Dark Wings

• Brooke Stevens, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

She was sitting there admiring the weeping willow that leant strangely to one side, thinking of what it meant to be an angel. Ever since she was admitted to the council of Fae her life has been very far from normal.
She watched as the dark shadows under the tree sat watching her. The council was always watching. She hated being an angel as she was expected to kill other Fae who weren’t ready to leave their human lives and join the council. She had to get away from it, in any way she could. The council would follow her because she was the strongest they had. She had a plan to go somewhere where they would never think to look because it caused too much heartbreak for her. Her old home. It was a three hour drive from where she sat, but half an hour to fly. She made her choice and leapt into the air before the shadows could catch her. It was still exhilarating soaring through the air going higher than the clouds. She reached her house before sundown and walked inside. The house was deserted and all her belongings were covered in a thick layer of dust. She didn’t have much time before the shadows came to get her. She ran straight to the bathroom to look for her sleeping pills. Before she became an angel she could never sleep, so she got sleeping pills. It turned out that it was just her angel instinct to go out into the night where she wouldn’t be seen by mortals, to let the wings unfold that had been bundled up in her shoulder blades for seventeen years. She found the old bottle of sleeping pills and gulped them all down. Now in less than ten minutes she’d be dead. She could feel herself slowly falling asleep. She lay down on the couch. Less than one minute to go until her death. Then suddenly they walked in, The Shadows. The closest one leant towards her so that their noses were almost touching. His breath smelt faintly like mildew. She wanted to cringe and shrink away but she was too weak. The sleeping pills that would bring her death were finally working. She would be free from this horrible and cruel world. She closed her eyes waiting for her peace to arrive. She could feel it creeping up on her. Her whole body relaxed.
The last thing she would ever hear in this world were these two words, “Why Ember?” And then her peace finally came.