It was a miracle that she was still alive, and that was exactly what the doctor told her the next day. There were multiple things that could have killed her; one of them was by simply moving her head the wrong way. The doctor was actually surprised that her neck was not broken by the impact after seeing all the different shades of color her bruises were. "You must have an angel watching over you," he said with a smile. Katie would have to stay in the hospital for the rest of the day as a precaution to her health, were as another person in her same condition would have to stay a few more days. She agreed to these terms, and the doctor left the room. There were a few words exchanged between the doctor and someone outside, and then slowly the door swung open.
In came the person who saved her life, and the one that she had envisioned as an angel when she was sure she was going to die. The wings, the great sense of moral and duty to save another's life without true consent; they were both qualities of a creature from heaven. The girl smiled softly, however, the smile quickly left when she stood beside the bed and took a look at the cast around Katie's wrist. "I'm sorry. I tried to prevent this from happening," she stated, which gave Katie the assumption that this girl knew what had happened was going to happen before the fact. Katie raised an eyebrow in confusion, before shaking her head slowly and carefully. "You saved my life. A broken wrist is like a paper cut compared to that," she joked, trying to get the stranger to smile again. Laughing and smiling was one of Katie's best cures to a tragedy, always being able to crack a joke to lighten a mood in a sorrowful scene.
The shorter girl smiled again, nodding slightly at the attempt to brighten the atmosphere. She stared at Katie, straight into her eyes, holding Katie's gaze longer than anyone had ever before. "What's your name?" Katie asked, finally able to turn her gaze away. She was unsure of how this girl could flatly stare at someone like that for so long and not be uncomfortable herself. "Kim," the girl spoke, eyes softening at the idea that she made Katie uneasy. Katie smiled, expecting to hear that the girl's name was Angel. The idea did not leave her head, that the shorter girl in a sweater was truly an angel from heaven. This idea would have been absurd to her a week ago, the trivial theories of the afterlife and heaven existing being something that she was not exactly a believer in.
"Kim, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." Katie uttered, about to hold out her broken wrist for a handshake until she realized that the hand was going to be useless for the next few weeks. She held out her left hand and waited for the girl to shake it. Instead of taking her hand in return, Kim simply stared at the gesture. Katie wondered if she was not okay with contact; however, that would make no sense after what happened at the bookstore. "Don't leave me hanging," Katie voiced, a small chuckle passing her lips. Kim was hesitant, but she lifted her hand and placed it beside Katie's, not grasping the hand. She looked as if she was questioning each movement she made and that worried Katie a little bit. Katie grasped Kim's hand, shaking it gently, and then releasing it. "My name's Katie," she said, adjusting her torso in the hospital pillows.
"I know," Kim confessed. Katie's brain did not click until a few seconds after she spoke. 'She knew?' Katie could not recall ever meeting the girl before, and so she had to go back into the archives of her mind in search of an event that would match the girl's face. Maybe they went to school together, but nothing in her memory could recall ever even seeing the girl. Katie let out a nervous laugh and squinted an eye at Kim before licking her lips. "Uh, what?"
Kim nodded, completely serious about what she just said. As Katie thought about it more, she could recall Kim using her name back at the bookstore, and she never actually said it to anyone for Kim to know that. Kim then caught Katie's attention by speaking, "I'm an angel of the Lord. We have to know these kinds of things." She sounded almost proud about it. Katie furrowed her eyebrows at her in utter confusion, shaking her head slowly. She might have contemplated the thought of it being true before, but to actually hear it being confirmed just sounded insane.
"Are you joking?" Katie asked. She was almost ready to believe that Kim was just mocking her. Kim shook her head. There was dead silence in the room for a long moment; all the while, Katie held her breath, because everything felt like it was suffocating her. The whole situation was probably a dream, or maybe she was in a coma. The injured kept telling herself that, in hopes that the more she thought it the more it was true. "You aren't sleeping, so why would you be dreaming?" Kim questioned. Katie snapped her head to look over at Kim, completely shocked. Nothing had been said out loud; the girl was reading her mind now. "That's another thing we can do," Kim pointed out. Katie shook her head, "Stop."
Kim frowned, pulling up a chair next to Katie's bed and sitting with the most perfect posture Katie had ever seen. "I'm sorry if all of this is confusing. I should explain," Kim suggested. Katie held up her hand, telling Kim to be silent for a second while she tried to piece everything together. Kim held her tongue, and Katie kept her head bowed while she remembered the image of Kim she had seen when she was saved from the bookshelf. It was a hallucination, Katie knew that. The wings were too faint to actually be there. Then, there was the possibility that Kim could know her name, because she was a stalker; however, there was something that kept Katie from truly believing that. Katie knew a good heart when she saw one, and Kim was probably the kindest she had ever seen.
The brunette grew up being very open minded to the unusual, so she decided to give Kim the benefit of the doubt, lifting up her head to look at her and taking a deep breath. "Alright, go ahead." Kim put on a cheeky smile as if she had been waiting all day to tell this story. Katie paid attention as attentively as possible, making sure to keep every detail in the back of her head.
"I'm an angel of the Lord," she repeated herself from earlier, "and I have been sent down to prove myself to the Archangels. If I am able to protect a human, then I will be forgiven for what I have done in the past. When I saw the demon walking into the bookshop, I followed after him to try and figure out what he was planning. I saw that he had planted a book in the shelves, and I was going to get it, but then you took it before I could get to it. Then, I bumped into you in hope that you would drop it. You picked up the book before I could, so I left. I kept an eye on the book, and when I saw the man being possessed, I tried to stop him before he could hurt you but you decided to put yourself that much closer to harm's way in order to save someone you didn't even know. I am amazed by that, by the way. I thought after you would see what was going to happen to the man, you would have just run away, but you did not. You're very brave, Katie."
She stopped talking, indicating that her story was over. It was a short description of a big story that Katie was not ready to hear yet, but she did still have questions. She took a deep breath while organizing her thoughts. Kim awaited the questions, eagerly ready to answer. "So, to put it simply, that thing was a monster that hides under kid's beds at night?" Katie asked. Kim paused, trying to think of how to answer that question. "Well, kind of. Technically he does not hide underneath children's beds, but there are demons that do that." She took the question very literally, and Katie shook her head in disbelief.
"And you know my name because?" In the entire story, it did not really explain how Kim knew her personally. Kim's eyes lit up, "Oh, because I learned it after bumping into you." She spoke in a voice that made it seem that it was an obvious answer, when in reality, it was not. Katie shook her head, rubbing her temple with her middle finger and letting out an exhausted sigh. "So why are you still here? If you saved me, a human, and that's the whole reason you're here, then shouldn't you be back in heaven or something?" Katie asked, and this question caught Kim off guard. Kim had not really thought about that in all of the mess that happened recently.
She bowed her head, a small frown appearing on her face. "I'm—not sure." The sound of Kim's voice growing upset made Katie feel guilty, so she tried to think of something that would not upset her further. The only way she knew how to do that was to change the topic. "Are you the only angel on earth?" She asked. Kim looked up at Katie and shook her head, seemingly forgetting all about the Archangels. "There are others, although, I do not know where all of them are. There is one who I admire very much, and he's in this town," she explained. Katie released a sigh of relief to know that Kim was no longer thinking about what she had asked earlier.
Kim stared at Katie again, waiting for her to say something more. Katie looked up to see the eyes of a lost angel staring right into her, although this time, she was not uncomfortable, she did not even try to look away. Katie nodded at Kim, saying a simple phrase that caused the biggest smile to form on Kim's face. "I believe you."
It was a wonder how something as modest as saying that she believed the angel would cause such a strong happiness, but the thought did not dwell in Katie's mind. "So why are you still here? With me, I mean. I would imagine that you would go find that angel guy that's around here," Katie asked. Kim smiled, placing her hands in her lap. "I just wanted to help you make sense of everything that happened," She spoke. Katie laughed; feeling like none of this was making any sense at all, although, she decided to accept it as the truth.
"So, does that mean you'll be leaving then?" Katie asked. Kim nodded, seemingly not affected by the thought in a positive or negative way. Katie felt a bit sad to know that the angel would be leaving her; be that as it may, she tried not to show it or think about it. The attempts were futile because Kim could see right through her.
"Is it sorrowful to see me leave?" She asked, tilting her head to the side in curiosity. Katie paused, shrugging her shoulders as if to brush off the comment with a reclusive response. "Well you did save my butt back there, and you have been very helpful in keeping my head about all of this." Kim was confused by these comments, believing that she had saved all of Katie other than just her behind. Katie dismissed the confused expression, leaning her head back and about to say something else. However there was a knocking on the door and a nurse walked in to bring her food. Kim stood up, nodding to Katie as a goodbye while Katie waved at her with her casted hand. Katie took that as a sign that what she was going to say was never meant to be said, and so she shoved the thought away.
The both of them believed it was the end of whatever brief friendship they had going, therefore the thoughts of the other passed like any other thing on a normal day. Kim returned to the male angel she had mentioned in the hospital room who was accompanying two brothers. She would continue to assist the three on their adventures to rid the world of the evils that lie in shadows. Katie had stayed in the hospital until she was released around nine at night.
Katie's stomach growled, so instead of heading straight home like she should have, she decided she would stop at one of the diner's on the way home to grab something to eat. It took her longer than normal since she was not accustomed to using only one hand, especially her less dominant one. When she finished, the sun had completely set, and she walked as quickly as possible to return home. After the incident, her entire outlook on the rest of the world was forever tainted. To know that there were things creeping in the dark. It did not matter if they were watching her or something else, the fact still bothered her. She was on edge the entire walk home.
As she approached her street, her house being the only one down a dirt path that comes off of the main road, while the rest of the houses stayed connected to the street. She moved her fingers from the hand that was in the cast to try and wake them up, because the tingling feeling was beginning to bother her. Just as she looked down at her cast to try and pinch her fingers, she heard someone behind her.
No one ever went down the dirt path except her which made her all the more nervous in her situation. Taking a deep breath, she turned around and saw nothing following her. She believed it was her paranoia, and so she just let out a relieved sigh and began to walk again. Just as she took a step forward, someone grabbed her from behind, covering her mouth and constricting her body. She heard someone hushing her, and then, she slowly fell to sleep without the use of any chemical or pressure point. As the hand was removed from her mouth, she was able to get one word out. A name, a plea, something she was not even sure would work, but it was worth a shot in her desperate time: "Kim."