There was once a green neighbourhood, by the original name of Himmel Block. It was a green neighbourhood, each house fixed with three gables, green roof, green lawn, green walls. On the 12^th was a family of four. They were a beautiful family, with loving parents and two children who got along well.

 

It was Christmas Eve.

 

“What did you wish for this Christmas?” the little boy asked as he hugged the stool tightly, his tiny sister perched on top.

 

“I can't tell you, it's a secret between me and Santa.”

 

“Pshaw, you believe in Santa?,” the boy 'pooh'ed and his sister's stool wobbled, “I don't believe he exists.”

 

“Oh course you don't, only nice children believe in Santa. I've told you a hundred times, I write my wishes into a piece of paper and throw it into the bonfire dad makes every year.”

 

“You really think that a fat old man reads wishes from kids all over the world and manages to send them presents in one night?” Chanyeol blew a raspberry, “girls are hopeless.”

 

“He does!”

 

“Does not.”

 

“Does too!”

 

“Does not!”

 

“You wouldn't know if you've never tried it,” the little girl rationalized as she hung the last of the candy canes onto the branches, and she turned to her little brother, “I'm done, catch!”

 

“Oof!,” the little boy grunted as his sister landed into his outstretched arms, and he dropped her vertically onto the ground.

 

“How does it work then?” the little boy placed both hands on his hips as he watched his sister straighten up and smoothen her skirt.

 

“Haven't you been listening? You write to him.”

 

“Alright, I'll try it this Christmas. But I still think it's rubbish.”

 

“It's not!”

 

“Is too.”

 

“Is not!”

 

“Is too...”

 

The candles glimmered in the shimmering lights, illuminating the tinkling voices that echoed through the house like fairy chatter in the magical December air.

 

*

 

Chanyeol leaned limply against the marble table, eyes painfully shut and lips tightly sealed into a slit, as he heard the expected yet surprisingly resounding crash fill his eardrums. He could practically envision the way the shattered glass ricochet from the tiles with the contents, sprinkling the table legs, the carpet, the cabinet with transparent shards and liquid. He still had them shut when his sister's blood-curling wail echoed again through the rooms in the house, making the light seem grey, and the white-washed walls stained, the room arid, the winter chill stifling. His sister was kneeling on the carpet, her head well tucked in her arms, her shoulders shaking and heaving intervally as racking sobs were evolved from , dry from screaming.

 

The paper Yoora had flung onto the table, and knocked over her glass lay dripping at the edge of the glass furniture, water dripping down like frequent tears onto Yoora's hair, eyes, chin, collar, knees... She was someone's name into her palms, whom he couldn't quite pinpoint.

 

“Please, Yoora...”

 

“No, no, no, no!,” she shrieked over his weak plea, yanking at her own wavy hair, throwing her face back, her eyes directed to Heaven, swollen lips unconsciously apart, rivers staining the edges of her eyes down to her jawline. She looked dreadful, her fairness caked by despair, tinting her complexion with age.

 

“Sissy...”

 

“No, Chanyeol...”

 

“Yoora, please listen to me.”

 

“My baby, Chanyeol, my baby, please give him back...”

 

“Yoora, I'm sorry, please just listen to me.”

 

“Give him back to us, oh God, please, my baby...”

 

Her racking sobs were starting to pierce into his heart, and he felt his tears betray him. But Yoora never saw them form, for she staggered pathetically to her feet, tripping once, twice, towards the bed, where she pulled out a suitcase from underneath and started flinging clothes into it.

 

“Yoora, please stay here. I need you here.”

 

“Oh God, please,” she kept panting between painful breaths, her heaving shoulders getting in the way of her frenzied movement. Chanyeol stood there painfully, silent as a backdrop, as he watched a scene he had never seen before. Her sister seemed to crumble at each motion, slabs and slabs of sanity and composure sliding off. It pained him, beyond compare, but he couldn't say a word. He could only watch.

 

It was like standing in a room full of people. You scream, but no one lifts an eyebrow.

 

Yoora was finished in what felt like an eternity, and forgetting her impossibly high heels, swept past Chanyeol, barefeet, clattering her heavy suitcase in her wake. He could smell the flower scented perfume – he had bought it for her with his first paycheck; but he could also smell dampness, evolving from both her stained cheeks and her torn spirit.

 

He watched as the rim of her skirt disappeared into the dark corridor, and that was the last he saw of her that morning.

 

It was still early, and he'd taken his cake.

 

*

 

The house felt empty, but with his peripherals, Chanyeol saw someone standing at the foot of the stairs. He dragged his gaze from the family portrait above the electronic fireplace, allowing them to settle at the man leaning against the rail. He recognized him instantly, with the flawlessly white shirt and jeans. He had to be around Chanyeol's own age, around twenty or so, but walked with a walking stick, dragging his left feet behind each forward pace.

 

“Hello.”

 

“Hello.”

 

Chanyeol had met him before, but he just couldn't remember where.

 

*

 

They threw it all upwards. Blocks of cement and steel pieces. A piece of paper with black print and a medical crest and a blue keychain staring unhappily through broken glass. When another block of leather seats was uncovered, one of the officers spotted his hair. The man had such a nice laugh. As though delivering a newborn baby, he cried, “I found him, I think he's moving!”

 

There was so much joy in uncovering the 'baby', but I could not fully share their enthusiasm.

 

They could not remove him from the rubble, I knew, it was impossible.

 

It was impossible, because I was already holding him in my arms.

 

*

 

“Do you think Yoora's very angry at me?”

 

“No.”

 

“You're just saying it to make me feel better.”

 

“Maybe,” the man winced as he adjusted the staff tucked under his bad knee, “but I hardly think she's very mad.”

 

“How would you know? You've never met her,” Chanyeol murmured, perched on the porch next to him, gazing ahead at the green neighbourhood. Green roof, green trees, green grass.

 

“Oh, I've met many, many people in my life,” the man whispered his reply, his voice was always soft, “your sister is no mystery to me.”

 

“Then where do you think she is right now?”

 

“Where it all began.”

 

*

 

There was a girl on the 3rd, on the block Chanyeol's where gaze rested. The house with the green roof, and green window panes, and three gables. It was a pretty house, with a pretty family. There were three girls, a father, a mother and a grandmother.

 

The family portrait in the house was so picturesque. The first daughter sprawled on the couch with a book, whilst the third played the piano. The father was fixing the radio whilst the mother cooked. The grandmother was in her old chair, sewing. Her second granddaughter had complained of her cold bedroom two nights before.

 

Upstairs, the laundry was folded on the bed, the rafters were firm, and the second daughter jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff.

 

Have me, they often beg me, and they had too many ways.

 

I tried to refuse, but I couldn't.

 

They did it too well.

 

*

 

Chanyeol smoothed his fingers over the inate carvings on the church walls wordlessly, his eyes fixed on the altar. The five-feet-long white scented candles were lighted all year round, surrounded by blue, yellow, pink and white flower arrangements, where tiny lights shone between the smooth bulbs. Above the altar, an enormous crucifix where Jesus watched over the cathedral was fixed into the wall, surrounded by painted glass. The floors shone, the statues and statuettes prayed lifelessly on their bases, the carved pictures shone between semi-oval windows, and a display that had just been installed in a corner glittered. It was a miniature barn made of wax, filled with figurines under the Bethlehem star.

 

It was Christmas Eve.

 

A lone figure was knelt in front of the cathedral, forehead kissing the floor, surrounded by fallen petals from the bouquets, giving her an appearance of a heartbroken bride. Chanyeol felt something twist inside him, churn and grind until he felt his tears form. He half-walked, half-tiptoed next to his praying sister, and saw that she was curled up like a hedgehog in front of the altar, right beneath the gaze of the Son of the Lord, her sobs had left her, but she was still crying. He reached out timidly to touch her on the shoulder, but as though re-posessed by sadness, her shoulders shook again.

 

The statues and statuettes kept their eyes on their bibles, the lambs in their stone hands, the distance in which they had stared into since their existance. The church was very quiet; beautiful, but so very quiet. The starkness and immutability of the silence pained him, as well as her rhythmic crying, and he felt part as though his soul was being stepped on, part by part.

 

“Yoora, stop crying.”

 

The man was kneeling in front of a pew on the first row, his eyes lifted towards at the figure on the cross, his staff resting against his side. He appeared to be praying with his palms facing upwards.

 

“Yoora, be quiet, you're not supposed to make so much noise in church.”

 

Yoora.

 

“Yoora, I'm begging you, it's not the end of the world.”

 

Yoora. Yoora.

 

“Yoora, please, I'm sorry, but please...”

 

Yoora, oh, Yoora.

 

“She can't hear you,” the man commented gently, and Chanyeol buried his head into his palms, “she can't hear you like this.”

 

Then, very gently, he patted Chanyeol on the arm.

 

“It's Christmas Eve.”

 

*

 

The church stood as a lone guard in the midst of acres of deserted grasslands, ten minutes from primary civillization. She was a white building, built by the people hundreds of years ago, like a white-robed figure watching over rows of marble fenced up next to the compounds of the church. A lone gardener maintained the old graveyard, and he had to be at least a hundred-years-old. A bearded old man, he kept the field of graves like a floral nursery, growing pollinated mixtures, growing roses over the altar leading from the shelves of niches to the graves. The grass was never over a centimetre long, and the bushes trimmed into perfect angles. Colours bloomed everywhere possible. Chanyeol sat next to his friend under a beech tree, his hair swaying like a brown mist in the wind, watching the old man labour over a new patch.

 

“That man has been working here for sixty over years,” Chanyeol's friend shared, his eyes squinted in the radiant morning rays.

 

“How do you know?”

 

“I just do. See the blue patches on his palms?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Those are iodine stains – he practiced as a war doctor before he returned here, to his own homeland. He used to be an atheist, believed in Science completely, until one winter.”

 

Chanyeol hugged his knees up to his cheek, paying attention.

 

“There was a village in Afghanistan, extremely secluded. Back then, the Russians were killing Muslims left and right, bayoneting the pregnant, placing explosives for children to pick up. Killing as many children as they could, so that the people would be to pre-occupied with healing their young than to have the taste for war.”

 

“Charlie Wilson's War,” Chanyeol murmured.

 

“Yeah,” the man smiled slightly, “well, the Russians got to them one day, and the he was treating malaria there.”

 

Chanyeol's eyes widened slightly.

 

“There was a woman who was shot on her way with her son to seek refuge, right at the doors of the bomb shelter. She must have had six or seventeen bullets in her, and her son died on the spot. She was still alive, but had no chance of survival at all.”

 

“Whilst he was bandaging her wounds, they brought in a baby who had been found under the debris, in the arms of her dead mother. She must have been in there for hours, and her limbs had been bombed off.”

 

A tear trickled down the man's cheek.

 

“The baby had no chance of survival either, and the only doctor there,” he gestured briefly towards the old man working with his shovel, “was told to leave the baby next to woman in the room for them to die, and tend to the other, stronger men who could still fight.”

 

“He didn't do it?”

 

“He did it. But that night, when he returned to the room, exhausted, traumatized and depressed, he saw something amazing.”

 

Another tear trailed down his cheeks, and Chanyeol didn't know why, he felt his tears well up too.

 

“The woman had died ages ago, but she was still in a sitting position. The baby was fast asleep in her stiffened arms. She had -fed the child, and died in that position.”

 

The man turned to Chanyeol with wet eyes, “it was Christmas day.”

 

Tears seemed to be so abundant that day, flowing from his and his sister's cheeks like water from a stream, endless, salty, with a tinge of bitterness. The gray winter seemed damper, colder, but Chanyeol didn't hate it. The morning sun was still red, not the kind of glaring afternoon wave, like a perfect moon behind red mist inching above the mountain ranges.

 

“Christmas Day,” Chanyeol repeated, his voice a breath's pitch.

 

“A day for miracles,” the man turned to the old man, “it changed him after that. Not only he became a full-pledged Christian, he saved the baby's life. Even he was only an MD at that time, without finishing his Masters, he performed surgery on the child, stopping the internal bleeding and replacing external tissues with theoretically obtained surgical formulas and heavenly guidance. The baby is living well now, with artificial limbs.”

 

“What are you saying?”

 

“I'm saying, you can try out on the miracles this Christmas.”

 

“How?”

 

“What's the custom?”

 

Chanyeol stared at the man in disbelieve.

 

“You want me to write Santa a wish?”

 

The man threw back his head and laughed, “that's the thing with kids,” he chuckled, “you've always been making wishes with the wrong entity. That's why you don't get them granted firsthand.”

 

Chanyeol looked down at his feet, lost in thought. Then, the man placed a palm on his shoulder, “write to her.”

 

“Write to her, and maybe she'll be able to hear you.”

 

Chanyeol turned back to the old man. He was resting from his work, and noticed Chanyeol looking. He smiled and wave once.

 

Chanyeol smiled back.

 

*

 

Yoora slept in her car that night in the church grounds, trembling in the cold with nothing but a trench coat over her cotton dress. She could care less about the silver marble rows in the field next to the church, or the cooing of the owls in the distance. She felt safe near the church.

 

It was her safe haven, it always had been – hers and Chanyeol.

 

Tears threatened to well up in her eyes again as she remembered her brother, and she buried her face into her coat. Then, her watch beeped.

 

12 a.m, it was Christmas Day.

 

Then, she heard a crinkling of paper. She buried her face deeper into her collar, inhaling the comfort of her own scent before something fell out from her pocket and onto the floor. It was a crumpled piece of paper. She picked it up, smoothened it out and placed it on her lap, under the moonlight.

 

The Wish List To Santa

1. Yoora stops crying over Park Chanyeol, he's not worth all the ugly tears. He's fine, he'll always be, and no matter where he goes, he'll have a friend with him.

2. Yoora returns home. She doesn't have to live there, but don't leave it to crumble. Papa and Mama loved that house. We promised we'd take care of it, right?

3. Yoora forgives Park Chanyeol. He didn't wish for any of it to happen. He wishes that she wouldn't be angry. He didn't betray her or anything, he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

4. Yoora forgives herself. She can't blame herself for him being sick.

5. I love you, Yoora. You're the best sister ever, and you'll never be alone.

 

She crumpled the list in her hands and held the precious piece close to her heart, her racking sobs filling the car as inevitable pain filled her again. The final remaints of her love were inscribed in the tiny sheet, an incipient of a new beginning, with unfamiliar absence of a closed one; a formality between inseparable ties, marking the end of their days together; an official goodbye from a beloved, however reluctant had been forced out in black and white.

 

“Chanyeol,” she wheezed, veins throbbing “oh God, my baby, Chanyeol.”

 

Chanyeol stood outside the door, watching his sister with a pained grimace.

 

“Remember when we were children, we used to hang Christmas deco together?,” his sister gasped between cries, pressing the fragment of his brother's wishes as deep as she could into her chest.

 

Chanyeol placed a palm on the window.

 

“You used to catch me every time I jumped down from that stool because I was too short and too scared to leapt straight off,” she buried her face into her palms, “who's going to catch me now, when I can't reach the ground?”

 

His breath left nothing on the cold window, and neither did his palm.

 

“I'm hovering, Chanyeol. I'm standing on nothing, and I feel so lost. I just want you to catch me again.”

 

He pressed his forehead against the pane.

 

“Please Chanyeol, don't leave me like this.”

 

“But you're not alone, Yoora.”

 

“I'm so scared, you were the only I trusted.”

 

“You'll never be alone. Just like me.”

 

“Please pray for me, please, at least pray for me to be all right.”

 

A hand clasped gently onto Chanyeol's shoulder and he looked up with reluctant red eyes to see his friend leaning against his staff as usual.

 

“It's time.”

 

Chanyeol shook his head weakly, “she's still unstable.”

 

“She'll be fine.”

 

“How do you know? You don't know her.”

 

“I've met a lot of people in my life, Chanyeol. You're sister's no mystery.”

 

“But...”

 

“She'll never be alone.”

 

Chanyeol stared at him.

 

“Promise?”

 

“Promise.”

 

For the last time, Chanyeol allowed his tears to flow, and his friend brushed them away. Then, he suddenly picked up his staff and pulled out the handle, revealing a thin, long sword being unsheathed from the wooden long scabbard in the shape of the walking stick. Then, as Chanyeol watched the sword burst into gold flames. Then, the latch on the wooden door of the church fell off with a loud clang like a bell, and a blinding flare of gold light seemed to emit from within the church. The man with the fiery sword gestured towards the church doors.

 

“Go on,” he smiled, his eyes glimmering, “the others are waiting for you.”

 

Chanyeol smiled back uncertainly, but this time, he didn't turn back towards his sister's car.

 

“You promised.”

 

“Yes I did.”

 

“Before I go, may I know who you are?”

 

“I am Death.”

 

Chanyeol nodded, “but what's your name?”

 

“Sometimes, I am known as Uriel.”

 

“Uriel,” Chanyeol nodded again, “that's better.”

 

“Go on, your Father's waiting.”

 

With a final smile, Chanyeol took slow, gradual steps towards the door and pulled the heavy doors aside. His tears still filled his eyes, but when the rays bathed him, they tasted sweet. Then, he walked into the church and closed the doors behind him.

 

*

 

My name is Uriel, and I have guarded Eden since Adam and Eve were banished for treachery. I still guard it, but sometimes, I am called Death. But I am not black, and I do not send souls away. I just guide them along the way, if they seem lost. They may choose to listen to me. They may not.

 

Humans have free will, and that not even Father can control.

 

I remember the day when I collected the second daughter from the 3^rd house of Himmel Street. Her soul was so soft, and at first, she seemed frightened to see me.

 

“Are you going to send me to hell?”

 

“No, dear,” I'd responded, “I am not.”

 

“I am afraid.”

 

“Then why did you do it?”

 

“I understand that my life was a present from God, and ending it is like throwing it back into his face,” she buried her face into her palms, “but oh, my Grandmother. I couldn't let her suffer any more for me, for this thing in me.”

 

“Many people live on with leukemia, my dear.”

 

“But she was going to donate her kidneys to me, I couldn't have her living on machines. She's suffered all her life, I just couldnt'...”

 

She broke down, and I placed my arm over her, another hand gripping my staff.

 

“God chooses the ones he wants home,” I murmured, and gestured down the lane, “see that boy there?” She looked up to see her tall neighbour, trudging towards the church, “I want you to follow him, you're going the same way.”

 

She blinked and nodded.

 

“There you'll see an old doctor working with flowers, you tell him where you want to go, and he'll tell you.”

 

She nodded again, bangs bouncing.

 

“And I want you to remember not to be afraid when you're on your journey,” I smiled into her face, “because death, is the beginning of a new adventure, and you will never be alone.”

 

She did as she was told, and I watched her a little way from a distance, before my old friend took over. The old man wasn't an angel, but he was half one already, and was one of God's volunteers to guide the children. He played his purpose, and we all loved him.

 

Later, I went back to that old empty house – the 12^th. I stepped onto the porch and made my way with the aid of my staff into Yoora's old room, where the water still dripped and the paper was still damp. I reached down, picked up the folded reading material and sighed.

 

“I supposed he was never meant to tell you that he was sick.”

 

Young Boy Dies in Freak Car Accident Outside Hospital

 

I placed the paper with the headlines facing downwards onto the table and left.

 

 

---

a/n I think I should make some explanatory notes here since I removed alot of descriptions.

Chanyeol had just returned from the hospital after getting results for his blood test. He tested positive for cancer and on the way home, he was hit by a truck on a bridge. He passed away instantly.

Uriel's not the Grim Reaper or anything of the sort, he's just one of the angels guiding the lost souls.

Inspired by one of my personal favourite prayers - Angel of God, my Guardian Dear, To whom God's love commits me here. Ever this day or night, be at my side. To light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

The old doctor passed away along time ago, he's an old friend of the angels. Something of a Saint, since he's extremely faithful.

That's all I can think of, and about the previous chapter, there is no specific ending. Tao might or might not survive the surgery.

This is a work of pure fiction. Thanks for reading this! :)