All of the stories of grim reapers, demons, shinigami, or gods of death are false. Angels are all that await humans in the end. These celestials are the only beings in existence that can hold a human soul. It is their duty to pull souls from the human plane. Angels of Death are not permitted to interfere with natural order. This includes the following: killing before fated ends, failure to reap souls, sparing lives, and revealing the ways of their kind to the living. Angels of Death can only be seen by humans who are near death. Souls that are not reaped will become unpleasant spirits.

There has been no occurrence where Angels of Death have taken lives or spared them outside of the natural order. No Angel of Death has ever doubted the natural order until Elliot Abernathy. For purposes of privacy, we will refer to the Angel in this tale by the well-known celestial name, Azrael. This is the story of an irrelevant young boy and a confused angel, according to witnesses – the accused, and God themself.

 

On April 24, 1921, Mr. Elliot Abernathy was set to die soon after his birth, due to his lungs not being strong enough to take breaths. Azrael glided through the night sky carried by thick black wings to the hospital in Yorkshire. The angel appeared in the window of a woman who fell back in her hospital bed, hemorrhaging. Her arms weakly reaching out for the silent child in the arms of a midwife, she cried, 

“My baby boy! My boy!”

None of the midwives nor the father could see the Angel of Death, none except Mrs. Abernathy. The woman did nothing but reach her hand out to him. This was odd for two reasons. One is that servants of death look grim, with their wide black feathered wings and long dark cloaks. The wings can be tucked away but they cannot conceal their forbidding looks, with their gray skin and foggy eyes, you’ll never see through. Two being that they are death incarnate and human beings tend to fear death. Despite the facts, Azrael reached for her with his long slick gray fingers.

“Is this the end?” She asked the angel, the most common question of his kind. The angel responded with a firm nod.

“And my baby?”

After another slow nod from the ominous creature, Mrs. Abernathy broke out into a sob that began strong but dwindled into a weak whimper, as death crept over her. Azrael watched the woman whisper her final word, no, as he laid his hands on her chest to relieve her.

Her spirit conjured before him, much more beautiful than the sweaty body on the bed. Humans meet their end in their purest form.

“Not my child,” she said without attention to her own body, lying dead in the bed behind her. Mr. Abernathy held the vessel that once contained her life and cried. The mother passed on peacefully but not before she could tell the angel, “You don’t know when he will die. You are death. You know nothing of life. And he will live a full one.”

But Azrael, a professional reaper, knew life better than anyone else. Her husband, Jonas Abernathy, a man whose death would come at his own hand in ten years time to claim the life of his newborn son.

The baby, Elliot, wailed when the Angel of Death leaned over his crib. Everyone in the room was shocked, including Azrael. Given access to the fate of every living thing, nothing tends to surprise them.

The Angel of Death sat beside the crib and patiently waited for the child to die, watching the newborn’s struggling breaths. He had another assignment, an old woman dying in her sleep one town over. Azrael did not tend to it and another angel took his place.

After watching Jonas Abernathy get into his vehicle with his newborn boy, the angel flew into the sky in a frenzy. Azrael found that the records showed the death of the boy’s father was still fated for the same time and cause. The records showed no proof that destiny would change if the boy lived.

 

Elliot lived on an estate in Yorkshire with his father, who worked constantly, not caring much for the boy. The doctors had said that with his weak breathing, Elliot would live a short life. Because of this, Mr. Abernathy refused to let himself love him, haunted by his son’s fate.

Elliot’s nanny adored him. She taught him to walk, heard his first words, and read him stories nightly. Because she lost her husband, she rocked the ill boy, fed him bottles, and hoped that he would grow stronger and healthier. It was the closest thing she would ever feel to being a mother. Her love triggered the difference Elliot’s life would make.

 

On October 5, 1925, Azrael received an order saying that Elliot Abernathy would die that night in his sleep due to an asthma attack. The Angel went to the estate for his soul. Elliot was asleep in the bed, peacefully with heavy breaths. Elliot began to cough uncontrollably. He looked up with wide, tearful eyes to make contact with the misty gray eyes of the angel. He placed his hand on Elliot’s chest, expecting Elliot’s soul to leave him. But the boy shoved Azrael back and fell off his bed. His cough ceased, and he clawed at his own chest, fighting for air. But Azrael knew as he reached him, that death could not be avoided, certainly not twice.

Until the nanny came. She could not see the celestial, but the being stepped back in awe of her as she breathed life back into the child. He was a servant of death and was very well acquainted with how it all worked, hand in hand with fate. But she saved his life and sat on the ground, cradling and rocking him like he was an infant.

The Angel of Death spent the night, thinking maybe the boy would still die. Azrael wasted another night watching the child sleep, but with every breath, Azrael began to question the records of fate, which was impossible. The error in the death of this young boy lay somewhere else.

 

The boy was ten years old on the day his father died after their car ran off a bridge. Jonas drowned, unable to free himself from the car. His soul had to be retrieved from the water. This task was assigned to Azrael, of course – probably due to mix-ups with paperwork or someone’s ignorance.

Azrael swam down after the car, focused on the task at hand. Jonas Abernathy was not alone. The angel didn’t know this until he saw Elliot trapped beneath the water’s surface. Azrael had only come for one soul. Elliot’s eyes began to close as he sank further with his father and their car. He waited for the boy to save himself, to swim to the surface and breathe because, and that seemed to be what Elliot did. Children with lives like Elliot’s were assigned guardian angels to protect them from harm and lead them to a better life. But there was never a plan for Elliot to live, so there was never an angel assigned.

The Angel of Death went against his own nature and took the boy out of the sinking car. The servant of death rose from the water, cradling the live body of a ten-year-old boy. Azrael rested the boy’s body on the shore as if it were as precious as the human soul.

“Father?” Elliot said before opening his eyes all the way. Then, correcting himself, “You?”

Elliot remembered death. He remembered its feeling and was haunted by its face. The boy went onto all fours coughing up water. He took in the dark area around him, coughing so much that the angel thought he would  have an asthma attack.

“Who are you?” Elliot dragged himself across the cold ground, his nails dug into the earth like he was pulling himself from the grave. “I’ve seen you before.”

Azrael said nothing.

“How could I forget?” Elliot looked up at the angel, seeing his gray skin and black lips.       

“What are you?” Elliot knew the answer. “Are you Death?”

Azrael stayed silent as he trudged stoically back over to the water to go retrieve the soul he had come for.

“Don’t you ever say anything!?” Elliot pounded his fists against the earth beneath him.

The angel stated that there was never really much to say and he felt the same way watching the ten-year-old boy sob on the shore.

“Will you save him?”

“It depends on your philosophy.” Azrael said.

With that, the Angel of Death went to reap his father. When he came back to shore, he was wet and uncomfortable. Azrael stretched out his wings and waited for them to dry, seated beside the freezing boy, who had nothing more to say. Instead, he turned away, hugging himself with trembling arms. Every few seconds he huffed loudly, trying to get Azrael’s attention, like the petulant child he was. His grasp at attention caused him to have another coughing fit.

Elliot lived again. The Angel of Death noted that he had never seen a human cling to life as Elliot did. He thought of Elliot’s mother. He wondered if he heard her words that day, her demand that he live a full life. Maybe Elliot was simply following orders, too. This theory was, of course, ridiculous.

  

When they discovered that Azrael had saved the boy, the angel defended himself, saying that it was not the boy’s time to die. But the harsh truth was that Elliot Abernathy was supposed to die on the day of his birth, therefore his death will always be the natural order.

Azrael was accused of interference.

On the night of his trial,  the angel flew to the Abernathy Estate. These celestials don’t sleep most of the time, with the inevitable death, there is always work to be done. However, Azrael had been demoted to reaping the souls of cats, giving Azrael time to reflect on his actions. This only led to further fascination with the stubborn human. Azrael perched on the boy’s windowsill, like a gargoyle. Elliot came to the window and they talked the night away, two lonely creatures living in the shadows of death.

He attended his father’s funeral. It is not uncommon to attend these events out of respect for the beautiful thing that is the human soul. But which soul was he there for? It was a beautiful day. The ceremony was on the estate where all of the Abernathys were buried. Jonas prepared a tombstone for Elliot when he was only a baby. His name was already engraved, as was his date of birth. It was no secret death had been chasing him for quite some time.

The other humans could not see the angel above the boy. They probably thought he was smiling at the heavens when he looked up at the sky, but his eyes were on the shadow of death above him, cloaked in dark menacing wings. However, Elliot seemed to know that the angel hadn’t come to take his life. For the first time, this lost soul of a boy had a Guardian Angel, even if his purpose was in fact to guide Elliot to his death that would inevitably come.

  

Debates arose amongst Angels of Death as to the status of the life of the young Elliot Abernathy, some claiming he had to die, while others argued that if the boy was truly meant to die, he would have. It was madness. They believed they knew all the ins and outs of fate and assumed that there was something unknown within this boy. A radical idea was soon brought to the table to set destiny back on track, they would have to break one of their own rules; take the boy’s soul by force.

On February 20, 1934, three Angels of Death went to the Abernathy Estate to reap the boy’s soul in his sleep. It would be believable. He nearly died in his sleep before. When they arrived, the room was already occupied by the same angel who had been with him all along.

“Do you believe tonight is the night?” Azrael asked the other three.

“His soul must be taken.” One of the three servants insisted.

“Do you mean to take it by force?” Azrael said, staying by the boy’s side.

Elliot awoke and looked around the room of now silent celestials. “What are they doing here? I’m alive. I can feel my heart beating.”

“He cannot live.”

“Then, why is he alive?”

“You serve fate.” The others were correct and denial would do nothing. “He was lucky to have these fourteen years.”

Elliot leaped out of bed, like his mother, he did not fear them. Azrael held the small boy back as he tried to march after the angels.

“How can you call me lucky? I’ve received what everyone else in this world does!”

He had barely received it.

If the boy went on to live his life, he would affect other lives. He was having an effect. Though Elliot was a lonely boy, the few people he interacted with changed in his presence. Everyone who changed because of Elliot would unknowingly defy the natural order. Those who were meant to live could just as easily lose their lives as people who were meant to die. The selection of who is to live and who is to die is random. Humans, like Mr. Abernathy, tend not to care for it and always insist it is “unfair,” the way destiny favors some over others. The Angels sought to protect the order, all except Azrael, who was in awe of how a young boy’s breath could turn the wheel of destiny.

Azrael swept the boy into his arms and fled from the room, straight through the window, shattering the glass. The other servants of death chased after them, while the Angel of Death ascended higher into the sky, holding the boy tightly to his chest.

“Are you mad?” Elliot beat his fists against the celestial’s hollow chest. He fought to catch his breath as they ascended higher. Elliot gripped onto the servant of death for dear life, as he became unable to look down. He squeezed his eyes, closed in fear of the distance between him and the ground, and in pain from the shards of window glass that wounded him.

“Is this death?” His surroundings were just like the Heaven he and many other children imagined, a peaceful sky filled with only the fluffiest clouds. It was more of the world than the sickly boy had ever seen.

“No, this is life.”

That was when Elliot began to cry, silent tears dripping off his chin and down into the open sky, raindrops that would never hit the ground. Elliot wheezed, his clothes dampened with blood. A shard of glass was stuck in his pale cheek.

The air was thin, and as Elliot struggled for breath, the other angels became clear to him. Four angels rarely come together and never for a singular death. Azrael didn’t know that there wasn’t enough air for the boy or that Elliot bled in more places than one. Because it was true, that the Angel of Death knew nothing of life, even if he dearly wished he had. Human bodies are weak and Elliot’s could not survive in those conditions. The rapid flapping of wings grew louder as their enemies neared.

“This is the end, is it not?” Elliot knew the answer. The Angel of Death did not. Azrael shook his head.

“Not according to fate.”

“Hmm,” a sense of calm seemed to come over Elliot, “I quite like that.”

Elliot Abernathy closed his eyes and let go. Then fear rushed over him and he found himself reaching for the angel, but there was nothing to grab, nothing to breathe. Everything around him moved too quickly. The other angels dove after the boy’s rapidly descending body.

Elliot Abernathy died in the air.

The other angels were forced to interfere with life, making sure to drop the boy’s body from the proper height. His servants said Elliot threw himself out the window. They said that he had gone mad, that he locked himself in his room in the evening and talked to himself. It took over fourteen years, but Azrael reaped the boy’s soul. He continued flying through the sky with Elliot, who now didn’t have to worry about breathing.

“Was this the point of life? Death?” Elliot asked, his gaze dropping like he might still be able to catch his body falling from the sky.

“I believe the opposite.” Azrael told the boy as they flew through the sky, passing the clouds that most children only dream of touching, as the sun began to rise. “The point of death is that you lived a life.”

According to the angels, the life of Elliot Abernathy was only a tiny error, an irrelevant occurrence. Azrael, who now permanently works with cats, will always remember the boy, the only human he watched, not just die, but live as well. He tells the story over and over to anyone who will listen, trying to make sense of this very odd case.