Serafine
Part One

The dictionary has 5 definitions of love.

A strong positive emotion of regard and affection.

Any object of warm affection or devotion.

A deep feeling of desire and attraction.

A score of zero in tennis or squash.

And sexual activities.

Sera sat at the desk in her room, staring at herself in the mirror as she put makeup on. She wondered if it wasn’t completely pointless putting makeup on. After all, there was no use trying to hide the little imperfections on her face, like her freckles, to a boy who had known her since she was a child.

What was the point of trying to put her hair up when he had seen it caked in mud on more than one occasion?

Why would he care if she put in contacts instead of wearing her glasses?

She sighed, staring at her plain face in the mirror. Brown eyes, brown hair, freckles, glasses. How could one girl be so unlucky?

“So you and Eddy are going on a date?” Sera’s younger sister sat on Sera’s bed, staring at the picture of her and Eddy she usually kept on her desk. Her sister had swiped it when Sera had told her she was going on a date with him.

In the picture her and Eddy stood there smiling, his arm was around her shoulder. It had been taken nearly a year ago. It was the only picture of both of them that she liked. He was taller than her, with unruly black hair and beautiful green eyes that were hidden beneath glasses; but she had always noticed them.

“But you’ve always been friends. I don’t understand…” Her sister complained. She was nine; Sera didn’t expect her to understand anything.

“Sometimes you can know someone for your entire life and then one day realize that you-”

“Want ‘sexual activities’ with them?”

“What?” Sera turned around to see that her sister had put the picture down and was now reading her journal, which she had stupidly left out.

Sera jumped towards her sister as fast as she could.

“STOP READING MY DIARY!!!”

Sera tackled her sister, grabbing for her diary with one hand and tickling her sister with the other.

“Hasn’t mom taught you anything about privacy?!?”

“Privacy?” Her sister giggled. “What’s that?”

Sera managed to knock the diary away, but continued to tickle her little sister, who rolled around on Sera’s bed, begging for mercy. Sera finally stopped, collapsing on her sister, half-holding her in a hug.

“You’re such a little brat,” Sera muttered under her breath.

“You’re such a weirdo,” her sister laughed.

Sera’s eyes wandered over to the clock on her bedside table.

“Ah! Look at the time!”

She quickly jumped up, grabbing her purse and jacket off of her chair as she ran out of the door.

“DON’T READ MY DIARY!!!”

With a slam of the door her little sister was left alone. She waited a few minutes, staring at the diary on the floor, then with a grin on her face reached for it.

ooo

Sera waited outside the theatre, the autumn’s cold cutting through her. She couldn’t stand waiting like this.

Maybe he’s not coming, she thought. Maybe he’s a little too weirded out about yesterday…

It’s not an easy thing to realize one day that the boy you’ve been best friends with as long as you could remember had somehow grown into the man she had fallen in love with, but one day Sera did realize it, and one day she realized she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“I love you!” The words had just blurted themselves out and she could barely believe she had said them.

Eddy had just stood there, staring on in disbelief. Too many agonizing moments dragged on before he finally spoke.

“Sera…” He began, but her embarrassment had caught up to her and she cut him off.

“If you don’t want to be my friend anymore, fine, but I had to say it,” she stumbled over her own words. “It was killing me not to say it.”

“We should go…” He looked down at her with kindness in his green eyes.

She felt her heart sink. She didn’t think she’d be able to hear his next words.

“On a date,” he smiled nervously. “We should go on a date.”

Her heart had soared, and that was the last time they had spoken. What if he had changed his mind? What if he had only been humouring her?

They’d known each other their entire lives, 17 years. She loved him. She knew she love him so much. What would she do if she lost him?

A rose suddenly appeared in front of her face. She looked up in shock, and there stood Eddy. He was nervous, barely able to look her in the eye.

“You look really pretty.”

“Thank you,” she took the rose, unable to keep from blushing.

He had shown up, and at that moment it was the only thing that mattered.

ooo

They walked together along the dark street, the movie having ended hours ago, but neither wanted to go home. They had ended up just wandering, talking about anything they could without mentioning the one thing on both their minds.

Sera loved him.

Through it all Sera held on to her rose, looking at it from time to time and feeling just from the look of it that everything would be all right.

They hadn’t said anything in a few minutes and Sera couldn’t help but feel the awkwardness sneak in between them.

“Sera,” Eddy broke the silence, his voice suddenly becoming serious. “There’s something I want to say.”

“Yeah?” She felt the dread rise.

“The other day… when you said you loved me.”

She blushed, looking down at the rose. Is this when it all ended? Was this when he stopped trying to humour her?

“I’m sorry I came off so strong,” she apologized.

“No… that’s not what I meant…” He looked down at his feet, a smile on his face. “I wanted to say… that what you said to me, is something I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time.”

She stopped walking. Eddy looked back at her nervously.

“Even after you told me, I still felt so nervous. Because for a long time, maybe forever… I’ve been in love with you too… I love you. I want us to be together.”

Sera rushed towards Eddy and hugged him. He looked shocked for a moment, but slowly his arms wrapped around her small body. To hold her like this, to feel her like this… he felt like he’d been waiting his whole life to be with her like this.

“Forever, okay?” She whispered in his ear.

He closed his eyes, breathing her in.

“Forever.”

“Hey,” the soft voice interrupted their moment. They both turned around to see a man leaning against a building, a disheveled look about his clothes, and his shoulder length blond hair looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in ages.

The two separated and Eddy took a step forward, standing in front of Sera.

“What do you want?” He tried to sound brave, but his voice came out choked.

“What do I want?” The man seemed to be asking himself, then his eyes locked onto Eddy’s. His eyes seemed to cut right through Eddy’s soul. They had a crazed look about them that made both feel cold. “What do you think I want?”

The man grinned as he pulled out a gun, pointing it at them with barely any energy, like such an action bored him because he had done it so many times before.

“Eddy…” She grabbed his arm. She felt dizzy.

“Look, I don’t have much money, but I’ll give it to you, ok?” Eddy felt his voice cracking.

“Of course you’ll give it to me!” The man’s face suddenly flared to match his eyes.

Sera wanted to scream or run, but she felt frozen to the spot.

The man seemed to calm down as he looked around. The street was empty. “Into the alley,” he motioned with his gun.

“We-” Eddy began.

“The alley!”

The two backed up into the alley, the man following with a crazed grin on his face.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Sera,” Eddy whispered to her, but she couldn’t find any words to say back to him.

“All right, the money. Now,” the man began to advance on them.

Eddy reached into his pocket with a shaky hand and pulled out a $20 bill.

“Here,” he held it out, swallowing hard.

“Stop joking. Who only carries around $20? Where’s the rest of it!?!” His face seemed to darken with every step he took forward.

“I told you, I-“

The man held the gun out straight, his finger beginning to tighten on the trigger.

“I didn’t want to do this the hard way.”

The moment seemed to freeze for Sera. He was going to pull the trigger. She felt so confused and unsure of how any of this was happening. Hadn’t she just been hugging Eddy? Hadn’t they just been telling each other that they loved each other?

Weren’t they going to be together forever?

“Eddy!”

She moved without any conscious thought. The rose fell from her hand as she pushed Eddy to the side.

And suddenly she saw the man’s crazed eyes looking at her. Maybe they stared at each other for a fraction of a second, maybe it was for hours, and time and everything around her disappeared.

The gunshot rang out.

The man stared at her, a look of shock on his face, both men looked down at the cement where the rose lay.

“Sera,” her name escaped Eddy’s lips in a whisper.

The three stood motionless for a second more, then the man took a step back, his arm falling limp to his side.

Sera felt her hand on her chest; she couldn’t seem to focus her eyes properly as she looked down. All she could see was red.

She fell to her knees, holding her hand out and staring at the blood that now covered it.

“SERA!!!” Eddy reached for her, catching before she collapsed completely.

“Why would she do that?” Eddy could hear the man whispering somewhere in the distance. “I wasn’t going to shoot… she startled me… Why?”

Eddy could only hold Sera. She looked up at him, her eyes half open like she was just being woken up. He couldn’t breathe as he looked down at her, as he realized what had happened.

“Don’t worry,” tears ran down his face as he tried to convince himself of what he was saying. “It’s going to be all right.”

“Shit…” The man came back to his senses as he stared at the two. Without another hesitation he turned and ran.

“He didn’t… shoot you… did he?” Sera’s voice was barely a whisper.

Eddy shook his head. “No, you pushed me out of the way.”

Sera smiled. “I had to save you… Forever, right?”

“… Forever…”

ooo

They put on a stretcher, her eyes were closed, but he knew she was still alive. She was still breathing.

He held onto her hand as they started to cart her away to the ambulance, yelling things he couldn’t understand, but he knew what they meant: that she was going to be all right.

She had to be all right.

“Hold on Sera, everything’s going to be fine now,” he smiled at her, griping her hand even harder.

“Sir, I’m sorry but you can’t come in the ambulance,” a paramedic said quickly, pushing him back.

Eddy could feel their hands separate, felt the panic rising.

Somehow he let go, and before he knew it she had disappeared behind a door. He looked down at his hand. It was covered in blood.

“Sera…”

“Son,” a police officer came up behind him, “this is important. Did you see who did this? Son, can you hear me?”

There had been so much blood. But she would be all right, wouldn’t she?

“Son?” The police officer put a hand on Eddy’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“I know… I know what he looked like.”

ooo

Sera stared at the clock on the wall, watching it tick but never moving forward. She was at her grandmother’s cottage, sitting at the dinner table.

Tick, tock, tick.

Never going forwards, never going backwards.

The cold was gone.

The door behind her opened and her grandmother slowly walked in, a sad smile on her face.

“Oh Sera, I never thought you’d be the first to get here,” her grandmother walked towards her.

Sera slowly stood up and hugged her grandmother, not saying a word, not feeling a thing. Her grandmother just continued to smile.

“We should have some tea,” she suggested.

They sat at either end of the table, cups of tea in front of both of them.

“Grandma,” her voice was monotone, empty.

“Yes?” Her grandmother smiled again as she picked up her cup of tea and took a sip from it.

“I thought that you…”

“What is it dear? You can tell grandma anything.”

“Nothing.”

“Dear, why don’t you go take a look around? It’s lovely outside. You should explore.”

“Explore?” She didn’t feel like exploring. She didn’t feel like doing anything but sitting, staring at the clock. Tick, tock, tick, tock, backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards.

“Everyone should explore when they get here.”

Sera walked down a gravel road, rows and rows of corn lined either side of it and stretched for as long as her eyes could make out

“I think I’ve been here before, when I was a child…” A flower in the middle of the road caught her eye, a flash of purple in a yellow world.

Something was wrong with her grandmother. She could remember that something was wrong… or had been wrong…

For a moment she saw rows of church pews filled with somber people all dressed in black, but it lasted only a second and she was left again staring at the yellow.

“Sera?”

Sera looked at the flower, but suddenly realized that it wasn’t a flower, it was a person. She was taller than Sera, but then so was everyone. She was darker than Sera, a Middle-Eastern look about her, though she was still fair skinned and had impossibly long brown hair, it seemed to go on forever and just disappear. She smiled and stared down at Sera with her kind purple eyes.

“I’m so glad to meet you,” the woman said.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Uriel.”

Sera saw Uriel’s wings, but couldn’t seem to count how many she had. For a moment it was six, and then two, and then six again. Tick, tock, backwards, forwards.

“Wings. Are you an Angel?”

“Yes,” her voice had infinite kindness in it. “I’ve come to collect you.”

“Collect me?”

Sera saw a man’s face flash before her, intense eyes… crazed eyes.

“Those eyes…whose eyes are those?”

“Come, one mustn’t waste time.”

Uriel turned and began to walk down the road, Sera followed, trying to count her wings and trying to see where her hair ended. Her hair seemed to become the road itself.

“Where are we going?”

“To the Tower,” her face still looked forward, yet Uriel also seemed to be looking at Sera with her purple eyes.

“The Tower?”

“The Tower is where Angels live and look over all the Heavens and Earth,” Uriel explained.

“We’re going to a tower in Heaven?”

“Yes.”

“Are you trying to tell me that we’re in Heaven?”

“We are.”

Sera stopped walking.

“But that’s where the dead live.”

The pews lined with people, the dead silence in the church, her grandmother’s body lying in a coffin. Eddy holding her, Eddy yelling her name, Eddy crying.

The man’s eyes staring into hers.

“Yes. You are dead.”

Sera looked down at her hands, they were covered in her blood, but they were clean.

“I don’t understand.”

“You were taken to the hospital, but you were past help at that point.”

“No…”

She looked at Uriel and Uriel looked back at her.

“I can’t cry. I can’t feel pain. Why can’t I feel pain?”

Uriel was hugging Sera.

“There is no greater sorrow than when a life is stolen.”

Uriel closed her eyes.

“You are a soul away from her body, away from her heart.”

They pulled apart.

“But this feels like my body,” Sera protested in her empty voice.

“It would, because you remember yourself as a body. This place was made for souls to go, to be happy. It’s made up of your memories, memories of places and things, memories of emotions. But without a heart, you cannot feel.”

“Cannot feel?”

“All souls must live a certain amount of time for them to become complete, and when that soul is ready it can move here. But when a life is taken early, when a soul comes here before it can fully develop it’s memories… then it’s like you’re a soul without a heart. You can remember the emotions, but you cannot feel them. Your mind knows you’re sad, but you cannot cry.”

“I can’t live like this. How can anyone live like this?” She felt lost, confused. She felt tired.

“You won’t have to.”

“What do you mean?”

“The reason I have come to you is because you have been chosen.”

“Chosen?”

“You have a very noble soul, Sera. You gave up your life without a second thought because of the love you felt. You are a pure soul, and that’s why we want you to join our ranks, if you so wish.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We want you to be an Angel.”

(And so begins the tale of Serafine. This chapter (one of four) is about a year old. It was originally written in the form of a comic and I only recently updated it to a narration. The reason for that is that this was originally meant to be a comic, but during pre-production the artist pulled out. I have no ill feelings about that, mostly because it gave me an opportunity to do something different with the story and expand it. I have two other stories from this universe posted on this site; they are ‘The Last Battle for Heaven’ and ‘Lucifer’. They’re character prequels and help to explain some of the things that happen later on. This chapter’s a little crazy, first because it’s setting up an entire universe and also because it has two very different narrations. It starts off as a cute little romance and ends up in a dreamlike state, which is psychotically fun to write. It’s meant to be and feel confusing, because it’s meant to be seen from Sera’s (or Serafine as she will be hereafter referred to) POV. So expect three more chapters to wrap up this little story. I hope you guys like it and GIVE ME LOTS OF FEEDBACK.)