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The Weeping Angel
In a time not so long ago and in a land not too far away, there was a graveyard. This was not just any graveyard, this particular graveyard was the home of a lonely creature. This creature was known as a Weeping Angel. She was made of stone and yet she was alive. This angel watched over the graveyard, watched the passing grievers but only on occasion. This lonely angel was cursed. She was doomed to spend eternity alone, never letting anyone catching her move. To everyone else, she was just an ordinary statue. Little did they know she had feelings if her own,she even felt others grief. And yet, if anyone looked at her, she hid her eyes behind her hands, stood perfectly still and inky when they looked away would she peek out from behind her slender fingers to catch a glimpse. It helped her pass the time.
On one particularly rainy day, a young man came into the cemetery. He was a tall and lanky man with brown hair and dark blue eyes. This is what caught the angels attention. She had never seen a color like the mans eyes before and was immediately pulled in by this. This man was wearing a black suit and had a sad but beautiful face that made the angels heart break. In all of her years in the cemetery, she had never seen anyone as sad as he looked. She decided to follow him but made sure she was careful not to be seen by him, she did not want to scare him away. He gripped on the white roses he held in his hand until his knuckles turned white only letting go when he reached the grave. Rain poured down onto his face, mixing with the tears constantly flowing down his cheeks. This man stayed at this grave for a long while, mumbling through his sobs. Finally, he put the flowers on the fresh grave and slowly walked away. Rain dripped down from the Weeping Angels cold and hard surface as she waited for the coast to be clear. Once she was certain her was gone, she went up to the grave. She had her suspicions as to who the person was to the man but she just wanted to make sure. As soon as her empty eyes scanned the headstone, her hunch was confirmed. It was the mans late bride. The stone read:
“Sally Simpson, beloved daughter
Beloved friend, wife of James
September 18th 1903 - May 27th 1927”
James. That was his name. It was always nice to put a name to a face, especially one that interested her so much. The angel stayed in front of Sally’s grave until the rain stopped, wondering what she looked like, wondering how she acted and what her life with James had been like.
Every day for the next month, James would come to Sally’s grave with a single white rose, apparently they had been her favorite. He would talk out loud, acting as though the gravestone were actually Sally. He would talk about his day or what was happening in the world. Sometimes James would reminisce in old memories of their time together or even fragments of his childhood. All the while, the lonely angel would watch him from the shadows. She would see his eyes light up when he was excited about a particular story. Those beautiful blue eyes that the angel couldn't figure out. It became a highlight of her day when she saw James strolling through the cemetery. It was the first time in her life that that the angel actually felt happy. Sometimes when walking over to Sally, James would look up at the angel. She always had her hands covering her eyes but she posed sensually. Her stone dress looking like it was fluttering in a never ending breeze. Although she could not see it, she could feel his smile directed at her. One day she decided to try something bold. She lowered her hands from her eyes right before James looked up at her. Their eyes met and James jumped a bit in surprise. “That’s strange…” he mumbled to himself, “I thought your hands covered your eyes…” He stared at her for a bit longer, making the eye contact that she craved. As he walked away, she smiled a smile that could only mean one thing, she was in love with this man. Her, the weeping angel monster made of stone in love with a flesh and blood made human. Who would have guessed that a thing like this could ever happen?
Ever since the day he looked at her, actually looked into her grey stone eyes, she had devised a plan to let him see her. She wanted James to know about her and her people. She wanted to share her secrets and her life with him. Weeping angles are a strange race with a unique history. They were a cursed race that were turned to stone during a time known in history as “The Time War.” The Time War was a great battle between two races known as the Timelords and the dreaded Daleks. Much destruction and death was caused because of this war. The Timelords were, as one could guess, masters of time, and were a respected and peaceful race. However, the war changed many into hateful war machines, very much like the Daleks. The Timelords planet, Gallifrey, was now home to some of the most dangerous Timelords in all of history. Citizens of Gallifrey who protested the war were punished severely. They were turned into creatures known as the weeping angels, forcing them to put their hands over their eyes as a sign of disgrace to the Timelords. These cold stoned creatures were scattered through out space and time to live out eternity in shame and exile. They were to live alone, for they could not talk nor could they touch anyone. If they did it would send the person back in time. They would kill the person with time. Our angel was determined to share this with James. Even if she did not have a plan, she would not give up until she reveled herself to her love.
Months passed by and stone angel fell even more deeply in love with the young human. However, his visits to the graveyard became less and less frequent, much to her displeasure. Instead of coming everyday, he came only on weekends. After a month or two of this routine, he only came about once a week. Not too long after getting used to this routine, he began coming only once a month. The angel still had not devised a plan but she knew her times with James was dwindling down so she needed to act fast. Although she loved him, she began to lose the happiness that she had once felt. It got worse as his visiting days decreased. The sadder she got, the happier James seemed to get. He had lost the look of hopelessness in his blue eyes and had started to wear a smile on his perfectly soft lips. It brightened her day to see him smile and push the shaggy hair out of his eyes, but it did not make her any less sad. On one particularly cloudy day, she decided that it was now or never. It was time.
She waited for James to come strolling into the grave yard days later that she had hoped. She could only move when he was not looking at her so as soon as he was past her she started to slowly follow him closely. She steps off her platform base and tries to keep up with him. Her footsteps make no sound behind him but James feels her presence. He stops walking, she is only a few feet behind him. He does not turn around, just pauses for a slight moment, then continues on walking. If the angel had a heart, it would be furiously beating at this moment. James continues walking, trying to ignore the nagging feeling in his gut that he is being followed but it does not last for long. He is almost at Sally’s grave when he suddenly stops and turns around, unable to ignore the instinct. As soon as he turns he abruptly stops. He is now face to face with the angel who has waited so patiently for him. His heart stops and he jumps back a bit, scared out of his wits. The angel has a beautiful closed mouth smile on her face that for some strange reason calms him down a bit. He shakes his head in disbelief. “How can this even be possible…. What the bloody hell is happening?!” he half shouts at the statue. While he panics, the angel has found her happiness again.
With her only being about a foot away from James, she can now fully make out his features i his face that she could not see before. He has the slightest trace of freckles scattered about his cheeks and nose. If she could, the angel would giggle at how cute she found it. His full pink lips looked soft like a rose petal, she so desperately wanted to touch them to see if she was right. She finally came to his eyes, the blue that made her fall in love in the first place but all she saw was confusion and fright. He seemed to be paralyzed with fear, too scared to run away from her. Although he was terrified, he had a strange feeling of familiarness, like they have know each other for a long time. It was because of this that he started to pose the fear and now began to study the angels face, her body, her smile. Once she was James relax, a giddiness washed over her. Excitement pulsed through her stone body. She wanted to say something to him to badly, she was shouting at him in her mind now. Even if she could talk she would not be able to find the right words to say, she did not eve remember her name. She tried and tried to remember but it seems that time had erased it from her memory. “James! James!” she kept shouting inside her head over and over. James felt as though he could sense that this statue was somehow trying to say something… but what? The feeling scared him again and this time it scared him enough that he decided to turn away and start to run.
The angel saw what he was about to attempt, she could not lose him, not after all this time. He began to turn his back towards her and before she knew what she was doing, she reacted and reached her hand towards him all the while whispering in her head “Please James, don’t leave me. I love you.” She felt as thought she was not in control of her body and she could not stop herself when she placed a cold hard hand onto his shoulder. There was a fast whooshing noise that filled the air like something being thrown fast and just like that, James was gone.
The angel froze and stayed in her position for several minutes, arm still extended at the spot where James once stood. She could feel her non existent heart disintegrate inside of her. She finally put her arm down and looked at the ground. On the grass lay the white rose James planned to lay on Sally’s grave. She bent down to pick it up, feeling as though she were ready to collapse at any moment. Once the flower was in her hands, she decided to take a long walk around the cemetery. She walked and walked all around until she saw a giant rectangular memorial above a few graves. It was under a tall oak tree, the leaves swaying in the gentle wind. The angel began to walk towards this grave head. It was an older part of the cemetery, a place where she did not visit very often. She felt particularly attracted to this one grave, the rectangular memorial. Before she was on the first step to go up and go to the grave, she saw it. In big letters engraved onto the stone, faded but still readable, was the name she could not bear to see right now
James Simpson
She did not need to read the rest of the stone, she knew it was him. Her subconscious must have remembered that at one point she had seen this grave and decided to pull her towards it. On the second and third step, the angel finally collapsed, gripping the rose in her hand so tight that that she knew it would stay in her grip forever. She extended her arm and was just close enough to lean her hand on top of the memorial of James, flower still in he hand. She decided that she would stay here for the rest of eternity, punishment for what she had done. It was her fault this happened and it was not her job to watch over his grave for the rest of her life. Her punishment would be to grieve forever, she would never forgive herself. People say she is still there, never moving but some claim that sometimes, when it is really quiet, you can hear the sound of muffled sobbing coming from the eternally weeping angel.