Alice

I only had a chance to scream for a few seconds before Shun's hand covered my mouth. I was still yelling into it, trying to tell him to let me go. My demands were only muted. What was he going to do with me? Kill me? Torment me? It was hot around those black wings, and I was beginning to sweat. I was flailing my hands and kicking my feet, but it wasn't accomplishing anything. Next thing I knew, he had taken me down to the floor and pulled me under the bed. His body was pressed up against mine and his hand was still over my mouth as we laid under the bed.

I felt tears rolling down my cheeks and I tried to scream again. His grip tightened on me and he whisper harshly into my ear, "Be quiet!" I got the idea to bite his hand, and I was just about to when I heard the sound of large wings cutting through the wind. I froze when I saw a set of feet land on the floor in my room. I also saw the end tips of black wings. Another one. The larger shards of glass broke under his feet as he walked over them. I felt my body shaking with fear from both of these creatures; the one behind me that was keeping me quiet, and the one who was walking in the room.

I put two and two together and figured that the one in the room was after Shun. I heard his give an agitated sigh, and he padded off towards the window. The sound of his wings diminished in the distance. He was gone now. I hadn't even realized that Shun had let go of my mouth and had gotten out from under the bed. I scrambled to get out myself, and when I stood up he was on the other side of the bed. He narrowed his eyes at me and said sternly, "Next time I say be quiet, I mean it."

My hands and legs felt like jelly to my body. I had so much adrenaline going through my body at the moment that I thought I'd explode. Both of us turned to the door to hear the sounds of running footsteps. It was Dan and the others coming to see what was going on. Shun looked back at me and said, "Don't say a word and go along with me. Got it?"

Too afraid to say no, I agreed to go along with his plan. Dan was the first in the room, and he burst through the door to make his entrance. He flicked the light on when he cleared the door, and my eyes shut as they tried to adjust. Dan froze when he saw my tear stained face and Shun's shirtless body. It must have been a very compromising picture to the brunette. Dan spoke with a little embarrassment in his voice, "Oh. Um. I'm sorry if we interrupted anything. We just, uh, heard Alice. We'll go now."

Shun stopped them from leaving, and it was then that I noticed they weren't gawking at the golden eyes or black wings. Don't they see them! They're right there plain as day! Shun spoke to his friend coolly, "Trust me Dan, it's not what you're thinking. I heard Alice scream myself and made it in here first. Apparently something burst through the window, maybe a bird, and shattered it. That had scared her and that's why she screamed."

They all turned to me to verify his statement. I remembered that Shun told me not to speak, so I nodded my head slowly. Dan scratched his head and said, "Well, if everything's ok I guess I'll head on back to bed." The others followed after him, and I ran up to the door and slammed it shut. My back was pressed against it, and my arms stretched out over it like I was blocking him from getting out. Like me standing there would do anything. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Ok, what the hell are you and why can't they see you're wings and eyes?" I was shocked by how steady my voice sounded. The black feathers shone in the light given off by the ceiling fan. He laughed. "You could at least thank me for saving your life before you bombard me with questions." When he saw I wasn't impressed with his sarcasm, he sighed and I could tell he was getting serious. "Ok. It's probably easy to see I'm not a human, right? But what does that make me you ask? Well, I'm an angel. No, not like the kind that live in clouds and play harps."

I was shifting from foot to foot as I tried to stay off my hurt ankle. I said to him, "Ok, I get the concept that you're an angel. But I thought angels had white wings. Not black." He rolled his eyes and told me, "I was getting to that. You see, I'm a Fallen angel. As in a disgrace to the higher powers and all that stuff." I slowly made my way over to a dresser and propped myself on it. "What did you do to become a fallen angel?" Most people would have been flipping out, but I think I had gotten most if that out of my system when he crashed through my window. "That's kind of treading on personal territory."

He had to be kidding me. Personal territory? I could of laughed at all of this, if it wasn't standing right in front of me. He raised an eyebrow up at me and asked, "Are the wings really freaking you out that much?" I nodded my head. They really were. To see a human body have wings just wasn't something I was used to on a daily basis. The wings folded away, and he did a 360 turn to show me they were gone. Yes, they were gone. Not even marks on his back where they were. "Better now?" It was better, minus the eyes. If he had the ability to hide his wings, then he might have been able to do the same thing with those eyes. But I didn't want to press my luck.

He sat down on my bed and was saying under his breath, "I can't believe I had to hide my wings from a Bondage." Bondage? If me asking for his wings to go away was an issue, then I really wasn't about to ask him to do something about his eyes. I started approaching him cautiously and asked, "Why am I the only one who can see your wings and eyes? Are you hiding them from the others?"

He kicked his feet and rolled his eyes again. "God you ask a lot of questions. No, I'm not doing some magic trick so that the others can't see my wings. They can't see them or my eyes cause their mortal." I bent over and began to carefully move the shattered glass into one pile so it could be swept up. I asked him, "Then why can I see them? I'm a mortal too." I felt weird using all of these uncommon terms. He was picking at a string from my blanket and tore it off. "Yes, you're a mortal. But you're also a Bondage. My Bondage at that."

His? Did he think he owned me or something? I wasn't paying attention to what my hands were doing, and a shard of glass stuck into my hand. I yanked it back and started digging the glass out. "Bondage? What the hell is that?" I reached over to my nightstand and grabbed a tissue from the box and placed it on the small hole made by the glass. He stood up and started to act all professor like.

"A Bondage is a mortal who owes a life debt to an angel. You, are the mortal. And I, even though I'm a Fallen, am still an angel." This wasn't making much sense to me. I stood up and looked and him, and said, "Life debt? You mean from the car incident? All you did was call 911. That's hardly a life debt since the hospital saved me." He threw his head back and laughed. When he stopped, his hair fell over his golden eyes. "That's where you're wrong. I did a lot more than call for help. You see, we have what's called a Book of Fate. It's nothing more than a list of every living persons' name on Earth. It also gives the time, place, and date that they die. I had 'borrowed' it and flipped through the pages and saw you're name. But somebody doesn't listen to instructions that could save her life, and went ahead across the street. And you see, since you didn't listen the only way I could of saved you was to make a bond with you. And that bond is the reason you can see my wings and eyes, and the wings and eyes of other angels. Fallen and Holy."

I didn't have anything else to say, so he continued. "There are two worlds the coexist here on Earth. Well, three if you look at it from another perspective. You have the Holy Lands that are above us where the Holy angels reside. And you have us Fallens on Earth and underground. We walk past you humans everyday, but none of you know it. You could of talked to us and never of known. But since you have a bond with an angel, you've been given the ability to see this secret world that's hidden to everyone else."

I didn't know what I should of thought about this. Should I of felt special that I had been given this gift? Or cursed to be exposed to an underground world of angels and demons and things like that? "I have one more question. Who was that other angel that flew in here after you did?" His face turned cold and serious. Had I hit a soft topic? "Listen, it's been a long night for both of us. I'll answer more questions tomorrow."

I didn't have time to stop him before he walked out of the room and shut the door as he left. I turned and saw my shattered window that was letting in cold breezes. "What am I supposed to do about this?"

Alice

I moved to a different room that night, and made sure I locked the window. Which probably wouldn't do much, but it made me feel safer. I had obtained so much knowledge last night, that I was sure that it had to stay just between me and Shun. There was no way I could tell the others what I had seen and heard. And even if I did, they'd probably think I had lost my mind or had a dream. Maybe it was a dream. I walked out of my new room and towards the dining hall where the others would be.

My ankle was no longer bothering me, and I had actually taken the bandages off something last night before falling asleep. Even my arm and chest were feeling fine. Everyone was already sitting down and eating. I saw my plate was sat next to Shun. Before last night I would have been thrilled. Now I wasn't so sure. I took my seat anyway. Everyone looked tired from last night. I felt bad for waking them up, and worse for them thinking that I screamed caused a bird hit the window. When actually a bird-like creature did the damage.

I had just finished my last bite of eggs when Shun scooped me up by my uninjured arm and said, "I think me and Alice are going to go for a little walk around the park. What do you say, Alice?" Runo was glaring at Shun and said coldly, "Do you really think she should be out walking on that ankle?"

He looked down at it and shrugged. "Looks fine to me. Let's go, Alice." He didn't give me a chance to protest before he was dragging me out of the room. We were now walking down the sidewalks. I had a light jacket on, while Shun had on nothing more than a light green shirt and his black pants. "Ok, so why did you drag me out here?" He looked at me and said, "I'm going to finish explaining everything cause I'm sure you have more questions." I did. I stared up at the cloudy sky.

"This isn't a relative question to all the angel stuff, but why has it been so cloudy recently?" I wanted to know what was up with all the weather reports saying it's been sunny all week, when the sky had been gray and cloudy. He grimaced and said, "Actually, that is something related to the angel stuff. Those aren't clouds. That's the barrier between Earth and the Realm of the Angels. Also referred to the Holy Land by us Fallens because we can't return back there unless we're forgiven. We don't really see any point in calling it what it is cause there's only one kind of angel up there. But just like the wings and eyes, you can see it cause of the bond. The reason it's all clouded, is because it's meant as a punishment for those who had fallen. So that way we aren't able to see the sun, moon, stars, or sky. It really sucks."

What is so bad that any of them could of done that they wouldn't ever be able to see any of the objects in the sky? "Does that mean I won't ever be able to see the sky again either?" People weren't paying any mind to us as we walked down the streets. And to them, Shun's eyes looked normal. "Well, yeah. As long as there's a bond between you and me you're able to see everything that we can." All cause of this bond now, I might not ever see the stars that I once so loved to look at.

"So, the sky's going to be gray from now on?" He yawned and told me, "Well, yeah. Until the bond is broken." He had my attention now. We turned a street corner and almost ran into another person. We both apologized to him and kept on walking. "How do you break a bond?" An arrogant smile ran across his face. "A bond can be broken either by repaying the life debt. Or until one of us dies."

I stopped walking. He couldn't be serious. I had to either save his life or hope he dies for this body to break? I was getting more and more tired of all the rules and stipulations that had to be followed. Shun had stopped walking himself, and was looking back at me. I asked him, "Out of everyone in that book, why did you pick me to go through all of this?" He walked up to me and took my chin in his hand. Shun brought my gaze into his, and told me, "Cause there's something special about you. I just don't know what."

oh. my. gosh. im so tired. yall are lucky i like writting. XP -passes out- read, review, and other things. ~Copperpelt~