When we once again saw the light of day, I almost wished to go back to the flaming streets with my uncle John. We kept going up and up until I thought that the air pressure would be so great and that the car would snap in two, but it never did. Eventually we were completely surrounded by big fluffy clouds that reminded me of the pillows that used to crowd my bed back home. As we came up trough the clouds the perfectness of it all reminded me of a poem that I had written when I was younger.

Long ago in a land ruled by kings,
Lived a girl with few worldly things,
All she owned were the cloths on her back,
A small gold harp, and a calico cat.
A long cam a man,
With gold coins in his hand,
He offered all the money and a bag filled with carp,
For her calico cat and her small gold harp.
She looked up at the man and kindly said no,
“I am sorry sir, that is not how it goes,
This cat and this harp are my world,
In this land of kings,
I am just a common girl”.
The man seized the harp and killed the cat,
A golden crown replaced his hat,
“You have said no to a king,
So you don’t get the money and I take away your things.
You don’t deserve to live in this land”,
Said the man with a harp and a knife in his hand.
Down came the knife, and up went the girl,
She escaped to heaven, she left behind the world.
She shall never again see the man with the hat,
For she was reunited with her harp and her cat,
She sits there on a cloud with her cat and her harp,
Happy without money and a bag filled with carp.

This place in which we had been dropped off was a happy place, every thing seemed perfect. Jake and I walked along with a mist of happiness lingering over our heads, we didn’t even seem to care that we were both dead. Like the girl in my poem, we didn’t care about what we left behind, we were simply happy that we were in such a beautiful place. The driver only hung around for a minute, as if to see weather or not we would change our minds and get back in the car. When the driver realized that we were not going to get back in the car, he stepped on the gas one more time, and sped off into the distance, most likely to pick up more passengers. Jake and I walked on, going further and further away from where we were dropped off. Eventually we came across a small shack that was about the size of a pickup truck. We walked inside the small building, which wasn’t very small at all. What looked like a shack on the outside was actually 20 feat wide, what seemed to be miles long, and 40 feat high. The walls were not covered in the normal things you would expect to see in this small shop, air quotes around small. The walls were completely lined with wings of all colors. From the far end of the store, a screeching sound came to life and seemed to travel up the isles. After a short moment, a small man on a ladder came into view. He seemed very short, he was only about 4 feet tall, and about just as wide. He adjusted his glasses as he looked down at us. I expected not to be able to tell what color his eyes were, as he was 30 feet in the air. His eyes were a strange greenish yellow, and they seemed to smile down at me. His gray wings rustled with what seemed to be happy anticipation. He jumped down from his perch, and just before he hit the ground, his wings unfurled. Even though he was a chubby man, he had the agility of a cat. He landed on two feat, with one hand close to the ground, making him look even shorter. He looked up at me, and took my hand in his. “It is so nice to meet you,” he said while shaking my hand up and down vigorously. “can I interest you in a pair of wings?” as he said this last thing, he looked expectantly at a pair of white wings. I knew he meant well, but I had always hated it when people look at me and think of me as a good little girl who couldn’t hurt a fly. “Hey, can I have those purplish ones?” jake asked as he looked at these huge raven colored wings. Once Jake had his wings fastened upon his back, the man came up to me. He seamed eager to help me find a pair of wings that would fit my personality, and the white wings definitely were not it. I smiled down at him and kindly asked if I could have the large black ones that were about 4 feat above the man’s head, and most reminded me of crow wings. He looked at me and shook his head, as if he knew my future, but it was to horrible to tell. He helped put my new wings on my back. I stretched them out as if they were nothing but a finger or arm, letting them open far beyond my body, taking up much of the space that was provided to do so. I swelled with pride, as did Jake, and both of our wings rustled and fluffed out much like I had seen birds wings do so during many happy afternoons that I had spent with my dad at our log cabin in the woods. My wings, which were about 12 feat from tip to tip, folded neatly against my back. Jake and I said our farewells to the short man who had been nothing but nice to us as we were looking for the wings that would grace upon our backs for the rest of eternity. We stepped out into the sunlight, reborn as the very thing that I thought Jake and i would never be, angels.

Jake and I walked on, our bare feet not making a sound as they beat against the soft ground. We kept on walking, and angels of all shape and sizes surrounded us. Wings of all colors were folded along every back we saw, and the owners seamed oblivious to us walking beside them. We walked along until the crowd seamed to split open at the front of a large building that reminded me of the Lincoln monument, minus the statue of Lincoln, of corse. A small sign that had red blinking letters saying “all new angels follow the arrows”, caught my immediate attention. Jake and I flew, side by side, to the archway at the top of the stairs, and silently went inside. “Hello,” I said, the echoes startling me as they bounced off the walls. All of a sudden, a bolder the size of my head was hurled out of the darkness, and it was headed straight for Jake’s face. Jake put his huge burly arms in front of his face to perfect himself from the oncoming missile. Before the rock made contact with his arms, I swatted it out of the air as if it was nothing more than a fly, and had not been traveling around 100 miles an hour. Jake looked at me as if I had two heads, his mouth open in awe, his wings rustled with adrenaline. Out of the same direction the rock had been thrown from, a sword was thrown to Jake. He caught it expertly out of the air, and looked at it in wonder. 3 black shapes were launched at me, and I did not move, knowing that this was meant to test both of us. Jake slashed out with the sword as if it was an extension of his body, and cut all 3 black things in half. The black shapes had been nothing but large rocked clothed in black robes, but I knew that they were meant to symbolize something much more deadly. Jake and I were both breathing hard, not that it made much of a difference. I knew that since we were so high up, there would be no air to calm our heaving lungs. Not that we needed it, after all, we are dead. Jake and I shared a glance into each others souls, just like we had when we were alive. We always used to know what the other was thinking. It was like we were connected in some strange way, heart and soul. As we were standing there in a moment of complete silence, a screatch was heard. The marble floor split in two and started moving apart, and Jake and I had been forced to jump away from the center, each of us taking a different direction. Jake and I had been separated from one another, and the spell of calm had been broken. There were many paintings upon the wall, and they all seamed to stare at us, as if they knew what was happening in all of this chaos. Jake and I looked at one another from our separate corners, and he looked at me as he had looked at his quarter back in foot ball, he wanted to protect me from whatever was happening. I could see Philidelphia through the hole I the floor, with sky scrapers pearing up at us. a cage dropped over Jake, and i knew that he was trapped. the cage moved toward the hole in the floor, dragging Jake along with it. Jake fell through the hole, and my wings responded to his emergency before i even realized what was happening. my wings opened, and i flew towards Jake, and took us both to solid ground. we both were amazed at how quickly all of the had happened, for it seamed but moment since the floor cracked open to when Jake and i were standing side by side again. clapping could be heard coming out of the corner, and a tall man cloaked in gray emerged out of the darkness. "it looks as if you to will be a great addition onto my team of angels. you, Missy, shall be a wonderful guardian by the looks of it." the man said as he peered down under his glasses that were precariously perched upon the bridge of his nose. "what about me?" Jake asked, and i could almost here the little kid wine in his voice that he used to use when he did not get his way. "you shall be a warrior" the man replied "we sure do need more of them." i looked at him, and i wandered what sort of person he had been when he was alive. "i never was alive, you know, i was always this way. i was created to train the angels that have a talent for something, nothing more. many i have trained have become great in their work, just look at Gabriel," he said as he winked at me, it was as if he knew what i had been thinking, and he probably did. "you trained Gabriel?" i asked, aw struck. i was in the mist of a great trainer, and a great angel. "you shall commence on to training. this is Elspeth, she will show you around until you are done your training here. when you are done your training, you are to report back here to me, and please take the back door unless your friend here wishes to take a closer look at Philadelphia," the man said as he bowed to us and once again faded into darkness. it seamed strange to me, but it seamed as if he had spit out Elspeth's name as if it was ash upon his tongue. Elspeth seamed young, only about 18 years old. she was very skinny, even skinnier than me, and blond hair framed a face that had ice blue eyes imbedded in the fragile skin of the small face of the girl. white wings were not folded across her back, but made more of a draping effect. she may sound like a beautiful angel, but her face was dirty, a ragged blue ribbon held up her tangled hair, and a scrap of cloth was all that covered her frail body. she looked at me as if i was nothing more than pond scum. i was dressed in my designer jeans that i had gotten the weak before for my birthday, my red tank top, and my jean jacket. i looked as if i had just walked off of a runway, and she looked as if she had worn the same cloths all her life. she lead us through the corridors, all of our feat making echoes across the walls. we were lead out into the light of day, and for the first time, I realized that the building behind us was not the only building around. Elspeth lead us into a small brick building that was one of many. She looked at us and made a gesture twords the two beds, which I took were to be ours until it was time for us to leave. I felt sorry for Elspeth as she left, for she looked as if she had a hard life, and posibly a hard death as well. “Looks like we are gonna be room mates, Jacky,” Jake said as he looked at me, a cocky smile spreading across his face. His blue eyes looked at me, and I knew that they were stairing int the depts of my green ones. The room was not very big, but by the looks of all the doors leading off of it, it was not the only one in the building. Jake and I took the time to explore our new house, but it was not long before Elspeth retearned to take us to the traing room.

Jake and I trained long and hard for what seamed like weeks. We both became faster and stronger. It looked as if Jake’s muscles could not possibly get any bigger, but they kept growing anyway. As Jake became huge and mustily, I became more limber and flexible, I could even balance on a pole the width of a pensile eraser for hours at a time without moving or falling. Eventually though, Elspeth came back to take us back to the man in gray. I did not realize it before, but we did not even know the man’s name. As we entered the great building once again, I noticed that it had changed. The pictures were not of people as they had been before, but now were of landscapes. The floors to had changed, where they were once black and white marble, they were now covered in gray white and black granite. Even the walls seamed to have changed, they were farther apart, and they were now white instead of gray. We were lead to a door that simply said, eternity upon it. Elspeth turned on her heal and left us, her foot steps getting fast and more quit the farther away she got from us. The door opened on its own as soon as the foot steps died away, and we entered it with great caution. The room looked as if it was made out of the heavens themselves. The room was filled with stars, and the man in gray sat upon one very large bright blue one. He looked at us and said “you both have done very well these last few weeks, and now you are ready for your first assignment. I know that I did not intreduse myself properly the last time we met, I am Eternity, the trainer of angels and friend of goodness.” Jake and I exchanged a look at one another. We simply stared at Eternity, for we did not know what to think. “ You two are to be responsible for one Sky Kennbury. She is the profites, and the first that is not related to the one that came before her. You, Jacky, were the last profatess, when you died, many thought that there would be none to follow you. You had been well protected, but even I did not expect that car crash. The prophetess sees all that is in the future, and she shows this through her poems. If Sky dies before she has a daughter, there will be no prophetess. You two must purtect her and her poems, if they get into the wrong hands, the world will be at stake. Go to the the front lobby where you first came in, the blue door is the one that will lead you back to earth. No one will be able to see you except for Sky, and of corse, the demons. This may sound weird to you, but you must hold hands as you go through the door, otherwise you may end up on different sides of the country. We stood their, flabber gasted, our moths hanging open. We left Eternity’s room fealing more confused than ever. As we came upon the door I had the strangest feeling that we were being watched, but I did not say anything, for I knew that we were not te only angels in the great building. We opened the door, and inside it was nothing but darkness. “Well, her goes nothing,” Jake said as he grabbed my hand and hauled us both through the door. His sword was digging into my side as he pulled me closer to him. We kept on falling, and I could tell he was more freaked out about this then I was. as we fell, the darkness became light. we fell past clouds and birds, and we were going so fast it was as if when we landed, there would be nothing left of us. we came closer and closer to the earth, and just as I thought we would become nothing more than a crater, we both managed to landed on our feet in perfect harmony. we set off and tried to figure out what we were going to do. "you feel that? I think I know where we are supposed to go. follow me," Jake said, not even giving me a moment to respond before he grabbed my hand and pulled me off in some unknown direction. I could feel it, a power that told me where I was supposed to go. it was very powerful, and I knew that even if Jake was not pulling me at full speed, I would still be pulled along by this invisible power. i knew that whoever this girl was, Jake and I would protect her, no matter what. we came upon many small houses and shops. the small street was lined with people, all seamed to be completely happy and completely oblivious to us and our mission. the sun was shining brightly upon us, but there was one thing that glowed more. the house ahead of us glowed with a strange green light all it's own, and I knew that that was where sky kennburry would be. we entered the house, and we did not even use the door, we simply melted through the wall as if it wasn't even there. I aw that we were in a small room with purple walls. a bed was in the corner, and a young girl sat upon it. she was so deeply engrossed in her notebook that she did not even see us standing in front of her. she looked up at us. "i knew you were comming," she said as she looked at us. "my poems told me." she gave me a peice of paper with a poem written upon it that told of every thing that had happened to Jake and i ever since we had gone through the door, right up to us standing infront of her.

She looked up at me, her brown eyes seamed to be clouded with foreboding. “Why does every one have to die?” she asked me, her small body trembling. “What lives must eventually die,” I replied. “Just look at us. We used to be alive, but we died in a car crash a few weeks ago. Our names are Jacky and Jake, and we are here to protect you, but you probably already know that.” She nodded slowly, her short black hair covering her eyes. “A poem, that I wrote yesterday, it said that….. It said,” she said through gasps and whimpers. “It said that my little brother was going to die. I have already lost my mother, I can’t loose him to.” I looked down at her“ Jake and I are here to protect you, but we can try to protect him too,” I told her. i felt sorry for her, for i knew how she felt. i had lost my mother when I was little, but I could still remember her sweat smile and the way she used to sing to me before I fell asleep at night. I sat upon the bed beside Sky, tears streamed down her face as she looked at me. she wrapped her arms around me and started crying on my shoulder. I gave her a hug to reassure her that everything was going to be okay, even though i was not a 100% sure it would be. Jake also sat upon the bed, but he was nowhere near either of us. he looked down at his folded hands, and i knew that he felt like an outsider because he had never had any one close to him die, he had never even been to a funeral. the room smelled of rosemary and the many old book that lined Sky's shelves. I looked around Sky's room, one of the walls was completely covered in poems, and I got up to look at them closer. many of the poems were about death, she even had a poem written about a plain crash. "my mom had died in that crash," she says as she stood up. I did not realize that that crash plain was the same that my mom was on. that was my first poem that came true, I wrote it about 4 weeks ago." "that was when I died, I was the prophetess before you," I told her. she looked up at me as i said this. I felt sorry for her, but I knew that my pity would make nothing feel better. when i had written the professes, I had not been able to see the ones who protected me, i did not even know that my poems were professes. hopefully, being able to see us will protect Sky, i always felt that the seeable, tangible things were always better than the things you could not tell for sure weather or not they were real. A crash could be heard in the other room, and Jake and I got up to investigate. Sky got up to off the bed, but I made a motion and told her to sit down and be quiet. Jake drew his sword, and we started making our way towards the kitchen. I looked at Jake, he nodded, and I knew it was time to come out from behind the wall. As we emerged from our hiding place, I saw a dark figure, clothed in black. Not everything was black though, for white wings peaked out from under the black robe, and blond hair was tucked back into place by a hand that was small and white, almost as white as the wings. “Elspeth, what are you doing here?” i demanded of the cloaked figure. “You do not deserve to be here!” she cried out. “I was working for years to be a guardian angel, but every time, Eternity tells me that my place is as a guide. I worked for more than 200 years as a guide, but in secret, i trained as a guardian. You do not deserve this job, I do. I do!” she made an ear-piercing scream and flung a dagger at me. I dogged it and jumped into the air, my wings keeping me suspended above her head. she looked at me, her eyes filled with rage, and i realized why she was not fighting me in the air. Her right wing had been torn badly, and I remembered something that we had learned in basic training, how to land. Elspeth had never been in training, therefor she was never taught how to land, as well as the fact that guides had no basic landing techniques. Why would they need them when they never left there eternal home any way? “You know Elspeth, it’s not my fault you did not get the job you wanted. I cannot help that I was assigned to be here. Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, you are good at your job, and that is why Eternity will not let you be a guardian?” i asked her as i hovered in mid air, far out of reach of her reaching hands, curled in anger. Blue eyes stared at me, anger churning in their depths. All of a sudden, her blue eyes turned black with hate, but maybe it was not just the hate. Her wings and hair also turned black, and she once again let out a scream, but this time, it made my skin craw. Her scream sounded like that of a wolf mixed with that of a baby, and it’s melancholy sound ripped through the house, and I prayed that Sky had not heard it. She opened her mouth again, but instead of sound coming out, black smoke oozed out of her mouth, turning her once white teeth yellow, then black. She looked at me, not talking, and I was not quite sure that she was capable of speech any more. She seamed distant and all most animal like. her teeth were as black as soot as she smiled at me with sharp pointed fangs. she looked from me to Jake, and i pretty much knew what she was thinking. there was only two people in the whole world i knew i had to protect, and she was about to attack the one i had known since i was a kid. she launched herself at Jake, and i let out a scream of rage and knocked her to the ground. she looked at me and gnarled her teeth. a strange smell arose from, a smell between the smell of a rotting tomato and a bad egg. her soul was rotting right under her nose. soon she would have no soul at all, and become a demon. most likely, she already was. she tried to claw me out of the air, and she looked more like an animal than anything else. "sky! close your door and lock it, whatever you do, do not come out!" i screamed down the hallway, praying that Sky heard me and did as i told her. Elspeth took a dagger out of her pocket, and ran towards Jake at full speed. Jake may be strong, but there is no way he could dodge someone that was running at him at the speed of light. i ran in front of him and i felt the sharp blade go through my rib cage. i knew that it would pose no harm to me, for you can't kill someone who is already dead. even though i would not be harmed and i would heal quickly, it still hurt more than all the cuts and broken legs i had ever gotten, combined. i punched Elspeth so hard in the face, i knocked her off her feat. she deserved that, and so much more, including a major attitude adjustment, and a tooth whitening. she stood up almost as fast as i had knocked her down, and instead of running at us again, she ran right past us and down the hall, in the opposite direction than Sky's room. "sky, she's coming for you! do not open that door!" i yelled as i chased after Elspeth. Jake was running as fast as he could to keep up with us, and even so, Elspeth and i still out run him. Jake was all bulk, but i was a runner, you have to be when you have to get somewhere fast when there is not enough room to fly. "Jacky, Jake, help!" came a scream from Sky's room. "something is cutting me, but i cannot see it!" i ran faster, and as i ran i took a small dagger out of my pocket and through it at Elspeth's head. the dagger went right through her, and i knew that Jake and i had been fooled. the Elspeth i had been chasing around the house had been decoy, and Sky was getting hurt because of our stupid mistake. i did not know how Elspeth had pulled that off, but no matter how she did it, Sky was still without our protection as we pondered the possibilities. we turned around, took flight, and flew as fast as we could for sky's room. if sky could not see Elspeth, that meant that she was no longer an angel, but a demon. when we reached Sky's room, i kicked the door open. Sky stood petrified in the middle of the room, Elspeth dancing around her, claws outstretched. Jake and i could see her, but i knew that Sky could not. i looked on he be, and i saw papers scattered every where. Sky had been writing before Elspeth had so rudely interrupted her. Elspeth was so concerned with her work, that she did not even know that Jake and i were there. i grabbed her by the neck, and held her off the ground. "Jake, your sword. finish her now, i cannot hold her forever!" i shouted at Jake as Elspeth struggled against my grip. both of my hands were around her neck now, and she was using all her strength to change that. her claws dug into my hand, and silver blood was flowing out of my open cuts as they healed, and then were cut open again. i looked at Sky. she was terrified at the sight of me, fighting against some unseen power, bleeding blood that was not the usual red. Jake took his sword and drove it into Elspeth's gut, and she disappeared into a cloud of smoke. "is it gone?" Sky asked, and i knew that she, too, had seen the smoke. "yes," i replied. "but only for now. she has probably gone down to hell. you cannot kill a demon, you can only get rid of it for a short period of time." Jake and i landed next to Sky, and as usual, brown eyes connected with green. we cherished the moment of silence, until Sky broke it. "do you think this is over?" she asked us. "no," i told her as i leaned down to look her in the eye. "it has only just begun."