Chapter #1: A Very Bad Idea and Freaky Consequences.
Co-written by OGreatRandom and Enigmagirl2727
I'll just clear up one little matter. On a normal day I would never try to commit suicide. Never, it's scary. Death I mean, at least I think it's scary normally. That day was just really bad. One of those times when everything's caving in on you and you just want to… die. I won't bore you with the details. It's not fair for me to drag your mood down by telling you about the day from hell I was having. Everything that could have happened to me did, I'm not exaggerating, and it was bad.
So on that day from hell I found myself standing at the edge of a cliff, staring down. Not metaphorically or anything, I was actually on a cliff. I don't really remember deciding to jump. To tell the truth I will always blame the wind. It blew me right off despite what about ten eyewitnesses may say about me leaping off on my own free will. So we can agree that depression aside, I didn't actually jump per se.
But even if it was true everyone has bad days, right? All right maybe most people would talk to someone like a friend but in my case… No I said I wouldn't burden you with the details of my day from hell.
As it turns out I didn't succeed in committing suicide. On the way down I hit a few trees that slowed my fall enough so that I survived.
So I've set up what was going on for you. I, obviously, needed to pay for a lot of expensive hospital bills but I couldn't. I had no money. Worse, I was in debt even before I jumped. One of the contributing factors to my ill-advised leap.
The day after I was released from the hospital I stole my neighbor's newspaper and began reading the part that advertises job openings. Of course I really wasn't qualified for any of them.
And then I saw it! The ad described the perfect job for someone who needed money fast. The person was looking for someone to escort ten people from out of town around the city for a week. During the week they would stay with the ten visitors in a mansion where they would have a three room suite. The pay was five thousand dollars a day with free room and board.
You know the expression, if it sounds to good to be true then it probably is? Well I knew it but after reading that I wasn't thinking about some old saying. You can probably see why. I copied down the address and ran there, it was only a block from my house.
Coincidence, I think not.
…it was almost like someone planned it. But why would that happen?
It did occur to me that in all the years I had lived in this area I had never noticed the huge mansion that I was now standing in front of. But in my slightly insane mode this fact didn't stop me from pushing the red button on the front gate.
After criticizing the people who press the giant red button for years it was surprising how brilliant the idea seemed. There was a certain satisfaction that I felt from pressing the giant red button.
Until the trap door opened up under me. I fell onto a slide that took me down almost vertically before evening out and depositing me onto the floor of a grand room. There was artwork everywhere. Paintings, sculptures, and other art like things.
"Oh crap am I dead?"
"Of course not," the man answered, "what would make you think that?"
"You look like an angel."
"There's a good reason for that. I am an angel."
"So why are you here talking to me? Why aren't you up there," I pointed up at the ceiling, "partying in heaven or whatever you do normally?"
"I'm being punished," he said with a sigh, "but it's not all that bad."
"Why not?"
"Because my punishment is to punish you. I think that punishing people is kind of fun."
"You don't make a very good angel."
"I know," he answered with a sigh, "that's why I'm here talking with you instead of up there."
"So now that I know why you're here can you fill me in on why I'm here? Why do you have to punish me?"
"You tried to commit suicide. That's a no-no. The big guy frowns on suicide. And my job is to punish you for trying. I mean give you a way to redeem yourself."
"How?"
"By giving you that job you came here to get. You have to watch ten people for a week. You get paid and everything. If you can multiply five thousand by the number of days in a week then that's how much you'll get. The only complication is that these ten people may possibly try to commit suicide every other second. If any of them die then you don't get your money."
"That sounds hard."
"Let me tell you," he said shaking his head, "it will be. I don't envy you." He looked at his watch and sighed. "Well I got to go. Your visitors will arrive in an hour. So you can get ready."
"Wait-"
But it was too late. In a flash of white light, the angel was gone.
Ah, the beginnings of sagas. This was originally OGreatRandom's idea; almost the entirety chapter is hers. However, when she hit writer's block she handed the project over to me, Enigmagirl2727. The rest of the chapters are mainly rough drafts of hers that I attacked. Hope you enjoy it.
