• I was reading a book from the library at my desk when the phone rang. I shoved my bookmark between the pages and placed it down gently next to my computer. Then I sighed and picked up the phone.
    “Hello, TechWave Internet Consultants, Kiku Raven speaking.”
    “Hi…um…I can’t find my email. How do I get to it?” I was silent in my astonishment, but only for a moment, seeing as I couldn’t just ignore the customer. Though I’d like to.
    “You know that button that says ‘Mail?’ Click it.” I heard a soft click in the background of the phone.
    “Hey, I found my mail! Thanks!” I rolled my eyes. People like this are so annoying. It’s like someone who can’t sing wanting the lead role in a musical.
    “You’re welcome. And remember, you can call us at any time of the day should there be any other issues.” That’s all part of the job, yet I can’t help wishing she calls someone besides me.
    “I will, and thanks again!”
    “No problem, ma’am.”
    “Bye!”
    “Good bye.” I hung up the phone and decided to talk to myself.
    “How can anyone be so stupid?” My boss came around the corner just then.
    “Just so you can have a job. But you’re shift was over a long time ago, Kiku. You should go home.”
    “I appreciate it, Josh. Are you sure it’s okay if I leave, though?” He nodded as I gathered up my things.
    “I’m sure we can muddle through. You know, the questions are so difficult and all…” I laughed.
    “Alright then…see you tomorrow.” I took the elevator from the fourth floor to the first. The air outside was crisp and fresh, so cold that it was almost painful entering my lungs. I walked over to the bike rack and pulled a key from my small backpack. I unlocked my bike, got on and headed home. About halfway to my house, I saw a mob in the street. Rubber necking, was my first thought. I got off my bike, and I was walking it through the front of the mob, and I was drawn to look up at the building in the midst of the mob. There was a man inside with what looked like a gun of some sort and he was shouting out to the cops.
    “Send in a negotiator! And they can’t be like the last four!” He swung his gun around at the cops while staying mostly in shadow. The cops mumbled to themselves. Apparently, they had either run out of negotiators or the remaining ones weren’t willing to die like the other four.
    “Fine, if you can’t pick, I will!” It looked like he was scanning the crowd. He’s going to pick a civilian! How can it be that he thinks a civilian would be better than a trained expert? I felt a gaze stop on me. At that moment, the feeling was equivalent to having swords in my face.
    “Her! With the bike, I want her to come in!” I quickly scanned the crowd, hoping I wasn’t the only one with a bike. But, of course, I was. “Well, is she coming or not?” The cops all faced me. I dropped my bike right there.
    “I’m coming, I’m coming…” I sighed. Note to self: stay in the back of the crowd next time I see this. The crazy gun man escorted me into the lobby of the building surrounded by the police. Hostages were in the corner, all sobbing out to me…as if I could do anything. I sat down in a plastic chair in front of the man. He put the gun to the back of my head.
    “Now…my friend is going to come out. And if you scream or yell or show fear of any kind, I’m gonna fill your head with bullets. Am I clear?”
    “As clear as a bullet filled head can be.” He jabbed the gun into the back of my head a little.
    “And none of those sarcastic comments.” He nodded to his right, into the shadows. The hostages all made quiet whimpers. Instinct told me that their eyes were tightly shut, like steel doors in a flooding boat. The man’s “friend” came out dressed completely in black; he was wearing a black hooded cloak too. The hood covered his entire face in shadow. He sat down in front of me, in another plastic chair. There were two other gun wielding men behind him. They tied my hands to the thin arm rests on my chair, and tied my legs to the legs of the chair. I felt the spider of fear slowly crawling around the edges of my heart…eight small, wiry legs lightly touching my heart. A small shiver ran through me.
    The two men returned to their position behind the hooded man. The man then leaned forward, his face right in mine. His breath wasn’t cold or warm. It was like there was no temperature at all. Every time his breath touched my face, I felt like the life was being pulled out of me. Past the man’s face, I saw one of his lackeys closing his eyes, and I couldn’t help but wonder: what’s going to happen to me? The question was answered when he threw his hood off.
    His eyes were a pulsing red, like the pump of a heart. It was a deep dark red, darker than blood. His nose was identical to the nose of a dead human skull. Just two slits in his face, nothing more. He had an ominous grin on his face, and every tooth was decaying and rotting, like little, crooked tombstones in a vanishing graveyard. But it was his skin that scared me, for whatever reason. It was gray and cracked, like desert sand. But there was no oasis here, just death and desolation. He reached his hand up and there were no fingers, just claws. Black, short claws…his hand was right in front of my face. He placed his hand right on my forehead, covering my eyes.
    It was like flashbacks on fast forward. I saw two separate memory sets. One set from me and one set that I assumed belonged to the man. But they were all frightening memories. A picture of my little brother, Robby, unmoving on the cold ground, a picture of little human boy in a private school outfit, the memory of raining fists, and two kids holding my arms down while I was barraged with pain, the memory of a flask full of purple, fizzy liquid and a little boy’s screams. They were all in my head, one after another. Then, there was nothing…just abysmal darkness.
    “Master…master, she’s waking.” The first man with the gun and the man with a hooded cloak approached me. Lying down on a cold metal bed, I noticed that the hooded man didn’t appear to walk. It was like he was floating above the steel floor, gliding like a dying leaf on a bed of ice. Cold steel…where am I? Certainly not a business building…
    “Pick her up.” I jumped at the hooded man’s voice. The other man put his gun down and picked me up, the motion making me fill queasy. I closed my eyes; I didn’t feel like doing anything besides sleeping.
    “Master, she’s falling back asleep!” I heard something like an angry cat’s hiss and the man carrying me flinched at the noise.
    “Well, don’t let her!” I felt a slap on my face, and I snapped my eyes open. “Good. Now, Lee, open the door.” The man put me down on the steel floor, and I was still too tired to move at all. The man went up to a dark door, one that I hadn’t noticed until he approached it. Once it was open, there was a blinding light that burned my eyes, forcing them shut. Then, I heard Lee stepping away from the door.
    “Uh…Master?”
    “Yes, Lee?”
    “Well, I thought you couldn’t touch people. How are you going to get the girl in?” A hiss-like laughter filled the room, however it was soft. It surrounded me, encased me and flooded over me like an unseen tidal wave, causing me to shudder. Then, he abruptly stopped.
    “She’ll just have to deal with the pain.” I peered out from under my eyelids. The hooded man floated over to me and picked me up. Once his skin touched mine, the frightful memories flooded back, like the turning of a faucet. I was kicking him and punching him, struggling with the mental and physical pain. At the door, he paused, and then we went through the door. I fell onto another cold metal floor; the hooded man standing at the opposite end of the room. How can he move so quickly? There was a flickering light in front of him, like those mad scientists in movies. I rose to my feet, warily approaching him.
    I should get something to protect myself, I thought. I glanced around my surroundings. The room was barren, hardly anything in there at all. Then, I saw a pipe on a wooden box. I grabbed it, trying to make as little noise as possible. Advancing toward him from behind, raising the hand with the pipe in it. He turned without saying a word and threw powder in my face. The pipe fell to the floor with a series of clangs.
    Instinctively, my hands flew up to cover my eyes. There was a searing pain in both eyes; it seemed as if my eyes were liquefying in my head. As you can imagine, that is a rather painful endeavor. After a couple minutes, I lowered my hands, wiped the tears from my face and blinked a few times. The man appeared to be staring at me.
    “You are resourceful, I see. Most of the Chosen that have come here just sat in the corner, blubbering and sniveling. Quite pathetic, actually…they were not nearly as resilient as you are, my dear.” I looked at him with a confused expression and shrugged.
    “Why are calling me Chosen? I’m fairly sure I don’t follow you…” He chuckled, only baffling me further.
    “Of course you don’t, sweetheart. You wouldn’t be the Chosen if you knew that much. You’d be the Chooser. But since that’s impossible, for a profligate human to be a Chooser, you are just the Chosen.”
    “Okay, now I know I’m in a separate universe. Only in a different universe is a human actually referred to as a human. About that whole profligate thing, I would like to say that you are a bungling miscreation and have no right to be calling me anything. So, stop talking.” Turning back to his desk, he chuckled again.
    “You’ve got a big vocabulary, for a human. Do you actually know what profligate means?” I am totally taken aback. Profligate is not that uncommon of a word! And I’m not going to let this mutated mushroom tell me otherwise.
    “Yes! How dare you think I don’t? Profligate means with low morals, having or showing extremely low moral standards. Basically, profligate is you in a nutshell.” He scowled this time and turned back to me. He held a flask in his right hand. It was full of purple, fizzy liquid.
    “I would not state such things if I were you.” I was going to say ‘Thank God you’re not me,’ but I could not draw my gaze off the flask.
    “Is that…”
    “Yes. It is a distorting chemical, resulting in the inner personality and outer destiny being embodied in the very person to which they belong.” I took a few steps back, and metal cords wrapped around my arms, legs and neck. I was yanked against the back wall, where I was before. As the mechanical octopus held me to the wall, the man drew closer and closer to me, like a snake closing in on a cornered mouse. “I will use this chemical to see who you really are and what you will really do. Then, I will kill you.” His was smiling mockingly at me now, and I was squirming, though I knew it was no use. I would not escape him.
    The flask was brought to my lips and the chemical slid down my throat with disappointing ease. I always thought that I would go down fighting, and here I am, with death-in-bottle sliding down into my stomach without an obstruction in sight. When the flask was about halfway empty, a loud crash sounded in the far right of the room. The hooded man turned around quickly, jarring the flask, causing it to fall and break. Part of me rejoiced, while the other part focused on who had broken through the wall. This is the one instant where I must decide if they are friend or foe.
    The dust dramatically cleared, but thankfully, the person behind it was not so dramatic. He was kneeling on the ground rubbing his forehead. His hair reminded me of the bark on a birch tree…or a Dalmatian. It was black and white, scruffy and short. He wore a pair of white boots and baggy, violet pants held up by a white sash belt. His shirt was white and appeared to have purple cuffs at the neck and wrists. I couldn’t really tell, since he was bent over. But I did notice he had a violet band on his upper right arm and a white band on his upper left arm. Then he stood up, putting his arms down at his side. A small trickle of blood came from his forehead, where he was rubbing. His height was very intimidating in itself, but the fact that he had two huge, dark red wings coming out of his back was enough to convince me that I wanted to be on his good side.
    “Note to self: My head is not as hard as I think it is.” He said, partially to himself, as he wiped away the blood, leaving a smear. The hooded man scoffed at him.
    “The Elite find out that I have the Chosen, and they send you? I think they might be slipping.” The angel’s eyes immediately narrowed into a heated glare. His fists clenched at his side.
    “And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?” The hooded man cackled.
    “You are the weakest angel in the entire Elite, you cannot defeat me!”
    “Ugh…I am the ONLY angel in the entire Elite, so I am both the strongest and the weakest angel, so I can kick your butt both ways!” He declared, putting up two fingers for emphasis, and then flapped his wings to rise up a good distance off the floor. I realized that if he went any higher, he’d hit the ceiling. But then he raised his hand and the ceiling was gone. That’s right, gone. G-O-N-E, gone…like there wasn’t even any rubble left behind.
    “Now who’s weak?” He said derisively, drawing his sword. The sword has a jagged blade with angels engraved on it. The guard powerfully reminded me of a claw, clutching at the blade; the small, bony wrist being the grip. Its pommel displays a single citrine gem. The hooded man raised both his hands and two dark orbs formed in his palms. There was nothing special or defining about them, but I felt compelled to stare at them, even when they both launched at the angel. He held his sword sideways, the blade parallel to his right hand.
    “I call forth the Divine Shield!” A clear, pearl like shield formed around the angel. The two dark orbs didn’t just disappear into the shield but were reflected back to the hooded man who just absorbed them.
    “That is why you are the weaker of the two of us.” The angel’s grip on the hilt tightened and he glared at the man.
    “I summon the Angels!” To my surprise, the very angels on his sword pulled from their places on the blade, glimmering with their new-found freedom and soon there were at least twenty angels in the air, all full size. I find it hard to believe they were only an inch and a half a few moments ago. “The likes of you will not call me weak and get away with it.” With that, the angel and his minions of the blade flew higher and slammed into the man. He lay, unmoving, in a large crater in the floor. Panting, the angel raised his blade above his head and uttered a drained, “Return, angels.”
    As he approached me, the cords that suspended me withdrew into the walls. His light red eyes were slightly more rounded than any other eyes I’ve seen. I could tell that he was tired, as anyone who removed a roof, made a shield and spawned 20 angels from a sword is expected to be.
    “Don’t worry. I’m your friend, I’m here to help.” He sheathed his sword and extended his left hand to me. I extended my right in return.
    “I know. Don’t ask me how, but I know.” Once he held my hand, he scooped up my legs and held me like a groom does to a bride, in those tear-jerker romance movies. Then he spread his wings, his wingspan seeming much larger from this close, and we flew off. Somewhere along the way, I noticed that he was wavering and getting lower as we went along, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty.
    “Um...Angel...if you need to take a break…” He shook his head, flinging little beads of sweat to the left and right.
    “I can’t…you are…the Chosen, and…I have to…to…” He was panting between each of the words, and suddenly, his eyes closed, and we both fell. I screamed and squeezed my eyes shut at first, but then I relaxed. The purple fizzy stuff was supposed to bring out the inner me. So what if that inner me had wings? I focused on that thought, and before I knew it, two wings spread out of my back. I stopped falling, but the angel further descended to a rather messy fate. Without hesitation, I drew in my wings and launched myself down and pulled the angel close to me. I held him close to me and flew up to the general area where he passed out, and went on in the direction he was going. It wasn’t long before I myself felt exhausted.
    “Man, Angel…this flying thing is…really hard…” I exasperatedly spoke to the unconscious angel. I stared at his face, not bothering to look where I was flying. His thin lips were parted, and his chest was moving calmly up and down. “At least you’re still alive.” Just then, with a loud whack, I flew into a pillar. “What the hell is this pillar doing here?”