Chapter 3 – May 2025
Previously in ‘Heaven, Hell or High School’…
Nuriel is, was, an angel. But now he’s trapped in the body of a 17 year-old guy. It’s God’s idea of tough love to teach Nuriel humility and not to make bets with any demons, especially not Lamia.
But this fallen angel isn’t going to Hell … he’s going to High School.
Falling, falling, falling.
I could feel the wind rush through my hair as gravity sucked me downwards, ice surrounding me.
My mind could not contemplate the betrayal, and an ugly roaring filled my chest. Is this anger? Is this wrath?
Blue light exploded around me, and as I plunged through the stratosphere, all the colors of the earth rose up to meet me.
I slammed into the ground, dust pluming upwards.
As I lay still and silent, blinking up at the faint wisps of cloud in a perfect azure sky, I took my first breath, rivers of heat filling my body.
My body! I have a body.
I sucked in another breath, unsure how my body knew how to draw breath into my lungs sending blood and oxygen surging through my new flesh.
I could smell the raw earth, the dirt under my hands; I could feel the heat of the sun on my skin, the breeze lifting my hair.
Tentatively, I reached out a hand and touched a trembling finger to my face. My skin was slightly rough under my fingers and I recoiled. But as my hand explored further, I found that some of my skin was softer, and I could feel the flutter of eyelashes, like a butterfly trapped underneath the palm of my hand.
I could hear crows cawing in the distance, bees buzzing, a stream somewhere swirling across pebbles, a car roaring across pavement, an airplane overhead.
A wave of emotions rushed over me, engulfing me, drowning me; too many sensations fired electricity through my brain. I squeezed my eyes shut, but images flickered against my eyelids and too many sounds assaulted my ears.
I shuddered.
“Nuriel, are you alive?”
That voice! At once recognizable but so different.
“Nuriel?”
I covered my face with trembling hands then took a shaky breath and opened one eye.
Anahita peered down, her silvery eyes sparkling with curiosity.
I sat up slowly, filled with wonder, wracked by pain.
Her image shimmered, making my newborn eyes water.
We’d been friends, kindred angels born of our affinity for water, but now there was an ocean of understanding between us.
Anahita furled her wings and sat next to me, her knees pulled up, her cheek resting on her arms as she studied me.
“Alive?”
I’d never heard my voice before, my human voice. It was so strange; familiar yet unfamiliar.
Anahita was still staring at me, her expression rapt. I hadn’t yet replied to the question she’d asked.
“Alive … yes … I think I am.”
“Fascinating! How does it feel?”
I had been of the air, formless and incorporeal. Now my arms and legs felt heavy and awkward, and my head throbbed with a pain that followed the rhythm of my heart. My beating heart.
I pressed a hand against my chest, shocked to feel that very human organ working inside me.
“You’ve lost your wings,” Anahita breathed, catching a silver feather as it drifted in the hot breeze. “You’re human now.”
I blinked up at her and she gasped.
“Your eyes! They were blue like the eternal sky! Now they’re brown … like dirt.”
Her wings unfurled and she soared into the air. I couldn’t look at her – she seemed as bright as the sun and I was afraid.
I had never felt this quaking in my whole form, my brain frozen and unresponsive.
“I’ll be back,” she said, her voice shimmering in the air.
And then she was gone, and I was lone.
Our Father had kept His word. I’d been banished from Heaven, sent to mend my prideful vanity, but I hadn’t fallen to Hell … He had sent me to Earth.
Hell, or High School. Those had been my choices.
I had chosen Hell.
Instead, He had given me High School.
Was that mercy? Or punishment?
I was about to find out.
I stood on wobbling legs, for all the world like a newborn foal, uncertain if my knees could hold my weight. I looked down at my bare feet, burning on the hot sand. The sun seared my skin and my body felt as if it was being slowly cooked. Maybe I had been sent to Hell after all. But no, Anahita could not have visited me in Hell.
Awareness came slowly as I stared at my strange, new skin. I was naked, and I felt ashamed.
Even as I had that thought, I turned to find a pile of clothes resting on a small boulder. I reached out a hand, afraid, as if the clothes would smite me, but they were just clothes.
After some experimentation, I managed to cover myself with the hot, tight and restricting undergarments; pulled a heavy, rough material up the length of my legs, fighting with a zipper, fumbling with buttons; a piece of thin cotton covered my torso and wrapped around my arms. My feet were enclosed in tubes of cotton and I forced them into clogs of a strange, spongey material. After some experimentation, I was able to knot the strings with fingers that fumbled and felt as stiff as twigs.
Finally, I was clothed as a human.
“Father,” I whispered. “I am made in thy image – tell me what to do! I beg you.”
If he answered, I heard him not.
Suddenly, I felt a chill in the air and I turned to find Lamia watching me, her black eyes sparkling with delight at my misfortune. A red aura surrounded her.
I was oddly touched to see it, because I knew that humans couldn’t discern either celestial or demonic auras. At least God had left me that gift. Along with awareness of who and what I was … what I had been. But was that a gift or further punishment?
All my certainties had been shaken, replaced with anxiety and fear. Such frail, human emotions. Tears came to my eyes.
I glanced down hurriedly, but I knew that I no longer had an aura. Grief threatened to overwhelm me, but I would not give Lamia that perverse pleasure, her delight in the misfortune of others.
“Hey, Nuriel. Long time, no see,” she said with a devious smile.
“Not long enough, demon.”
“No need for name-calling, human,” she chided me. “But I’ll forgive you.”
The irony was not lost on me.
“Thank you,” I sneered.
Lamia laughed loudly.
“Yay! You’ve learned sarcasm already! I’ve so enjoyed our little chats over the millennia. But this is going to be way more fun.”
I had neither the energy not the strength to banter with her, to reason with her, nor to beg for her mercy as I knew she had none.
“Leave me alone, Lamia.”
“Never!” she said, her smile clinging to her sharp teeth. “I’ll never leave you alone, not while you’re all weak and human.”
“Leave, demon!” I roared.
But this only amused her more.
“Temper, temper! Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names will never hurt me,” she said in a sing-song voice. “So, what did you do this time? It was the hailstorm, right? Right?”
“None of your business,” I muttered.
“You made Him mad, huh?”
“What part of ‘mind your own business’ didn’t you understand?”
“You know what? You’re already sounding more human: no more theeing and thouing. But I tell you one thing that hasn’t changed: you angels are so cute! Did you know that God tattooed wings on your back?”
“What?”
I was aghast, hurt and ashamed. Did God think so little of me that he had stamped my skin with pretend wings? Or was it a sign that one day … in one year … I would regain my real wings again?
I didn’t know, and that uncertainty wrought such a deep pain inside my chest, I thought my heart would stop beating.
And there was something else.
“You were watching me the whole time? Spying on me?”
“Yeah, I saw you – the whole nekkid thing. You’re pretty hot, for a human. Just sayin’.”
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t find the words, so, like a simpleton, I could only stare at her, filled with outrage and loathing.
“And you know what else, Nuriel? You can avoid a question, but you can’t lie, can you? Not even now you’ve been kicked out of Up There.”
“I haven’t been…”
I tried to say the words, to deny what she was saying, but no sound came out. She was right: God had not seen fit to give me the human ability of lying.
“Told you!” she laughed, enjoying every second of her scorn.
“Why are you here?” I asked dumbly, knowing that it was to torture me further.
She gave a cat-like smile.
“Hanging out. Enjoying the ambience. Sowing the seeds of despair. Waiting for school to start. The usual.”
My head jolted up at her words.
“Wait, what? You’re going to high school? Here?”
She laughed more loudly, a wild, pealing sound like the baying of wolves in the wilderness.
“Oh, sure. I love high school. It’s a pit of lust and depravity. My kind of party. I heard that a new student was starting, Nuriel Adams. Save me a seat.” She side-eyed me slyly. “I have my sources.”
“I won’t be here long,” I said, praying she wouldn’t see how rattled I was that she knew of God’s plan for me.
I licked my dry lips, words struggling to emerge from my throat. My heart beat faster and moisture broke out on my forehead. What was wrong with me? Was I dying already? Was God calling me home already?
I looked up hopefully, but above was only the endless blue sky.
I shook my head tiredly.
“Let’s just agree to stay away from each other, Lamia.”
Her smile was pure evil.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Rage burned inside me, but also was wariness, a new emotion. God had sent me here to learn. Perhaps this was part of my test.
“I mean it, Lamia,” I said, reining in a temper that was new to me.
“Whatcha going to do?” she taunted. “Bury me in a hailstorm? Oh wait, you can’t. No powers, right? Oh, that’s too funny! This semester is going to be such a freakin’ blast! You’ll love it. Hmm, well, I’ll love it – you’ll hate it. I can’t wait.”
I crossed my arms across my chest, feeling the unfamiliar whisper of cotton across my skin.
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, demon.”
“Naturally.”
“Unnaturally.”
“You say potayto, I say potahto,” she said in that annoying, song-like tone.
“I’ll make a deal with you…”
As I said the words, I felt the whisper of disapproval from above. I could almost hear Anahita’s voice, You can’t make a deal with the devil!
But God had given me this body and this mind, and I had to make the best of it now.
“I can’t wait to hear this,” said Lamia as she leaned in closer.
The sun continued to send its powerful rays and this new body felt weak, but I continued with my bargain.
“While we’re both in school, I won’t ask any of my friends to help me, and neither will you. You won’t use any of your demonic powers…”
Lamia rolled her black-as-night eyes.
“Bo-ring!”
“…but we can both use … our powers of persuasion – see how many souls I can bring to God’s knowledge and love.”
“And how many souls I can collect? More interesting. What’s the wager?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said confidently. “I’ll win.”
“Pretty sure of yourself, kiddo.”
“God is on my side,” but as I said the words, the light began to fade and clouds rolled across the darkening sky.
Lamia looked upwards and shivered, licking her lips apprehensively.
“You sure about that, Nuriel? Cause where I’m standing, you’re looking pretty damn lonely about now.”
“He won’t let me down,” I replied.
Her lip curled at one corner in a sneer.
“Tell that to Lucifer. He’s still bitter.”
“You mean Satan,” I said bleakly, my eyes narrowing.
She met my gaze, seeming uncertain whether or not to agree to my demands … to my suggestion.
Then she smiled and nodded.
“Whatever. Fine. The wager is … if you win, I’ll leave this town to you. Forever.”
“Good.”
“But if I win … you have to live out an entire human life on Earth.”
I was momentarily shocked by her words and looking back, I should have gone with my first instinct of retracting the wager, but my humanity was blurring the certainty of my celestial brain. Instead of denying her, I agreed.
“You won’t win,” I said flatly.
“We’ll see,” she smiled, holding out her hand.
For the first time in my existence, my corporeal body touched the flesh of another. I recoiled at her icy touch, dropping her hand instantly.
But in that moment, lightning flashed across the sky and a thunderclap made the distant mountains shudder.
“Ooh!” Lamia said with a shiver, then turned to me, triumph glittering in her eyes. “Sounds like someone is mad at you!”
She faded into the darkness and I was utterly alone.
What have I done?
I first had the idea for Heaven, Hell or High School more than 10 years ago (holy mackerel!). Back then, it was mentioned in a romcom I wrote, DAZZLED, about a young British actor making it big in Hollywood in a paranormal romance movie (think Robert Pattinson in Twilight).
In DAZZLED, the young actor learns about the highs and lows of Hollywood, and the people who love him for who he really is, not the IT-GUY of the moment… and there are a fair few laughs along the way!
Amazon Universal https://geni.us/Dazzled
Apple https://books.apple.com/gb/book/dazzled/id916758366
B&N www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dazzled-jane-harvey-berrick/1118959309