Incipit

Incipit:

Latin, meaning, begins.

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On the morning of his sixteenth birthday, Ash wanted to die. What a joke. He looks at the book in his hands with loathing. He strokes its leather cover with anger, not tender affection or nostalgia like one might expect. He leafs through the thin book, until he reaches the page titled in large letters; seventeen, and he finds himself feeling just as he did the morning of his sixteenth birthday. 

He sighs as his eyes flick over the page. He looks again, and again. Not blank. Grim, but not blank. He doesn't feel like dying so much anymore.  

-

He sits surrounded by books. Most of them are full of words he has written. Notebooks and novels and folders full of scraps of paper.

His name is Azazel, and for nearly 1,000 years he has written those leather books. He hasn’t written them all of course, just a set amount for every generation. 998 years of writing and yet he has yet to see a single promotion. 

Azazel is smart and handsome, and has been known to win the hearts among many of his kind. He hasn’t seen one of them in all his years as a writer, but he’s quite sure he could still win over a good amount of hearts. He's also sure there’s some fancy name for his profession, but that doesn’t matter, because he’s not going to talk to anyone else for a long time. 

Azazel is cunning. He knows the best way to word the worst news, the best way to tell someone they will die. Writing the prophecies in life books has been Azazel’s job for years, and all the people assigned to him have never been unhappy with what he writes. all except one. 

In all his years of writing in the life books, he has never had an assignment quite so… depressing. Ash Murray.  Born to a happily married couple. Only child. He could have a relatively happy life. He should have a relatively happy life, but his prophecies never agree. They are always blank, and so Azazel writes them as such. 

But this year, the seventeenth year, the little sheet of paper Azazel gets with Ash’s name on it, is not the same as the others. It is not blank. It is so not blank in fact, Azazel has to read it three times over. And each time, his yellow eyes get a little bit wider. It is not so blank, in fact, that each time Azazel reads it over, his frown gets a little deeper. 

Azazel swallows. Whatever glitch in the system that never gave Ash a future has been caught. Hell, maybe Ash himself is the glitch. Maybe this is just the system's way of getting rid of the glitch. 

There is no way for Azazel to write this in a way that will make Ash thank him. So he writes it as it is. Azazel jots down those three little lines, mind reeling at the thoughts running through his head.

Azazel has been watching Ash since he was born. He's been trying to figure out, asking himself, “Why does this boy have no future? No friends? No luck?” And he has never figured it out. He’s grown to pity Ash, sad as it is. An inter-dimensional being, a god, feeling sorry for a human boy is truly as sad as it can be. 

Azazel thinks he will miss Ash. He will miss those prophecies that were so easy to write, and miss watching the boy live his sad boring life, and miss the chance of watching Ash grow old. 

Ash is the most interesting thing he’s had to observe in all his years, and so he will miss him. 

Azazel has quite often thought of altering Ash’s prophecy. Of making it so maybe Ash will have a friend, or maybe win a competition at school. But he never does it, because last time he broke the rules he wound up in his book-filled office. He also doesn’t want to give the boy false hope. He doesn’t think he could do that to such a fragile being.

Azazel sighs, rests his chin on his hand. He looks at the mirror on the corner of his desk and says, “I think I'll miss you the most, Ash Murray.” He closes his eyes, and opens them in Ash’s house. 

Ash’s home is nice, simple. It screams “lower middle class family,” in all caps. Azazel hates it. If it was his home it would be giant and filled with paintings and expensive furniture, but luckily it is not his home, and so there is none of that. Instead it is simple, family photos Azazel knows are only for show on the walls, those same walls painted in a delicate yellow that makes Azazel gags. He mutters to himself about human families and stands awkwardly in the kitchen.

It isn't long before Ash’s mother comes into the room, busying herself with tidying up what little mess there is. He leans against the wall, watches Ash’s small mother move about the kitchen. “Well well well, it’s the man of the hour,” Azazel mutters to himself as Ash walks by him, mother long gone and Ash’s soft footsteps echoing through the cold space. 

Azazel trails after Ash, saying, “You’ve aged quite well, little Murray boy. Quite well indeed.” Ash tilts his head in Azazel’s direction, but looks away. He sits at the table, stares at his hands. His mother has left him a note, but it’s nothing Azazel cares about. Azazel wishes the same could be said for Ash, but it is not. He holds the note carefully, trailing his fingertips over his mothers scrawling cursive. It isn’t for a while that Ash rises; when the clock is ten minutes from 8:00, that he stands up and grabs an apple. 

Ash walks into his room while eating his apple, not knowing Azazel trails after him. He sits on his bed, pulls his book from under the mattress, apple held in his mouth. 

Azazel sighs. The colors of the books normally change as the years grow by, and the person it belongs to changes themselves. Ash’s is the same brown leather it was the day Azazel gave it to him. 

He knows the boy has grown, he knows he has changed. He knows Ash has had friends and important events and some good luck, however little it may be, but he does not know why Ash’s book doesn’t agree. 

Ash finishes his apple, eating the core and throwing the stem away in the garbage bin near his desk. He opens the cover of his book, and Azazel leans over his shoulder to read it with him. There's the same lack of words on the same sixteen pages. Ash looks at the book with loathing as he turns the page to the seventeenth. 

Azazel mouths the words as Ash reads. “Seventeen. 

Personal events: A death, of whom I do not know. 

Non-personal events: A leaving, of whom I do not know. 

Meetings: a god, a man, and a devil.” 

Azazel swallows, runs his hand through his hair. He looks at Ash, sees him chewing his thumbnail. 

Azazel murmurs, "I'm sorry things didn’t turn out for you better, kid,” and finds himself in his office again. He spins around, picks up the slip of paper on his desk. He slides it into a folder in a drawer, and puts his head in his hands.

Things are about to go very downhill, and Azazel has a feeling it will be all Ash’s fault. 

-

Azazel was right, of course, Adam knew this, Michael knew this. Adam wasn't as powerful as he liked to pretend. He didn't know what exactly Azazel was plotting, but he knew it was something. Adam knew better than to place his full trust in his old friend. He also knew about Azazel’s fascination with the human boy. 

“Michael,” he called, waving the angel over. 

“Sire,” he bowed, wings dragging on the floor. Adam curled his lip. 

“I want you to find the human and kill him,” Adam sneered, looking down at Michael from his throne. Michael balked, eyes wide. 

“Which… one?” He stuttered, daring to look up. 

Adam waved his hand loosely. “You know, Azazel’s little toy. The f**k up.” 

“Oh,” Michael mouthed, bending his head again. 

“Do whatever you have to, I don't care,” Adam's voice was nonchalant, uncaring. He tried to make it seem like he didn't care about the human boy. He might’ve cared a little too much. 

Michael might have known this. If he did, he didn't show it.