fantasy novel I was reading. A man had come and sat next to me on the bench, pulled out a book of his own, and began reading as well.

Eventually he noticed that we were both reading the same novel, when I caught him eying me he had sputtered off a random sentence, then got up and walked away. For some reason, that single sentence was nagging at the back of my mind as I walked down the street, licking at an ice cream cone, Fictional Emrys on my right, and fictional Kieran on my left.

The sentence the man had said to me was this, "Sometimes, stories of fiction speak volumes of truth, and by the end of the tale, we wonder if it was ever fiction to begin with," And that was it, he closed his book, gave me one last look, and walked away.

Everyone has their own opinion of what life after death is; Some people believe its as simple as going to Heaven or Hell, others think there is nothing, we stop existing, and are not even aware we are dead. Other believe the after life is exactly that, a life after death; Not exactly the same as living, but a life all the same.

Over the years my views on life after death have changed from one thing to another, I had always been open minded to the arguments of more religious figures. I never brushed an idea or opinion under the rug, I respected all forms of religious belief, as well as non belief. Now I knew, though, because I was in it, experiencing it, tasting it even. Ice cream tastes extra sweet after you have died, in case any of you were wondering.

My after life was not what I thought it was going to be though. My after life was rather normal to say the least, much like my life had been, with minor differences. Difference number one, ice cream was much better, difference number two, Kieran and Emrys could fly. Difference number three, Kieran and Emrys were a little bit wacko. Nothing to drastic, just a little bit strange.

You see, ever since we got our ice cream and began our lazy walk through town, they had been talking nonsense. First off, Emrys had told me he was an angel, though he was a fallen angel, kicked out of Heaven for some reason or another. Then, Kieran had jumped in and told me he was a demon, though he, too was kicked out of hell and sent to earth. I understood the concept of a fallen angel, but a fallen demon? Actually, I guess Kieran would be a risen demon, seeing as how Hell was viewed to be below us, and Heaven above, and earth right in the middle.

So, angels fell, demons rose, both being kicked from their homes and sent to earth. Which made me wonder what they could have possibly done that got them kicked out? We will get to that later though, because I am as curious about it as you probably are; At the moment though I was trying to wrap my head around their current words as we crossed the street to the local park.

Emrys had been talking for a while now, though I had not been listening to all of it I had caught bits and pieces. He had said he was sorry if they had upset me by telling me I was adopted, but it had been for my own good. I remembered him saying something about how it was their job to protect me, and extreme times had called for extreme measures, and so on.

This next bit though instantly pulled me away from my day-dreaming thoughts, curiosity had always gotten the better of me, "Valery, this might be a little hard to believe, but your biological mother was an angel, like me..."

"- And your father," Kieran continued, "was a demon. I cant even begin to fathom how two people with such drastic differences managed to fall in love..."

"- But they did, and you were the outcome," Emrys finished.

It was pretty interesting, though a bit far fetched. I mean, who would really believe a angel and a demon would fall in love, let alone have a child together? Anything was possible when you dead, I guess, so I played along.

"Wait a second, that does not make any sense. If my mother was an angel, and my father a demon, then why am I human?" I gave myself a few brownie points for finally asking a good question.

"That's just it though, your not human, how could you be, right?"

"Right, Emrys, thanks, that explains so much," I quipped sarcastically, biting off a piece of my cone.

"What Emrys is trying to say, is that your right, your not human. One would think that being the offspring of a high and holy angel, and a dangerous demon, you would have some features that pointed towards your heritage,"

"Right," I replied, taking another bite of my cone, not missing the drastic change in tone as Kieran talked about angels. From the sounds of it, it seemed Kieran did not believe angels were as high and holy as they were said out to be.

"So where are these said features? Should I have a forked tail, or a halo something like that?" They both smiled at that, and Kieran continued to explain.

"First off, the human view of what angels and demons look like is vastly skewed. Secondly, the answer to why you look human is simple. Your angelic genes and your demonic genes cancel each other out. They are still there inside of you, but because they are equally potent, its almost impossible for one side to take over and leave the other in the dust."

"Basically, " Emrys further explained, "You look human because your angelic side can't beat your demonic side, and vise verse, thus leaving you somewhere in the middle."

"Okay, I think I understand," Not that any of it was that hard to understand, it just seemed a little far fetched.

"To be honest, you look like any other angel or demon, despite the usual tip offs."

I glanced at Kieran and felt a frown working at my lips, "What are the usual tip offs?"

"Well, the wings for one. As you probably noticed, angels have lighter colored wings, and demons darker colors," Indeed I had noticed, though ever since we had come near town their wings had disappeared back to where ever they had come from.

I wanted to ask where their wings had exactly gone, when Emrys cut me off, "Same goes for the hair too, light colors for angels, and darker for demons. Which your hair is kind of in between the two."

I nodded, began to speak again, and was interrupted by Kieran this time, "Eyes are tricky, sometimes its the same concept as with the wings and hair, but there are occasions where the rules do not follow for eye color, so its not a tell tell feature. Mostly we don't look that much different from humans, though as we have pointed out there are differences," He stopped speaking for a moment and I thought him to be finished, but yet again, as soon as I prepared to say something, I got cut off.

"Humans think us to be immortal, but we're not; We age very slowly, and have a much longer life span, we heal quickly as well, but we are capable of death. That would be the reason why you look younger than you are, because you age at a slower pace,"

"Just as we look like any average human, you look like any average angel or demon. Well, despite one feature."

"What feature?" I spat out as fast as I could, glad to have finally gotten a word in.

"Your freckles," They answered in unison and I wrinkled my nose at them, I hated my freckles;

"Angels and demons don't have freckles?" They both shook their head, avoiding eye contact with me, "Okay, so why do I have freckles?"

My ice cream had been devoured a long time ago, and now they had my full attention. I would have never thought that this is what my death would come to, walks in the park, eating ice cream with two men who claimed to be angels and demons, and claiming that I was some mix of the two as well. I tagged along though, figuring I had nothing better to do at the moment, all the while that simple sentence replayed in the back of my head.

"Sometimes, stories of fiction speak volumes of truth, and by the end of the tale, we wonder if it was ever fiction to begin with," it played over and over again, like a chant, tugging at he back of my mind, Trying to get my attention like it was trying to tell me something.

One day, I would learn to listen to those little nagging voices. I had ignored the first one that told me to go home and never come back, and now I was trying to ignore this one. Talking of fiction and truth, like that had anything to do with what was going on now.

If there had been any doubt in my mind that I was not dead before, I was positive I was dead now; I had to be, because the next words out of Emrys' mouth were so absurd I had to be dead. What he was implying was too laughable, not to mention impossible to be true.

"Your not just a Hybrid, Valery, half angel, half demon. Your freckles are not just little brown imperfections, they are markers. Your a map, Valery, to the River of Life, better known as the Fountain of Youth."

See, impossible. Then again, my father had always said that impossible only meant that something was yet to be proven. 'Anything is possible' he would always say, and of course I believed him; But come on, not everything was possible, was it?