It was a late September night when a young college student's life turned upside down. An assignment in his astrology class had left him up on top of his apartment building. Two high powered telescopes and some other data recording equipment lay spaced around the small expanse of rooftop. The cool air brushed against Ashton's face. Ashton was the name of the young man. His mother had been obsessed with the name ever since she had seen it in one of her favorite books. The book was one about angels and demons and demon hunters. It also went into detail about other mysterious creatures that are supposedly nonexistent. Anyway she had named him Ashton for that reason and was seemingly oblivious to what her child would become in the years that followed his birth. The reason Ashton was up on the roof was for college credits and because of a request by his astrology teacher. The man had told him that if he participated in the assignment he could get extra credits that would help him on his way to becoming a real astrologist. Astrology interested Ashton for who knows what reason. He liked to believe that there were places beyond the sky and that stars and the constellations they made up showed a gateway or map to get to the unknown worlds he dreamed of discovering. That night there was supposed to be a spectacular meteor shower. Supposedly no one except his teacher knew about it and the documentation of the event needed to be taken care of by someone. That someone was apparently him, much to his dismay. There was a large lecture in his mathematics and engineering class that would take place a day from now. He sighed and glanced again through the lens of his telescope. Nothing. Absolutely no falling stars or special events were happening at the moment. Ashton was becoming frustrated with the reliability of his teacher's knowledge. He knew the man was smart and world renowned for his work in the field. He had made great strides in the world of stargazing and celestial bodies. After a while, he accidentally drifted off to sleep while looking through the telescope. When he woke he guessed it was close to three in the morning. He had been awakened by a loud thunderous boom. Almost instantly as he opened his eyes a bright white, gold light began to illuminate the ground and everything on it. He squeezed them shut and fell backward. After managing the courage to open his eyes he saw that the thing looked like a large yellow blue meteorite falling in close proximity to his college. Ashton judged the distance as only being about half a mile away. "That's odd..."He muttered to himself brushing away hair from his face and pulling down his sleeves which had begun to ride up on his arms. Immediately after the glowing shape exited the sky and ducked into the tree line, he began to pack up his things. He ran downstairs to his apartment and chucked the stuff into his living room. Ashton slammed the door and sprinted out of his apartment building. Ashton had to travel through the forest to get to the growing cloud of smoke and burnt leaves. The smell of all the burning debris drifted into his nose before he even saw the shape underneath the growing cloud of smoke making it easier to find the thing in the pitch black dark of nighttime. Ashton only had a few seconds to skid to a halt. He almost fell into something large and deep. He staggered back as he saw the edge of a crater about eight or nine feet wide and maybe three feet deep. At first Ashton shrugged it off expecting it to only be a rock. He would tell his teacher and they would come investigate in the morning. As soon as he turned back around to make sure that there was something in the hole, his eyes went wide at what he saw inside of the smoldering pit of earth. Two giant pairs of white wings were spread out along the ground. Their edges flopped a bit outside of the sides of the crater. They were dark with what looked like a combination of blood, earth, and charred feathers. One was bent at an odd angle and twitched slightly in the light wind. Upon further inspection Ashton saw in the middle was a girl who could have been a model was in the middle of the wings. She was beautiful, he thought, even with cuts, scratches, and bruises covering her body. She had a slight burn on her upper arm as well. Looking even more carefully as he inched closer, he noticed that the girl was bleeding badly as well. He became startled and cowered back as she pushed herself up for a moment and then let her head fell back into the dirt. After a few seconds of thinking, he quickly slid down into the crater and placed his arms under her. Ashton lifted her up and was surprised at how light she was. He didn't want her wings to drag against the ground but couldn't help it because of their size. Her blood stained the front of his shirt from the various cuts and scrapes from her fall. Ashton noticed it would be morning soon and began to make his way back to the apartment he was renting out on the campus of his college. In fear that someone should ask what he was doing with a winged girl in the middle of the night, he decided that she would be a model he had made to be realistic to test the probability of the use of wings on humans for flight. With a foot, he kicked open the door and laid her down on a couch. The apartment was pretty clean and neat. Ashton liked to know where things were. It had a small kitchen and a dining table in the corner. A small hallway led down to the right into his room and the bathroom. With a hurried gait, Ashton ran off to go find his first aid stuff. Ashton pulled out a medical supplies kit from under his bed and came back. She was still knocked out and he decided it would be best if he tried to clean her up then. He began to clean out a deep gash and spread ointment on her burn and then he put bandages on the rest of the injuries. They already looked like they were healing up and the blood clotting. The strange girl opened her eyes for a few seconds and then closed them shut. Ashton had tensed up at this action. "Was she awake the whole time?" He found himself muttering. Within a few minutes he was dozing off. He figured he was extremely tired and headed for his room. He peeled off his dirty clothes, showered, and changed before going to sleep. The thought of the girl still burned in the back of his mind but overwhelmed with exhaustion Ashton practically flung himself down and fell into slumber immediately.
