This story is an existential drama focusing on psychology, depression, and romance. It takes a while to get to the sexual stuff, but don’t worry, there is plenty. If you are looking for a stroke story, please go back to the main page. If you are looking for a deep love story, I hope you enjoy. I hope you’ll be patient and save your votes until the end. Thank you.

Chapter 1

If someone were to ask just who “she” was, I wouldn’t be able to answer, as I hadn’t the slightest clue. A hallucination? Some kind of angel? For the past five years, I would greet each morning with the last warm fingers of a dream clinging to my mind. I’d roll on my side, and lying next to me would be a girl of my age, but with beauty unmatched by anyone else on the planet. With liquid smooth skin as soft as ripe fruit, a complexion shade like that of molten bronze and silver mixed together, and bright blue eyes that held unparalleled kindness and warmth, the very sight of her was like a religious experience. Her most predominant feature was her hair, an elegant crimson that could remove all fear of blood from anyone’s soul. Groups of strands would stick together and then curl towards the end like a tongue of fire, granting her a tempered and yet untamable mane that hung down to her thighs.

Along with the face of a goddess, she had a figure that made a mockery of the word “perfection”. Her glassy-smooth legs seemed to stretch her miles, coming to an end at a full but taut rear end with the shaven entrance to her gates of paradise just barely visible under the folds of the cotton sheet. Her midsection was like that of a bikini model’s, with a concave dip on either side from her perfect slenderness. Cliché as the term was, she certainly had an hourglass figure. Last but not least, even though she looked only eighteen, she had D-Cup breasts that looked as soft as water balloons but firm and lively.

Every day, I would wake up with her beside me, lying in bed naked as if we had spent half of the previous night making sweet, passionate love. Each time, she would appear to almost be faintly glowing, and coupled with her flawless beauty, I was surely justified in calling her an angel. Lying there, I would watch as her eyes opened like the rising sun, letting me stare into her beautiful blues. Staring right back at me with endless love, she would smile, hum, and fall back to sleep. Even while knowing how it would end, I would always reach out and try to touch her, desperate to feel some sort of proof that she was real, but always, she would fade away before I could even stroke her hair.

Suffice to say, I was almost haunted by this “dream”. This girl, this figment of my imagination, was the light of my life and the reason why I went to bed each night and plowed through each day. I had never heard her voice, never touched her, never been able to speak to her, and I didn’t even know her name… yet I loved her. She was my secret, the one aspect of my life that I would never speak of, no matter what. When she first started to appear, I even obsessed over her. I would draw her every night on a sketchpad hidden under my bed, remembering her visage with crystal clarity and moving my hand with skill that I would never accept as my own, mirroring her image with graphite and paper with such closeness that I would hold no doubts as to being possessed.

Ironically, she was actually the only dream I would ever have. I would meet her each morning in a half-awake state, but through the night, my mind’s eye would see nothing but an endless expansion of darkness, in which I would hover aimlessly until waking up. The only variance from the black sky was a single speck of light in the distance, a twinkling star almost completely out of sight, then I would wake up to find the girl beside me. I often wondered if she was that star. She certainly fit the role. She was the light of my life, a light I desperately needed, one of the last few reasons why I was still alive. Being able to wake up and see her each morning, even if for less than a minute, she supplied me with enough will power to endure the life I didn’t want. But I have her, I’ll always have her, and the day she disappears is the day I lose that final reason not to end it all.

But she wasn’t here today. I didn’t expect her to, seeing as how I found myself waking up in the hospital. A bright light had shone through my eyelids, stabbing my already sore brain. I could hear the beeping of a heart monitor nearby. My mind was a jumbled mess from the cocktail of drugs being pumped into me from the IV bags at my side, but I delved into my consciousness in search of answers. I remembered sitting in class… 6th period. Senior Biology was half finished… but there was something wrong. I remembered that my hands had been trembling, even more than usual. My skin was being pricked with invisible needles like all my limbs had fallen asleep, but I couldn’t remember if it had come suddenly or if it had built over time. I remembered the first dagger stabbing me in the back of the neck. I remembered falling out of my chair, roaring in agony as I collapsed to the floor.

But it wasn’t the lights or the beeping that had woken me up. It was the pain burning ceaselessly throughout my body. In the single moment from when I woke up, I went from being fine to feeling like I was in the burn ward, charred from head to toe. My muscles all felt like they were being pierced with hot nails, my organs twisted into knots. I leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited on the floor. My heart monitor was sending a digital scream, bringing in a nurse.

“Kill me!” I screamed as the pain intensified.

I sat on the hospital bed with my worried parents, facing Dr. Turner, a blonde woman in her early thirties. I had an IV bag of morphine hanging next to me, trying to suppress the chronic pain that was ravaging my body. I was receiving the maximum amount possible, but even then, all of my skin felt like a blistering sunburn and my insides faired no better.

“What you experienced in class was a seizure, caused by multiple tumors in your brain, focused on two specific areas. It may be possible for us to kill them with a heavy dose of radiation and chemotherapy, but with how small and numerous these tumors are, the chances are slim. It’s a completely new form of cancer, and we aren’t sure what its long-term effects are.”

My parents started to cry, but I was completely calm. “Is it deadly? What the hell is going on with me?”

“Not in the traditional sense, but we just aren’t completely sure.” She held up an x-ray of my brain and pointed to a light spot. “That is the largest group of tumors and we imagine the oldest. However, whether they have grown over time or have always been there is a mystery. They are attached to your limbic system. Specifically, they are growing from the part of your brain that produces the chemical serotonin, as well as other chemicals that control mood. It appears that they aren’t growing any further, but—”

“Let me guess, they’re basically smothering that part of my brain down and starving me of those chemicals?”

She nodded and pointed to another bright spot. “Yes, exactly. Now as for the chronic pain, these tumors on your brainstem are the source. The tumors are basically rooting down into your nervous system, causing continuous stimulation of pain receptors. They’re basically acting as electrodes hooked up to your spinal column. It seems that until now, they haven’t been large enough to trigger you continuous pain. You could almost say that the tumors have finally activated. What you’re experiencing now, that pain is from the tumors simply existing. That seizure you had earlier was the tumors reaching the peak level of stimulation and maximum. That may have been a one-time thing or they could randomly occur from now on while on top of your current condition.

“So is there any way to lessen the extent of my pain?”

“Yes, with anti-convulsion medicine, pain killers, and maybe some antidepressants, we might be able to lessen the extent.”

“By how much?”

“Well, at this point we can’t quite be sure. With drugs, we can make it so that you won’t black out if the seizures persist, make the pain tolerable, and maybe take away the edge of the depression so that you won’t become suicidal.”

‘It’s too late for that.’ “So it won’t kill me, but it will fill me with excruciating pain and make me incapable of happiness?”

“Yes,” Dr. Turner said mournfully.

Not wanting to bother staying in the hospital, I asked to be discharged. Before leaving, we stopped off at the hospital pharmacy to pick up my meds. I was holding my hands out in the cold October air as we drove, hoping that the raw chill might ease the dull throbbing in my fingers. The pain pills were slowly kicking in, making it so that the sting was bearable, but already, the word “bearable” had gained a whole new meaning for me. The drive home was silent, for my parents were trying to keep back tears, but I was calm. That’s the one good thing about being suicidal: the prospect of your own death actually brings you peace. Now I didn’t have to feel guilty about killing myself. The effect it would have on my family was one of the only things keeping me from ending it all. Now I could just let the cancer do it for me.

In a way, it felt good to finally have an answer as to why I suffered from depression. I had been depressed for most of my eighteen years, even suicidal, completely in contrast to the comfortable middle-class life I lived in my hometown in Maine. I couldn’t even count the number of antidepressants, forced therapy lessons, and thoughts of longing to just die. There are people starving all over the world, people suffering. It’s a mystery to people like me why they just don’t kill themselves. It is the only question I will leave behind. How do they have lives that make my horrors look pathetic, but they have the will to live that I lack? That was always an issue nagging in the back of my mind: being depressed without having a reason. It was that mixture of guilt for knowing that I should consider myself lucky but the inability to do so, and the feeling of helplessness from the knowledge that it meant that nothing could change how I felt, and that if I would wish for death in a comfortable life, then I would wish for death no matter what.

But now, I just don’t care. I don’t need to care. I may not have suffered as much as people in Africa or other hellholes like that, but… at least they are capable of feeling happiness. Compared to them, I’m broken, and these tumors are the proof. I have felt the bite of a blade to try and cancel out my inner pain with outer pain. I have felt my sanity ripped away by years of sadness. Depression is more than sadness. It is the inability to feel joy. It’s a missing foundation, like a building with a sinkhole where its fourth cornerstone should be. No matter what you use to try and support the building, it’ll fall away, and the building can never stand, until it too crumbles and falls into the pit. To live with depression is like running a marathon with one leg, and the only help you can get is people suggesting you buy a better pair of shoes.

But hopefully, I’ll be dead soon and I won’t have to feel pain or sadness anymore.

Coming home, I went straight upstairs and hid in my room. I just wanted to go to sleep; maybe it would ease my suffering. Downstairs, I could hear my parents telling my younger sister and brother the bad news.

I was completely in awe, hovering in empty space within my dream. Before me, roaring in limitless intensity was the single star I always saw when I slept. Before now, it had been little more than a single speck of light off in the distance, but now it was clearly in view, the size of the moon and nearly frightening, simply because I realized now that it was not simply a star. In actuality, it was a black hole, devouring a star from the inside out, sucking in the flames and gas of the celestial giant. I could see it as if the sun was a piece of fruit cut in half to reveal the core. Yet miraculously, the sun did not shrink or diminish in size. It seemed more like it was constantly regenerating. Cast around the eternally-dying star was a green oval-shaped nebula, about three times as large as the star itself, and making the whole thing resemble an eye with the black hole as the pupil.

“The eye of God…” I murmured.

While the star was beyond my human comprehension in terms of size, I could feel myself being pulled towards it through the strength of its gravity. Whether this was truly the eye of God, I could not be sure, but one thing I was certain of was that it was my death. No, this object within my dream would not kill me, but it was the symbol of my end. The closer my mind got to it, the closer my body got to death. At the beautiful sight, I could not help but smile hysterically. “I’m going to die, I’m finally going to die. Just a little longer and I will finally find peace.”

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I found myself back in my bed. As always, the imaginary angel was lying beside me, clearly visible in the light of the morning sun. Beautiful, she was so beautiful. The two of us were less than a foot apart, yet it felt like a mile. Lying there, this gorgeous hallucination in front of me, I felt my pain disappear like the extinguishing of a candle. Repeating my morning ritual, I reached up and tried to touch her, desperate to experience the sensation of her skin against my own. As expected, she disappeared just as I was about to make contact, but something stopped me from retracting my arm and letting it fall. My eyes wide, my hand trembling, I scanned through the recorded sensations of that brief second, desperate to figure out if what I had sensed so briefly had been real.

It was faint, so faint that it was almost beyond the reach of my sensations, but it HAD been there. Warmth, that was what I felt, the air within the space that she always occupied was warmer, as if energized by her body heat. My rolled my hand around through the empty space she had left behind, running my fingers through the warm air as if her long crimson hair were brushing against my palm. I then held my hand up to my face, clutching some of the air from that space, and smelled it. Like the warmth, what I detected within that air was almost beyond my ability to sense, but it was there, an aroma so faint that I was actually working my mind into a headache trying to analyze it. Roses, that was what it was.

Shaken by this new revelation, I rolled over towards my window and winced from the light of the midday sun shining directly into my eyes. My parents had let me skip school.

“I might as well get used to this…”

I immediately grabbed my bottle of meds as my agony began to flare from being conscious, downing two pills without anything to drink. It took time to get dressed, as I quickly found that my muscles were stiff from the waves of throbbing pain. Aching all over, I walked downstairs and saw my dad in the living room, reading the newspaper. He was there to make sure I got through the day without hurting myself. Trying to stay unnoticed, I snuck into the kitchen. The last thing I wanted was for him to want some long conversation about how I could talk to him at any time and all that other stuff. I took my antidepressants and convulsion meds, and made myself a bowl of cereal. Just as I was crossing the kitchen with the bowl, a bolt of electricity shot up my spine, making me feel like I was being flogged with red-hot chains. I dropped the bowl with a loud smash and collapsed to the floor, gripping my skull and roaring in anguish. This was even worse than my first seizure, a level of pain reserved for the damned souls of Hell. My dad bolted out of his chair and rushed over to me. Within thirty seconds, it was over. I could feel the pain ebbing away, until it was at its normal levels.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m ok.”

“We’re taking you to the hospital.”

“No,” I declared. My dad looked at me as I picked up the broken shards of the bowl and stood up. “I’m going to be having these seizures for the rest of my life. I can’t go to the hospital after every one. I’ll get used to them eventually.”

I suffered two more seizures that day, both of them causing me to fall to the floor in agony. My mom got home with my older sister and younger brother. They all paused when they saw me in the TV room. I was watching a horror movie and the room was dark. There were bags under my eyes from the strain of my seizures and my hands were trembling more than usual. I looked at my mom and gently shook my head. She got the message and slowly pulled my siblings away.

The dinner had an awkward silence as everyone tried not to stare at me.

“Emily, you wouldn’t happen to know what my homework is, would you? Did you talk to my teachers?” I asked my sister.

“No.”

“I need to head back to school tomorrow, I can’t afford to lose two days as a senior.”

“No, absolutely not,” my mom argued.

“I need to go back to school sometime, and this pain and these seizures aren’t going to go away. I have cancer, not some goddamn cold that will go away after a day of rest.”

Everyone tensed as I mentioned the cancer.

“There is no reason for me to stay home.”

The sky was a dark gray and sleeting as my dad drove us to school. Other students were swarming in to get out of the rain and snow as the doors were finally unlocked. First period was about to start and I hadn’t wanted to wait for it with all of the other kids. The last thing I needed was an awkward twenty minutes outside the school with everyone staring at me.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” my dad asked for the hundredth time.

“Like I said, there is no reason for me to stay home.”

I stepped out of the car and into the falling snow and rain, pulling up the hood of my sweatshirt. It was going to be a harsh winter. Fall hadn’t even ended and the ground was covered by a foot of snow and ice. I didn’t notice the cold as I walked towards the school. I was the last person inside and I quickly headed towards my first class. I was hoping to stay unnoticed, putting off the inevitable awkwardness. I stepped into the small classroom, trying to hide behind the crowds of kids getting into their seats. I sat in the back of the class where no one would see me. If I had been noticed, no one was mentioning it. The teacher began calling attendance. I became more and more tense as he approached my name.

“Marcus Clive?” he asked, doubtingly.

“Here.”

As one wave, everyone turned to me.

“Ah, I had heard that you had suffered a seizure on Monday, are you alright now?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I found out that I have a new form of cancer, but I’m fine.”

Everyone gasped and began muttering amongst each other. The teacher was silent for almost a minute.

“Please, continue,” I said dryly as I took a pill.

I walked down the crowded halls with everyone staring at me. Every few seconds, someone would ask me a question about the disease in my brain or tell me all that lame bullshit about how I could talk to them at any time. I reached for my pills the second enough time had passed since my last one. Just as I put my hand on the cap, the sensation of being stabbed in the back of the skull with a nail bat ran through my body, sending me tumbling down to the floor and roaring in pain. People around me freaked out as I writhed on the floor, gripping my skull as the tumors on my brainstem all sent a particularly strong tremor through my nerves. Within several seconds, it was over. I lied on the floor in a cold sweat, slowly trying to get up.

I raised my head and coughed up a mouthful of blood onto the floor. The stress of my constant pain, coupled with my seizures had ruptured an artery or vein somewhere. People tried to help me up but I waved them away. I took two pills and ignored the voices of everyone as I walked away with a limp.

It was lunch and I was sitting where I always sat. Against the wall of the cafeteria was a set of folded bleachers where students could sit during lunch if they didn’t want to be at a table. As always, I was by myself, but that was because I was compelled to be. I sighed as another girl came up to me and said that if I ever wanted to talk, I could talk to her.

‘You’re only saying that because of my cancer. If I didn’t have a brain full of tumors, nothing would change between us. I barely even know who you are.’ I fought the temptation to say it, but my anger was making difficult. “Thanks,” I said instead, but with a tone as dry as the brick wall behind me.

She walked away and I looked out over the cafeteria for the hundredth time, trying to avoid the gaze of the people looking at me and loathing what everyone was. Humanity was as much of a cancer as the tumors in my brain, and I hated my species with every fiber in my being. I hated the weakness, the greed, the stupidity, the shortsightedness, and every other thing that made us the overgrown cockroaches that we were. I had to hate them, for my own good. Even before my cancer, my life had been agony. My mind was ravaged by its own cold existence, all this time cheated out of chemicals like serotonin. For most of my life I haven’t known what peace, happiness, or sanity meant. I’m trapped in a realm of existence that I cannot escape from, and no matter how well I live, be it a billionaire or a homeless vagrant, my misery and anger will be never leave me. That sadness had in time been twisted into hatred, the feeling of not belonging to any part of the world decaying into loathing for that world. Hatred is my only means of survival, the only alternative to wallowing in despair. It hurts less to hate the world around me than to want to be a part of it. It hurts less to hate others than to be starving for a connection.

But I don’t want to be the cliché outsider who thinks that he knows better than everyone because he sees everything in a jaded light. Social constructs and conventions always seem like a stupid waste of time to me, but I only think they’re stupid because I’m incapable of enjoying them. While I always judge the people around me and hate them for being human, I never think myself better than them. If anything, they are all better than me. I envy them all; envy them for the lives they get to live, the mental stability they get to enjoy. Social lives, friendships, romance, just the ability to integrate within collective and find joy and understanding… There are students down below me who are parts of something bigger, be it something as simple as a school club, but I’m simply not capable of being able to do that.

I looked at the tables surrounded by just girls. There was a time when I would have sold my soul to just find a girl who would go out with me. In my heart, I knew that only love or death could bring me peace, and I had known it for years. For close to a decade, I had been looking for my soul mate, the one girl who could take away my pain. At least, that’s what I used to want. Now I knew it was too late.

I staggered through the hall, trying to recover from a seizure only a few moments’ prior.

“Marcus, do you want to talk?”

I already knew who it was. Her name was Julia, and she was one of the few people who were nice to me. Well, she used to be. I hadn’t talked to her since sophomore year. She was kind and beautiful, and for a while, I thought that I loved her. But then I learned that she had a boyfriend, and after that, I simply lost interest. Now I saw her simply as a nuisance, a reminder of the days of wishing I could be with her, no matter what the cost, days when my pain and desperation were euphoria compared to my current agony.

“No.”

“You need to talk to someone.”

“No, I just need to get to class.”

I spat out a mouthful of blood. The bleeding would always start after every seizure.

“Why won’t you look at me?” she asked in desperation.

“Because I’m in pain! I’ve been in pain long before I got these tumors. I used to think that either love or death could cure me, but I hate this world and everyone in it far too much to ever fall in love! I’m already dead, I’ve been dead for as long as I can remember, but for some reason, my body won’t take the hint and croak, so I’m stuck in this wretched and agonizing bag of flesh and bones, trapped in a world I despise and surrounded by a species that I pray would go extinct! You’ve made it clear that you cannot be the one to help me, no one can. I can only suffer until my abominable existence wipes itself out.”

“Are you mad at me?!” she asked defensively.

I turned around and walked away. “No, I’m mad at fate. I’m mad at my own cursed existence. If you want to help me, then put a bullet in my head.”

Wanting some fresh air and deciding it would be better not to risk having a seizure on the bus, I walked home. The weather wasn’t too bad, and the cold helped ease my pain a little, plus it gave me time alone with my thoughts, free from distractions and noise. Walking along the ice-caked road with my hood tightened to keep my ears warm from the snow, I let my mind wander back to my dream. If what I had concluded about that star was right, then my death truly was approaching and would soon conclude. Even if what Dr. Turner had said about my cancer not being terminal were correct, the side effects sure would be. How long could the human body truly last when forced to suffer endless torture?

‘Whether or not it is my true death or not, until that time comes, this is how I must march through time. Whether I will continue to exist in some other form is irrelevant, no mind can truly understand the meaning of death or the weight it carries, therefor, it cannot exist within our minds. We cannot comprehend death, we cannot understand it, not without experiencing it ourselves, at which point, we cease to exist. Therefor, death is incomprehensible; it is the end of all reason, in which all human rules and assumptions become meaningless. We can only understand things that exist, while we ourselves exist, so while we may fear death, it is impossible to become aware of it ourselves.

We cannot feel our own death, just as we can’t feel nonexistence. We can watch others die, we can feel our own lives slipping away, but we cannot feel that final moment. We cannot know precisely when it ends. We can see a million people die, but we cannot see our own. It’s like every single person is an immortal surrounded by mortals, a continuing paradox of observation and ignorance. Life occupies the entirety of our minds and our existences, it is infinity; it is the endlessness. Death is the world outside of infinity, the realm beyond argument, in which beginning and end are one in the same.

If I cannot find or detect the end of my life when it happens, then through my senses, it will never happen. I am immortal, and the only way for my death to occur is for everything and nothing to collide and end my existence. Or am I wrong? Will I continue to exist beyond death? Will I live on, even while my body rots in the ground? Is there a life after this one? Is it better? Is it worse?’

“Hey Marcus, want to play chess?” my brother Phil asked.

I was sitting on the couch in the living room, watching TV with a wet towel on my head. I had been feeling feverish all day. Phil was three years younger than me and had the same black hair as I did, though his was cut shorter and he had a different bone structure. He and I had been playing chess for years and he had never once beaten me. You could say it was the one activity we did as brothers, and from what I guessed, this was his attempt to try and distract me from my pain.

I shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

Phil sat on the other end of the couch and the board was set up. I kept my eyes focused mainly on the TV, looking at the board only when it was my turn. I had some difficulty moving the pieces; my fingers felt stiff and brittle.

“Phil, do you know where I could get some pot?” I asked out of the blue.

“What?”

“Come on, I know you’re a freshman, but you’ve always been on the social circuit. You must know someone who can sell me some weed.”

“No, I don’t hang around with people like that.”

I sighed again and continued to play. For once, Phil managed to beat me, but it was a hollow victory, especially with how quickly he won. I knocked over my king with a click of my tongue.

“Well now, it looks like the old king is dead and the new king has risen. Long live the king,” I said dryly before getting up and leaving.

“Hey Marcus, what’s up?” my sister asked, surprised to see me standing in the doorway.

Emily was a year younger than me and a Junior. She had my mom’s blond hair, but it was mixed with my dad’s dark hair gene.

“Do you know anyone at school who could sell me some pot?” I asked, nearly scaring her with how blunt I was.

“What? No! And you shouldn’t be smoking that stuff, it’s bad for you!”

“Oh cut the shit, Em! It’s goddamn marijuana, it’s completely harmless and you know it!”

Emily’s eyes darkened and we were both silent. I softened my tone before continuing. “You know I wouldn’t even bother with the stuff under normal circumstances… but things have changed.”

“Do you really think that stuff will help you?”

“I wouldn’t believe it if it did. I’m just hoping that it can make things easier. Come on, pot is probably the least dangerous thing I could put in my system these days and the government banning it is one of the most retarded things in the history mankind. It’s a fucking plant that makes people feel good. Besides, let’s say the anti-pot propaganda is true and it is bad for me, do you honestly think that I’ll live long enough to face the consequences?”

“Marcus, you’re not going to die,” she said softly, getting up from her bed and walking over to me.

“Emily, I’m already on borrowed time. The movie is over, the credits are rolling, and Rotten Tomatoes gave it all negative reviews. I’m going to die soon, I know it, so just be a good sister and let me be a little selfish before I kick the bucket.”

Emily sighed. “Mike Broflovski, you can find him under the football bleachers at school. I don’t know anything else about him.”

I was lying in bed, staring at her longingly on another school morning. With my eyes fixed upon her hallucinatory figure, the fires of agony within my body were silent, nearly making me sob tears of joy. It had been almost a minute since I had woken up and saw her open her eyes before falling back to sleep, but for once, I managed to overcome my desire to try and touch her, and instead was letting the delusion continue, or whatever it could be called. She was sleeping, this girl who’s name I did not know, this beautiful angel conjured up by my demented soul. She was sleeping so peacefully that I wasn’t sure I could ever overcome my guilt if I disturbed her.

I could have lied in that warm bed for the rest of my life, just staring at her. With each breath she took, I could see her chest rising with the expansion of her lungs, and the flickering strands of her blood-colored hair. The blanket of my bed was barely wrapped around her beautiful frame, letting me look upon almost her entire body. Piercing this real-world dream, my alarm clock began to beep. Knowing that it would mean her disappearance, I reluctantly reached out over her to turn it off. Even with the deactivation button pressed, the girl remained with my arm stretched out over her like a bridge. She had never stayed this long before, was the hallucination just growing in depth? Would I finally be able to touch her? Humming in bliss, she opened her eyes and stared at me with a small but sweet smile on her lips.

She spoke.

Her voice was inaudible, but her lips parted and shaped the words with incomprehensible care, like a master artisan sculpting a spinning clay pot with her hands. I had never been one for reading lips, the ability completely eluded me, but once, just this one time, I was able to read the formation of the words like a bright neon sign, and hear them whispered in the center of my mind.

“I love you.”

Three words, three simple words, but the weight they carried pushed me over the edge. Unable to hold the tears of joy back any longer, I desperately reached out to embrace her, only for her to disappear before I could be blessed with her touch.

I stepped into the locker room of the school. It was time for gym class but I wouldn’t be participating. My constant pain was my permanent excuse. Why couldn’t this cancer have kicked in when I was a Freshman? I stuffed my backpack in one of the lockers and grabbed my pills.

“Why do you always cry when you fall down?”

I already knew who it was and I was trying to keep my blood from boiling. His name was Tom, and he was nothing but a punk and bully. He had tormented me all throughout middle and high school, an extra force driving me into depression. He was probably one of the largest reasons as to why I wanted to die.

“Tom, leave him alone, he has cancer,” another student warned.

“So? Its not like I would cry if I had that,” Tom grunted before shoving me.

I turned to him, the pudgy psychopath.

“You’re just a pathetic little bitch.”

In my mind, something snapped. The anger, which had always been suppressed by the fear of consequences, finally broke free. Tom was larger than I was, but I didn’t care. Practically foaming at the mouth, I reached out with both hands and grabbed him by the throat, slamming him against the lockers. I was strangling him with all the strength I could gather in my sick body, using adrenaline to increase the power of my muscles. I had my thumbs pressed against the main arteries in the side of his neck, halting the flow of blood to his brain while robbing him of the ability to breathe. He couldn’t focus enough to use his arms to free himself. I would normally never retaliate like this, as I had learned early in life that the bullies always got off without a single slap on the wrist but the victims who defended themselves basically got the chair. There was nothing that could be done but take the pain and hope your tormenter would eventually get bored. For what I was doing, I could easily get expelled, but not a single part of me cared. If I was going to live a life of agony and die an early death, I might as well do whatever the fuck I wanted and drag some bastards down with me.

“How about I correct some of the bullshit spewing out of that deformed pile of gray matter you call a brain? First of all, I don’t fall down. I have goddamn seizures. Second, the tumors in my head are strangling my limbic system just like I’m strangling you, meaning that my brain is now incapable of producing chemicals that let me feel anything other than misery and anger. Last but not least, when I have a seizure, all of my senses are so overwhelmed with the pain that I collapse as I am bombarded by waves of agony. I suffer every second, but when I have a seizure, it makes being lit on fire seem like a massage! Have you ever been in so much pain and wanted to die so bad that you almost used your own fingernails to slash your wrists? I think anyone would shed some tears if they experienced that.”

Tom was turning blue from the strangulation and I had to fight with everything I had to keep from murdering him right then and there in front of everyone. Instead of ending his life, I threw him down at the ground, inadvertently smashing his face against the corner of one of the locker room benches. The impact completely shattered his eye socket and fractured his skull. Another few centimeters and his eye would have been permanently lost. After he fell to the ground, I finished with a kick to the jaw, busting up almost half of his teeth. Tom was passed out on the floor and pouring blood with everyone staring at me in fear.

I opened my bottle of pain meds and took one out. “That is just a sample of what I live with constantly.”

Tom was rushed to the hospital and I was suspended for the rest of the month. Under normal circumstances, I would have been suspended for a full month or even expelled, but the punishment was light for several reasons. Tom had been the school bully ever since 6th grade and was nothing but a worthless punk. He treated everyone like shit and teasing someone with cancer was the worst thing anyone had ever seen. Everyone in the locker room testified against him and said that I had done what needed to be done long ago. I silently disagreed with them on that. What should have been done long ago was Tom being lined up in front of a firing squad and shot. I knew in the back of my mind that everyone was testifying for me because of my cancer, because everyone hated Tom, or because everyone now feared me. My sentence was also so light because of the recent trauma of learning of my disease.

My parents immediately picked me up from school. During the ride home, they constantly contradicted themselves. They would say how much trouble I was in and that what I did was wrong, then go back and say that Tom deserved it and what I did was reasonable. I didn’t really care about being suspended, and Thanksgiving vacation would come a few weeks after I got back, letting me have more time to relax.

As the days droned on, I spent my time watching horror movies. The lights would be turned off and I would laugh bitterly during every gruesome kill. Horror movies were one of the few things that I didn’t hate. The fact that I watched them in the dark on Friday and Saturday nights, while most people were hanging out with friends made my parents nag nonstop about my social behavior. They would tell me that I need to spend time friends, and I would tell them that I didn’t want friends.

“Who are you?” I whispered, once again lying in bed and facing the girl of my dreams.

Ever since she had first spoken (albeit while mute), I had been hoping and wishing that whatever it was, be it a hallucination or paranormal event, whatever it was that allowed me to see her each morning would grant me the ability to interact with her even further. At the question, she batted her eyes coyly and rolled onto her back, letting the pale light passing through my window shine down upon her naked body. The girl looked at me, giving a sleepy smile as if waking up on a Sunday morning with nothing to do but doze.

“My name is…”

The name was spoken, entering my mind and drawing confusion. I repeated it, uttering the unexplainable noise even without understanding it. The noise was not a word, consonant, or vowel, it was like nothing found in nature or anything humans had ever created, it could not be compared to anything. As soon as I heard it, I completely forgot it, but even with it slipping my memory, I was somehow able to repeat the sound if I so desired. The girl smiled as I said her name back to her, as if what she had told me and what I had said was her real name, but my mind would not allow me to be aware of it.

“Who are you?” I again asked.

The girl smiled and repeated her statement as well. This time, I instead focused on her voice. This was the first time I had ever heard it, and it was more beautiful than I ever imagined. Clear as the chiming of a bell but soft as the coos of pigeons, the sound of the three words preceding the blur that masked her name was like a lullaby.

“What are you?”

Breaking character, the girl moved towards me, slowly yet suddenly, and nearly making me jump. She brought her face up to mine, our lips almost touching while we stared into each other’s eyes and exchanged the same breath.

“Wait for me,” she murmured, pulling away and disappearing.

I stepped into the school on the first of November, and it was as if time stopped upon my arrival. Everyone was standing like statues while staring at me with both fear and admiration. With my usual stony scowl and gray hood pulled up, I took a pain pill and proceeded to my locker. I was walking with a limp, for I had suffered a seizure in the shower earlier that morning and banged my leg. My dad was now adding a guardrail in case of another seizure.

After I stopped off at my locker, people started bombarding me with questions as they had done on my first day back. They asked me to tell them what happened in the locker room, even though the guys in there had already retold it a thousand times. They also asked me to repeat what I had said about my cancer, for that had been the first time I had actually described it to someone. I just ignored all of the questions, acting like they weren’t there. There was no reason to answer, even if it was just to be polite. They meant nothing to me, and once I graduated in the spring, I would never see them again.

I was lying in bed, holding a joint the size of a cigar. I had bought all the weed I could off that Mike guy and told him that he had better have more when I came back. If I was going to blow my savings on pot, I might as well get some customer service. I always had a few hours to myself after every school day, my siblings would be hanging out with friends or be playing sports and my parents would be at work, leaving me with the house.

Lighting up one end of the joint, I took a deep puff and immediately began coughing and hacking. Ok, maybe I should take it slower…

I began getting into more fights at school. Quite simply, I was done with the bullshit. If anyone insulted me, gave me lip, or got on my bad side, I did not hesitate to throw a punch. I was going to die soon so there was no reason to give a fuck about anyone or anything I decided I might as well deal with old business while I still had time. A lot of people had made my life a nightmare and I was paying them back. I received my fair share of injuries, I was often sporting a black eye, busted lip, or bruised face, but as long as I didn’t suffer a seizure during a fight, I normally won. I guess that was one advantage of full-body endless pain: your enemies can’t do anything to make you hurt anymore than you already are.

The school tried to ignore my actions, or at least punish me lightly. Each altercation earned me a couple days suspension, but they didn’t have the nerve to go any farther. The school system and I had bad history, and they certainly had a lot to apologize for. My parents were the same, putting up a false front of condemnation while being unable to gain the courage to punish me. They knew that I was self-destructing, acting out to try and cope with my pain. It was the only thing I could do.

It was the day before Thanksgiving and my relatives were expected to arrive in less than an hour. They all knew that I had cancer and I was not looking forward to some sappy family reunion. I walked to the door and grabbed my coat. “I’m going out for a walk.”

“But everyone is going to be here in just a few minutes!” my mom called from the kitchen, working feverishly to make a big dinner.

“Exactly. Could you do me a favor and tell them to act like I don’t have cancer?”

Before my mom could reply, I stepped outside and into the bitter cold. There was no wind, but the air was frigid and raw. The air was clear, showing a pale blue sky as the sun slowly drifted towards the horizon. The surrounding area was a mix of thick woods and marshy fields, the brown landscape now painted white. I started walking down the side of the road, not caring where it took me, even though I knew exactly where it led. The sand and gravel on the side of the roar was filled with garbage, from beer bottles to empty cigarette cartons. The cars that drove past me hit me with a sudden breeze, like a last dying breath. The raw frigid air, the bleak landscape, the taunting drones of cars driving by, and the trash around my feet was both comforting and depressing. The cold helped ease my chronic pain and the barren scenery made me feel more at home, but with each empty cigarette carton I kicked aside and each car that broke the silence, I was reminded of how alone I wanted to be and how much I couldn’t be.

I soon arrived at the wooded park down the road from my house, but I wasn’t ready to go home yet and I needed a break from the cars and the road. There was no one else around; even a member of the most bitter and chaotic family would choose to remain home rather than be subjected to this bitter cold and wind. I entered the forest, following the footprints of dogs and their owners, lightly covered by a sprinkle of fresh snow from the night before. As always, my thoughts were on my own mortality, as I tried to figure out how much time I had left. I should probably start making a will for when my body gives out and I at last achieve death, but what did I want?

I came to a stop, my eyes wide, my breathing shallow, staring at the creature before me. Resting against a fallen tree to get out of the wind, a coyote lay on the cold ground. Its chest heaved slowly, causing the dried blood around the bullet wound in its side to crack. Almost every night, the coyotes could be heard yipping and howling in the farthest reaches of the forest, but this was the first time I had seen one up close. From the looks of it, it had probably wandered onto someone’s yard and the property owner shot it to make sure no others came by. From the coagulation, it had likely happened the previous night, but from the placement of injury, it was probably still bleeding internally and had organ damage. The fact that it had been able to limp this far into the woods was a miracle.

I approached the wounded animal, slowly, but without fear. Right now, it was at its most dangerous, but what was the worst it could do to me? Bite my hand? I wasn’t sure I’d even feel it. The coyote looked up and gave a soft growl, but was too tired and cold to even show its teeth. I crouched down before it and reached out. It tried to bite me, but its fangs missed and I managed to rest my hand on the top of its head. Knowing it could not keep the bluff up any longer, it laid its head back onto the cold ground and waited for death. I brought my hand to its chest, feeling its desperate breaths and its feeble heart beating.

Too tired to move its head, the coyote shifted its gaze upwards, looking past me. I followed its eyes to the barren tree branches above, contrasting against the evening’s pink sky. For all I knew, this creature and I were thinking the same thing. Would I ever see green leaves on those branches again? Or would this be my last winter? Would I die, miserable and in pain, or was there even a glimmer of a chance for me to live my life without hiding from the world? Would the day ever come when I too can bask in the sun?

Solemnly, I reached in my pocket and pulled out my Swiss Army knife. I couldn’t leave this animal here to suffer. I had to put it out of its misery. I folded out the knife and put the tip to the back of the coyote’s spine. I hesitated, spending another minute looking into its eyes and feeling its body tremble. I had never killed an animal before, not counting the one or two mice I had run over when I was learning to drive, but this thing was much bigger than they were.

“You and I are exactly the same. The only differences are that you probably want to keep living… and I wish someone would be merciful enough to do this to me.”

Taking a deep breath, I forced the blade into its neck, severing the nerves as best as I could. Its body gave the smallest twitch and then everything became still and its eyes closed. I stayed there a little while longer, feeling the heat slowly leak from its body. I reached behind it into the crater of dirt of the uprooted tree and grasped a small handful of icy soil. I rubbed it between my hands, letting it thaw so that the smell of the nutrients could slip free. I stared at the dirt, moving it around to separate the minerals from the decaying matter, and then sprinkled it on the slain animal. Soon, I would die, just like this coyote, and I would return to the earth, just like everything else. For the first time in a long while, I actually smiled, knowing what I wanted. I wanted to be buried, but without a coffin, and certainly without being embalmed. I wanted to embrace my death, not hide from it in a pine box while noxious chemicals keep me from rotting. I wanted to feel the soil on my face, to be enveloped by the earth, and maybe have a tree planted over my grave. At least then, the worms and the plants would get more use out of my body than I ever did.

I wiped my hands off on the coyote’s fur and then stood up. It was time to go home.

I stepped through the front door of my home and was instantly bombarded by hugs and greetings from my relatives: cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and everyone else. I could sense the awkwardness underneath their words as they asked how tall I was and all of the other cliché inquisitions.

“Dinner is ready!” I heard my mom call from the kitchen.

I had no appetite.

“I’m just going to go to bed.”

Before anyone could even try to stop me, I went upstairs and into my room. I moved to my bed, wincing as my muscles became more and more sore. I lied down and let my aching body settle.

“Please, just let me sleep and not wake up.”

“Why can’t I hear your name?” I asked, speaking to the girl while the hallucination would let me.

Having already gone through the recorded movements and actions, the girl opened her eyes and gazed at me with her usual warm smile, while almost laughing in a gentle hum.

“Are you even real?”

“Does it matter if I am real or not?”

Hearing her speak warmed my heart with the possibility that maybe she wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. “Yes, no… I’m not sure.”

The girl then moved closer to me, closing the gap between us and reducing it to a few unbearable inches. “If I don’t exist, if I am just a creation of your own mind, then you should be happy. If it is you who created me, then I am always with you. I am wherever you want me to be and you just have to wish it.”

I put my hand over my face and rolled onto my back, having suddenly felt my eyes watering up. Every word that passed from between her beautiful lips was a shock to my very soul, like the ending of a beautiful book.

“No, that’s not good enough. I need you with me. I need you to be real. I don’t know why, I just need—”

I was silenced, my whole body brought to a complete stop by the sensation of the girl leaning over and pressing her lips against my own. I moved my hand away from my eyes, in complete and utter disbelief. This was the first time I had ever been able to touch her, and that first touch was expressed through my first kiss. Her face, so close to mine, I could see every single detail of her visage and saturate myself with her rosy aroma. The sensation of her lips against mine, it went beyond just canceling out my pain, it made me feel… good. I felt happy, euphoric, like I had just been working for three days straight and was settling into a hot tub. Her lips were so soft and warm, but also carrying a gentle flavor. It was like I was kissing a wisp of steam from a cup of tea.

The girl eventually broke the connection and we stared into each other’s eyes. She then sat up and moved on top of me, her hands pushing down on my shoulders and her long crimson hair hanging down around our faces like a curtain, seceding the space between us from the outside world and making it all our own. Staring at her full breasts and feeling the smooth lips of her pussy rub up against the shaft of my hardening penis (with only the fabric of my boxers separating them) was driving me wild with hormonal lust.

In all honesty, I hadn’t been this aroused in months, I could literally feel the blood pumping furiously through my body and firing up the long-dormant parts of my brain that I had ignored for so long. But beyond her beauty, beyond her naked body resting on mine and making me hornier than ever in my life, the greatest feeling was her weight on me. It was real. I could feel her pushing down on my shoulders, sitting on my lap. I could even hear the springs of my mattress creak beneath us. This weight was real, it had to be, and that meant she was real.

“You need me to be real because you need to believe that there is some aspect of this world that can make you happy, that there is at least one person who can take away your pain. But if I am just a creation of your own mind, then you should be overjoyed. It means that you hold the key to your own happiness, and wherever you live, no matter how you live, you can make it paradise.”

The words were whispered and her face was lit with tender care and love. The girl then leaned down and settled herself on top of me like a cat, her chest pressed against mine and her face buried in the side of my neck. Her body, it was so warm and soft, I was completely at a loss for words on how to describe it. All I could do was wrap my arms around her womanly frame, hold her tight, and cry tears of joy. I didn’t care, real or not, she was here with me, and that was all that mattered. Whether she was some sort of angel from heaven or just a figment of my imagination, as long as she was with me, I’d be happy.

“Marcus, come on, it’s time to wake up. You’ve been in bed for too long,” my mom said, knocking on the door.

At the sound of the doorknob shaking, I turned with fear in my eyes. “No, don’t. Please, not yet.”

The handle was fully turned, and just as the door began to move, the girl disappeared, leaving me alone once again. My mom just stood in the doorway, looking at me and wondering why I was crying.

Even if my dreams had now reached new levels of depth and I could interact with the girl more than I had ever hoped, that didn’t help my daily routine. In fact, it made it worse. Spending every second longing to go back home and go to bed so that I could wake up beside that girl, my life became even more miserable. Everything that made my day difficult became horrible, and everything that had never bothered me before was now a curse, as it required time and stood in my way. Add that to my continuous pain and my multiple daily seizures, and each day went from being an endless hell to a taunting deprivation of the one light in my hellish life.

Such lively contact like that special night before was rare and not often repeated. The girl still appeared every morning for a few minutes, but I could rarely do anything more than touch her gently with my hand. Going further would cause her to disappear. She never spoke much, only when I said something to her or asked her questions, and even then, her answers were simple and often repeated. Regardless, just waking up next to her each morning was enough to get me through the day, but barely.

While my visions of the girl seemed to mature, every night, I dreamt about that star, the star being devoured by the black hole in its core, the star sitting in a nebula looking like the eye of God. I could feel myself drawing closer and closer to the black hole in the center, being pulled in towards my death. The closer I got, the larger the celestial mass became, surpassing my human comprehension. Yet strangely, after that night, while my increasing proximity continue to expand my view of the star around it, the black hole was actually shrinking like a contracting pupil. It was as if the black hole was sizing itself to correspond with my distance from it.

December was exceptionally rough, quite simply because I had decided to try chemo and radiation treatment for my cancer. Well, to be honest, my parents basically coerced me into doing it and making me feel guilty if I refused. They wanted me to live no matter what, so the only way to throw off their suspicions that I was eagerly awaiting death was to feint hopelessness and fear towards the treatment. I eventually agreed to treatment under one condition: if I didn’t see any results before New Year’s or I started losing my hair, I was going to quit. I didn’t have high expectations, but I would do it to get my parents off my back.

On my first day of chemotherapy, I found myself in a room with other cancer patients, all sitting in chairs lining the walls. Each one was hooked up to an IV, and their stages of treatment were all visible on their emaciating bodies. Considering the time it took for each session, everyone had methods of keeping boredom at bay. There were laptops, handheld game consoles, books, and one of the kids was even playing with a Rubik’s Cube. I sat by the window, letting the poison run through my veins. I was also receiving a heavy dose of morphine, helping to numb some of my pain. Hopefully I wouldn’t have a seizure in the hospital. The last thing I needed was some intern right out of med school sticking a tube down my throat.

Drowsy from the drugs running through me, I let my mind wander. My thoughts drifted back to the girl and what she had told me. She said that if she wasn’t real, if she was just a figment of my imagination, then I could call on her whenever I needed. Maybe it was something I should try. I closed my eyes, forcing aside all distractions and sensations. I focused my mind on the girl, but was unsure of what would actually bring her forth. If I just thought about her, would she appear in this room with me? Should I try and fall asleep and dream about her?

Slowly the sounds of the other patients faded, the world falling silent around me. But I was not alone. I felt someone gently grasp my hand and opened my eyes, staring into the beautiful blues of the girl. She was kneeling at my feet, naked as always. Behind her, the chemotherapy room had blurred into an unrecognizable collage, as if I was falling out of sync with reality.

“Marcus, my dear sweet Marcus…” she whispered, resting her head on my lap.

I slowly reached out and placed my hand on the top of her head, stroking her hair. “You’re really here,” I gasped in amazement.

“Of course I’m here; I’m always with you. Marcus, I’m so proud of you, for everything you’ve endured. Your patience will be rewarded, I promise you. Just hold on and I will bring you happiness.”

“What am I supposed to wait for?”

“The day when our souls can finally achieve convergence.”

I then jerked in my chair, having been awoken by the nurse. I had slept through the treatment.

Christmas and New Year’s came and went, and I was happy to see them go. I hated the holidays; all of the cheer and happiness made my organs fail. With the start of the New Year, I had the doctors check my condition and see if any progress had been made on my tumors. After a month of radiation and chemo, I had figured at least a slight change would be found. No. There was nothing. They had resisted the treatment and I was stuck where I was.

Each day, my pain was getting worse, and I found myself taking more and more pills than I was supposed to, both painkillers and anti-convulsion meds in an attempt to curb my seizures. Originally, I would take two painkillers every four hours and one anti-convulsion med every six, but now I was downing them like tic tacs. My body was weakening, but in a way, that was a good thing. I was close, so close. Soon I could rest in peace.

“Twenty bucks for a dose, and I’ll give you an extra ten for a clean needle and to help me set up. My hands are too shaky for something like this,” I said, standing in an alley in town.

The sky above was gray with a gentle snowfall pouring down on the dealer and I. Luckily, the café to our right kept us out of the wind. The man before me looked to be in his late twenties, unshaven with deep distrust in his eyes. I was a new customer to him, and normally he would have turned me away on instinct, but luckily I looked sick enough to pass for a hardened user.

“Let me see your hands.”

I held them up, letting him see them tremble. With every nerve ending in my fingers firing, my hands were shaking so badly that it looked like I had MS.

“Alright, fine. You’re in luck, kid. I just got some brand new syringes yesterday and I’ve got one left.”

He looked around to make sure we wouldn’t be seen and then took out his merchandise. Filling up a spoon with heroin, he clenched the handle with his teeth and used his hands to hold a lighter and protect the flame from the wind. Slowly the powder melted into its liquid form, and before it could cool, he unwrapped an unused syringe and filled it with the drug, finishing by handing it to me in exchange for the cash.

“Tch, luck. If luck were on my side today, this needle would end up killing me.”

With the dealer leaving, I sat down on the cold wet ground, pulling up my sleeve and looking for a vein. It certainly wasn’t hard; my skin was as thin as paper and my arteries were all swollen from malnutrition and the strain of my disease. I pushed the needle into my arm, not even feeling it amongst the billions of other painful pricks tormenting my body. I hesitated with my thumb on the plunger, wondering if this was really the route to take. My life was already cut short and the chances of there being a cure for my pain were slim, but did I really want to further burden myself with even a single injection of this toxin and risk developing an addiction? After all, the pot had been a dismal failure. What chance did heroin have of helping me? I concluded my hesitation with a laugh, deciding I didn’t have much to lose.

I pushed down onto the plunger, filling my bloodstream with the poison. Casting the empty syringe aside, I leaned my head back and stared up into the snowfall, waiting for the drug to take affect. Could I possibly be any more pathetic? Sitting in a back alley with heroin running through my veins, trying desperately to free myself for just a few moments from my disease… It was beyond pitiful; it was shameful. But soon, the drug began to take effect, numbing my senses and bringing down my pain to a dull throbbing while leaving my mind spinning. Waiting for this dark miracle to truly free me from my agony, I stared back up into the gray sky and let my mind wander.

Is there a god? I ask myself that question often, but of course, so does everybody. I don’t know if I am a believer, an atheist, or just an agnostic. I see no reason in the world, no meaning, no pattern behind the chaos other than the patterns humans try to create. Is there a purpose in any existence? Even mine? Was I created with this body simply to suffer? Was I created and then abandoned, never cared about by whatever deity might have cursed me with life? Was all of mankind created to suffer or was it created and then abandoned? There is so much pain in the world, so much agony beyond my own. What kind of twisted god would put us on this earth to live as the abominations that we are, caught in evolutionary limbo? Would our creator not also be our parent? Shouldn’t they try and protect us from harm? Are we merely entertainment? A TV show for more advance life forms? Or are we little more than a bacteria colony growing on a discarded test tube, created by accident and never acknowledged?

What use is there of a god in this human world? Either he doesn’t exist, doesn’t care, or is he a sick freak that loves to create life solely to toy with it. People waste their lives praying and begging to some bastard in the sky to change their lives, all the while trampling under everyone beneath them and casting judgment upon those who walk different paths. But for judging them, am I no better? Do I have any right to speak badly of people when I too am cursed with this pathetic human body? How can I condemn others for being judgmental when it means being judgmental of them?

I guess that’s one of the main problems of this world: no one can create change without doing exactly what their opponent is doing. Whether it is trying to stop a genocide or get a bill passed through congress, every stand is just a repeat of its failed predecessor. Everyone thinks they know what’s best, they think they have the key to saving the world or that they have seen the truth that no one else has so much as caught a glimpse of. All the same mistakes are just made over and over again, all the same promises spoken and never fulfilled, all the faults of others pointed out by those who are nothing more than hypocrites. If this life really is the work of a god, then he is a sadistic god, a life where the tallest societal structure is nothing more than a pile of rubble, a mountain of failures all stacked up on top of each other with no one capable of escaping their mantle.

I don’t know if there is a god, I’m not sure whether or not I want there to be a god. If there isn’t a god, then all this is meaningless and there is nothing for us in this world but a quick life, an unavoidable death, and an eternity in which no one remembers us. If there is a god, then he is either incompetent or evil, in which case, I want nothing to do with him other then a chance to pay him back for creating me. What am I? A believer? An atheist? An agnostic? What is the name for someone whose belief in God is nothing more than the desire to kill him?

“Marcus, I’m cold.”

I looked over, seeing the girl sitting next to me, her healthy skin contrasting against the brick wall and the snow-covered pavement. She looked at me with somber eyes, pained by the condition I was in and how desperate I was.

“Do you even feel things like the cold?” I asked, more bitterly than I meant.

“I feel them because you feel them. You are my link to this world, just like I am yours. We are bound.”

I got to my feet, struggling to maintain my balance. “I’m sorry you’re bound to someone as pathetic as me.”

“You are not pathetic. You are desperate, you are in pain, and you are starved of love.”

“Who could ever love someone as broken as me?”

“I do. Marcus, of all the people in the world, I am the one that you have nothing to hide from.”

She stood up and leaned against me, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. I could actually feel her, feel her warmth.

“You’ll never have to put yourself down, never say you don’t deserve me, never have to feel shame or embarrassment. Every single aspect of your life, of your personality, of your soul, I love with all my heart. Marcus, I accept you. I accept you for everything you are. Now please, let’s go home. I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

It was morning, and I was getting ready for school with my family in the kitchen. In my hand was a mound of pills, one that I stared at loathingly. Pain killers, anti-convulsion meds, blood thickeners to keep my internal bleeding from going out of control, antidepressants, and countless vitamin supplements to help me get some nourishment. With constant pain wracking my body, I rarely noticed my appetite, and any food that I did eat was often thrown up during my seizures, so pills were the only way to make sure I got the nutrients I needed. I was always on the husky side, but after so many weeks of this pain, I had burned through all of my fat reserves and was little more than skin and bones. Hoping that I wouldn’t just puke them up later, I poured the pills into my mouth and forced them into my gut with a glass of water. Time to start a new day.

“We’re so close now.”

My eyes bolted open and I quickly realized that I couldn’t move. The girl, the girl who’s name I did not know, her whisper had woken me up. Never before had this happened, and even more, she was sitting on my lap again, almost pinning me down. The sun had not yet risen. It was barely after 2:00 am.

“What?” I asked, certain I was still dreaming.

With a warm smile, she leaned down and gently kissed me. “We are so close now. We can talk, we can touch… we can kiss. I can feel you and you can feel me, the time has almost come. Just wait a little longer.”

“What has almost come?”

“Happiness,” she purred lovingly while sitting back up.

I sat up with her, wrapping my arms around her and resting my forehead against her chest. The soft warmth of her bountiful breasts against my face was a sexual nirvana, coercing my dick into a pulsing erection.

“Why can’t I hear your name?”

The red-haired beauty giggled and gently pushed me back down, hovering over me on all fours. “Because you have not yet named me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You must name me, so that I may exist solely for you, so that I may bring you happiness and ease your suffering. Then when you regain the will to live, you will exist solely for me, and this world will become paradise for all the days of our lives.”

“But don’t you exist already?”

“Why don’t you touch me and decide for yourself?” she suggested coyly.

I smiled, feeling my horniness and excitement brush away my tiredness. Raising my right hand, I reached up and cupped one of her breasts, sending an uncontrollable shiver through my body and causing some pre-cum to dampen my boxers

“I didn’t know you were such a pervert. How naughty,” she murmured, closing her eyes and humming to herself blissfully with a small smile.

I was smiling as well, massaging the orb of flesh with both care and curiosity, having never felt a girl’s boobs before. I began massaging the other one with my left hand, rubbing the nipple with my thumb and causing the girl’s hums to increase in volume. Jiggling them, squeezing them, and rubbing them together, I thoroughly explored every secret her womanhood held and familiarized myself with every single centimeter of her soft skin.

“It feels so good to have you touch me,” she panted as I began toying with her nipples, gently squeezing them between my index and middle fingers and rubbing them with my thumbs.

“You certainly feel real,” I said, happier than I had been in years.

“Well to be sure, how about a taste?” she offered, lowering herself down and kissing me.

Following the lead of her lips, her tongue slipped into my mouth with unbelievable length. I almost felt like I was going to choke on it. Her mouth and tongue, they were so delicious, and the wetter the kiss became, the more of her flavor I was able to sample. She tasted like ripe mangos and tea and the longer I tasted her, the more energized I felt.

After several minutes of kissing, the girl pulled her lips from mine and smiled. “My body is so hot right now, can you cool me off?”

I smiled and raised my head, kissing her first on the cheek, then down the side of her neck, and to her collarbone. As I slowly moved down, the girl slipped her hands into my boxers and grasped my cock, nearly making me cum right then and there simply from the sensation of having someone else touch it.

“Just as I thought, it’s sized just for me,” she hummed, lovingly stroking it while my lips finally came to her breasts.

Shaking like a drug addict, I was barely able to contain my sexual hunger. All these years, my hatred and depression had made my instinctive drive little more than a dull annoyance, but now, it was like it was all rushing out at once. I ran my tongue across her breasts, unable to believe how good they felt and tasted, and just that I was making such intimate contact with this strange entity.

“Be as rough or as gentle as you want, I belong to you after all,” she said tenderly.

At her words, my emotions suddenly flared up and quelled my instinctive desire. This girl, whether she was real or a hallucination, I did not care. I loved her, she was precious to me, and I could not hurt her even if she asked me to. I was slow, gentle, working my lips around each nipple and stopping periodically to massage her breasts with my tongue. While I worked, she rubbed her smooth slit against the shaft of my cock. It was so soft, already soaking wet from her arousal and making me dizzy with the sweet aroma.

“Such a simple touch, yet it feels so good. To be so close to you, I feel like I’m going to faint in happiness,” she cooed.

As her movements became more aggressive and the gentle rubbing became passionate grinding, I reached out and held onto her shapely ass with my hands. So soft and yet so firm, both full and taut, she had the ass of a Brazilian model. All this stimulation, it was too much, I could feel all the muscles in my lower body tensing up from my approaching orgasm.

“I feel it, Marcus. I’m about to cum.”

“Me too,” I murmured, wishing I could be inside her instead of just grinding against the entrance.

Gyrating her hips, the girl’s movements increased until it actually felt like I had penetrated her. We finally came at the same time, me launching about a shot glass’ worth of semen onto my stomach and fresh sheen of wetness coating the girl’s womanhood. At the feeling of ecstasy, I gave a deep grunt and the girl gave a shrill and rather adorable whine before she collapsed on top me.

“We’re so close, we can already bring each other happiness.”

“Any chance we could take it a step further?” I asked, placing my hands on the sides of her face and brushing aside her long crimson hair.

“No. Close as we are, we cannot yet bond ourselves in that way. Only when we both live will we be able to create life for ourselves. Soon, we will be able to give each other and ourselves unending euphoria. Wait for me.”

“But I don’t know what I’m waiting for… And I don’t know if I can wait much longer. Every day, my ability to endure this pain lessens. I’m losing my sense of touch, my sight and hearing are failing, and my body is wasting away because I cannot hold food down. I just want to die. I just want it all to stop. If I end it all, then I can spend eternity with you.”

The girl lowered her head and kissed me, brushing aside my fear. “We will spend all of eternity together, but wouldn’t that eternity mean even more if it also meant a lifetime? Just wait, and I will turn this realm into heaven for you. Here, let me give you something, something to hold you over until our day comes.”

Smiling, she moved down to my deflating manhood. Lowering her head, she began licking up the semen I had ejaculated just a minute ago, humming in joy like it was chocolate syrup. Watching her tongue lap up my seed, I felt my cock re-harden, which she lovingly stroked with her hand.

After licking up every drop, she held her head just above my manhood, stroking it with her hand and working out any softness. “Now, let me bring you happiness.”

She then took the whole thing into her mouth, swallowing it with ease and bringing her lips all the way down to the base. At both the sight and feeling of her sucking me off, I immediately had my second orgasm and shot a dose of semen down her throat. The girl quickly pulled her head back and coughed, but before I could apologize, she smiled.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine. Just try and hold back a little, let me enjoy this too. Besides, it’s delicious,” she said coyly.

Holding back? Hell, that was easy, I doubt I had any sperm left to release, but with her hand stroking my cock and that hungry expression on her face, I couldn’t lose my erection if I wanted to.

Bringing her head back down, the girl resumed blowing me, but this time taking it slow. She started simply by running her tongue around the head, licking away any sperm that remained from my first or second orgasm. She then moved to the shaft, delivering long wide sweeps, almost tracing each vein and sending shivers up my spine. After physically memorizing every detail of my cock, the girl again wrapped her mouth around it completely, bringing her head down so the tip was crammed against the back of her throat. Moving each time with an upward inflection, she began bobbing her head with a steady rhythm, massaging my dick with her tongue and cheeks while her saliva dripped down into my lap.

As she worked, I watched with a smile and gently stroked her hair and brushed my fingers against her cheeks, trying to communicate my gratitude without interrupting her. Through her efforts, I could feel my body working up the strength for one last climax. It would probably be a dry fire, but it would be no less powerful. Sucking on my dick like it was the straw in a particularly thick milkshake, the girl broke through the final threshold I needed and I finally came, spraying every last drop of semen I had into her mouth and on her face when she finally released it.

I laid my head back, completely drained of both energy and cum. After swallowing all of my seed and cleaning it off her face, the girl sat on my lap and ran her fingers through my hair. “Name me, so that I may exist solely for you, so that I may bring you happiness and ease your suffering. Then when you regain the will to live, you will exist solely for me, and this world will become paradise for all the days of our lives.”

She kissed me on the forehead, the feel of her lips being the last sensation as I fell back to sleep.

Chapter 2

For the next several days, I tried thinking up names for the girl in my dreams, but none seemed to fit. Actually, it was like my mind wouldn’t accept and recognize what I picked to be her name. I would think up a name, and when I’d try to say it while imagining the girl and associating her with it, the name would suddenly become inaudible to me. I would hear that sound from my dreams, the muffling sound that always blocked out her name, even when I spoke it. I could feel my lips shaping the word and my vocal cords shaking to create the sound, but I could never hear it when I spoke it.

As always, my meetings with the girl were much less calm and platonic than that magical night. I would wake up, we would talk a little, and sometimes I would be able to wrap my arm around her and hold her for a few minutes, but it never advanced past that.

I was standing in the boy’s bathroom at school, muttering curses in front of the urinal. I had been there for more than five minutes and I needed to piss like a truck driver, but I couldn’t even break the seal.

“Goddammit, I don’t need another health issue. Just piss already.”

I finally groaned as the reserves were released, but as soon as I looked down into the urinal and saw the color red, I gritted my teeth and began to shake in frustration. After finishing my answer to nature’s call, I walked over to the sink and leaned against it, trembling from head to toe.

“SON OF A BITCH!” I roared, punching the nearby wall and splitting my knuckles.

With my hand bleeding, I walked out of the bathroom and back to class, where a math test was being taken. Returning to my desk, I began stuffing my things into my bag, splattering blood from my hand and muttering curses.

“Marcus, is something wrong?” the teacher asked from her desk.

“I need to leave, I need to get to the hospital. It seems my kidneys are now failing.”

I was with my parents in Dr. Turner’s office, who was looking over the results from my blood tests. With a sigh, she closed the folder.

“The good news is that the damage isn’t permanent, at least at this stage. The bad news is that the kidney failure was caused by highly excessive pill usage. We originally had you set at the maximum possible level; did you think you could go even further without consequences? Just the number of pain killers alone you’re taking are enough to kill you, add in the anti-convulsion meds, the blood thickeners, and everything else, and it’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

“Right, so I should just get on my knees and thank God that I’m not dead yet, I should just be grateful that I get to keep living each day with never-ending agony and mind-tearing seizures,” I muttered, keeping my face downcast with my hood over my eyes.

My parents looked at each other in both nervousness and fear, wishing that there were something they could do.

“I’m afraid that you’re going to have to start cutting down on your medication if you don’t want to continue urinating blood. You may even have to give up cold turkey until your immunity wears off so that when you resume taking them, they’ll be affective once again. If you keep going at those pills the way you have been, your kidneys will become completely unusable and you’ll need a transplant, and considering your disease and your drug habits beyond pills, no transplant committee will let you so much as look at a healthy donor.”

“Beyond pills? Marcus, what is she talking about?” my mom asked desperately.

“Last week… I tried heroine. It was just once and it didn’t work as well as I had hoped. I certainly don’t feel any cravings for it.”

“Marcus, are you crazy?! After everything you’ve been told about drugs and after all the times we’ve warned you about their dangers, you would resort to using heroine?” my dad exclaimed, more upset and desperate than angry at me.

“Well it’s not like my life can get any worse!” I yelled before getting up and storming out of the office.

In the weeks that passed, my parents tried to limit the amount of pills I took, but it was just as difficult for them as it was for me, because just by looking at me, they could tell how badly I needed them. As expected, my pain increased, as well as the intensity and frequency of my seizures. I stopped sleeping, unable to ever calm myself down enough to relax. As January moved onto February, I finally gave in and quit taking my meds, allowing my body to work the chemicals out of my system and lose its developed immunity.

I spent that hellish week at home in bed, howling at the top of my lungs while the seconds ticked by with sadistic slowness. Without anything to even muffle the full stimulation of all my pain receptors, my body was essentially ripping itself apart from the inside out. I couldn’t even tell when I was having a seizure or not, it just all felt the same. Every second, I felt like my flesh was being shredded away by flaming chainsaws while twin lobotomies were performed on my brain with jagged icicles.

My parents had to stay home from work to take care of me, as I could not go to the bathroom or feed myself. They could do nothing but sit by my bed and listen to me scream, always trying to think of a way to help me. They tried to endure it, unable to ask my little brother or older sister to look after me without feeling any more guilt than they already were. For days, my sense of time blurred. I was unable to tell night from day, hot from cold, or dream from reality. When I was awake, I often hallucinated, and the only times I ever slept were when I finally managed to pass out from pain or exhaustion, and even then, it never lasted longer than an hour.

Lying in bed, in the throws of a seizure, I felt a deep thud in my chest, as if my heart had just slammed against my ribcage. My sweat became clammy and I began to lose my control over my limbs. Barely able to breathe from the pain already surging through me, I felt a second powerful thud in my chest. I could sense my pulse, hear it pounding in my ears, and feel the loss of rhythm. My heart was struggling to continue beating, unable to bear the strain any longer. Neither of my parents was in the room and I couldn’t call them, my lungs refusing to work.

‘Is this it? Will I finally die?’

My heart at last stopped, but instead of closing my eyes, I continued to stare upwards, watching as the ceiling of my bedroom vanished to reveal the eye of God, spinning overhead. My bed disappeared beneath me, my room following suit to reveal the vastness of space. I was so close to the celestial nexus that I could almost see the individual tongues of flame in the typhoon surrounding the black hole pupil. The star occupied the entire horizon, as if slicing reality in half so that one side was the dark cosmos and the other side was the sea of nuclear fire. I was about a kilometer from the surface of the black hole, which had shrunk down to the size of a ten-story building.

‘So close… I’m so close…’ I thought, desperately reaching out to be accepted into desired oblivion.

The clothes I had been wearing were vaporized from my body, signaling my last ties to the real world being severed. But answering my silent call, the girl from my hallucinations appeared, flying out of the black hole towards me, arms outstretched, tears in her eyes. She slowed as she reached me, coming to a stop before gently embracing me and holding me close with our unclothed bodies pressed together.

“Marcus, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I know how much you’re suffering, I know how much pain you are in,” she whimpered, crying with her face buried in the side of my neck.

She then looked up at me, her blue eyes trembling. “But it is not your time to die yet, just a little longer. Please, darling, hold on just a little longer, for me.”

I tried to say her name, but once again, only the indecipherable noise was heard. In reply, the girl smiled and wiped away her tears. Wrapping her arms around my neck, she leaned forward and kissed me. “I love you, Marcus. With all my heart, I love you. This is the most selfish thing I will ever ask of you, but please, live on! Please, you must wait just a little longer! Go home, Marcus, it is time for you to go home. You still have to name me, remember?”

She then separated from me, pushing me away. The moment her hands touched my chest, a single powerful heartbeat rocked me to my core, causing cracks of light to flash across my vision as if reality itself was fracturing. I reached out to her, trying to call her name while a second beat of my heart sent more cracks through the fabric of space.

The girl floated back towards the eye of God, tears rolling down her cheeks but a smile on her face. “I love you,” she murmured.

A third beat of my heart broke the cosmic vision and I woke up, back in my bed with my arm raised, still trying to make contact with the angel. My heart had resumed beating, albeit slowly. While it surely would not last, my pain had all but disappeared. Just as she had, I too began to cry, letting my arm drop and cover my face.

“I love you too.”

Eventually, I was able to resume taking my medication, and it was hard for me not to swallow every pill I could get my hands on. I’ll admit, they certainly took the edge off, but I had already made up my mind. I was done. I didn’t know why the girl wanted me to wait, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t handle living any longer.

It was February vacation and a winter storm was howling outside. The blizzard had been going for almost three days and power had quickly been lost. The house was dark, the only light coming from the eerie gray aura passing through the windows. My family had gone to a friend’s house to enjoy their electricity and running water, while I had chosen to stay home. I wanted to be alone for this. I sat at my desk in my room with a glass of water and a pile of pills next to me. They were sleeping pills, painkillers, and everything else I had. I was slowly writing a suicide note, trying to use my best penmanship. I included the instructions for my funeral and how I wanted to be buried. I finally put down the pen. My hands were almost always trembling, but now they were finally steady.

“Goodbye pain,” I said before I took a handful of pills and swallowed them, followed by the remainders.

I then moved over to my bed and lied down, staring at the ceiling and contemplated my life while I waited for death to come. It really had been a worthless life. Maybe I would finally learn what relief was in dying, but considering my luck, I would probably just end up vomiting the pills and surviving. In time, I could feel my body becoming heavier, my pain dulling, and my mind slowing down. I was almost there, so close. Closing my eyes, I whispered one final goodbye and apology.

I was hovering in front of the black hole, still eating the star from the inside out. The black hole itself was now only about the size of a toolshed. The whole mass looked less like an eye now and more like gargantuan maelstrom, with a holographic black orb in the center, hiding the true heart of the quantum singularity. I was a hundred feet away from the surface of the black hole and the girl from my dreams was hovering in front of me. The two of us were naked, and while she was smiling, her smile was sad and there were tears running down her face.

“So, you couldn’t wait. I hold nothing against you for it; it’s unimaginable that anyone could even last half as long as you did. I’m so proud of you, Marcus. Your will is unparalleled.”

“What’s going on?” I asked as she and I were pulled closer and closer to the star-eating black hole.

“We are moving onwards into eternity. It’s a shame, it was my dream for us to live our lives happily and together, but as long as we have each other in this eternal realm, I have no complaints.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

I reached out and tried to grab her hand, even though she was well out of reach.

“I wanted to live my life with you, to exist solely for you, and to die with you. I wanted to see the world before coming here, to see everything before returning to nothing. It’s pointless now, you made your choice, one that I fully understand and love you for. Come to me, Marcus, and let us return to the Source together. Let us become one within the end of all reason.”

I began shouting her name, but as always, I heard nothing but that indescribable noise. I had not been able to find out her true name, so this moniker was all I could use. I cursed as the girl slowly made contact with the surface of the black hole, resting upon it like she was sunbathing on a boulder. After only a second, I was forced to watch in horror as she slowly began to be absorbed into it, sinking beneath its surface like it was made of tar. I followed soon after, desperately trying to bring myself to a stop but unable to fight the gravitational pull. I collided with the black screen, feeling no pain in the impact even with it being quite solid. I tried to push myself off, to fight gravity, but with the slightest exertion, the surface beneath my hands gave way and I began to be sucked in. Simply acting on instinct, I took a deep breath before my head was pulled in. The girl was in front of me, just out of reach, hovering in a vast spinning torrent of bright violet light, a vortex leading onwards into infinity.

As my lower body was slowly absorbed into black hole with me, the girl looked me and smiled. “Your dream was to live happily with the one you loved, so that too became my dream. Your wish was to find your soul mate and be happy for the rest of your life, so I sought to grant you that wish. Do not be afraid, we can still be together forever.”

My eyes widened and I fearfully gasped as her body slowly began to dematerialize, breaking up cell by cell. Looking down, I realized that I too was falling apart, my flesh and blood literally being shed from my physical form, but without any pain or sensation.

“If I had waited, what would you have been?” I shouted desperately as I finally entered the vortex fully.

With her legs and much of her torso gone, she opened her eyes and smiled at me. “Whatever you wanted me to be.”

From her words, a blinding epiphany flashed in my mind, I now understood, and I had regained something I thought I had lost. I reached out to her while the flesh painlessly melted off my fingers. “Tell me, what was your wish?!”

“To live and be happy with you,” she murmured, as the top of her head and her left arm began to disappear.

“That was my wish too, so I’m going to grant it! I want to live my life and be happy, and I refuse to do either of them without you! I change my mind, I want to live, and I want to live my life with you!”

I then called out her name, her true name, finally able to hear it. At the sound, the girl’s one remaining eye bolted open, and the twisting vortex of violet light began to churn violently. I shouted her name again and reached out with everything I had and grasped what was left of her hand with what was left of my own. As soon as she and I touched, our bodies were fully reformed.

“Marcus,” she gasped.

I said her name in return, making her smile warmly and blush.

Holding onto her tightly, I looked back at the surface of the black hole. It was so close and yet so far, like fresh air to a drowning man. Pulling the girl with me, I reached up with all the strength in my body and soul, not caring if my muscles tore and my bones snapped in the process. Just as I thought I was about to fail, my fingers broke through the surface and I grabbed on, feeling the exterior become hard beneath my grip. Roaring in desperation, I pulled the two of us back up and the dark hole released us with a geyser of violet energy shooting out like a volcanic eruption. The girl and I were thrown out into the cosmos, clutching each other for dear life.

“So can we live our lives together and be happy?” she murmured with her face buried in the side of my neck.

I smiled and held her close. “Yes, we can live and be happy. We’ll be together always, Angel, my Angel.”

My eyes opened and I immediately turned my head and threw up, emptying the contents of my stomach onto my bedroom floor. The majority of the pills were still intact, letting me survive by the skin of my teeth, but enough had been absorbed and dissolved into my bloodstream to leave me feeling sick and dizzy. Gasping for air and shaking more than ever in my life, I spat out the last of the vomit and wiped my face. I had tried to kill myself and lived, but that dream, had I really chosen to live or did I just throw up as a natural reflex?

As I lied back and stared up at the ceiling, I realized that I was not the only one in that bed. Looking over, my eyes widened as they fell upon the unconscious Angel. She was right beside me, covered in blood and some sort of other liquid, but… she was there. I knew that this was different than all of the other times I had woken up next to her. The way she was weighing down on the mattress, the way the blood on her skin was staining my sheets, just the way she looked… she was real, she was completely real. This wasn’t a hallucination.

My initial shock was replaced by fear, realizing as if for the first time that she was covered in blood. I reached out and pressed my fingers against Angel’s neck, checking her pulse and finding a strong and steady heartbeat. Moving as quickly as my chemically-shocked body would allow, I dashed out of my room and over to the bathroom, grabbing all the towels I could and coming back. Climbing back onto the bed, I rubbed her down with the towels and wiped away the blood and the other mysterious fluid that covered her. I looked desperately for any cuts or signs of injury, but I found nothing. She was completely unharmed.

After again checking her pulse, I stopped and just stared at her, completely memorized. Angel, the light of my life and the girl of my dreams was literally right here in front of me. How had this happened? How could a human being just suddenly materialize out of thin air? My questions were interrupted by the noticing of a foul odor in the room. Oh yeah… I had vomited on the floor.

I smiled and looked down at Angel, gently pulling the blanket over her naked form. Real or not, I couldn’t let her wake up to such a mess. While I waited for her to gain consciousness, I cleaned up the vomit and sprayed the stained carpet with every chemical I could get my hands on to remove the smell. The rustling of blankets could be heard as I was returning from dumping the towels in the laundry room. She was starting to awaken. More nervous than ever in my life, I sat down on the bed and wrapped my hands around hers. Her eyelids slowly rose, showing her two beautiful blues.

“Hey,” I said softly with a small smile.

She gave a small hum and a look of peace, as if waking up from a much-needed sleep. “Hi.”

A flutter ran through me at the sound of her voice.

“Do you remember anything?”

She closed her eyes and was silent for several moments and a look of worry crossed her face. “I don’t know.”

After everything I had seen, this did surprise me a little. Ok, so the situation was 99% perfect…

“Are you sure?”

She was silent for a few more moments. “Wait, I remember… my name. My name is Angel, I think.”

I smiled at her realization. She was real.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“My name is Marcus, and don’t worry, you’re safe. You’re in my home. I found you outside, crying for help.”

What was I supposed to tell her, that she had somehow materialized out of thin air because I dreamt her up?

“Now, how do you feel? You don’t look hurt.”

“I feel fine, just tired. Thank you for saving me. I can tell that you are truly kind just by touching you.”

With a sugary sweet smile on her lips, she clutched my hands tightly. I could feel my face becoming red in embarrassment. Holy shit, she really was an angel.

“Are you hungry?”

She nodded.

“Alright, I’ll get you something to eat.”

As I stood and turned away from her, I could hear her try to get up.

“Did you undress me?”

I turned around and saw her holding the blanket over her chest.

“No, I found you that way. Don’t worry, I didn’t touch you or anything. Your safety was the only thought on my mind.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes,” I said with my voice raspy.

Several seconds passed where the girl stared into my eyes, and I stared into hers. Finally, she smiled. “I believe you.”

She stood up and I quickly stopped her. “You need to rest.”

“Please don’t leave me.”

I gave a small but warm smile. “Very well, whatever makes you happy.” ‘She’s in completely new surroundings, so she is trying to find something familiar, or at least something that makes her feel safe and happy. I was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes, and she wants to stay close to whatever seems even remotely familiar, even if we only met a minute ago. She needs something to cling to.’

With the blanket and my arm wrapped around her, we made our way to the kitchen with me holding her up. After her experience, I didn’t want to risk her not being able to support her own weight.

“Is soup ok?”

“Yes please.”

She was starting to feel better; I could see her relaxing with the situation. I filled a pot with one of the large jugs of water my family had saved for the loss of power and put it on the stove. While it did require a match to compensate for the loss of the electric start, I was able to get it going without trouble. With the water heating up, I turned to Angel, sitting on one of the stools at the island table. She had a small smile and it was reflected on me.

“You don’t remember anything… but you know what soup is?”

A look of confusion crossed her face. “I didn’t even notice.”

“Its obvious you have some form of amnesia, but I’m not surprised you remember non-personal stuff. It means that there are some things that your mind still remembers.” ‘Maybe she isn’t retaining those memories, maybe those memories have been put in her mind.’

I looked around the kitchen. “Try to name as many things as you can. The mental stimulation might bring some memories back.”

She began looking around the kitchen and naming everything she saw, but still no memories appeared in her head. With the water in the pot soon bubbling, I poured in the flavor packet and brick of noodles, and stirred, waiting until it could be served. Ah ramen, the perfect comfort food.

“When the power returns, we should probably call an ambulance for you. Plus maybe they can help you regain your memory,” I said as I passed her the steaming bowl.

“Marcus, maybe I shouldn’t remember.”

Having turned off the stove, I looked back, seeing that her smile was replaced with a look of sadness.

“You found me stumbling through the snow and coated in blood. Maybe it would be best if I don’t remember.”

Pained by the loss of her smile, I placed my hand on her cheek. Her skin was so soft and smooth that I wanted to kiss her right then and there.

“Don’t worry. If you feel that you don’t want to remember, we won’t talk about it.”

She held onto my hand, brushing it against her cheek like a cat seeking affection.

‘No two strangers can get along this well in less than ten minutes. She really is Angel.’

The lights came on and a beep rang out from the smoke detectors and ruined the moment. I checked the phone but there was no dial tone. The phone lines must have been more heavily damaged than the power lines.

I turned my attention back to Angel. “Ok, eat your soup and I’ll start a bath for you. I wasn’t able to completely clean you off.”

I sat next to the bathtub, watching as it was filled with hot water while holding my hand beneath the downpour to make sure it was the right temperature. While I waited, Angel walked around the house, exploring her surroundings and simply trying to stimulate her mind. With the two of us separated, I now had a moment to truly think. This girl, she had somehow come out of nowhere, this figment of my imagination becoming a real person. Either some sort of unexplainable miracle had just taken place or my hallucinations had now reached a whole new level of depth… or maybe I really had died and this was heaven.

Either way, it would be hard explaining her to my parents, and no matter what I said or did, the police would probably end up getting involved. Either I would stick to my lie and keep saying that she just appeared naked at the door asking for help, or compromise and say I just woke up with her next to me and had no idea how she got into my house. For all I knew, she could have been a burglar or high on PCP. Whichever path I took, it would be difficult, but as long as I had Angel, it would be worth it.

“Angel, the bath is ready!”

When no reply came, I stood up and strained my ears. Had she fallen back to sleep, had she even passed out? Shaken by that fear, I scoured the house and found in her my room. She was standing over my desk, still wrapped in her blanket with her shoulders trembling and my suicide note in her hand, now dotted with her tears.

“Angel…”

She turned to me with liquid pearls rolling down her cheeks. “Marcus, you were going to kill yourself?”

I slowly reached out and took the suicide note from her, proceeding then to crumple it up and stuff it in my pocket. “I was. Listen, the bath is ready, we’ll talk after you get cleaned up,” I replied, unable to meet her teary gaze.

I put my arm around her and guided her to the bathroom, where the tub was waiting with clouds of steam wafting up.

“All right, I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Just holler if you want me to get you anything.”

“Marcus, wait. Don’t leave me.”

“Well I shouldn’t be here while you—”

She let go of the blanket, letting it fall to the floor around her ankles. I had lost track of how many times I had seen her naked body, but now with her standing before me in the flesh, she had never looked more beautiful.

“You’ve already seen me like this, it’s ok for you to be here. Besides, I want to keep talking to you.”

She stepped into the tub and settled down, letting the last of the dry blood and other liquids wash off her body and grant her unclothed form a beautiful shine. She purred in happiness as she submerged herself in the hot water, letting her whole body soak before she brought her head back up and laid back, with her long crimson hair listing and twirling around her body like seaweed around a mermaid. Seeing her breasts floating on the surface with wave after wave gently lapping at her delicate flesh was firing up hormones inside of me that I never even knew I had.

“Marcus, please tell me… why did you try to kill yourself?”

“I thought you read the note.”

“I want to hear it from you,” she whispered desperately.

I sat down on the edge of the tub and was silent for several moments. “There are people all over the world who suffer worse than I do: infants dying of starvation, kids used as sex slaves, adults forced to watch as their families suffer with nothing over their heads but the roof of their hut. I admit, even my life could be far worse than it is now, but there is a key difference between those people and me: they are capable of being happy. They have the will to live and the ability to smile. Me… there is nothing in this world that can bring me joy, I am physically incapable of being happy.

For most of my life, I have not known what happiness feels like. Even as a child, I could never bond with others and I always felt out of place in the world, like I was incompatible with this reality. My real depression began eight years ago, when I was constantly teased and ridiculed by those around me for no reason. I was simply picked at random to be used as a punching bag. I was tormented for years on end, but the ones who brought me so much pain never got the punishment they deserved. In order to “give me a reprieve from my torture”, I was transferred to a school for troubled kids. That place was hell, with the screams of the mentally disturbed echoing down the hall. It was like being in an insane asylum but with homework. I lost a year there while my tormenters still faced no punishment. For a year, my mind rotted, up to the point where I even began to hallucinate.

I was desperate for a cure to my anguish, something that would make this frustration and constant torment worth it. I decided that the only thing that could possibly bring me peace is love… or death. So I searched for love, for my soul mate, trying to find the one girl who could take away my pain, for even when I was just a kid, my heart ached. My loneliness, depression, and anger poisoned me. Toss in hundreds of hours of forced psychiatrist sessions and prescription anti-depressants that didn’t do jack-shit, and my life lost its light.

What I’m about to tell you is something that I have not told anyone. I was so desperate for relief that I even took a blade to my own flesh. It was not a suicide attempt, but I was hoping that I could cancel out my inner pain with outer pain.”

I showed her the scars on my arm and Angel placed her hand on the faded lines and gave me a look of deep sympathy.

“No matter what, I could not find a human that could be my salvation, so in my sorrow, I developed a deep hatred for humanity. I’m disgusted by my species and I wish that humans would just all die out. I’ve even given up on finding a soul mate because every girl I met was just too heavily tainted by the world to do anything other than disgust me and trigger my loathing. But with my loneliness still plaguing me, I knew that my suffering would continue. With my mind filled with chaos and the world always stuffing my mouth with the taste of ash, I decided that death’s sweet embrace was the only thing that could bring me peace. The only reason why I didn’t kill myself then was because I did not want to put my family through the pain and grief,

Then… a couple months ago… I collapsed into a seizure. I was in more pain than I thought possible, all of it coming out of the blue. I found out that my brain is riddled with tumors, focused mostly on my brainstem and limbic system. All these years, my limbic system was basically being smothered by useless tissue, leaving it incapable of producing chemicals like serotonin and other compounds needed in order for the brain to feel the emotion happiness. No wonder I had always been miserable; I was basically a car running without oil.

The other tumors, the tumors on my brainstem, had finally grown large enough to interfere with my nervous system, causing full body nerve stimulation of pain receptors. For every second of every day since then, I’ve been in indescribable agony, constantly downing painkillers and fearing of my numerous daily seizures. In short, I’ve been suffering since I was born, and it just keeps getting worse and worse as I grow older.”

Turning around in the tub and moving over to me, Angel placed her wet hands on my cheeks and pressed her forehead against mine. Her touch, her tending loving touch, essentially made me melt in happiness. Yes, happiness, only with her did I finally know what it felt like.

“Marcus, I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be, you saved my life.”

Angel stared at in surprise.

“I was half dead from a pill overdose when I heard you slamming on the door. My body kick-started and I threw up the pills. I would be dead if it weren’t for you.”

“But I thought you wanted to die?”

“When I found you, I found the will to live. While I was waiting for you to wake up, I was eager to meet you and hear your voice, to see you smile. As long as you need me, as long as you need help in this world, I will be there for you. I refuse to die as long as there is something I can do to make you happy.”

Crying now with tears of joy, Angel wrapped her arms tightly around my neck. “Then if staying with me will make you happy and keep you alive, I will never leave you. You saved my life, so I will save yours and stay with you forever.”

Her words brought a wave of emotions through me, so intense that I was practically shaking. With no one else on the planet could I have bonded so well, not in a century, let alone a single hour. This girl, this true angel, we had been in love longer than she knew and her feelings were pouring out, even with her memories having yet to return. Once her memories fully came back and she remembered the life we shared before her physical arrival, our lives would become paradise.

We stayed in that bathroom for as long as the water was hot. I told her about my family and recanted some pleasant memories, and while she listened and scrubbed herself with a bar a soap, I even shampooed her hair. Eventually, her occasional yawns began to grow in frequency and I could tell she was feeling sleepy.

“Come on, you should get some rest.”

I grabbed a towel and the two of us stood up. Just as Angel was about to step out of the tub, she slipped and landed in my arms. Holding her wet naked form pressed against me, I felt my manhood become so erect that I almost thought it would pop. I just had to hope that Angel would not notice the bulge in my pants. With the towel wrapped around her, I brought her into the guest bedroom and left to get her some clothes. My sister Emily was the same size as Angel, so her clothes would fit. Giving a sigh, I closed my eyes and looked away while I opened my sister’s underwear drawer. Shuddering from the shear amount of wrongness, I grabbed the first pair of panties my hand touched and quickly wrapped them in a t-shirt.

With a pair of sweat pants, panties, and an undershirt and blouse, I walked back to the guestroom and stood in the doorway, watching as Angel dried herself with the towel. It was not a physical arousal I was feeling, but an emotional one. I wanted to make love with her, not sex, not the act performed by porn stars and drunk teens. I felt a physical attraction to her, but it was an emotional one that was far more powerful. I walked in and handed her the clothes and she got dressed, save for the blouse. With a smile in the back of my mind, I regretted seeing her clothed. She lied down in the bed and I wrapped her in the blankets.

“Just try and get some rest. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

“Do you promise that I’ll wake up and still be here, and you’ll still be with me?”

I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Of course.”

I walked downstairs and into the kitchen. On the island table, hidden behind a box of cereal, was my bottle of pain meds. A shiver ran down my spine as I realized something. There was no pain. The whole time I had been with Angel, I had been feeling no pain, just like whenever I dreamed about her. I pulled the suicide note out from my pocket and stared at it, my eyes fixed on the teardrops that she had left when she read it.

“I don’t feel any pain…”

I walked into the living room and grabbed the lighter above the fireplace. Igniting the small butane torch, I held the flame under the suicide note and then tossed it onto the bed of cold ashes, letting the flames destroy was could have been.

“I’m not sure I believe in God, I honestly don’t know what to believe after this miracle, but I do think that fate has brought you to me, Angel. You took my pain away.”

For the next three hours, I simply sat in the easy chair in the living room, thinking about my future and the life I would live with Angel. As fantasy after fantasy passed through my mind, I heard the front door open, signaling the return of my family. My sister, younger brother, and parents stepped inside.

“Marcus, you really need to start getting out of the house. You need to spend time with people,” my mom nagged.

“I have,” I muttered under my breath as I stood up and walked over, carefully choosing my words.

This was going to be difficult.

“There is something I need to tell you…”

“What?” my dad asked.

“I haven’t been alone. A girl showed up at the backdoor, naked and covered in blood. She’s alive, I managed to save her before she froze to death, but says she can’t remember anything.”

“Marcus, that is messed up, even for a joke,” my brother said squeamishly.

“She’s upstairs, sleeping in the guestroom. Sorry sis, but I had to give her some of your clothes.”

Finally my family was convinced that I was telling the truth.

“Marcus, is there really a girl here? Is what you’re saying true?” my mom asked nervously.

“Either that or I’ve finally snapped and I just hallucinated the last four hours.”

“Well have you called her an ambulance? The power is on,” my sister asked.

“The phone lines are still down and you know I don’t have a cell phone. I’ve been waiting for you to come back so that we can drive her to the hospital. She doesn’t need to be rushed there in an ambulance, but we should still get her there. Want me to wake her up?”

“Sure,” my dad said, rubbing his forehead as he tried to process the sudden information, “get her down here.”

I walked upstairs, taking deep breaths and trying to calm myself from the conversation only moments prior. I approached the guestroom and stood in the doorway. Angel seamed to be shrouded in a veil of light through my eyes, but I knew she was really there. I silently walked towards the bed and crouched down. I placed one hand on Angel’s forehead and my other on her hand.

“Angel?” I whispered.

She opened her beautiful eyes and hummed a reply.

“Sorry to wake you, but we need to get you to a hospital. We need to get you checked out to make sure that you are really all right.”

“You’ll come with me, right?”

I moved my hand to her cheek. “Of course.”

She stepped out of the bed and I immediately realized that I couldn’t show her to my family, not in her current state.

“Here, put this on,” I said, holding up the blouse I had taken from my sister’s room.

“What? Why?”

Unable to suppress my grin, I pointed at her chest, where atop the colossal mountains that were her breasts, her nipples were poking through the thin fabric of the undershirt like fingertips.

“I don’t want you accidently poking one of their eyes out.”

Blushing in embarrassment, Angel covered her chest with her arms and turned away. “You pervert!” she giggled.

Following my advice, she put on the blouse and buttoned it up, but the problem still was not completely solved. Unlike the tank top she was wearing underneath, the fabric of the blouse did not stretch. It merely clung and constricted when the wearer’s proportions weren’t… fitting. Suffice to say, the bottom of the blouse barely came down to her belly button, and the buttons were silently screaming as they struggled to hold in Angel’s breasts. This time, I made no attempt to suppress my laughter, to which Angel playfully smacked me.

Once I was done laughing, I looked into her eyes. “Ready?”

She nodded and took my arm. Walking out into the hall, I could hear my parents and siblings talking downstairs. They were all certain I was either hallucinating or just playing a practical joke. My brother actually said that I had found a blow-up doll out in the storm and was just using it as a gag prop. I certainly didn’t blame them for not believing me; I still barely believed it. However, when they all heard the sounds of two pairs of footfalls on the stairs, all doubts were erased. Eyes widened and gasps were suppressed as Angel came into view, cute as a button with a blush of nervousness and her arms wrapped tightly around mine.

“Everyone, this is Angel. Angel, this is my family. That’s my sister Emily, my brother Phil, my mom Laura, and my dad Alex.”

Everyone stared at her with shock. Not only was it strange just to finally meet her, but also her beauty was incredible. Shocked most of all was Emily, not only by Angel’s existence, but by her… appearance. She certainly couldn’t remember any of her blouses clinging to her like that, and she had to fight the urge to look down at her own chest for a miserable comparison.

“So our son saved you?” my dad asked in amazement.

“Yes, though I don’t remember ever being outside or anything before. I just woke up with Marcus holding my hand, and even without my memories, I knew I was safe.”

Her nervous murmur melted the hearts of everyone in the room.

“Emily, can Angel barrow your coat?”

She jerked as if awoken from a trance and quickly pulled off her jacket and handed it to me. I put it around Angel and held her close.

I turned to my parents. “All right, let’s go to the hospital.”

With Angel using a pair of my sister’s shoes, my parents and I brought her outside and we got into the car. I sat in the back with her, keeping my arm around her at all times. The drive into the city was silent as the sky darkened with its usual winter speed, and as we maneuvered through the snow-caked city, Angel stared out the window with wide eyes, hoping the scenery would trigger some dormant memory. I didn’t say anything about it, not just because my parents were in the car with us, but because I knew there weren’t any memories for her to recover.

As expected, the emergency room was almost completely filled with people, the majority of them having suffered from car accidents or other injuries brought on by the extreme weather. While my parents dealt with the paperwork at the front desk, I sat with Angel. As before, I had my arm around her to comfort her, and she had her head on my shoulder. I’m not sure how long we waited, if my parents had written a possible rape in the paperwork and it sped up the process, or how many people we saw entering or leaving the ER, but we were all relieved when a nurse finally came up to us.

“Clive?” she asked. I nodded and the nurse turned to Angel. “Please come with me.”

We all got up and followed the nurse. Unlike the people who were just getting casts for broken bones and stitches for large cuts, we were all brought into a hospital room like the one I had woken up in after my first seizure.

“Just wait in here and the doctor will be right with you in a minute,” said the nurse before walking away.

Angel and I sat on the hospital bed, while my parents sat in two chairs. They didn’t take their eyes off of us for a moment.

After a few minutes, a doctor walked in. “Hello, I’m Dr. Anderson. Due to the nature of your visit, the police have been contacted and we’ve been asked to perform certain tests, including a rape kit. This will be an overnight visit. I suggest one of you stays, simply to keep her comfortable and to answer any questions that she can’t. Now, could you please give me a detailed recant of everything that has happened?”

Making sure I avoided any deviations in the story, I retold the lie that Angel and my family had heard: I had found Angel at the back door, naked, covered in blood, and crying for help. I pulled her inside, managed to warm her up, cleaned her off, and let her take a bath. That was all there was to it.

“If that is everything, then I shall go and tell the detectives outside everything you have told me, then we can commence with protocol. I’ll send in a nurse to bring you a hospital gown.”

Once the doctor left, I turned to my parents. “Mom, dad, you two can go back home. I think I’ll stay here with Angel tonight.”

“But Marcus…”

I held Angel close. “Mom, please.”

“Son, can we talk to you outside?” my dad asked, but it was more of a demand than a request.

My parents and I stepped out into the hall.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” my mom asked. “I really think it would just be best if we tried to limit our involvement with her. With everything that is going on… with you… we should try and prevent further complications. You saved her, you protected her, and you did everything right, but we’re all strangers and it’s time to let the state do its job.”

“Mom, dad… she needs me… and I need her.”

“Marcus we should really—”

“I haven’t been in any pain since I met her.”

My parents became silent.

“Ever since I found her, I haven’t had to take a single pill or experienced a single seizure. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but it’s like my cancer has vanished. When I’m with her… I feel happy, happier than I’ve ever been, even before I was sick. I didn’t just save her, she saved me, and I can’t abandon her to return to my agonizing excuse for a life. I’m staying with her.”

Still not liking my decision, my parents accepted it and left. They would come back the next day. Over the course of the night, Angel changed into a hospital gown and underwent several tests. We learned everything from her age to her blood type. She was both the same age and blood type as I was, augmenting my thoughts about her supernatural existence. During the rape kit examination, I stayed beside her and held her hand, never leaving her side. By the time all the tests were done, it was past midnight and Angel and I were in her room, mentally exhausted. The majority of the test results would be given tomorrow.

I stood by the door and turned off the light. “All right, Angel, you should get some sleep.”

“Marcus, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done,” she said tenderly, the two of us alone in the darkness.

“You’ll never need to.”

I walked over to the chair beside her bed, preparing myself for the uncomfortable night’s sleep, but before I could reach it, I felt her hand clasp mine. She sat up and leaning against me, her voice a crystalline whisper. “After everything you’ve done, I can’t let you spend the night sitting in that chair. Here, the bed is large enough for the both of us. Besides, I want you close to me.”

“Angel,” I said softly, stroking her long crimson hair and thanking every deity I could think of for allowing me to be with her.

Happier than ever in my life, I discarded my jacket and shoes and climbed into the bed. I lied down next to her and held her as close as I could with her back pressed against my chest and the blanket around us sealing in the warmth of each other’s bodies. I held her so close that we could feel each other’s heartbeats.

“Angel, I promise that I will watch over you forever.”

She rolled over so that we were facing each other and I kissed her on the forehead.

“Thank you, Marcus, and I’ll watch over you too,” she whispered, placing her hand on my chest.

Angel and I were eating breakfast in bed and talking.

“I’ll go call my parents, then we can head home.”

“Home?”

I smiled. “Well, you’ll need to stay somewhere.”

Leaving the room, I found a payphone and called my parents, asking for them to pick us up. My mom sighed when I used the word “us”. As I rounded the corner on my way back to Angel’s room, I saw Dr. Anderson and two detectives by the door. They were both men, late forties with peppery short hair.

“Oh hell no,” I growled.

I stormed over and put my hand on the door before the doctor could open it. “Excuse me, what is going on here?” I demanded.

“Relax, son, we’re just here to ask her some questions. I’m Detective Francis, this is my partner Detective Baum,” one of the detectives said with a pen and small notepad in his hand.

“She and I have already told our story a dozen times, there is nothing left to say. I heard her crying for help at my back door, I found her naked and passed out with blood all over her body, and I brought her inside. I didn’t see anything outside, I didn’t notice anything unusual, and I have never seen her until now. She can’t answer any of your questions; she doesn’t remember anything other than her name, and we aren’t even sure if that really is her name. Now I heard the results from the tests. Her rape kit showed no signs of assault, there were no drugs in her system, and she didn’t have any injuries. There is nothing else I can tell you.”

“Well there are two test results that you haven’t heard. We found traces of the blood on her, as well as a certain other fluid. It was mostly scrubbed away in that bath you gave her, but we found small amounts all over her. It is impossible to get a match on the blood because it is devoid of white blood cells, which are the only cells in blood that contain DNA. We also found amniotic fluid,” said Dr. Anderson.

“So what are you saying?”

“The blood on her had to have been treated to have the white blood cells removed, and unless she was just born yesterday from a giant cloned uterus in a lab somewhere, there is no explanation for why she would be covered in afterbirth.”

“We’re hoping that by telling her this, it will jog her memory,” Detective Baum stated.

“All right, but I want to be in there with her.”

“Actually, how about you and I wait out here, have a little talk between men,” Detective Francis grunted.

It was not a suggestion. I could feel the blood boiling in my veins with the desire to stand by Angel and protect her, but this was out of my control.

“Very well.”

While Anderson and Baum stepped inside Angel’s room to try one last time to jog her memory, Detective Francis and I stood out in the hall face to face.

“So I’ve heard from the staff that while you two have been here, you and Angel have been quite cozy with each other. The two of you are complete strangers, but no one has seen you separated for more than a minute and you two slept in her hospital bed. The horniest teens on the planet couldn’t get that close in a single night when one of them only knows her name.”

“I’m telling you the truth, I’ve never seen her before. The relationship we have (I use that word carefully due to time constraints) is simple: I want to protect her and she feels safe and comfortable around me. Yes, we get along really well, amazingly well even, but yesterday was the first time we met.”

“So when we get the dogs to search your property for any scent trails, we won’t find something surprising or contradicting to your story?”

“Disregarding the fact that it snowed all night and anything that your tracking dogs could have found is long gone, no, you won’t find anything.”

“Well until this matter is taken care of, she’ll be put up in a public shelter. You don’t need to worry about it anymore.”

“I’m not going to let you take her away. You can perform your investigation, but I’ll take this court if she isn’t released into my custody. She needs me.”

“If she’s put in your custody, then she’s your responsibility. If something bad happens, then it’s your fault.”

“That’s all that I ask.”

The door was opened and Dr. Anderson and Detective Baum stepped outside. “No luck, she remembers nothing.”

“We’ll be at your property later today to begin the search. Thank you for your patience,” Francis said dryly before he, his partner, and the doctor walked off.

I stepped into the hospital room, seeing Angel sitting on the bed with a shaken look on her face. Blood devoid of DNA and amniotic fluid… so she hadn’t just materialized in my bed, she had actually been born. I walked over and wrapped my hand around hers. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let them separate us, I promise.”

As my parents signed the temporary custody papers, Angel and I sat in the car, just enjoying being close to each other. I could tell that she was happy about having a home to go to. We both knew that eventually she would become a permanent member of the family, even after the police had performed their investigation.

“I don’t have to stay, do I? If I have to waste my time, I’d rather it not be in the freezing cold,” I said dryly to the police.

I was standing with a squad of cops at the edge of the woods behind my house. The dense forest went for miles and it was the only direction Angel could have come from if she was found at the back door. Without even looking, I could sense her watching us from the windows.

“We need to make sure that you aren’t lying and maybe destroyed some evidence,” one cop said with a bloodhound next to him.

“Look around, Mother Nature destroyed your evidence. A monster truck could have rolled through here and you wouldn’t know it.”

One of the cops pulled out one of the towels I had used to clean off Angel when she was in my bed. He held it up to the bloodhounds and the dogs immediately seemed confused as they sniffed the ground, unable to pick up the slightest scent other than the slight trace Angel left at the house when returning from the hospital. I certainly didn’t expect them to find any traces of her, and I had to hide my relief when they finally gave up.

“Feel free to search the area, but if you need me, I’ll be with someone who needs me more.”

Angel and I stood in the guestroom. It was the early afternoon and the house was empty. My dad was at work, my brother was at a friend’s house, and my mom and sister were out shopping for clothes for Angel to wear while she stayed with us. The cops had quickly left, unable to find any evidence to confirm or deny my story, but they would eventually come back.

“Now this is your room.”

I looked at Angel and could tell that she was tired. I placed my hand on her shoulder. “You should get some rest; you had a long night and woke up early.”

A small smile crossed her face. “I am tired, but I slept so well last night. I think it’s because you were with me. Will you stay with me again?”

“Of course,” I whispered, feeling like I was finally on the right path.

With the shades drawn to keep the room dark, we both climbed into the bed and I put my arm around her. Underneath the blankets, our bodies pressed together like two puzzle pieces, I felt so warm and comfortable that my eyelids suddenly weighed as much a pair of dumbbells.

“Marcus?” Angel murmured.

I could only hum in reply.

“I think I remember something.”

My eyes bolted open. “What is it?”

“I was supposed to meet someone, I was supposed to meet him and bring him happiness, just like the happiness he would bring me. I can’t remember who it was, but I think… I think that person is you. I think we were supposed to meet and make this world paradise.”

She tightened her hold on my arm, clutching it against her chest like it was a lifeline. I knew that it was pointless to say anything; she had already fallen asleep. There was nothing to do but join her.

I woke up a couple hours later, my body feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds simply from how cozy that bed was. We had separated during the nap, there was about a foot and a half of space between us, and we were on our sides facing each other. I felt a shiver crawl up my spine, realizing that Angel was in the exact same position as when I would wake up to see her as a dream. I looked upon her beautiful face, unable to form a single thought. Slowly, her eyelids opened, and her blue eyes held a faint glow. Her face was stoic, but her eyes were filled with love, inviting me to come closer. I felt a pulse of warmth crawl throughout my body as a light seemed to shine in my mind. This was the moment I had been waiting my whole life for.

She closed her eyes and rolled onto her back and I slowly moved over to her. Shaking from head to toe but knowing that everything was as it should be. I leaned forward and kissed her, gently at first, but her quick reaction and mirroring of the act drove me to proceed with more passion. She kept her eyes closed the whole time, as if half asleep even while kissing me. I placed my hand on her collarbone, feeling her body becoming hotter and hotter as the kiss continued. I moved my hand down and cupped a warm breast. Angel let out a hum of pleasure as I squeezed, unable to hold the entire mass in my hand.

I slowly pulled up her shirt, brushing the tips of my fingers along her slim belly. Angel raised her arms and pulled off the shirt. While we kissed, I moved my hand down to her waist. She let out another hum as I pulled down her panties, admiring her naked beauty without ever ending her kiss. While sporting a truly powerful erection, I calmly but hesitantly ran my hand between her inner thighs, completely at awe at how soft and smooth her skin was. I brushed my hand against her virgin slit, the vertical lips feeling like velvet beneath my fingers.

At my touch, Angel gave a soft whimper of pleasure and her legs slightly spread. I continued to tease her, caressing her womanhood with gentle—almost ticklish—strokes by my finger. Soon, I decided to go further, settling my hand like I was using a computer mouse and swirling the tip of my middle finger at the first level of her interior, where her soft flesh was moist from arousal with a vibrant pink shade. Feeling my finger probing such a sensitive place, Angel began to tremble and pant through our unending kiss. I continued my advancement, including my ring finger into the stimulation and working the two digits deeper inside of her. Burying them up to the second joint, I stirred her sleeve while rubbing her clit with my thumb.

Angel’s body was now moving like a wave, with a soft whine passing through her lips as I pleasured her. Taking it one final step, I ended our kiss and moved my head down, wrapping my lips around her right nipple and tugging on it gently. No longer bound by my lips, Angel’s whines of pleasure were now free to be heard, but I was certain that with the door shut, no one in the house would hear her. I didn’t even know if anyone had come back yet. I pushed that thought and worry out of my mind, focusing instead on pleasuring Angel. My attention was well directed, as within minutes, Angel arched her back and released a gentle but shrill holler of euphoria. While she tried to catch her breath, I pulled my fingers out of her and licked them clean. Her wetness, her essence, it tasted as sweet as I imagined.

I quickly undressed, knowing what was about to happen, but before I could move on top of Angel, she suddenly pushed me onto my back and climbed on top of me. Sitting on my lap, the wet lips of her pussy kissing the shaft of my rock-hard cock, she gazed at me with tender loving smile. Beautiful, she was so beautiful.

“Marcus, I remember.”

“What?”

“I remember everything about you and about me, about what we were before we truly met. We were like this, just like this, when I promised you eternal happiness. I remember you’re touch, your taste, your love, your pain, and your heart. I remember the undying strength and passion in your eyes when you finally realized and cried out my name. I remember it all, Marcus. I love you so much that I can’t even describe it! I’m so happy, I think I could cry!”

The air was pulled from my lungs and my body froze. This couldn’t be real, this had to be a dream! There was no conceivable way that my life could become so… perfect. Angel gave me a long and passionate kiss, once again reaffirming that she and the world around me was real. Before she could end the kiss, I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly.

“I love you so much, Angel. You’re the most important thing in the world to me. You’re the light of my life, the only reason I’ve been able to hold on this long. Without you, I was nothing. Without you, I am nothing. You saved me from the darkness of my own mind. You reached out and saved me. You gave me a home in a world I despised and was disgusted by. You aren’t just my Angel, you are a true angel,” I said, letting tears of happiness fall from my eyes.

Her cheek against mine, she whispered in my ear, “I told you before that if you named me, I would exist solely for you. Now I will fulfill my promise and make myself yours. No matter what you desire or what I must do, I will live for no reason other than to love you and bring you happiness, just as I know you will do the same for me. I will be the embodiment of your will to live and you will cherish me just as I will cherish you.”

She raised her head, keeping her face hovering over mine with her long crimson hair hanging down and sealing us within our own private space.

“I love you, Angel,” I said, placing my hands on her cheeks.

“I love you too, Marcus. Now it is time for me to grant you happiness and truly show you how it feels to love and be loved.”

Raising herself up, she reached down and grasped my cock, keeping it standing at the right angle. Key and gate now brought together, she gently lowered herself down onto my manhood, embracing it with her womanhood. I was truly left breathless by the sensation of entering her, unable to completely describe how good it felt. It was so warm, so soft, and so wet, but beyond that, every single aspect from the friction to the tightness was so perfect that it was as it her body was actually changing and adapting itself to my preferences.

Even more, beyond just the physical connection, I felt like our hearts, minds, and souls were merging together. I could feel her emotions rushing through the connection and into me, overflowing with warmth like water from the perfect shower, and just like our joined anatomy, I was able to penetrate her mind with my own emotions and felt her embrace me.

Angel whimpered in happiness as she reached the base of my cock, showing not a single twinge of pain. “Oh my god, it feels so good. It’s perfect; it fits inside me so perfect. I can feel it kissing the entrance to my womb.”

“It’s like we were meant for each other,” I teased, brushing my fingers against the side of her flawless face.

“We were, Marcus. We were.”

She then leaned forward onto her hands and raised her lower body, revealing the shaft of my cock with a sheath of blood from her ruptured hymen, the same shade as her hair. She lowered herself back down, whimpering in joy as I filled her to completion with my phallus. Moving in a gentle whiplash moment, she began raising her lower body and then swinging it back down onto my cock, driving it up into her with the perfect speed and strength and leaving me completely overwhelmed with happiness. Every time she dropped down, her perfect ass would jiggle against my lap. After mastering the rhythm and movements, she changed her technique and began rolling her lower body on me, grinding back and forth with my dick stirring her honey pot. She rode me like that for several minutes, allowing us to both get fully accustomed to the sensation of being intimate.

Soon after, she changed her technique again, leaning back and relying on her stomach muscles to lift her up so that she could bounce on my cock. Her face was blushing while she panted, and her large breasts jumped with her like a pair of melon-sized water balloons hanging from the bumper of dune buggy going off-road. I was almost hypnotized, but within me, I also felt a burning passion. I felt the need to act and take the lead in this dance. I felt invigorated, energetic, invincible, like I could make love to her for hours and never blow my load.

“Angel, turn around and lean back. It’s time for me to take care of you,” I said, almost in a growl.

Angel looked at me with a mix of excited coyness and loving tenderness and obeyed, turning around without dismounting and leaning back the way she had been before. With strength I never knew I had, I put my hands on her hips and elevated her, giving me room to begin thrusting up like a piston. Angel’s whine of bliss became a moan of euphoria, with the mattress squeaking out its own feelings to my movements. I was using the bed to my advantage, harnessing the springs in the mattress to throw me upwards with added strength. I was thrusting up into her with everything I had, feeling completely immune to any depletion in stamina. With her back now to me, her long crimson hair was splayed out across my face and chest like a crashing waterfall. To some, this would be annoying, but I loved it. Her hair was so soft and smelled so sweet; it felt like I was being showered with rose petals.

Wanting to change my angle of penetration, Angel adjusted herself on top of me, leaning farther back and resting her feet on my knees. I certainly didn’t object, though it took me a minute to readjust my movements to enter her. With her now lying on me, I had no room in which to thrust and now had to use my lower body in order to pull out and push back in, basically in a wave motion. As she rocked back and forth on top of me, Angel’s tits bounced and rolled beautifully. I would have given a kidney to watch them jiggle. At the time, she was moaning in happiness with a membrane of sweat covering her naked body and giving her an erotic sheen.

It is impossible to describe the entire galaxy of sensations I experienced while intimate with Angel. From a physical point of view, it was like we were perfect for each other, our bodies synchronized in a way never seen before in the universe. Every breath, every tremor, and every movement was mirrored and countered, letting us inspire every possible form of pleasure in each other. It was as if we were two halves of clock, a clock made of millions of pieces, and through the joining of our bodies, every piece had come together and each tick and tock echoed masterfully. But beyond the physical experience was the emotional one.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I was truly understood, like I was truly loved. I was experiencing a bond that nobody else in history had ever felt, because nobody in history had ever been in a situation like this. In traditional human bonding, two people meet, and if they are compatible, then over time, they adjust themselves to complete each other. With Angel, I had found someone that already completed me. I didn’t need to change anything. I didn’t need to conform and alter my personality; Angel had been born matching my soul perfectly. The only change was that I was now happy instead of miserable. To feel so tightly united with someone gave me something that I thought I would never experience: belonging. For the first time in my life, I felt like I finally had a home in this construct known as reality, like I was that one stubborn piece of a puzzle that didn’t seem to go anywhere, until at last, I found the spot where I fit perfectly. Until now, I loved my family, but only enough to guilt me out of committing suicide. With Angel, I finally felt at peace with the world and wanted to continue living, to be on this earth as long as possible and spend every day with her.

I don’t know how long we were intimate; I think it was a couple hours at least. It certainly felt like it had been when we both collapsed onto the bed, drained of energy and gasping for air. My sense of time finally came when I heard my mom announce a ten-minute warning for dinner throughout the house. It was about 7:00, and the bed was soaked in sweat and other bodily fluids. Angel was on her back with her legs wrapped around my waist, and I was basically sitting on the soles of my feet, driving into her like a jackhammer. We had been like this for fifteen minutes, but I refused to change positions simply because I got a perfect view of Angel’s breasts and was able to watch them bounce and jiggle to my heart’s content. My mom’s warning told me that it was finally time to stop, though I felt like I could have gone all night without quitting.

“Angel, I’m going to cum.”

“Me too. Release it all into me, I want to feel it inside me.”

“But you might get pregnant.”

“Relax, we’re safe today, trust me.”

I smiled, kissed her, and then put all my strength into ten more pumps. At last, I released my entire load into Angel, filling her up until semen was literally overflowing out of her. At the same time, Angel cried out in ecstasy and a shiver ran throughout her whole body as she experienced her umpteenth climax. Finally feeling my delayed exhaustion, I pulled out of Angel and fell back, barely having enough energy to breathe. Angel was in the same state, the lips of her pussy now swollen from the hours of sex. But we were happy, happy and in love.

“That was the greatest experience of my life,” I hummed.

“Mine too,” Angel laughed while curling up next to me.

“I honestly don’t know how we’re going to work up the strength to get to the table. I’m starving but I’m just too tired to eat.”

“Well if we don’t go down, your family will get even more suspicious. Besides, you’re not the only one that’s hungry.”

“With all the noise we were making, there is no way they didn’t know what we were doing. I’m surprised the bed hasn’t collapsed.”

“Well then, either they know what we did or they will know when we don’t go down, so we might as well eat.”

Angel sat up and I grasped her wrist before she climbed out of bed. “I love you, Angel.”

She leaned down and kissed me. “I love you too, Marcus.”

“Also, I might need a little help getting dressed. My entire body is basically Ground Zero from all that lovemaking.”

Dinner was awkward to say the least, with everyone trying not to stare at Angel and I. I honestly couldn’t tell if my family had heard the two of us having sex or not; they weren’t sending me any signals of acknowledgement or embarrassment. Maybe it was because this was the first time since her introduction that my family had actually seen Angel and could speak to her. While the awkwardness was nearly suffocating, my family did seem relieved to one big change: I was gorging myself on every scrap of food mom had prepared. After months of throwing up every meal and hours of sex, my body was screaming for nutrition and my stomach felt like it was about to implode.

“Hmmm, I never realized how much I missed calories,” I groaned in happiness while shoveling a third helping of chicken onto my plate.

Even foods I normally despised like salad and string beans practically vanished as soon as they touched my plate.

“Careful, you don’t want to put all the weight back on that you had before,” my dad warned while smiling, happy to actually be able to say something like that to me.

Before speaking, I shoveled a forkful of noodles into my mouth, making Angel giggle. “Don’t worry, I won’t let that happen. I’m skinny for the first time in my life and I want to keep it that way.”

I had just stepped out of my room and was planning to take a shower when I saw my sister pulling Angel towards her room with surprising lightheartedness.

“Come on, I want to show you the clothes mom and I got for you.”

The way she was talking, I only heard her talk like that with her friends. It seemed that since Angel was now living with us, Emily had received a new best friend and the sister she always wanted.

“Hold on, I want to see this,” I said, walking over.

She turned to me with sudden coldness. “No way, Marcus.”

“What’s wrong? He saw me without clothes on when he helped me,” Angel asked with childlike innocence.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to see my brother pitching a tent. Besides, you and me need to have a little girl talk.”

Feeling like I had been both badly portrayed and robbed, I sighed and walked to the bathroom. Even after the marathon Angel and I had experience an hour before, I would now need both a hot and cold shower.

Emily nearly jumped when Angel pulled off her shirt, letting her breasts spring forth without restriction. She had just assumed all this time that Angel had been wearing a bra, if she had known that she wasn’t… she would have been more hesitant in staying in the room. Angel seemed to have no fear about going topless in front of Emily, but Emily was feeling sick with envy. She couldn’t help but switch her gaze from Angel’s chest to her own.

“It’s just not fair,” she muttered.

“Thank you so much for getting these for me. I’m really sorry about having to borrow your clothes,” Angel said gratefully as she pulled on a pink top from a pile of clothes on Emily’s bed.

“It’s no problem. But, uh… you can keep the panties. Now… this the first time we’ve actually talked, and I know that you’ve probably told your story a hundred times, but I have to ask: do you really not remember anything?”

Angel lost her smile. She had regained her memories, but they weren’t the kind of memories that she could tell anyone about. She had to keep up the act of amnesia.

“No, I’m sorry. It would be nice if I did, simply to ease everyone’s worrying. But to be honest, I don’t want to remember. I’m sorry, I know that makes me sound really sketchy,” she chuckled sadly.

“Why don’t you want to remember? Is it so that you can stay here?”

Angel turned to her and smiled. “You know, don’t you?”

“Luckily I was the only one upstairs and the room beneath the guest room is rarely used, so I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who knows. I will admit, the fact that you two moved so quickly is really suspicious. Under normal circumstances, I would never be able to trust you. I would be certain that you were just using Marcus.”

Whether she was intending to be blunt or to sugarcoat it, it was impossible to tell.

“So what makes these non-normal circumstances?”

Emily sighed. “I can’t help but believe you. I see the way you look at my brother, and it is with true happiness and love. A con artist could easily trick me into believing that, but I’m just unable to see any evil intent in you. Besides, you make my brother happy, and that is something that he has needed so badly that it is beyond description. When he was introducing you to us, I saw him smile, and he literally hasn’t smiled in years. During dinner, he was so carefree and full of life. If it keeps Marcus happy and alive, then I’m willing to take a risk on it.” She then began to laugh. “But how the hell could you two immediately jump to sex?! Either the two of you are lying and you actually know each other, or it’s something else.”

Angel laughed as well. “We’re in love, it’s as simple as that. When I opened my eyes and found him beside me, clutching my hands, I felt so safe and secure, so cherished and cared for, I knew that no one could love me as much as Marcus did. In him, I saw a broken heart that needed to be mended but was capable of so much love, I saw kindness beneath layers of pain, and I saw someone who would treasure me forever. He told me that he saw me as an angel (no pun intended) that had come to save him. He said that I had the kindest heart and the sweetest soul he had ever encountered, and that I was the light of his life. He wanted to protect me, to support me, to bring me happiness and love me. Quite simply, he sees me as the one thing in this world that he can actually bond himself to. I know that wherever he is, is my home.

Yes, it formed quickly, but we truly need each other, and we want to spend the rest of our lives together. I don’t care if my past ever comes back, as long as I can be with Marcus. We were truly meant to find each other, to be together. It’s beyond simple love at first sight, our lives were intertwined from the beginning,” she said, speaking so cheerfully that Emily could not ignore the warmth in her heart.

“Well if Marcus has things his way, you’ll never have to leave us, and that’s good enough for me. Welcome to the family.”

For the rest of vacation, Angel and I tried to keep our love secret, but the passion between us doing those intimate times was inextinguishable. During the night, I would wait for everyone to fall asleep before sneaking out of my room and into hers. In the darkness, we would make sweet love before falling asleep in each other’s arms. Early in the morning, my watch alarm would wake me up, and I would sneak back into my room.

With Angel, I found there were two kinds of sex: physical and emotional. When we were physical… holy shit. We were a couple of wild animals on PCP and ecstasy. We would go for hours, burning calories we never even knew we had and exchanging fluids like our bodies were actually completely liquid. It wasn’t simply hormone-driven; it was like we were fully exploring each other’s bodies and letting our deepest instincts come forth. Our bodies were more compatible than humanly possible, and just being close filled us with so much energy that we could be intimate for hours and never grow tired. We basically ran through the Kama Sutra like it was a pamphlet and did every position we could think of. Angel remarked upon my newfound strength and stamina with great joy, as her sexual hunger was just as great as mine.

The other kind was slow and gentle, loving and intimate. Like when we were physically based, we would make love hours on end, but the rhythm was completely different, completely tantric. While our bodies were linked, we allowed our souls and minds to merge. It was as if we became telepathic, being able to read our feelings for each other without ever speaking them. When we fucked, it fed our bodies, but when we made love, it fed our souls. Just holding onto each other, making as much contact as possible, and being so close that we could feel each other’s hearts beating… it brought us a bliss that no physical feeling could match. Holding each other after making love was as nice as the act itself.

It was near the end of vacation, and Angel and I were kissing in her room. I heard someone coming up the stairs and Angel and I quickly separated. Until my family fully accepted her, we needed to hide our relationship. I pretended to be in the middle of explaining something to Angel to help her try and overcome her amnesia.

My brother stepped into the room. “Marcus, mom and dad want to talk to you.”

“Thanks,” I said before he walked off.

I looked at Angel and she and I exchanged glances of worry. I got up and kissed her on the forehead. “It’s going to be fine.”

I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. My parents and the two detectives were there. They had been searching the area for days and hadn’t found anything, and much to my hatred, they questioned Angel extensively.

“We have finished our investigation, and we can’t find any trace of her existence prior to when you found her, but we have no way to be sure to be sure if she committed or witnessed any crimes. We’ll continue to search for her identity, but other than that, there is nothing we can do,” Detective Francis said.

Once he and his partner left, my mom turned to me. “Now Marcus, we need to talk about what to do with Angel.”

“Its not like you found a dog that you want to keep. We need to think of her future. There are places where people in her condition can live,” said my dad.

“No, we are not abandoning her.”

Before they could reply, I looked down at the floor. “Are the two of you blind? I haven’t suffered from one seizure ever since I met her.” I held up one of my pill bottles. It was completely full. “I haven’t been in pain for days. She has taken away my suffering, and she is the only one who can. Not only that, but… I’m happy. For the first time in my life, I’m actually happy. I thought that my sickness made that impossible, but she has somehow cured me of both my agony and my misery.”

My parents tried to think of a reply but were unable to counteract my argument. After all, it was clear that whether Angel stayed or left, my health and life depended on it.

“She needs me as much as I need her. Her memory is slowly beginning to come back, she remembers information about the world and what things are and mean, but she knows nothing about herself. I can’t help but wonder if that knowledge will ever come back, or maybe there was none to begin with. For all we know, she could be starting from scratch. She may not have a place or family to return to.”

I sighed and softened my tone. “I know that there is also the financial situation of letting her stay with us. Room and board and all that other stuff… I know that this family is already strained with three kids. That’s why I’ve decided not to go to college, so that the money that was going to be used on my tuition can instead be used to make her a member of this family. College is a scam anyway, and it’s not like I will be incapable of getting a job if all I have is a high school education. Or maybe I can just go to community college. I would do anything for her.”

I stopped as I heard someone standing in the doorway. I turned and saw it was Angel. The tenderness and love in her eyes was like a soothing rain to my soul. She walked over to me and wrapped her hands around mine, leaning her head on my shoulder.

“Mom, dad… we’re in love.”

Several moments passed by,

“You’ve given us a lot to think about,” my dad said shakily as he pulled my mom into the living room.

I was lying on my back in bed with Angel crouched over me. It was the middle of the night and we were both naked, having just finished making love. Angel was finishing me off, using her breasts to massage my cock while she licked the tip.

“I can’t even describe how good that feels,” I hummed, taking great pleasure in the sight of the moonlight being caught by the saliva and pussy juice on Angel’s tits.

“To bring you happiness is why I live. I’m glad that my breasts are so large, you sure seem fond of them,” she purred, rubbing the two soft yet firm pillows of flesh against my manhood.

Her skin, it was so smooth, delicate, and soft; it was like she had been shaved from the neck down by a laser and then took a long bath in a tub full of moisturizer.

“I’m fond of everything about you, from the endless kindness within your heart, your goddess face, the sweetness of your soul, your long and elegantly beautiful hair, and your flawless body, which practically perspires sexuality.”

My breathing quickened and I sensed an oncoming orgasm. Reading me like brail, Angel doubled her efforts, her face blushing with desperate arousal and loving dedication. “Cum for me, Marcus. Spray with your semen. I want to bear it all and be covered in it. My body belongs to you!”

I was more than happy to obey, and in the form of four ropey shots, I ejaculated every drop of semen in my body, coating Angel’s face, her tits, and her outstretched tongue. Before it could fully deflate, Angel took my cock in her mouth, cleaning it off and siphoning out any bullets that had been loaded into the barrel but never fired. Once it was empty, she sat up and hungrily licked my cum off her breasts like it was the essence of life. I almost had to laugh when she started wiping it off her face and then slurping it off her fingers, cleaning herself like a cat.

“So good,” she said softly before crawling over and lying down beside me.

“I’m going to miss having these lazy days to ourselves. I am really not looking forward to school tomorrow,” I sighed.

“You know, tomorrow will be the longest we’ve ever been apart. I don’t know how I’ll stand it,” she huffed.

“Don’t remind me, but maybe I’ll skip lunch and come home for a quickie.”

“Then you’ll just end up missing the rest of the day, we’d never leave the bedroom. I know you too well.”

“Hey, can you blame me?”

I then gave a deep sigh and looked up at the ceiling. “It’s been so weird since we met. For the first time in my life, I’m truly happy. And my pain, I never knew that I was capable of feeling so little of it. You almost managed to take it away when I saw you each morning, but for it to be continuous like this, it makes me feel like I’ve spent the last three months wearing a suit of armor with a lead apron underneath, and now I can finally walk free without anything weighing me down. To think that my life could become so perfect…”

“Well like I said before, to make you happy is why I live. I exist solely for you,” she said while kissing my chest.

“Marcus?” Angel then asked, resting her head on my shoulder. Her eyes seemed to be glowing in the dark.

“Yeah?”

“What do we do if we can’t be together?”

“Then we leave. We’ll leave and go somewhere where there will be nothing standing between us. I love you, Angel. I love you more than you could possibly imagine.”

“You’re wrong about that,” she hummed as she gave a slight smile, “I know how much you love me, because I love you just as much.”

As she pulled away, a smile crossed her lips and looked down, seeing that I was once again rock hard. “Well, looks like you’re ready for round 2,” she said coyly.

“Are you kidding? The match just started, I’m just getting warmed up!” I said, wrapping my arms around her and kissing her.

“Ugh, I hate wearing these,” I muttered as I tried to keep the back of my gown closed.

I was in the hospital to get my brain scanned and check the stage of my cancer. Angel was with me and my parents were in the waiting room. She had a warm smile completely devoid of fear or concern.

“What, not even a little worrying?” I teased as I walked over.

“Of course not, I know you are too strong to give into this disease. Besides, as long as I am alive, I won’t let you die.”

With a warm smile, I grasped her hand and placed it on my chest. “As long as your heart is beating, mine will beat as well.”

She kissed me and gave me a loving smile. “I’ll hold you to that promise.”

The door of the room opened and a nurse poked her head in. “Marcus Clive, we’re ready.”

I looked at Angel and kissed her on the forehead. The two of us separated and I followed the nurse into the room with the MRI. The nurse handed me a pair of earplugs and I climbed up onto the bench, lying down so that it could load me into the machine. In the cramped tube, I could hear the buzzing of the MRI kicking to life. For several minutes, I listened to the machine whirring as my brain was scanned and sighed with relief when it finally stopped.

In one of the exam rooms, my parents, Angel, and I were waiting for the results. Dr. Turner walked in and put up the printed x-ray. “This is practically a miracle, the tumors have shrunk to the point where they are barely noticeable and have lost all of their influence on your health.”

I grinned and held Angel’s hand. “So my cancer is gone?”

“Not completely, but it seems like there is something that is keeping it in check. We certainly didn’t see results like these with the chemo or radiation treatment. It could be an anatomical defense mechanism or there is something in your environment causing it. The cancer could return if whatever is helping you disappears, but congratulations, you’re winning the battle.”

I looked at Angel and could see the care and tender love in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Chapter 3

It was the first day after vacation, and everyone was following his or her morning routine. Angel and I were trying to figure out how we would survive the day without each other.

“The tutor will be here at eight, and he’ll be home-schooling you for a few months while we figure out where you can go for a real education,” I said as I pulled on my backpack.

“I’ll miss you,” she murmured while kissing me.

We tried to ignore everyone watching us.

My siblings, parents, and I went outside, with Phil, Emily, and I being driven to school by our dad. The February weather seemed especially cold, and I realized it was because I didn’t have my arm around Angel. As we drove down the bumpy driveway, I could feel my body becoming colder and colder with every inch of distance between us. But I was also in a good mood; I would be going back to school pain-free, and with Angel in my life, nothing in the world could hurt me.

It was gym class and the subject of the day was station exercises. The gymnasium had been split up into areas, each with a different exercise or activity to be performed for a set amount of time. Arriving at the chin-up station, I jumped up onto the bar with gusto. I normally hated gym class with every fiber of my being, but my good mood and lack of pain was making me restless.

“I thought you couldn’t be in gym class because of your cancer?” one of the other students asked, watching me move like a piston on the bar.

“I found the perfect treatment.”

After a dozen lifts, I finally jumped off and landed on the floor. My muscles were twitching from the relief of no pain.

“Tom is coming back to school tomorrow, and I think he is going to kick your ass,” another student said as he started doing chin-ups.

I chuckled and cracked my knuckles. “That punk has been home-schooled all this time for some minor injuries while I barely missed a day while being in endless full-body agony. What a coward. Whatever, if he wants to fight me, he can go ahead. It’s not like he can do anything to hurt me.”

As the day wore on, I missed Angel more and more. I longed to look into her eyes, to hear her sweet voice, and to hold her in my arms. I would sit in class, looking out the window. Everything around me was drowned out, as she was the only thing on my mind.

I was anxious as the bus got closer and closer to my house. The instant the bus stopped at my driveway and the doors opened, I bolted out, running as fast as I could. I ran up the long unpaved driveway, ignoring the cold. I didn’t even notice as my foot broke through the ice over a deep puddle and was submerged up past my ankle in icy water. I kept running until I got to the house and wrenched open the door. I took a step inside and Angel jumped into my arms, kissing me passionately. Funny, the two of us together reminded me of those old Calvin and Hobbes comics I used to read.

“I missed you,” I said while pulling off my coat and backpack.

“I missed you too,” she whispered.

We made our way upstairs and into the bedroom. Instead of throwing ourselves onto the bed, we crashed into the wall by the window, not even noticing as we ripped our clothes off and licked the inside of each other’s mouths. As soon as Angel’s jeans and panties were off, I got down on my knees and buried my lips and tongue in her sweet slit. Lathering her insides and drinking her essence, I was on Cloud 9 while simultaneously making Angel moan in ecstasy. Her pussy tasted so sweet and was so soft, I actually lifted her up and let her rest both her legs on my shoulders so that I could delve even deeper with my tongue. Having ripped off her shirt and bra, Angel was massaging her breasts with one hand and running her fingers through my hair, stammering how good it felt and how much she had missed my touch. While working diligently, I couldn’t help but look up and admire her full breasts, dominating my view as if I was standing at the base of two mountains.

Without the slightest pause, I performed my much-enjoyed duty until Angel experienced her first climax, filling the house with her shrill calls of ecstasy. While she stepped back down onto the ground with shaky legs, I stood up and fully undressed. She was quickly ready for me, and without wasting time, she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist while I entered her. Holding her against the wall, I began thrusting with deep, powerful shoves, slamming the head of my cock against the entrance to her womb over and over. Each time I forced myself into her, Angel would release a beautiful yelp of happiness and her hold would momentarily slacken from the deep shivers running throughout her body

As much as I loved being able to go deeper than usual, the inefficiencies and lack of comfort of the position quickly drained our patience. As if reading each other’s minds, I pulled out of Angel just as she unwrapped her legs from around my waist. With a coy smile on her face, she turned around and stood by the window, shaking her shapely ass at me. Grinning, I brushed her hair aside and ran my tongue up her back, brought it up to the back of her ear, and then began kissing her neck to try and nonverbally express my gratitude and describe to her just how perfect she was.

With my dick rock hard and literally pulsating with each beat of my heart, I got behind Angel and entered her with ease, drawing a blissful hum from the penetration. After a few tentative strokes to get accustomed to the movements and angle, I placed my hands on Angel’s hips and immediately began hammering her with the speed of a woodpecker. She was pushed up against the window, crying out joyfully as I fucked her. Each and every time, I would slam into her with all of my strength, entering as deeply as possible and as fast as possible. With each powerful thrust, Angel’s breasts would slam against the window, and with the coldness of the glass, her nipples quickly became like gumdrops, while her perspiration and breath left a beautiful imprint of her hands and chest on the window. I don’t know which sounded better, the clapping of her taut ass against my lap or her breasts against the window.

“Oh god, Marcus! It feels so good! You’re driving me crazy!”

Wanting to move the scene to the bed, I put my arms under Angel’s knees and picked her up. Angel just thought I was changing the position again and began grinding her pussy against my cock as I held her up, moaning and grunting like a wild animal. More than happy to indulge her, I began lifting her up and down with my arms while using my lower body to thrust up into her. To the wet sound of her womanhood getting penetrated over and over again by my cock, Angel leaned back and we began to kiss, quite gently in contrast to the wild fucking just two feet away.

Soon my arms began to ache and I decided that it was time to move on. Gently, I set Angel down on the bed, momentarily pulling out of her. Knowing what I wanted, she held herself up on the edge on her hands and knees, inviting me back in. I accepted the invite and mounted her like a dog, drawing fresh moans and cries of happiness as I fucked her with everything I had and with renewed speed. The whole house was filled with the clapping sound of flesh against flesh as I drove into Angel with all the power I could summon, desperate to satisfy and pleasure her.

For an hour and a half, we continued like that, continuously switching positions and screwing like there was no tomorrow. Our bodies had been starved of each other all day and we were desperate to make up for lost time. Eventually, we stopped for a break, simply to catch our breath and give my manhood a reprieve. Now was my favorite part; Angel and I holding each other as we let our bodies relax from the sensual act of love committed only moments ago.

“How was your day?” I asked as I could feel Angel’s gentle breathing slow to its usual pace.

“Kind of boring. The tutor gave me a small test to see what my mind remembered. He was fairly surprised by how well I did, saying that it was amazing how I remembered how to do algebra but didn’t even know my last name,” she hummed, pressing herself tightly against me.

With my chin resting on her shoulder, I smiled and gently brushed aside a lock of hair over her face, tucking it behind her ear. “If only the world knew who you really were.”

“Well it is because to you. I may not have been born with memories of my own, but I do have your memories. So thanks for the help. How was your day?”

“Great. It was so nice to be without pain. I can never even begin to show my gratitude for saving me.”

“You don’t need to thank me, just love me.”

“Some people didn’t believe me when I said that I found the perfect treatment for my pain…”

Angel chuckled.

“So a lot of people are starting to think I never had cancer. By tomorrow, probably half of the school will think I had been faking it to get attention.”

She looked at me with disbelief.

“Don’t worry, I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone there thinks. I don’t want any friends. Hell, I don’t even need to acknowledge anyone there. I severed all ties with almost everyone else on the planet long before I met you. You’re the only one I need.”

Several silent moments passed by.

“Something else is on your mind.”

“How’d you know?”

Angel pressed her cheek against mine, and just as I was about to think she was going to whisper something in my ear, she instead gave a gentle hum.

“A school bully that I beat up is coming back tomorrow. He was one of the people that tormented me for the past five years.”

Angel looked at me and I could see worry in her eyes. “Marcus, I am so sorry.”

“Its fine. There is a good chance that he will try to fight me tomorrow, maybe then I can get some revenge. Last time, I strangled him, shattered his nose, broke his eye socket, and busted out all of his teeth, but he deserves a much more severe punishment.”

“Well just don’t kill him. I don’t want the cops to take you away.”

“Yes, dear.”

The next day, I was shoved in the hall and knocked to the ground.

“Get up you son of a bitch!” I heard Tom yell behind me.

People in the hall immediately stopped to watch.

“Showtime,” I said to myself with a smile.

I stood up and faced Tom. His nose was crooked and his lips were covered in scars from getting cut up by his teeth. Many of his teeth had been put back in, however, most were fake. He would never be able to smile without people laughing at him. I had a devious grin on my face as I pulled off my coat and backpack. Standing before him, I released a booming laugh, feeling my rage mix with the sense of invincibility I had gained since meeting Angel.

“You want to fight me? You think you can even hurt me?! You’re nothing more than an insect!”

“I’ll kill you, you bastard!” Tom howled, pulling back his arm and punching me in the side of the face, just below the eye.

My face whipped back with his fist never breaking connection, but Tom’s arrogant grin was lost when he saw that I was still smiling, even with his fist pressed against my cheek.

“You think you can hurt me? You think you can scare me? Nothing you do will ever reach me! I’ve outgrown your puny human world!”

I lashed out and punched Tom in the nose with all the strength in my body, literally holding nothing back. He staggered back with his hands over his broken nose, giving a muffled howl of pain while blood streamed out from between his fingers. My fist was shaking, not in pain or fear, but happiness. The smile on my face was a bloodthirsty maniacal one, burning with the haunted flames of the past and the fearless flames of the future. I was finally free.

“I’ve experienced my own death, witnessed the end of all reason, suffered more agony in the last few months than you will ever experience in your lifetime, and finally discovered happiness through something beyond your comprehension! There is nothing in the world that can I can fear or desire, nothing you can do to hurt me! I’ve broken free of this world and outgrown you!”

I lunged forward and punched Tom in the face. The blow grazed his forehead, sparing him most of the impact and allowing him to deliver a punch straight to my gut. While it was strong enough to knock the wind out of me, after the levels of pain I had endured, it felt like I had just gotten hit by a beach ball. Laughing like a maniac, I stood upright and again punched him, giving an instant black eye. Roaring in pain and rage, he tackled me and slammed me against the wall, then began punching me in the face wildly. While his punches decimated my flesh, they were unable to rob me of my smile and confidence. Sporting two black eyes and bruises across my face, I reached up and caught his fist, stopping the barrage.

“What the fuck are you?!” he screamed, unable to believe I was still conscious.

“Karma. You ruined my life with your cruelty, now I will turn that cruelty on you ten fold. I shall show you the true meaning of despair, just as you have shown me. You shall learn the difference between our levels of hatred.”

I slammed my elbow into his face and fractured his eye socket. Tom staggered back, and without any hesitation, I delivered a punch to the gut that made him buckle, granting me the perfect opportunity to slam my knee in his face and bust his already broken nose. Nearly delirious from the pain, Tom was essentially helpless as I began pummeling him with my fists, beating him wildly until my knuckles bled. I had to admit, the fact that he stayed on his feet was commendable, but that only gave me a continuous reason to keep punching him.

Within seconds, it was Tom set against the wall, completely at the mercy of my punches. His face was a bloody mess, even worse than mine, but I wouldn’t stop. As long as I didn’t kill him, I had nothing to worry about.

‘Thank you, Angel. Thank you for setting me free,’ I thought to myself before a teacher grabbed me and pulled me away.

Three weeks suspension, a small price to pay for my vengeance. I was lucky not to have been expelled, but once again, Tom throwing the first punch was all the defense I needed. My parents, who were both furious that I had gotten suspended yet again but sympathetic when they saw how bruised up my face was, brought me home early.

“Oh my god, are you all right?!” Angel fearfully exclaimed, meeting me at the door and examining my face.

“Yeah, I’m fine, but if I miss anymore days after this, I won’t be able to graduate and will have to take summer school.”

“Your mother and I are going to discuss your punishment. You had better hope we don’t leave you out in the back yard with a tent and a trash bag to sleep in,” my dad said as he and my mom walked into the living room.

“Come on, let’s get some ice on those bruises,” Angel murmured, leading me to the kitchen.

“My suspension is actually pretty good news. Except for when your tutor comes and my family returns, we’ll have the house to ourselves for three weeks.”

Once again, my parents were distraught on whether to be mad at me or be accepting of my actions. Angel and I were ecstatic. During the morning, Angel and I would sleep in for an extra hour, wake up and make love while half-asleep, then go have breakfast, and wait for Angel’s tutor to show up. Once he arrived, I would help her with her work in all the ways I could. After the tutor left, Angel and I would have lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon chatting or making love.

One afternoon, Angel and I were taking a walk through the woods. Snow was gently falling from the cloudy sky and there wasn’t even the slightest breeze. We were walking hand in hand, just enjoying the glass-like scene of frozen nature. We stepped into a vast meadow, transformed into a sea of snow banks by the ageless winter.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

We both fell back into a snow bank, letting the crystallized mattress cushion our fall as if we were immune to gravity.

“Beautiful,” Angel breathed as we gazed up into the falling snow.

She looked at me and placed her delicate fingers on my cheek. I pulled off my glove and did the same. Angel didn’t shiver as my chilled hand brushed against her soft porcelain skin. From her hand on my cheek and my hand on hers, I could feel warmth seeping into my body.

“Marcus, there is something I have been thinking about for a while. It was something that you said to me on the day we met. It was when you were telling me why you were about to kill yourself. You said that you hated and were disgusted by the human race. What did you mean? I have your memories, but I don’t know your thought processes.”

I sighed as I tried to think of how I was going to explain it. “When I was in that school for troubled kids, my soul was full of rage. Not only were my tormenters getting off without punishment, I had been locked away like a criminal. I looked at the system that had screwed me over and the twisted psychology of the bullies that had made my life a living hell. I realized that if I were to understand the forces that had ruined my life, I would need to understand the heart of those forces. I began to look at the human race as if I was not human. I looked at history and I studied the people around me. I looked at their flaws, their imperfections, their weaknesses, and their predictability. I was disgusted by what I had found.

Mankind is nothing more than an evolutionary dead end, the result of our ancestors becoming smart enough to survive in the harsh wilderness and thereby losing their evolutionary drive. When early humans overcame the obstacles that get in the way of the lives of species, they found that there were no longer any obstacles that required brain function higher than what they had. True, we made some technological progress: we invented weapons to defend ourselves, machines to help us harness the earth’s resources, and medicine to extend our lives, but we lacked the intelligence to use them wisely.

We became smart enough to build communities, but remained stupid enough to fight over resources. We became smart enough to use fire, but remained stupid enough to use it to destroy nature. We became smart enough to invent thousands and languages and religions, but remained stupid enough to be unable to find compromise or peace in a single one. We’re caught in an evolutionary limbo, where any opposing force that requires brain function higher than what we already have would undoubtedly kill us. The better you become, the harder it is to keep going, and we’ve reached our peak. Damn, it is one pathetically short peak. Now we’re stuck with the ability to make things that we’re too stupid to use properly, and underdeveloped minds that aren’t prepared for the things they think they can do.

I turned my back on this pitiful species and severed all ties with this world.” I then softened my tone and pressed my forehead against hers. “Screw the world, I don’t need it anymore. As long as I have you, I am content. Mankind means nothing to me. You are all that is important.”

Angel’s eyes sparkled as she smiled. “Can we head back? Its cold out here.”

A look of confusion crossed my face as I moved my hand from her cheek to her neck. “You don’t feel chilled at all.”

“Yeah, but its too cold out here for us to show each other how much we love each other,” she said as she kissed me.

Our romantic vacation eventually came to an end, and I realized I was basically getting shot with a double-barrel shotgun. Not only were we going to separated during the day again, but also being out for three weeks meant that I was drowning in missed home and schoolwork. I would have to work for hours every evening to try and get catch up, meaning that I still couldn’t be with Angel as much as I wanted to. If I didn’t claw my way back up from the abyss, then it meant summer school and no graduation for me, which meant that the time I could spend with Angel would be decimated. But after dinner when Angel and I would go up to bed, the tender love that had accumulated during the day would be released with unparalleled passion.

With the arrival of April, spring fever was injected into the weather like steroids. All of the snow was blasted away by the sun and the temperature was reaching into the high 50’s, basically tropical climate for Mainers. I had almost an ominous feeling about the warmth, because I knew that the summer would be unbearably hot. With the warm weather thawing everything out, Angel was getting me to do the one thing that no one else could make me do: exercise. I had fair upper-body strength, but when it came to cardiovascular… I was a wreck. All those years of lounging and staying uninvolved with everything had come back to haunt me. I hated all exercise, but being with Angel made it tolerable… not that going for a daily jog didn’t make me feel like my lungs were filled with razor blades.

One afternoon, Angel and I were jogging through the park by my home. Actually, she was jogging; I was shortening my lifespan by trying to keep up. We stopped when we finally broke out from under the trees, feeling the sunlight on us. I was leaning on my knees, trying to catch my breath. I nearly collapsed from relief when I heard her speak those four golden words: “Let’s take a break.”

In the shadow of the branches and budding leaves, we rested beneath the branches of a tree on the edge of the meadow. Angel was sitting against the trunk, and I was lying down with my head in her lap. The air was filled with the sound of chirping birds and animals taking advantage of the warm weather. She was humming a soft tune and I could feel blissful relaxation seeping into my tired body like rain on soil. The fresh spring air was mending my aching lungs, the perfume of the thawing ground and the revived plants was making me melt in bliss, the warmth of Angel’s body was easing my muscles like a gentle massage, and the hypnotic notes of her humming felt like a soothing lullaby.

“You know, back when I was sick, I used to contemplate life and death and what they meant. It wasn’t a morbid gothic thing, just a curiosity, a preparation for what I thought was coming.”

“Oh really? What did you come up with?” she asked as she leaned down and kissed me on the forehead.

“I don’t believe there is any meaning in life or this universe, no value or purpose other than what we create for ourselves. But even going against that and all the neurons in my brain screaming at me to be logical, I am convinced that there is an afterlife. I’m not talking about a heaven or a hell, but just some plane of existence where the sentience remains.”

“How do you figure?”

“Memories, everything we think and experience is merely a reaction to events and our surroundings, a recorded recoil that takes the form of a memory. Consider the amount of time it takes for information from your senses to be received and process by your brain. It takes maybe a few nanoseconds? But consider everything that can happen and has happened within the span of a few nanoseconds, and in increments of time even shorter. Outside of our human perception, a nanosecond could feel like a century.

Even now, every thought that passes through my mind and everything I feel, they all occur before long before I am truly aware of them, in which case, my detection of them is really nothing more than a memory. I’m always living in the past, my mind trailing behind the flow of time, only reacting when information is memorized and played like a flashback. Every second is just a memory for your mind, while your body moves on through the future.

So if that’s true, is it possible that my whole life could just be a single memory? A movie playing in my mind that is eighteen years long and ongoing, with my brain always wondering what’s going to happen next while my body and the world around me create each new scene about to be viewed? In which case, I could be remembering this from a hundred years into the future, having lived an incredibly long life. This conversation might not be happening in real time, but is actually something that occurred a hundred years ago and I am currently remembering it in real time.

But memories cannot exist without the mind. A movie cannot exist if the disk or tape it’s imprinted on doesn’t exist. Therefor, if I am a memory, a continuous memory being relived from some point in the future, then that memory must go on forever. Maybe the memory doesn’t stop… just because my body stops. The only way this memory can continue is if there is a mind able to play it back, to retain the information. So when I die, my mind will be unable to play the memory and I will cease to exist in my current form. But I do exist, meaning that I still exist in the future, and as long as I exist in the future, I exist in the present, meaning that I exist for all eternity, but my form is merely different from what it once was.”

Angel giggled. “That’s fascinating. I’d love to hear more.”

“Sorry, but that’s all I’ve got so far. Speaking of life and death, I have to ask, where did you come from? I’ve spent more time being grateful that you’re here than just wondering how you came to be. You told me before that you have my memories, but I don’t know how that’s possible. You were originally a figment of my imagination, right?”

“Yes, that is right.”

“Then how can you go from being imaginary to real? How can you go from being inside my mind to having a physical body?”

Angel just smiled and again kissed me on the forehead. “The day is soon coming when I will explain everything to you, but it is not today. Do not worry, do not be afraid, just enjoy the present and look forwards to the future. Always remember that we shall be together until the end of time.”

“As long as those words remain true, I don’t care what happens,” I said sleepily before closing my eyes and dozing off, listening to the sound of Angel’s sweet humming.

School was coming to an end and everyone was getting antsy. Angel and I couldn’t be happier. She would still be homeschooled during the day, but we would have all summer to be with each other, and by the skin of my teeth, I had managed to make up all my missed work. Oh, and graduation was coming. On one of the last few days of school, I was in woodshop class. The grades had been closed, so we were allowed to just use the machinery for whatever we wanted. I was using the gear-controlled table drill to work on a special project.

One of the other students walked over to me. “Rumors say that you have a girlfriend.”

I didn’t even acknowledge him and just continued with my work.

“Is it someone here or from another school?”

By his tone, I knew that it would be a bad idea to answer. If I gave a name, everyone would instantly try to find whoever it was. People would hassle her for being with me and try to anger me by making lewd suggestions about her. I knew human nature well, and I knew what went on in the mind of high school jackasses. I just continued my work, not even looking at him. When I moved to a power sander and began smoothening my creation, the guy got the message that he wouldn’t get anything out of me, and left me to my work.

The day had finally come. It was graduation for the class of 2012. It was a blisteringly hot summer day, because for some reason, schools decide that it’s best to have all the students gather together in polyester robes with full dress pants and shirt (if you’re a guy underneath) when spring turns to summer. And of course, in a school with no AC, all the graduates and their families would be herded into the sweaty gymnasium like an Auschwitz oven. In the hour before the ceremony, the halls were flooded with students and family members, all of them sweating bullets, talking about future plans, and reminiscing about the past twelve years.

Then a ripple passed through the building. The graduation ceremony was not about to start, no; it was something else. At the entrance to the school, with my parents and siblings on either side, Angel had arrived to watch the ceremony. Everyone stared at her, completely hypnotized. She was wearing a skirt that showed off her porcelain legs and a striped top that put her ample breasts on display without showing too much cleavage. No one had ever seen a person with half the beauty as this stranger. With fiery crimson hair that hung down the length of her back, piercing blue eyes that looked like they could see into your very soul, and a smile that was awe-inspiring in its beauty, she was the definition of perfection. I had arrived at the school earlier, so my family just had to find me and then their seats.

Drawn to my as if with a sixth sense, Angel lead my family down the hallways of the school. Every student and even their parents gawked at the goddess passing them by. A few people even tried to record her on their phones. The boys stared at her hungrily, wondering what beautiful Eden she had been hiding from all their lives. The girls were all jealous, glad that such a perfect creature hadn’t been in school with them, lest they would all be invisible in comparison.

They arrived at the library, where most of the students had gathered, as it was the coolest place in the building. Just like in the halls, everyone stared at Angel like she was a gift from some divine being, a beauty unmatched by any human. They followed her with their eyes, unable to believe such a gem existed, and why, of all people, she was walking over to me. I was sitting by the computers, trying to figure out how to redo my tie. I had taken it off soon after arriving at the school, desperate for any relief, but I didn’t know how to get it right. Sweating like a pot roast and cursing, I fumbled with my tie until Angel arrived, the light of my life.

A tender smile on her sweet lips, she leaned down and kissed me. To everyone watching, it was like reality had shattered. For a girl, as stunning and perfect as Angel, to be kissing me of all people, it had to be some cruel trick. She then redid my tie, and after she and my family congratulated me and wished me luck, they departed to find their seats in the gym. As soon as they were gone, everyone rushed in, desperate to know who she was and asking every question they could think of. I just sat silently, smiling with the thought that I had her in my life.

The ceremony was even worse than I thought, with the gym turning into a sweaty, stuffy sauna, and my clothes feeling like wool blankets. The heat was so intense that I honestly thought I blacked out a couple times. I was pretty much buried deep in Satan’s fiery rectum. Trying to ignore the heat, I focused my thoughts on the graduation itself. Before I met Angel, I pretty much hated everyone around me, and after I met her, I was simply indifferent. But sitting there, surrounded by people I spent my childhood with and saw five days a week for twelve years, I was suddenly overwhelmed with nostalgia. I may not have had very many happy memories, but so much of my life was spent around these people. I had always hated change and relished routines, and this was one of the greatest changes of my life, in which I was going to lose so many people that I had grown up with.

Then there were all the memories of school itself. All of the lessons, the projects, endless days that I thought would never end. Those were really over. Most of it had been a drag, but there were still memories that would always remain, and some times that were almost even enjoyable. And now, that’s all they were: memories. I’m not proud of the fact that I almost began to tear up, thinking about this over and over again. But maybe it’s good that I was still human enough to feel this way.

I looked around the gym, trying to find Angel. As beautiful as she was, I couldn’t spot her in the sea of faces, but I knew she was watching me, or at least trying to. I may have been losing the closest people I had to friends, but now I had her. Finally, it was time to receive diplomas, and with our names being called, everyone moved in an unraveling line. My name being called, I stepped forward and received the small leather book with my diploma inside. To think, I was finally done, and now, my new life could begin.

Later that night, after thoroughly showering and hydrating, I stepped outside to see what the conditions were. There wasn’t a single mosquito around, but millions of bright fireflies. The evening was cloudless with a gentle but warm breeze that seemed to carry the perfume-like odor of the changing of seasons. It was absolutely perfect for what I had in mind.

“Angel, do you want to take a walk through the woods with me?”

Sitting on the couch and watching TV, she looked at me and cocked her head to one side. The smallest of smiles crossed her lips as she looked into my eyes. “I would love to.”

We grabbed our shoes and headed out into the woods. There were so many fireflies that we did not need a flashlight; the insects perfectly illuminated the forest. Their light cast a mysterious aura on everything in the woods and altered their colors, the leaves gained a dark blue-green shade and the tree trunks seemed to have a purplish tinge. The illumination was almost haunting. I could see what everything was, but my sense of distance and perception was warped. I could reach out to touch a leaf and my hand would only pass through its shadow. I could take a step towards something several meters away and realize that it was right in front of me the whole time. The forest was filled with endless shadows from the light, shadows that seemed to hold secrets of nature itself.

I watched Angel as she moved through the forest like a ghost. Her eyes were filled with wonder as the fireflies hovered around her like fairies. In the light of the insects, her crimson hair shined like rubies and her blue eyes glowed like the moon. I remembered the day that I had met her, when I she had truly been born into my world, having materialized out of thin air. The way she was wrapped in the light… was supernatural.

I closed my hand around hers. “There is a place I want to show you. Judging by what we have seen so far, I’m guessing that this place will be a work of art.”

A babbling brook carved its way through the soft forest soil. The creek was about a foot in diameter and not even an inch deep. Several smaller rivers connected to it like veins and created islands, dotted with ferns and shrubs. The creek led to a pool, about the size of a coffee table and a foot deep. Surrounding the pool was a dam of rocks to maintain its shape. Next to the pool was a boulder, bathed in moonlight and wrapped in moss. There was a symphony echoing through the clearing. It was a mix of the babbling brook, the croaking of frogs, the chirping of crickets, and the whistling of birds, all forming a melody that no orchestra could match.

“Gorgeous,” Angel gasped.

“When I was a kid, I always used to come out here to play. Nature was the only friend I needed. All these little rivers and islands were a sort of irrigation project. These days, I come here just to think and have some peace.”

“Marcus, this is so beautiful.”

“Angel, there is something I want to ask you.”

She turned to me.

“I know that we are too young to get married, but I was thinking that this could be like a temporary IOU until we are old enough and I can give you a diamond ring.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small velvet jewelry box I had borrowed from my sister. I opened it up, revealing a ring.

I had crafted it in woodshop and made it as smooth as marble, using elegant rosewood to compliment her hair. Golden wire had been stamped into the wood with just the right amount of force, allowing it to stay in without adhesives and without crushing or fracturing the wood. It had been arranged into a looping pattern, almost like a Celtic design. There was no diamond on the ring; instead, there was a bead-sized glass pebble. In the glass was a group of four wires: gold, red, blue, and green, all intertwined in a knot. I had used magnifying glasses and tweezers to shape the wire. Had my hands trembled like they used to, it would have been impossible. I had learned to seal things in glass on the Internet and had done it all myself.

She was breathless.

“Angel, will you be my future fiancée?”

“Yes, of course, Marcus,” she whispered as she put on the ring, the wooden band fitting flawlessly.

I placed my hands on her cheeks and looked into her beautiful eyes.

“I love you, Angel. I love you so much that I can’t exist without you. You are what keeps me alive.”

“I know, I was just about to say the same thing,” she cooed as she kissed me.

Angel and I were in bed, making love in the missionary position as a way to celebrate her new ring and the promise we had made. We had been like this for half an hour, moving as slowly and gently as clouds. As I slid back and forth, Angel’s tongue danced and rolled in my mouth, filling it with her sweet taste. Fulfilling the inevitable transition point, I could feel all the muscles in my pelvic region tightening and instinctively increased my speed, trying to coax my building orgasm. As my efforts increased, Angel began panting heavily in anticipation. My ejaculation was signaled with a deep grunt, following the jettison of several blasts of semen. Angel groaned as my seed filled her, but she wasn’t having an orgasm; it was more like she was aroused by the feeling of me cumming inside her.

“I think it’s time we got a little more energetic,” I whispered in her ear.

“Hold on, just let me take off my ring. I don’t want it to break.”

While she placed the ring on her bedside table, I sat up and stretched, sore from maintaining one position for so long. Looking back down, I smiled as I gazed upon Angel’s flawless body, almost glowing in the darkness from her arousal.

“I’m ready, put it wherever you want.”

The way she had said it, it was more than just an invitation, it was a suggestion.

“Angel, you really mean wherever?”

She looked up at me and smiled, her eyes full of love. “I don’t know why you never made the move yourself. I thought I had made it clear: I exist solely for you, every inch of by body belongs to you to be used to bring you happiness. Use me however you want, and I shall happily and gratefully fulfill any desire you may have and welcome whatever you want to do to me.”

I was left completely speechless, unable to process the emotions rushing through me. I slowly leaned down and kissed her. “You are the definition of perfection.”

As I sat back up, Angel spread her legs and raised them, granting me access to her back door. Hard as steel, I pressed the head of my cock against her asshole, hoping the semen from my orgasm and juices from her pussy would act as sufficient lubricant.

“If it hurts, tell me and I’ll stop.”

“Don’t worry, nothing you do could ever hurt me.”

Leaning forward with one hand on her shoulder and the other against the mattress for support, I took a deep breath and slowly entered her. Feeling my manhood penetrating her anus, Angel gave a soft whimper of arousal while I tried to keep my breathing steady. As if welcoming me to go in deeper, her asshole seemed to suddenly loosen with each centimeter I delved. Her interior was so soft that I honestly couldn’t decide whether or not it was better than normal sex. While it was certainly tight, it was only tight enough to make me feel good and it did not restrict my movement or create unwanted friction. It certainly felt different from her pussy. It was a much rounder shape, more form-fitting for my manhood.

Before I knew it, my whole cock was buried deep in her asshole, and Angel’s breathing had quickened as she tried to become accustomed to the mass. But nowhere in her face and eyes did I see pain or discomfort. Reassured, I slowly pulled out, causing Angel to give an ambiguous gasp and for me to once again hope that there was enough lubrication. Deciding to stop thinking about it, I pushed back into her in a single confident shove, drawing a whine of happiness from Angel and a grunt of satisfaction from me. Damn that felt good.

With our bodies perpendicular, I gently pulled out and immediately forced myself back in. Like before, Angel yelped in pleasure and showed nothing but joy at the sensation. The movement was a lot easier the third time around; I felt like I could move in and out with minimal discomfort. Now familiar, I began building up to my preferred speed, quickly causing the bed to rock and shake. As I slammed into her asshole over and over and forced myself deep inside her, Angel gave a soft but continuous cry of happiness. From the expression on her face, she appeared to be in pain, but from the look in her eyes, the tone of her blush, and the sound of her voice, I knew she was in a state of euphoria.

I increased my speed even further, fucking her with all the strength in my body. From the power of my thrusts, Angel was forced to hold onto the bed for dear life and bite down on a pillow to suppress her cries while her breasts bounced wildly. I kept my eyes focused on her, admiring her beauty, her kindness, her sexual openness, and her soul. For ten minutes I kept up that pace, burning through my stamina like there was no limit. At last, Angel released an orgasmic moan and came, causing a mixture of her juices and my semen from earlier to splash out of her pussy.

I slowly pulled out of her, completely erect but feeling like I would keel over if I didn’t catch my breath.

Angel looked up at me with a tender loving smile. “Here, you relax and enjoy yourself. It’s my turn to take care of you.”

I gladly lied down with my cock hard and waiting like a felled tree, and with her eyes filled with hungry lust, Angel leaned over and ran her tongue along the shaft, sending a shiver up my spine. She repeated the action, licking it another two times before pointing it upwards and taking it in her mouth. Feeling so good that I could barely move, I just rested with a big stupid grin on my face and a shifting groan passing from my lips. For three glorious minutes, Angel’s head bobbed up and down as she gobbled on my cock like it was made of ice and frozen inside was the antidote to a poison.

Once she felt like I was ready to continue, she raised her head and left a large glob of saliva on the head of my cock for lubrication, and then brought her body up to my lap. Gasping from the feeling of penetration, she guided my cock into her asshole and pushed herself down onto it, taking in the whole thing. Just like the first time we had sex, Angel leaned forward on her hands and knees and began bouncing her ass on my cock, moving her lower body in a whiplash motion. While she moved, I sat up and licked her breasts, savoring the taste and sensation of her soft flesh against my tongue.

After a few minutes, she shifted her position and leaned back, now riding me with her whole body bouncing. While I could no longer massage her tits with my tongue, I could now watch them bounce like before, and that was just as good. Riding my cock like it was a pogo stick, Angel was no longer able to suppress her cries and moans of pleasure, but I was too horny to care. Before long, I felt my stamina return and decided that I wanted to retake the lead.

Without me having to speak or even make eye contact, Angel knew what I wanted and acted. Without dismounting, she turned around and leaned back, resting her feet on my knees. Curling my body with my hands on her hips, I began thrusting deep into her with all my strength, wishing that I could see her from the other side. While I fucked her asshole, Angel rubbed and fingered her pussy, wiping up every glob of semen from my earlier climax and slurping it up with relish. With nothing but her fingers, she completely cleaned out her pussy, all while moaning in joy from the sodomy. Being behind her with her on top of me, I was blessed with the aroma of her hair as it was scattered across me like a cloud of steam, making me feel like I was wiping my face with the softest silk.

We were able to maintain that position for quite a while, at least until my stomach muscles began to burn and ache. Once again, Angel acted without any messaging from me. She dismounted me and then crouched down, hungrily sucking my cock while I licked her pussy and worked my fingers in her asshole. Once we had both had our fill, she turned back around and we exchanged a long passionate kiss. Angel then lied down beside me and I lifted her leg, but after having my cock cleaned off with Angel’s mouth, I decided not to go anal. Instead, I forced my dick into her pussy, and while Angel was surprised, she was more than happy.

Shaking the bed with each jerk, I resumed fucking her with the same speed and enthusiasm as before, all the while fondling her breasts and kissing her neck. Being pleasured by three combined stimulations, it wasn’t long before Angel came, but at no point did I stop. Throughout her moans, I continued fucking her like a machine, only causing her to moan even louder. After maybe five minutes, I felt my second orgasm welling, but that only doubled my energy. I increased my speed even further, thrusting into her as hard as possible until at least unleashing a gooey white explosion into her slit.

Panting heavily, I pulled out with a string of semen connecting her pussy to the head of much cock, which was still fully erect. I could cum one more time, and I knew exactly where to do it. Without hesitation, forced my dick into Angel’s asshole, making her moan in happiness. By now I was running on fumes, but I did not allow my tiredness to slow me down. I put all of my remaining strength into twenty more thrusts, focusing everything I had into pleasuring Angel. From the look and sound of it, I was doing my job perfectly, meaning there was nothing left for me to do but finish.

Feeling like the floor was yanked out from under me and my strength was ripped away, I finally ejaculated, pouring every last little sperm into Angel and giving a deep groan of satisfaction. Trying to stay awake, I pulled out of Angel and put her leg down. Both her front and back door were overflowing with semen, and my dick was aching from all the work it had done.

“I love you, Angel. I don’t know how many times I have to say that before I feel like I’ve gotten the point across, but I love you,” I whispered tiredly as I held her close.

Giggling, Angel reached out and retrieved her ring, staring at in the darkness. “Don’t worry, Marcus, I know, and I love you just as much.”

It was a sweltering Saturday afternoon and my sister, Angel, and I were headed to the mall. I wanted Angel to experience life around people, but that thought always made me chuckle when I realized the hypocrisy: my parents had always nagged at me to do the exact same thing. I was also job-searching, trying to find any places that would so much as give me an application form. Since I hadn’t given any thoughts to college, I needed to get into the working world as soon as possible and get some experience and security, as well as money.

Angel was in the back seat, looking at her ring with a warm smile on her face. The air conditioner was busted so the windows of the car were rolled down.

“I got to stop off at the bank, I left my money at home,” my sister cursed.

“All right, but let’s not do the ATM. I need some real AC. Just an oasis of cold air would be nice.”

I stuck my hand out the window, wishing that the relieving chill would reach the rest of my body, and Angel leaned forward and wrapped her arms around my neck. “You can say that again. It’s a sauna back here.”

We reached the bank parking lot and braced ourselves once the car stopped. We stepped out onto the pavement, all of us gasping as the frying rays of the sun ripped the air from our lungs.

“Damn global warning! We didn’t listen, Al Gore! We didn’t listen!” I joked as we rushed to the bank, making my sister and Angel laugh.

We stepped into the bank and all sighed with relief as we were hit with that first wave of cold air.

“I’ll just be a minute.”

“Take your time,” I said as Angel and I relaxed in two cushioned chairs in the corner.

“So, what kind of job are you looking to get?” she asked.

“Well I’m hoping for something that is close to home and that will hire me back next summer. Normally I would look for the third-shift jobs since I’m a real night owl, but I want to keep our schedules compatible. I don’t want one of us to always be asleep when we’re together at home.”

“So do you have anything that you’re saving up for?”

I smiled. “An apartment. As soon as I have a stable job and can make a living wage, I want us to move out and get a place of our own, just the two of us.”

“And hopefully when we’re both ready, it could be for the three of us,” Angel said sweetly as she kissed me.

Emily came back, stuffing some cash into her wallet. “All right, let’s get going.”

Just as Angel and I stood up out of our chairs, the door slammed open and three guys stormed in guns in their hands and cheap plastic masks.

“Everybody down!”

“Oh shit, looks like my old luck has returned,” I muttered.

I had heard that crime rates rise during heat waves, but I thought that was only in the big cities. This may be the first bank robbery in Maine in my lifetime. But all the days for it to happen, why now? Angel had a look of fear in her eyes, but I put my hand on hers and could instantly feel her body relax.

“Its all right, Angel. Let’s just do what they say.”

Everyone got down on the floor and the gunmen gave the order for the vault to be emptied. As one of the men began to rob each person in the bank, I could hear police sirens in the background, summoned by the silent alarm.

‘Oh my fucking god, they didn’t bother to cut the alarm or the power? What is their getaway vehicle, a short bus?’

The man came to the girls and I, holding a plastic bag with the other hostage’s wallets and jewelry. We gave him everything we had, but his eyes fell to Angel’s hand.

“The ring, hand it over!” he demanded, mistaking the glass bead for a gem.

Her eyes widened in horror at the prospect of parting with it, her most prized possession. “No, please! Anything but that!”

He grasped her wrist and pulled her up, trying to wrench the ring off her finger.

“Let go of her!” I howled, shoving the man to get him off Angel.

Staggering back, he flinched and his finger pulled the trigger of his gun. My eyes could not have caught the sight, but my mind swore that they had, filling me with horror beyond description. The slug left the pistol, wrapped in smoke with a tail of fire as it spun through the air. Moving right by me, it struck Angel’s shoulder and imbedding itself in her flesh. The air was ripped from my lungs as I watched her collapse in a pool of blood. I felt adrenaline course through my veins and my heart beating with such power that I thought my ribs would shatter. That bullet had struck my very soul, risking me the loss of everything I was and loved. In a great mind-ripping deluge, all of the anger and pain in my life surged through my body, making me feel like my cells themselves were being incinerated. Roaring in fury, I charged towards the man who had hurt her. He aimed his gun at me and fired, and like her, the bullet slammed into my shoulder and was lodged in the muscle, having narrowly missed breaking bone. Adrenaline and rage were keeping me from feeling pain and allowed my arm to maintain its strength.

I tackled the man and tried to take his weapon. The gun was aimed upwards and a third round was fired, striking the overhead sprinkler system and triggering a full shower. With the man distracted by the pouring water, I ripped the weapon from his hand and fired the last six shots at his cohorts, but not to kill them. The bullets pierced their arms and blew holes in their guts, causing them to drop their weapons in pain and collapse. Pulling my victim’s face away from his shoulder, I raised my head with my mouth open and sank my teeth into his neck. Everyone in the bank was shocked and terrified, as with blood spraying forth, I rode the gunmen down to the floor. The taste of gore, the feel and texture of raw flesh, and the screams of agony from my victim strengthened my rage and pulverized any remaining inhibitions and fragments of reason and logic. Snarling like an animal, I yanked my head back, ripping away his jugular vein with a mangled strip of flesh and muscle held between my teeth. I spat it out and attacked again, this time closing my jaws around his windpipe and tearing it free like wrapping it paper.

With my face coated in blood and my victim on death’s door, I turned and pounced on the second gunman. I was drunk with rage and the urge to kill was all that filled me. Having seen me cannibalize his friend, the crippled man was desperately reaching for his dropped gun, which sat just out of reach of his crippled arm. Grabbing the pistol, I kneeled over the man and began beating him savagely in the head with it as if it were a rock. Each impact ripped his skin and blood began to splatter of the end of the gun, landing on the walls and ceiling. I beat him over and over again, until at last, his skull caved in like a watermelon. Getting up, I slowly walked over to the third gunman, who was pleading for mercy and desperately trying to pull himself to the exit. With the water from the sprinklers pouring down on me, the blood of my first victim was washed off my face and out of my mouth. Paying no heed to his cries, I stomped on the back of gunman with enough force to knock the air out of him, then flipped him over and crouched down with my hands outstretched. He screamed in agony as I grabbed the sides of his face and gouged his eyes out with my thumbs. After several seconds, he became silent, dead with blood and brain matter oozing from his eye sockets.

“Marcus.”

I turned around and stared at Angel like a deer in the headlights. Emily was holding her and tears were streaming from her eyes. The fire of rage in my heart was extinguished, replaced by a deep chill. I rushed over and Emily moved aside so that I could hold Angel in my arms.

“Angel,” I said softly as I wiped away her tears, all the while my own tears splashed her face.

The sight of her wound was ripping the warmth from my body, but she had a look of peace on her face as I held her.

“You’re going to be all right. It didn’t hit your lungs.”

“I know, my love. I’m not going to leave you.”

“The bullet is still inside. I need to get it out.”

As gently as humanly possible, I placed my fingers on the wound, causing her to whimper in pain. Everyone in the bank watched as I slowly reached into her shoulder, moving aside torn flesh and splintered bone, searching desperately until I finally found the bullet. Angel trembled in my arms and cried out in pain as I pulled the slug out and tossed it aside. She then did the same to me. With unparalleled tenderness and care, she reached into my shoulder with her fingers, dug through the flesh, and pulled out the bullet.

I looked around at the gore that coated the floor. Her hair was scattered out in all directions, almost looking like it was melting and blending with her lost blood. Angel had bled too much; I had to do something to save her. Gaining a desperate idea, I shifted myself so that I was holding her under me.

“What are you doing?”

“We are the same blood type. I’d give anything to keep you alive, even the fluid in my veins.”

I pressed our wounds together and hoped that the blood pouring from my veins would enter hers. I held onto Angel for dear life as I gave her as much blood as possible. The front doors of the bank were smashed open as police stormed inside, while behind me, the gunman whose throat I had torn reached out and grabbed the dropped weapon of one of his comrades. With his dying strength, he aimed the gun at me and pulled the trigger.

There was no beeping heart monitor, but I knew I was in a hospital bed. I ached all over and could feel needles in my arms. There was something else… I felt something warm in my hand. I slowly opened my eyes and saw Angel’s beautiful face. Her eyes were filled with sadness and worry, but her hands were wrapped around mine. Her arm was secured in a sling and her shoulder was bandaged up tight, just like mine. I looked to my right and could hear the whirring of the large machine next to me. It was connected to my arm by several tubes filled with blood.

“Oh shit.”

It was a heart-lung machine. It was no wonder that there was no heart monitor; I had no heartbeat. The pump was keeping my blood flowing.

I looked into Angel’s eyes. “What is the verdict?”

Angel took a deep breath and it was evident that she had been crying. “One of the robbers managed to aim his gun at you and fire before bleeding to death. The bullet pierced you through the middle of the chest. It didn’t stab your heart directly, but it did cut through the muscle and rupture one of the chambers. You were leaking heavily into your chest cavity. Luckily the police were there with an ambulance and they were able to close the wound, but every time they let your heart beat on its own, the tear opened back up. They’ve already sutured and even cauterized the wound twice, and if the tear opens one more time, it will be beyond their ability to repair.”

“So my heart is too wounded to work properly and this machine is the only thing keeping me alive?”

“Yes, but it was never intended to be used this way for an extended period of time. The doctors say there are inherent risks for use, even if it’s just during surgery. Your parents are doing everything they can to find a donor heart, but on such short notice…”

“There is very little chance of me actually getting an organ transplant, let alone a heart,” I groaned.

There was no way this machine could keep me alive long enough to finally get a heart. Before long, I would either get a new heart or I would die. It was a shame none of the men I killed were organ donors. I looked to Angel and saw that her original fear was gone, and the look of sadness on her face was replaced with a smile.

“Marcus, I’ve already offered to give you my heart for the transplant. We’re a complete match.”

While this would be good news under normal circumstances, I was completely horrified.

I tearfully grasped her hand. “No. No, I cannot do that! I can’t take your heart! You are all that is keeping me alive! I cannot take your life just so that mine will be extinguished without you!”

Angel slowly pulled her hand from my grip and instead reached up and cupped my cheek, immediately calming me. She spoke without any fear in her soul. “The last time we were here, you said that as long as my heart was beating, your heart would beat as well. That’s why I’ve asked them that instead of disposing of your damaged heart after the surgery, they implant it into my chest and allow it to start. They don’t expect me to survive, but they are willing to fulfill my wishes. Marcus, as long as my heart gives you life, your heart will give me life.”

“But what if it doesn’t work? What if you die? If I wake up and you aren’t with me, the first thing I’ll do is kill myself.”

Angel leaned forward and kissed me. “I won’t die, I promise you that. I was born out of a miracle, and so too shall I live through one. I told you that I would bring you a lifetime of happiness, and I have no intention of breaking that promise. Marcus, do you trust me? Do you have faith in me?”

“Yes,” I replied with a raspy voice.

“Then have faith in yourself. You’ve sworn your heart to me so many times since we met, and it has kept me alive all this time, just as it will keep me alive when you truly give it to me. No matter how damaged or wounded your heart is, I know that it won’t let me die, just as you never would. Have faith, Marcus, not just in you or in me, but in us, and the future we promised each other.”

Angel and I were in the surgical room, both on beds while the surgeons prepared to operate.

“Angel, no matter what happens, remember this: you are the one that took away my pain and I will love you forever,” I whispered, trying to hold back tears.

“Tell me that after we walk out of this hospital together.”

Respirators were secured to our faces and we were both given drugs that put us into the realm of unconsciousness. The last thing I saw was Angel’s beautiful face.

I opened my eyes and found myself hovering in space. I was completely naked with the eye of God directly above me and Earth below. The bullet wound in my chest was gone and my shoulder was fully healed.

“What is this?” I asked, looking up into the black hole as it eternally consumed the star around it.

Angel appeared before me. “As you so very fittingly called it, it is the eye of God, the Source, and the end of all reason. It is the point in which matter and energy exchange and life and un-life converge. This is the heart of everything, the space in which beginning and end are one in the same.”

“What’s going on?”

“It’s time, Marcus. The day has come when I can finally explain everything to you.” She floated over and embraced me with our naked bodies pressed together. “Tell me, do you know how souls are formed?”

“No.”

“Through the subconscious thoughts and desires of the living. Through the instincts of animals and the wishes of mankind, souls are shaped within the Source and then meet their physical forms upon the birth of infants. Animals following their instincts to reproduce, parents dreaming of their developing child, and even loners with broken hearts wishing for the one to save them; they all shape the energy of the Source and turn it into souls for the next generation. Every soul on Earth is a mix of the hopes for good and fears of evil in the people who came before it. All over the world, children are being born with their souls shaped by the thoughts of the people around them. Then when they die, their souls return to the Source.”

“So God doesn’t create life, humans and animals do? Then that means that every sentient being is basically a god. There is no God, only the people that shape the souls of the unborn.”

“Close, but not completely right.”

She stopped talking, and slowly, we were pulled up into the fiery deluge and absorbed by the black hole in the center. Just like when I tried to kill myself, we found ourselves hovering in a vast spinning vortex of violet energy, stretching infinitely.

“This is the other side, the afterlife that you believed in. Here, the souls of the dead rejoin the Source and become one, fusing together into a single mind of limitless proportions. It is a sentience beyond comprehension, a collection of every thought, desire, instinct, and personality within life. In this sea, everyone is made whole and you don’t know where the spirits around you end and you begin. This is God, the progenitor of life. It is us and we are it. It is the mother of us all, and the thoughts of the living are what impregnate it and allow it to give form to more life.”

“So this is where you came from; this is how you came into existence.”

“Yes, through your desires and wishes, I was formed. Before your cancer, when you were plagued by misery and depression, your subconscious dreamt up a being that would be able to cure you of your pain, the one person who you could love forever and be happy with. Your soul sculpted mine, your heart shaping me to be your ultimate match.

But you did more than that; you were able to do much more. You remember, don’t you? You were dreaming of me years before your pain first started. That was your subconscious mind becoming aware of the growing tumors on your brainstem, signaling and heralding your death. Then, when your tumors truly activated and your agony was born, you became caught between worlds, held in a limbo of both life and death. With this, your will stretched farther than anyone else’s in history. Between life and death, your heart was able to shape more than just my soul, but my body as well. In your pain, you mentally wrote out my blueprints, while your soul served as the gateway between worlds so that I could be formed. A living link between the real world and the source; you were essentially a god, and I was your Eve.”

I thought back to all the times I had met her in the mornings and in the middle of the night, how she would periodically expand in the depth of her character and what she could do. The reason why she could do more over time was because I was shaping her from the other side, and with my soul so close to death, she and I were able to meet.

“That’s why you wanted me to wait, why you didn’t want me to kill myself. You wanted to reach my death naturally, so that by then, you would be fully formed as an individual, and you have saved me then just as you did when I tried to commit suicide.”

“Yes, but just when I thought we would return to the Source together, you realized what I was meant to be and I became your finished creation. When you called out my name, you solidified my existence, and then when you regained the will to live, you pulled us out into the world of the living. Like I said, the Source is the point in which matter and energy exchange and life and un-life converge. I was physically born into your world, thanks to your willpower and all the pain you endured.

Think of it as like you bungee jumping over a lake with me beneath the surface. You make the leap, you fall, you touch the water, you catch me, and then your cord pulls us both out.

With no one else could this have been possible. While you thought your pain was a curse, it was actually a blessing: the ability to shape a life instead of just a soul and then bring it to the physical plane. You are my creator and I am your savior, playing the role of the one who will love you and bring you happiness, just as you always dreamed. You shaped me with your heart and soul, with your pain and desperation, and gave me life. I exist solely for you, to love you forever and bring you happiness, and for that, I am truly happy. While you dreamed of me, I dreamed of you, and the life we would live together. You gave me life, you gave me love, and you gave me joy, and for that, I am eternally grateful and will be with you forever.”

I smiled, finally understanding. No wonder her name was Angel, that was what I had always seen her as.

“I love you, Angel. I love you with all my heart, mind, and soul. I gave you life but you gave me a reason to live.”

“Now, before we can go back and resume our lives, there is something we must do.”

“What?”

“We must balance the equation. You took a life from the Source and that debt must be repaid with a life.”

“What are you talking about? Shouldn’t the people I killed make up the price?”

“No, that is outside of the exchange we made. Don’t worry; I knew this day would come. I promised you we would live our lives together and happily, we just have to settle this first. Remember that night, that night when we were almost able to make love? You asked me why we couldn’t be intimate?”

My eyes widened. “You said that only when we both lived would we be able to create life for ourselves.”

“Yes, and now to make up for the life you took from the Source, we must create a life to pay it back, right here and now.”

I smiled and began to laugh before embracing her and giving her a long kiss. “Compared to everything you have done for me, that isn’t much of a debt. All right, let’s create a life.”

Without hesitation, Angel wrapped one leg around me, giving me enough room and leverage to enter her, making her moan softly in happiness. With the vast ocean of souls spinning around us infinitely, I began moving up and down with my lower body, thrusting into Angel while we kissed and our tongues danced. It was certainly difficult to make love in zero gravity, with nothing to push against or anchor us to. When I pulled out of Angel, she pushed off against me, then tightened her hold around me and pulled us closer together when I re-entered her. We soon got the hang of it, and instead of being distracted by the mechanics of intimacy, we allowed our minds to focus on the emotional euphoria of being so intimately bound to each other. Here we were, hovering within the heart of the end of all reason, consummating our relationship, our naked bodies pressed together, our lips joining like yin and yang, and our physical forms interlocking like atoms. There was nothing outside of our world; our minds were focused solely on each other. At this point, life and death meant nothing, the world below and the world above held no value, and who we were as individuals lost all definition. Just like how the eye of God was a massive convergence of all spirits and energy in the universe, so too were we fused together, our souls bound into a single form.

Joined in body and mind, I could sense everything she could sense, and in turn, Angel picked up everything I experienced, as if our very nerves were now wrapped together. With our awareness and sensations now joined, we both experienced a climax at the exact same time, mine triggered by hers and hers by mine. I’m not sure how many times I ejaculated or how much of my sperm was now inside her, but as we separated, I saw a look of contentment on her face, and looking down, we both saw that the area just below her stomach was glowing brightly.

“It’s done, I’m pregnant. See? Even time is subjected within the end of all reason.”

At her words, a sphere of light the size of an apple passed out of her flesh from and slowly rose up between us. Inside the sphere of light was what looked like a grain of sand, but in reality, it was her fertilized egg, our offspring. With a loving smile, Angel slowly reached up and cupped the sphere of light with her hands, staring at the tiny embryo as if it were a real baby. Smiling as well, I did the same and placed my hands on the side of the orb, my hands overlapping hers. After a few seconds, the orb left our hands, shooting up like a rocket into the center of the eye of God. Then, just as it was about fade from our view, a bright light flared deep in the twisting typhoon of violet energy. Expanding like an underwater explosion, the light consumed us both.

My eyes opened and I took a deep shuddering breath. I was lying in a hospital bed with a respirator hooked up to my mouth and my chest throbbing to the sound of a heart monitor. Only having enough energy to move my eyes, I looked around at the hospital room and cried in joy at the sight before me. Lying in another bed, barely two feet away, was Angel. She was in the same state as I was, with her own heart monitor beeping just as loudly as mine. Slowly, her eyes opened and we stared at each other, both smiling. It had worked; the operation had been a success.

Like mirror images, we both moved our arms and placed our hands on our chests, touching the bandaged scars of our transplants. The feeling was indescribable, almost orgasmic; the sensation of having each other’s physical hearts beating within our chests. In my chest, Angel’s heart was beating with a warmth I had never before experienced, a grateful gentleness to it, an aura that made me feel like her love for me was literally pumping through my veins. In her chest, my heart was beating with more aggressive strength. It was as if my heart shared my thoughts, and refused to let any injury deprive Angel of life. It was going to protect her, keep her alive, and make sure she always had the ability to be happy.

Slowly, we both reached out and grasped each other’s hand, silently expressing our love while the glass bead on Angel’s ring gleamed.

It was considered a miracle that my heart continued to beat while in Angel’s chest, when it would have ripped open if left in mine. My whole family was sobbing in happiness, both from my survival and Angel’s. Like I always had, they all now saw her as a member of the family, and were grateful that she had lived, but not nearly as grateful as I was.

The bedroom was dark, the air warm from the summer sun long since set. Angel and I were huddled together in bed, pressed together like two puzzle pieces. We had finally been released from the hospital, and while they had forbade us to engage in any strenuous activity until we fully healed, we now found ourselves recovering from making love. We had been slow and gentle of course, but our bond was full of passion.

“Marcus?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you do me a favor? Not right now, but in the future?”

“Of course, what?”

Angel rolled over and stared at me, our faces just an inch apart. “When we’ve gotten a place of our own and can support ourselves… will you… will you give me a baby? We gave up our first one within the Source and I really want to have another, a real child I mean. I want us to start our own family.”

I smiled. “Of course, but only after you marry me, deal?”

“Deal,” she giggled.

We kissed one last time, whispered our love, and then closed our eyes. The sounds of our hearts beating and our gentle breathing slowly lowered us into the dream world, but no dream could even compare to the joy in my soul when I held Angel in my arms and thought of the future, the future we would share in happiness for our entire lives.

The End

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