Lana didn't want to walk the grounds of the school, so instead we wandered off campus. Normally I'd feel some sort of anxiety about that—skipping class, going for a lengthy walk in the middle of the day—but with the Devil at my side, it didn't nearly feel as naughty as it should have.

"So," she said as we walked down the street, leaving Arlington High School behind us. "What do you want to know?"

Honestly, I didn't know where to start. Earlier that morning, I had had a panic attack at the thought of spending another second with her. And now I was willingly walking into a conversation with the most famous fallen angel in history.

I hesitated, unsure exactly how to word it. "Well... do you want to tell me about that fall of Lucifer thing?"

She glanced at me. She had a grim sort of smile on her face, something that made her look more sad than not. "I had a feeling that'd be at the top of your list." She looked up at the wide sky, clear from clouds. The breeze ruffled her hair, whipping it around her neck like a scarf made of black thread. "It's a bit of a story."

"We have time," I said. "Unless you actually wanted to go to gym."

"Hell no," she said, glancing both ways before crossing the street. "Trust me, I'm not into torturing myself."

We had just entered the main strip in town. It was a fairly quiet street, with just a few stores lining it. Once we started down the sidewalk, Lana started her tale.

"I was an angel once," she said. "I mean, I guess I still am, in some basic, genetic way. But that's beside the point. What's important to know is that angels aren't born—at least not in the way humans are."

As she said this, her eyes fell to a woman pushing a navy stroller down the opposite sidewalk. It was weird to see someone else on the street. With Lana at my side, I felt like I was in limbo, stuck in a land where no one else existed besides the two of us.

"Angels were God's first creation," Lana continued. "The oldest angels—Michael, Gabriel, and so on—were created before the big bang, out of the ether in the time before time. Apparently life was quiet back then, full of philosophy and endless musings. The angels would have chats with God about this and that, existence, the meaning of life, et cetera. The old ones said it was a particularly nice time. There were no jobs to do, no assigned purpose to fill your day. It was a time of quiet existence and easy reflection."

Lana slid her hands into the pockets of her grey sweater. "Then God started to make some changes. The big bang was apparently quite a spectacle, and the formation of stars and planets and asteroids gave the angels something new to learn from. Eventually, a few of the planets started to breed life, first simple amino acids and later little squirmy amoeba-like things. I came into existence around then. I didn't know too much at the time; like human babies, angels aren't born with knowledge. We need to learn. But I remember that even from a young age, I liked to observe the planets. I made a game of it, guessing what would become of them: whether the life would flourish or fail, whether a sun would grow too large and consume an entire solar system or not. Things of that sort."

"Sounds... fun?" I offered, although I found the concept of betting on planetary destruction a bit odd.

Lana smiled, and this time it was a genuine one. "It was, actually."

We continued walking through the town, passing small shops and smaller restaurants. Lana paused in front of a storefront that sold Christmas decorations. I often wondered how they managed to stay in business throughout the year, particularly in the hot summer months when Christmas was the furthest thing from people's minds. But they were still open even today, as evidenced by the green and red "OPEN!" sign and a variety of Christmas ornaments hanging in the window. Lana peered at the display for a moment before pulling her eyes away.

"After several millennia—probably around the years of dinosaurs and the great lizard beasts—something started happening," she said. "All the angels were drawn to one particular planet. We could feel it tugging on us during our daily monitoring, an incessant pull towards the planet you call Earth. This puzzled us. There was a lot of gossip going around the realm as we tried to figure out why we were being pulled as such. Much later we discovered the answer: Something in the web of life was churning, crafting a creature destined to change everything."

She looked at me pointedly and I knew immediately what species she was talking about. Humans. Me.

"God took an interest in these creatures," she said. "He said they were special and He wanted us to keep an eye on them. Our jobs shifted again. We became less academic. Instead of surveying and monitoring, philosophizing and hypothesizing, we became guardians. Each day we'd go down to Earth and observe these creatures as they evolved from strange amphibians to ape-like mammals to the crude, hairy, naked forms of humanity. And it became very clear to some of us that these creatures, despite God's insistence, were not special." She seemed to realize what she had just said, because she looked at me and added, "No offense."

"Some taken," I said, rubbing my arm.

She sighed. "You have to understand that we all were very close to the Creator. We had a deep, personal bond with Him that had lasted millennia—hell, it spanned the time before time. But then this new group came along out of nowhere—out of weird fish things with legs—and we suddenly became second-class citizens. These humans—who fought and killed and did terrible things to one another on Earth—had caught His attention, had caught the universe's attention, and none of us knew why. All we knew was that we had been ordered to keep an eye on them. So we did.

"And then one day it happened. One of the creatures died. I believe it was from dehydration, or maybe an infected leg wound, something quite pathetic. It was a normal occurrence for these creatures to die of something stupid. However, that same day, a new soul appeared in Heaven, and it wasn't a new angel. It was that man.

"At first we thought that it was a one-off thing, that God had taken a particular liking to this human and had given him a soul so he could join us in Heaven. But then another soul appeared, this time a woman. You call them 'Adam and Eve' in your tales, but I don't even know if they had names. They spoke this garbage language..." She shuddered.

"Wait," I interrupted, wondering if I had misheard her. "Adam and Eve were real people?"

Lana cocked her head to the side. "Sort of. I mean, the story in the Bible is completely wrong. That's the issue with human tales. Over time, the truth becomes wilder, more fanciful, until what people believe is no longer the truth at all but a fairytale. The true story is a lot simpler. Us angels were told to welcome these new souls in Heaven, to show them love and care and to treat them as if they were one of our own. And we did—for a time. But then more and more human souls started showing up, and fewer angels were being created from the void. The balance of Heaven was shifting. We were no longer God's favored creatures. And I wasn't the only one who noticed this.

"A few of us weren't as... welcoming to the new souls as God would have liked. Some days we ignored them. Other days we messed with them, taunted them, tempted them." She sighed. "Was that nice? No, of course not. But angels aren't perfect. We did these things because we were hurt and angry and upset."

She gazed out at the street. It was empty now, free of the few people who had walked by before. It felt infinitely lonelier, and the light breeze raised the hairs on my arms.

"I had a good friend back then, an angel named James," Lana said. "We had both observed the unrest among the angels and we often talked about the change in balance. Something about these humans... it all felt wrong. So I decided to approach God and demand an answer. I wanted to know why these humans were so important to Him. But that bond that we had once had with the Creator—the days of philosophy and ease as we sat and lightly observed the formation of stars—that was gone. His answer was vague—I can't even remember what He said. But I remember walking away and thinking that something was wrong with Him, and things needed to be fixed.

So James and I gathered other dissenters and we confronted God once more. We wanted answers, and still, He gave us none. He just looked upon us sadly, as if we had offended Him... and that hurt more than anything else. He viewed us like we were little children, unable to comprehend His magnificent, benevolent plan." She emphasized the words, mockingly, and then jabbed at her chest. "We used to be His equal and suddenly we were inferior—to not only Him, but to the humans as well. We were nothing but slaves, peons meant to guard these worthless creatures! And that was when I lost it."

She clenched her teeth. "I declared war. My intention was to show Him that He didn't understand things anymore. That us angels could see that the balance was broken, and that He was no longer fit to rule. There was a battle then—a fierce battle between the dissenters and those who supported Him, full of hellfire, war, and pain."

Her eyes looked glossy. For a moment, I thought she was going to cry. But instead, her gaze hardened, locked on the street ahead fading into the horizon. "I'm sure you know what happened next. We were overpowered, immensely. We lost. But at the end of the day, when we were brought before Him in ethereal chains, He didn't desire retribution. Just an apology. The others, even James... they all apologized. But I..." She trailed off. "I couldn't do it. Apologizing seemed like an empty gesture. We were all still sheep. We were all still powerless, second-class citizens. The humans were still coming into our realm. Absolutely nothing had changed, and an apology would have been hollow and insincere. So I asked to leave. And He let me."

Even though Lana had just told me that human stories were often wrong, I was still surprised by this. "He didn't cast you out? You left on your own free will?"

She nodded. "I wanted to be alone, somewhere without angels or humans or anything. That's when I stumbled upon the Underworld. It didn't exist before the Great Battle—it was created from our fracturing worlds, from the edges of the universe. And I made it my home. It was what I needed at the time: dark, quiet, isolating... But after a while, the dark and the quiet grew stale."

She looked down at her hands. "The problem was that I couldn't create anything on my own. When I had left Heaven, my powers had been bound. My curse was that I was powerless—unless I helped the creatures I hated so much." She sighed. "So, for a while, that's what I did. Every so often, I would travel to earth and help someone. For each good deed, a bit of my power returned. Soon I was able to summon light to cast out the darkness. I replaced the cold with warmth. But..." She hesitated. "It wasn't enough. The Underworld was still an empty, lonesome place, and I could only stay on earth for a few weeks at a time. I begin to wonder, what's the point of having eternity if you have no one to spend it with?"

"So that's when you started taking souls," I realized.

She nodded. "Surprisingly, by that time, I didn't hate humans so much. I understood them a lot more, realized there was more to them than I initially thought. They had drive, ambition... they would do anything for love. It was refreshing. Angels, on the other hand... angels are sheep. They follow blindly, they serve without thinking, and they apologize mindlessly to win favor." She shook her head. "You might not believe me, but I much prefer humans to angels."

"It's definitely a surprise," I admitted. "But you don't think all angels are like that? I mean, what about James?"

I could have sworn I saw a flash of sadness in her eyes before she turned away from me and shrugged. "I haven't seen him since I left, so I don't know what to think. I tried to go back to Heaven, just once, to speak with James, see if anything had changed while I had been gone. But the gates were closed to me—I couldn't enter. Although my exit had my voluntary, it was clear they didn't want me back. I tried other ways to communicate with him, but nothing worked. So I accepted my fate. He was gone. My old life was gone." When she turned back to look at me, the sadness was gone from her eyes, instead replaced with steady resolve. "Anger and agony are better than misery."

Her words tickled a memory in the back of my head. "What?"

"It's a song, from one of your earthly bands." She paused, suddenly curious. "Is emo music still popular? The years on Earth all seem to blend together." Before I could answer, she shook her head. "Anyway, what I'm saying is, you can't dwell on the sadness of things you've lost. I've accepted what happened. And there's nothing left to do but push forward."

Then, suddenly, as if catching herself, Lana's cheeks reddened. "Sorry, I didn't realize how long I've been talking."

"No, it's okay," I said. "It was actually really interesting."

"Still," she said, "it was probably heavier than you were expecting. I... I've never really told this stuff to anyone."

Her words struck a chord, and in her flushed cheeks, I saw her all-too-human embarrassment. She's lonely, I thought to myself. The realization nearly took my breath away.

"It's fine," I said, trying to reassure her. "There's a first for everything. Thanks for telling me."

But now Lana seemed to have regained her composure. Her cheeks had returned to their normal color. She had smoothed down her skirt. And she pulled out her phone and was checking the time. "We probably should be getting back to school. Gym will be over soon."

I nodded and together we turned around, beginning to retrace our steps.

It was silent for a long while, but eventually she asked, "Do you have any other questions? Maybe one that isn't so heavy this time?"

I almost shook my head no—her story had been plenty—but then I paused, my eyes falling onto the Christmas store once more. "Actually, I do. The cookies that my mom made—they were your doing, right? Like, it wasn't a coincidence she just started baking."

She nodded. "Guilty."

"Why Christmas cookies, of all things?"

At this, the Devil let out a wide grin. "I just really like irony."

- - -

Hi guys! Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I remember having a ton of fun writing this one the first time around. Personally, I love when people twist one story into something new. What did you think? And how do you feel about Lana--do you believe her version of the story?

Thanks for all the support! <3

~Bdicocco