‘I dream of angels.’
I don’t know why that thought passed through my mind, I certainly had more important matters to worry about. My vision was fading in and out and my hearing was muffling the voices of the people around me. My body was racked with waves of pain, only disrupted by numbing spells.
‘I dream of angels.’
I was just barely able to think the words, for my mind was jargoned by searing agony, flooding my entire body and making me feel like every single capillary in my body was stuffed with shards of glass. The pain began to dull as my mind delved deeper into the cold darkness to escape, slowly placing me in the realm of unconsciousness.

My name is Marcus Clive, I’m sixteen, slightly heavyset with long, messy black hair and a pale complexion brought on countless hours spent in front of the TV and computer instead of hanging out with friends. I was at least able to remember that when I finally woke up. A bright light was shining through my eyelids, stabbing my already sore brain. I could hear the beeping of a heart monitor nearby.
‘First rule of waking up to the sound of a heart monitor: review your last memory before opening your eyes.’ I thought to myself. 
My head ached as I delved into my consciousness in search of answers. My memory slowly returned, but at the cost of even more pain. I had been sitting in class… 6th period. Biology was half finished… but there was something wrong. I remembered that my hands had been trembling, even more than usual. There was a dull pain in the back of my head, but I couldn’t remember if it had come suddenly or had been there in my mind, throbbing for some time. I remembered the first invisible 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. 
‘It was either a stroke or a seizure. Ah, looks like I can at least think clearly.’ I thought to myself. I ran a small pulse of my muscles through my body. Neither my left nor right side was paralyzed.
‘So if I’m not paralyzed, then there is a good chance that it was a seizure.’ I remembered how my hands had been trembling more than they usually did. 
‘Muscle spasms and a blackout, so that means it was a seizure.’ I thought to myself. I opened my eyes, blinded by the fluorescent beams of light in the ceiling. I slowly raised my head, making a mental double-check of all my muscles. Several IV bags were hanging next to my bed and were connected to my veins. I was in a small hospital room with two dusty TVs up on the wall and a curtain between me and the other bed. I already knew it was empty.
I rolled over in the bed, hoping to see her beside me. If someone were to ask just who “she” was, I wouldn’t be able to answer, as I hadn’t the slightest clue. For the past three years, I would greet each morning with the last warm fingers of a dream clinging to my mind. I 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. But her most predominant feature was her hair, long crimson hair that shined like rubies and seemed to hang down to her thighs. It was neither straight, curly, nor frizzy, but wavy with an almost flame-like appearance. 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 whose color would remove all fear of blood from anyone’s soul.
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 was only a teenager, 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 knew her name, and never been able to speak to her… yet I loved her. She was my secret, the one aspect of my life I told no one about. 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. Every image was essentially the same, and once I used every sheet and side in the notebook, I stopped drawing her, but continued to keep it hidden under my mattress.
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 dream would be nothing but an endless expansion of darkness, in which I would hover aimlessly until waking up. The only variance from the darkness 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. As I said before, she was the light of my life, a light I desperately needed. In fact, she was the only reason 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. I had been depressed for half a decade, even suicidal, completely in contrast to the comfortable middle-class life I lived in my hometown in Maine. I thought back to the countless antidepressants, forced therapy lessons, thoughts of longing to just die. Some people can’t figure out why teenagers in high school are suicidal.
“What do they have to be depressed about? This is the best time of their life!” They would literally be so stupid that they would honestly say that. They only say that because everything happened the way they wanted to. They were popular, had high grades so that no one was ever hounding them about their future, and colleges would accept them no matter what. Either that, or they were just so delusional that they would try to project their dreams of high school onto the next generation to make up for their own miserable experiences.
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 as well. 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? I don’t give a shit either way. I may not have suffered as much as people in Africa or other hellholes like that, but I have stared into the darkness of the Void. My suffering has been in my own mind, where it hurts the most. 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. Perhaps that was the hardest part, being depressed without having a reason, that mixture of guilt for knowing that you should consider yourself lucky but the inability to do so, and the feeling of helplessness from the knowledge that it meant that nothing could change how you felt, and that if you would wish for death in a comfortable life, then you would wish for death no matter what.
My eyes have changed over the years, making it so that I do not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, I see into the darkness and see the world for what it really is. 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.
She wasn’t here this time, but I didn’t really expect her to. I had passed out from a seizure, not woken up in the morning. I looked around and found the remote to call for help.
‘Why the hell do people in movies always pull all the needles out of their arms and stagger out into the hall? Not everyone loses all sense of logic when they wake up in a hospital.’ I thought to myself as I was just about to press the button. 
Without warning, I leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited on the floor. A wave of pain was coursing through my body, like hot nails being driven into my muscles. Waking up in my confusion had distracted my mind from the pain, but now I was feeling it at full force. My heart monitor was sending a digital scream, bringing in a nurse.
“Get me some more pain meds!” I yelled as another excruciating wave of agony swept over me. 

I was slowly loaded into the MRI on a mechanical table. The huge tube was built into the wall, with the machinery buzzing at a jaw-shaking volume. I had a pair of earplugs, but the volume was still brutal. There was an IV bag hanging outside, and it was connected to me through a plastic needle, so as not to affect the scan. The IV drip was at its highest level, compressing my pain to where it was a deep throbbing.
“So do you have any ideas as to what caused my seizure?” I hollered. There was a click as the doctors at the monitors turned on the radio.
“A few, but how did you know?” A doctor asked with interest.
“I’m not paralyzed, I blacked out, and I had muscles spasms before it happened. Its just common knowledge and logic.” I said.
“Alright, well we are almost done. Just hold still and don’t talk.” The doctor replied. 
After a few minutes, the droning of the MRI finally stopped. I pulled out my earplugs as the bench was slowly pulled out of the machine. Halfway before I could sit up, my back jerked as a blade of pain shot up and down my neck. I fell back, gripping my skull and roaring in pain. My blood was icy cold, and every jagged breath was like filling my lungs with shrapnel. To protect me from the pain, my mind shut down, once more causing to pass out. 

I sat on the hospital bed with my worried parents, facing Dr. Turner, a blond woman in her early thirties. Like before, I had an IV bag of morphine hanging next to me, trying to suppress the chronic pain that was ravaging my body.
“Your seizures are 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 affects are.” She said. My parents started to cry, but I was completely 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 the only thing that kept me from ending it all. Now I could just let the cancer do it for me.
“Is it deadly? What the hell is going on with me?” I asked.
“Not in the traditional sense, but we just aren’t completely sure.” Dr. Turner said. She put 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-” She said. I almost had to try not to laugh. Of fucking course, no wonder why I had been so depressed. That fucking tumor had been cheating me out of “liquid happiness”, making it so that my brain was always running dry.
“Let me guess, since they are attached to the part of the brain that creates the those chemicals, they’re basically smothering that part of my brain down and starving me of those chemicals?” I cut her off. She was slightly surprised and put up a second x-ray, focusing on my brainstem.
“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 nerve 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.”
“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?” I asked.
“Well, at this point we can’t quite be sure. I imagine the seizures will continue and your pain is probably permanent. With drugs, we can make it so that you won’t black out during the seizures, make the pain tolerable, and maybe take away the edge of the depression so that you won’t become suicidal.”
‘Too late.’ I thought to myself.
“So it won’t kill me, but it will fill me with excruciating pain and crippling depression?” I asked.
“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. The hospital would help pay for the mountain of pills I would need just to get through each day in exchange for publishing an article on my new form of cancer. The drive home was silent, for my parents were trying to hold back tears. I was holding my hands out in the cold October air, 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.

When we got home, I walked straight to the stairs and went up to my room. I just wanted to go to sleep; maybe it would ease my suffering. Downstairs, I could hear my parents telling my sister and younger brother the bad news.

I was completely in awe, hovering in empty space within my dream. Before me, roaring in limitless intensity, a star stood, the single star I always saw when I slept. Before, it had always 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. I could see it as if the sun was a piece of fruit cut in half to reveal the core, sucking in the flames and gas of the celestial giant. Yet miraculously, the sun did not seem to 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.
“I’m going to die, I’m finally going to die. Just a little longer, then I will finally find peace.” I said, almost hysterically. 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 the 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 groaned as I got up. 
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. I 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 my seizures 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 electicity 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. My dad bolted out of his chair and rushed over to me. Within ten seconds, it was over. I could feel the pain ebbing away, until it was at its normal levels.
“Are you all right?” My dad asked. 
“Yeah, I’m ok.” I said, slowly getting to my feet.
“We’re taking you to the hospital.” My dad said as he went to get his car keys.
“No.” I declared, it sounded like the beat of a drum. My dad looked at me.
“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 said as I picked up the broken shards of the bowl. 

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.” She said softly.
“I need to head back to school tomorrow, I can’t afford to lose two days as a sophomore.” I said.
“No, definitely not.” My mom said.
“I need to go back to school sometime, 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.” I said as I took a pain pill. Everyone tensed as I mentioned the cancer.
“There is no reason for me to stay home.” I said.

The sky was a dark grey and sleeting as my mom drove me 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 mom asked for the hundredth time.
“Like I said, there is no reason for me to stay home.” I said dryly as I pulled up the hood of my grey sweatshirt. 
I stepped out of the car and into the falling snow and rain. 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.” I said. As one wave, everyone turned to me.
“Ah, I had heard that you had suffered a seizure on Monday, are you alright now?” He asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I found out that I have a new form of cancer, but I’m fine.” I said dryly as I took a pill. Everyone gasped and began muttering amongst each other. For thirty seconds, the teacher was silent.
“Please, continue.” I said. I grimaced as my pain began to rise.

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 lay 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 another pill 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, but I said it with a very dry tone. 
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 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 more than half 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.
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 six years, I haven’t known what peace, happiness, or sanity meant. I felt like I was constantly on the verge of hallucinating. I had already suffered from hearing voices in my head only a few years ago, so it wasn’t hard to think that my grip on reality could shatter any time. But that sadness had in time been twisted into hatred, the feeling of not belonging to any part of the world decayed into loathing for that world. I was trapped in a realm of existence that I could not escape from, and no matter how well I lived, be it a billionaire or a homeless vagrant, my misery and anger would be eternal and unquenchable. It was no wonder that the idea of a relationship now made me sick to my stomach, how could I ever fall in love with a goddamn human brought up in this goddamn world? 
‘This world… is dead to me. And if I’m lucky, I’ll be dead as well.’ I thought to myself bitterly, staring out across the sea of classmates.

I staggered through the hall, trying to recover from a seizure only a few moments’ prior. 
“Marcus, do you want to talk?” I heard the voice behind me. 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 middle school. 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.” I said harshly.
“You need to talk to someone.” She said.
“No, I just need to get to class.” I said as 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 roared at the top of my lungs. I turned to her.
“I’ve been in pain long before I got this tumor. 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.” I said harshly.
“Are you mad at me?!” She asked defensively.
“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.” I said softly before walking away.

Deciding it would be better not to risk having a seizure on the bus and wanting some fresh air, 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 and safe 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 was correct, the side effects sure would be. How long could the human body truly last when forced to suffer endless torture?
‘Whether it is my true death or not, until that time comes, this 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, as 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? It’s possible, it’s certainly not impossible.’

“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 two 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.
“Yeah, sure.” I shrugged. 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?” He exclaimed, wondering where the question had suddenly come from.
“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.” I sighed. 
“No, I don’t hang around with people like that.” He replied. 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 Emily asked, surprised to see me standing in the doorway. Emily was a year older than me and a Senior, she’d be turning 18 and graduating in the spring. 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!” She said shrilly.
“Oh cut the shit Em! It’s goddamn marijuana, it’s completely harmless and you know it!” I barked back. 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.” I huffed.
“Marcus, do you really think that stuff will cure your cancer?” She asked.
“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?” I asked.
“Marcus, you’re not going to die.” She said sympathetically, getting up from her bed and walking over to me.
“Emily, I’m already on borrowed time. The movie is over and 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 a little selfish before I kick the bucket.” I muttered. Emily sighed.
“Mike Broflovski, you can find him under the football bleachers at school. I don’t know anything else about him.” She finally relented. 
“Thanks.” I said before walking out.

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 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.
She was so beautiful, I could have laid 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. At the sight of such physical beauty in such close proximity, even I would gain and maintain the erection of a lifetime, but with her… I felt nothing but love.
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. But 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 love and 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.
“My love.”
Two words, two 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. I stuffed my backpack in one of the lockers and grabbed my pills.
“Why do you always cry when you fall down?” A voice taunted. 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 school and my freshmen year, 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 jock said. 
“So? Its not like I would cry if I had that.” Tom said before shoving me. I turned to him.
“You’re just a pathetic little bitch.” He taunted. 
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 adrenalin to increase the power of my muscles. Not only could he not breathe at all, but I also had my thumbs pressed against the main arteries in the side of his neck, halting the flow of blood to his brain. He couldn’t focus enough to use his arms to free himself. I would normally never retaliate like this, I had learned early in life that the bullies always got off without a single slap in 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.
“How about I correct some of the BS spewing out of that deformed pile of grey matter you call a brain? First of all, I don’t fall down. I have goddamn seizures. Second, the tumor in my head is 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 and psychological torment. 
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 hacked at your wrists with your own fingernails to slash the veins? I think anyone would shed some tears if they experienced that.” I hissed. 
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 oozing blood with everyone staring at me in fear.
I opened my bottle of pills and took one out.
“That is just a sample of what I live with constantly.” I growled as I took the pill.

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, everyone hated Tom, or 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. But 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 voluptuous breasts. At the sight, I found myself completely powerless to stop my now building erection. The girl looked at me, giving a sleepy smile as if waking up on a Sunday morning and reminding herself that she could just go back to sleep.
“My name is…” She began
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. But 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?” I asked.
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 grey 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 probably 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.

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’m going to blow my savings on pot, I might as well get some goddamn 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. 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.

November 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 the end of November or I started losing my hair, I was going to quit. I didn’t have high expectations for the treatment, but I would do it to get my parents off my back.
Suffice to say, the medicine wasn’t nearly as bad as the sickness, contrary to what everyone had said. Anemia, chronic pain, loss of appetite, fatigue, and skin irritation? Hell, I barely noticed them beneath my current situation. I’m not sure how many hours I spent in that hospital, sitting in a chair while poison was pumped into my veins or my brain was fried with radiation. Contrary to my desire to die, I decided to take the maximum of each treatment. I sure as hell didn’t see a reason to half-ass it. Hell, for all I knew, I could get lucky and they’d kill me before the cancer did.
The results came back just as my hair began to fall out: negative. No progress had been made and the tumors were resisting the treatment. Big fucking surprise.

It was Christmas Eve 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 like on those stupid talk shows. I walked to the door and grabbed my coat.
“I’m going out for a walk.” I hollered.
“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?” I hollered. 
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 either thick woods or marshy fields. I started walking down the side of the road, not caring where it took me, even though I knew exactly where it led. The white 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 had a dull whooshing sound, 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.
Coming to a stop, I reached down and picked up the umpteenth beer bottle to cross my path. The label had long since been weathered away, and the inside was caked with the dry liquor and the insects that had tried to eat away at it.
“This world is rotting.” I muttered.
Then, not knowing why but suddenly furious, I raised my hand and threw the bottle down at the cold pavement, shattering it into hundreds of tiny shards, one of which flew up and delivered a cut across my cheek. Before I could even wipe away the blood, I collapsed as a wave of seizing pain burned up my spine. I fell into the snow, feeling the raw air sting my lungs as I roared in pain. This seizure was far worse than the ones I usually experienced. I rolled on my back, looking up into the bleak sky as the snow froze my hair and ears. I was gasping for air as my body jerked, wondering if this was the seizure that would finally kill me. It had sure taken its sweet damn time.
I heard a car speed over to me and stop. A car door slammed and footsteps echoed as someone ran over to me. A guy’s face came into my view.
“Hey buddy, are you all right?” He asked. I got up, wincing as I did. I staggered to my feet and vomited a pint of blood onto the side of the road. 
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I said as I limped away. It was time to head 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 clique inquisitions.
“Dinner is ready!” I heard my mom call from the kitchen. I had no appetite.
“I’m just going to go to bed.” I said. Before anyone could even stop me, I went upstairs and into my room. I moved to my bed, wincing as my muscles became more and more sore. 
“Please, just let me sleep and not wake up.” I said to myself as I laid down and let my aching body shut down.

“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 with her usual warm smile, while almost laughing in a gentle hum.
“Are you even real?” I asked.
“Does it matter if I am real or not?” She murmured, warming my heart with the possibility that maybe she wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.
“Yes, no… I’m not sure.” I mumbled. 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 that means I am always with you. I am where you want me to be, you just have to wish it.” She said lovingly.
I put my hand over my face, 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’s 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. The girl 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 nakedly 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.” She whispered, her face lit up 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.” I said softly, even though she wouldn’t be able to hear me.
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 worse, 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. 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.
Such lively contact like the 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.
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. While my visions of the girl remained routine, 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. Each night, 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. I was close, so close, soon I could rest in peace.

“Fifty 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 grey 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.” He ordered. I held up my hands, 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 said, looking around to make sure we wouldn’t be seen and then taking 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.” I said as the dealer walked off.
Sitting down on the cold wet ground, I pulled up my sleeve and looked 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 pushing down 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 an instantaneous 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 grey 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 a 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 of others 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 who’s belief in God is nothing more than the desire to kill him?

I don’t know how long I sat in the alley, whether it was the cold from the ground or the cold of the wind, or just the hopeless and disappointed impatience that finally made me get up and move. The heroin had been slightly successful, it managed to bring my pain down to a dull throbbing as I mentioned before, certainly making it tolerable, but after everything I had gone through, my definition of tolerable had grown much larger, and its meaning had grown much smaller.

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 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 something like this happened, and even more, she was sitting on my lap again, almost pinning me down. The sun had not yet risen. In fact, 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.” She purred once her lips separated from mine.
“What has almost come?” I asked.
“Happiness.” She said 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?” I asked. The red-haired beauty giggled and gently pushed me back down.
“Because you have not yet named me.” She murmured, hovering over me on all fours.
“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.”
“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 ooze from the tip of my dick.
“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, 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?” She whispered. 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.” The girl moaned softly.
“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.” She panted while kissing my face wildly.
“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 ourselves unending happiness. 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.” I said desperately. 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 end your suffering. Here, let me give you something, something to hold you over until our day comes.” She said. 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 said with a tender smile before taking 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 under the head 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.” She murmured before leaning down and kissing me on the forehead, just as I was drifting back to sleep.

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, say it, and when I’d try to say it again 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, 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.
“Goddamn it, I don’t need another health issue. Just piss already.” I hissed. 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 book, 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 shot back.

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.” She established.
“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 was 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 begin taking them again, 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.
“Two weeks ago… 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.” I admitted, but without looking at my parents.
“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 them 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, they never lasted longer than an hour.

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.

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 grey aura passing through the windows. I was alone, for my family and gone to a friend’s house to enjoy their electricity and running water. I had chosen to stay home. I didn’t want to leave the house and I wanted to be left alone. I sat at my desk in my room with a glass of water and a pile of pills next to me; sleeping, pain killing, everything. I was slowly writing a suicide note, trying to use my best penmanship. 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 laid 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 luck 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. While it had always seemed so large from a distance (at least a third of the size of the star), now it was 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 typhoon. I was fifty 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.” She murmured.
“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.” She said, approaching the black hole faster than I was.
“Wait, what do you mean?” I shouted, reaching out and trying 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 indecipherable 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 surface of the black hole, 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.” She said sleepily. 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.” She hummed. From her words, a blinding epiphany flashed in my mind, I now understood, and I had regained something I thought I had lost.
“Tell me, what was your wish?!” I shouted, reaching out to her while the flesh painlessly melted off my fingers.
“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 shouted. 
I then called out her name, her true name, finally able to hear it. At the sound of it, 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 and blush.
Holding onto her for deer life, 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 compressed air from a punctured tank. The girl and I were thrown back, holding onto each other for dear life.
“So can we live our lives together and be happy?” The girl 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.” I said softly.

My eyes bolted open 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 lay 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. She was really 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 rubbing her down with the towels and wiping 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 become conscious, 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 blue eyes.
“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.” She whispered. A flutter ran through my muscles at the sound of her voice.
“Do you remember anything?” I asked. She closed her eyes and was silent for several moments. A look of worry crossed her face as she replied,
“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?” I asked. She was silent for a few more moments.
“Wait, I remember… my name. My name is Angel, I think.” She said anxiously. I smiled at her realization, she was real.
“Who are you? Where am I?” She asked.
“My name is Marcus. And don’t worry, you’re safe. You’re in my home. I found you outside, you slammed on my door and cried for help. You’re lucky I was here.” I said. 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 inquired.
“I feel fine, just tired. Thank you for saving me. I can tell that you are truly kind just by touching you.” She said, holding my hands tightly. I could feel my face becoming red in embarrassment. Holy shit, she really was an angel.
“Are you hungry?” I asked. She nodded.
“Alright, I’ll get you something to eat.” As I stood turned away from her, I could hear her try to get up.
“Did you undress me?” She asked. I turned around and saw her holding the blanket over her bare breasts.
“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.” I said.
“Do you promise?” She asked.
“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 said softly. She stood up and I quickly stopped her.
“You need to rest.” I murmured.
“Please don’t leave me.” She said. I gave a small but warm smile.
“Very well, whatever makes you happy.” I said.
‘Logical response to having amnesia: 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.’ I thought to myself. With the blanket and my arm wrapped around her, we walked into 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.
We walked into the kitchen and I sat her down in a chair at the island table.
“Is soup ok?” I asked. 
“Yes please.” She said. She was starting to fell better. 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. She had a small smile and it was reflected on me.
“You don’t remember anything… but you know what soup is?” I asked. A look of confusion crossed her face.
“I didn’t even notice.” She said.
“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 thought to myself, unsure of what to think.
I looked around the kitchen.
“Try to name as many things as you can. The mental stimulation might bring some memories back.” I said with a small smile. She began looking around the kitchen and naming as many things as she could. She was able to name just about everything she saw, but still no memories appeared in her head. 
I could hear the bubbling of the water in the pot. I turned to the stove and poured in the soup mix, stirring it around with a ladle.
“When the power returns, we should probably call an ambulance for you. Plus maybe they can help you regain your memory.” I said as she hungrily drank her soup.
“Marcus, maybe I shouldn’t remember.” She said as I poured her a bowl of soup. I turned around, 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.” She said. Filled with a deep sense of caring and protectiveness, I set down the bowl of soup in front of her and placed my hand on her cheek. Her skin was so soft and smooth, 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.” I said. 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.’ I thought to myself.
The lights suddenly came on; the power was back. I walked over the phone and put it to my ear, but there was no dial tone. The phone lines must have been more heavily damaged than the power lines. I turned to Angel as she walked over and placed her hand on my shoulder.
“Come on, I’ll start a bath for you. I wasn’t able to completely clean you up.” I said. 

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!” I hollered. When no reply came, I stood up and strained my ears. Had she fallen back to sleep, had she even passed out? I quickly walked out and began my search for her, but immediately 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…” I murmured. She turned to me with liquid pearls rolling down her face.
“Marcus, you were going to kill yourself?” She whispered. 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.
“Alright, I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Just holler if you want me to get you anything.” I said dryly.
“Marcus, wait. Don’t leave me.” She whispered.
“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, it had never looked more beautiful. Just keeping my penis from becoming engorged with blood was like trying to wrestle a lion into submission.
“You’ve already seen me naked, it’s ok for you to be here. Besides, I want to keep talking to you.” She cooed. 
She stepped into the tub and laid 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 euphoria as she submerged herself in the hot water, and 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. Once she fully submerged herself, 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.
“Marcus, please, tell me… why did you try to kill yourself?” She asked sadly.
“I thought you read the note.” I replied.
“I want to hear it from you.” She said, softly but 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 like 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 make me happy, I am physically incapable of being happy.
For most of my life, I have not known what happiness feels like. My sadness began six years ago, when I was constantly teased and ridiculed by those around me. I was tormented for years on end, but the ones who brought me so much pain never got the punishment they deserved. This frustration over my constant torment threw me into depression. For all that time, I had also been searching for my soul mate. I have been 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 frustration poisoned me, killing me psychologically. Toss in hundreds of hours of forced psychiatrist sessions and prescription anti-depressants that didn’t do jack-shit, and my life became a living hell.
Then the system screwed me over yet again, and this was one of the ultimate punishments of the victim. In order to “give me a reprieve from my torture”, I was locked away in a mental institute, while my tormenters still faced no punishment. For a year, my mind rotted. Eventually, I began to hallucinate and hear voices in the back of my mind. 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 said as I showed her the scars on my arm. Angel placed her hand on my scars and gave me a look of deep sympathy.
“Eventually, I developed a deep hatred for humanity. I’m disgusted by my species, and 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 deep hatred. But with my loneliness still plaguing me, I knew that my suffering would continue. With my mind filled with chaos and the world always filling 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 the family through the pain and grief.” I said with a raspy voice.
“…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, it just kept getting worse and worse as I got older.” I said bitterly.
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.” She murmured.
“Don’t be, you saved my life.” I replied. 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.” I said gratefully.
“But I thought you wanted to die.” She replied. I smiled.
“When I found you, I found the will to live. 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.” I announced. 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.” She hummed. 
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 quickly pouring out. 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 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 said with a small smile. 
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 some pre-cum ooze from the head of my erection. 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 I had grabbed. I knew not to even try looking for a bra that would fit Angel, there was no way my sister would have one large enough to hold Angel’s bountiful tits.
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. More and more, I could feel her naked beauty arousing me. It was not a physical arousal, 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 lay down in the bed and I wrapped her in the blankets. I placed my hand on her cheek.
“Just try and get some rest. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” I said with a small smile.
“Do you promise that I’ll wake up and still be here, and you’ll still be with me?” She asked. I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.
“Of course.” I whispered. 
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. I looked at my hand. …There was no pain. The whole time I had been with Angel, I had been feeling no pain, just like whenever I dreamed her. I pulled the suicide note out from my pocket and stared at it, my eyes fixed on the teardrops that Angel had left when she read it. 
“I don’t feel any pain…” I murmured. 
With a smile of relief, 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 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…” I murmured to myself. 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…” I began.
“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, we know your kidding.” My brother laughed.
“She’s upstairs, sleeping in the guestroom. Sorry sis, but I had to give her some of your clothes.” I said dryly, finally convincing my family 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.” I shrugged.
“Well have you called her an ambulance? The power is on.” My sister asked. 
“The phone lines are still down. I’ve been waiting for you to come back so that we can drive her to the hospital. She’s doesn’t need to be rushed there in an ambulance, but we should still get her there. Want me to wake her up?” I asked, refusing to soften my tone.
“Sure, get her down here.” My dad said, rubbing his forehead as he tried to process the sudden information. This was certainly unexpected.
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 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.” I said softly.
“You’ll come with me, right?” Angel asked. I moved my hand to her cheek.
“Of course.” I replied with a warm smile. She gained the same smile and sat up. 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?” She asked. 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.” I snickered. Blushing in embarrassment, Angel covered her chest with her arms and turned away.
“You pervert!” She giggled.
Following my advise, she put on the blouse and buttoned it up, but I immediately noticed that 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?” I asked. 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.” I said as I introduced everyone. 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.” She said softly, melting the hearts of everyone in the room.
“Emily, can Angel barrow your coat?” I asked my sister. Emily jerked as if awoken from a trance, then quickly pulled off her jacket and handed it to me. I put it around Angel and held her close. I turned to my parents.
“Alright, let’s go to the hospital.” I said. 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 backseat with Angel, keeping my arm around her at all times. The drive into the city was silent as the sky darkening 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. As my parents dealt with the paperwork at the front desk, I sat with Angel. As usual, 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.” The nurse said 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?” The doctor asked.
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.” He said before walking away.
“Mom, dad, you two can go back home. I think I’ll stay here with Angel tonight.” I said.
“But Marcus…” My mom began.
“Mom, please.” I said as I held Angel close. 
“Son, can we talk to you outside?” My dad asked. My parents and I stepped out into the hall.
“Are you sure you want to do this? 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.” My mom said.
“Mom, dad… she needs me… and I need her.” I said. 
“Marcus we should really-” My dad began.
“I haven’t been in any pain since I met her.” I said sternly. My parents became silent.
“Ever since I saw her, I haven’t had to take a single pill or experienced a single seizure. When I’m with her… I feel happy, happier than I’ve ever been, even before my cancer. 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.” I established.

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.
“Alright Angel, you should get some sleep.” I said as I walked over to the door and turned off the light.
“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 replied with an invisible smile. 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 reach out and clasp mine.
“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.” She murmured, sitting up and leaning against 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 Angel and held her as close as I could with her warm 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 be will watch over you forever.” I said softly. 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.
“I’m going to take away your pain Angel, just like how you took away mine.” I hummed before we fell asleep in each other’s arms. 

Angel and I were eating breakfast in bed and talking. 
“I’ll go call my parents, then we can head home.” I said. 
“Home?” She asked.
“Well, you’ll need to stay somewhere.” I said with a small smile. I got out of the bed, left the room, and walked down to the payphone. I 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 police detectives by the door. They were both men, late forties with peppery short hair.
“Oh hell no.” I growled.
I stormed over and slammed the door shut, just as the doctor began to open it. 
“What the hell is going on here?” I demanded. Even though I was only sixteen, I was as tall as any adult. I had to hope that I could use that to keep them from using my age against me.
“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 proved negative, 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.” Anderson sighed.
“So what are you saying?” I asked.
“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.” The doctor continued.
“We’re hoping that by telling her this, it will jog her memory.” Detective Baum stated.
“Alright, but I want to be in there with her.” I sighed.
“Actually, how about you and I wait out here, have a little talk between men.” Detective Francis stated. It was not a suggestion or a request. I could feel the blood boiling in my veins, boiling with the desire to stand by Angel and protect her, but this was out of my control.
“Very well.” I said before their patience reached its limit.
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 alone 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?” Francis warned.
“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.” I said.
“Well until this matter is taken care of, she’ll be put up in a hotel. So you don’t need to worry about it anymore.” The detective slipped in. 
“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.” I said harshly. 
“If she’s put in your custody, then she’s your responsibility. If something bad happens, then it’s your fault.” Francis warned.
“That’s all that I ask.” I replied. 
The door was opened and Dr. Anderson and Detective Baum stepped outside.
“No luck, she remembers nothing.” The doctor reported.
“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 Angel, I promise.” I said.

As my parents signed the 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. Both Angel and I 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. Next to him was a bloodhound. 
“Look around, Mother Nature destroyed your evidence. A monster truck could have rolled through here and all and you wouldn’t know it.” I said as 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 began moving towards the house. They seemed confused as they sniffed the ground, unable to pick up the slightest scent other than the slight trace up that the house from Angel. 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.” I said before turning around and walking away.

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 said. I looked at her and could tell that she was very tired.
“You should get some rest, you had a long night and woke up early.” I said as I placed my hand on her shoulder. 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?” She asked.
“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.” She said sleepily. My eyes bolted open.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I was supposed to meet someone, I can’t remember who. I was supposed to meet him and bring him happiness, just like the happiness he would bring me. I think that person is you, I think we were supposed to meet and be together forever in happiness.” She blissfully purred. She tightened her hold on my arm, clutching it against her chest like it was a blanket. 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 in dream form. 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 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 like she was on ecstasy. I placed my hand on her collarbone, feeling her body becoming hotter and hotter as the kiss continued. I slowly moved my hand down and cupped a warm breast. Angel let out a hum of pleasure as I gave a gentle squeeze, 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 slowly moved my hand down to her waist. Angel let out another hum as I gently 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, and settled my hand like I was using a computer mouse and started swirling the tip of my middle finger at the first level of her interior, where her soft flesh was moist was 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 velvet 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.” She hummed.
“What?” I asked.
“Everything. 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. And 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!” She said, almost hysterically. 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.
Leaning down, Angel gave me a long and passionate kiss, once again reaffirming that she and the world around us was real. Before she could end the kiss, I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight.
“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 pulled me from the shadows. 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, failing where she succeeded and letting tears of happiness fall from my eyes.
“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. I will do whatever you want me to do, welcome and love whatever you want to do to me, and live for no reason other than to love you and bring you happiness, just as I know you will do the same for me.” She whispered in my ear. I slow let go and 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.” She whispered as she sat up. 
Raising herself up, she reached down and grasped my manhood, 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 complete 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 it. 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.” She shivered.
“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 purred.
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 raised 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. After mastering the rhythm and movements, she changed her technique and began rolling her lower body on me, grinding back and forth with my cock 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. Seeing her face blushing while she panted and watching her large breasts bounce 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 the bottom of a 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 laying 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 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.
I don’t know how long we were intimate, I think it was a couple hours at least. We went through every position we could think of, going at it like rabbits with unfailing drive. So many times and forced my cock into her sweet wet slit, so many times she moaned in ecstasy, so many times we kissed with our tongues wrapped together, it was… heaven. My sense of time finally came when I heard my mom announce a ten-minute warning for dinner. 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.” I panted. 
“Me too. Release it all into me, I want to feel it inside me.” She cooed.
“But you might get pregnant.” I warned, coming to a stop.
“Relax, we’re safe today, trust me.” She whispered. 
I smiled, kissed her, 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 laid 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, slowly getting onto her hands and knees and crawling over 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.” I chuckled after kissing her on the forehead.
“Well if we don’t go down, you’re family will get even more suspicious. Besides, you’re not the only one that’s hungry.” She huffed with a smile.
“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 go down and eat.” Angel said as she sat up. I reached out and grabbed her wrist before she stood up.
“I love you Angel.” I said warmly. 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.” I joked.

Dinner was awkward to say the least, with everyone trying not to stare at Angel and me. 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. But 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.
“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 said while shoveling noodles into my mouth, making Victoria giggle.

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.
“Come on, I want to show you the clothes mom and I got for you.” My sister said with surprising lightheartedness. 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.
“No way Marcus.” Emily warned with sudden coldness.
“What’s wrong? He saw me without clothes on when he helped me.” Victoria said 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.” Emily established.
Feeling like I had been both badly portrayed and robbed, I sighed and walked to the bathroom. I would 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 asking this. Angel seemed to have no fear about going topless in front of Emily, but she 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.” Emily said as she walked over.
“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?” Emily asked hesitantly. 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 not being able to remember anything.
“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.” Angel chuckled sadly.
“Why don’t you want to remember? Is it so that you can stay here?” Emily asked. Angel turned to her and smiled.
“You know, don’t you?” She asked, trying on a blouse and seeing how well it fit her.
“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.” Said Emily. Whether she was intending to be blunt or to sugarcoat it, it was impossible to tell.
“So what makes these non-normal circumstances?” Angel teased. 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 hasn’t smiled in years, and 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.
But I have to ask: 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.” Emily said, first warmly and then with a laugh. 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.” 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.” Emily said, reaching out and shaking Angel’s hand.

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 Angel’s room. 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. It was like 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 bodily 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 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 keep our love secret. 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.” He mumbled.
“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 whispered to her. 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, if we do not place her in a foster home.” My dad said.
“No, we are not putting her in a foster home.” I said. 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.” I said. 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 continued. I sighed and softened my tone.
“I know that there is also the financial situation of letting her stay with us. With this recession, more and more families are trying not to have kids because how expensive it is to raise someone. Room and board, education, 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 anyway. 
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. If that is not enough, I’ll sell a kidney. 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.” I said. 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.” I replied. My breathing quickened, sensing 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!” She pleaded. 
I was more than happy to obey, and in the form of four thick 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.” Angel huffed.
“Don’t remind me. But maybe I’ll skip lunch and come home for a quickie.” I chuckled.
“Then you’ll just end up missing the rest of the day, we’d never leave the bedroom. I know you too well.” She teased.
“Hey, can you blame me?” I said. 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…” I said blissfully.
“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?” I replied.
“What do we do if we can’t be together?” She whispered.
“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.” I said softly.
“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.” She said as she kissed me, as gently as a falling autumn leaf. 
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.

“You know, these clothes are strangely comfortable.” I said as I tugged on the sleeves of my scrubs. I was in the hospital to get my brain scanned and check the stage of my cancer. Luckily, I was able to wear the intern outfits instead of those awkward hospital gowns. Angel was with me and my parents were in the waiting room. Angel 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.” She said confidently. 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. I swear on my soul, I will be with you no matter what I have to face. Whether it is this cancer or the barrier between this realm and the next, I will overcome anything that stands between us.” I said. She kissed me and gave me the loving smile.
“I’ll hold you to that promise.” She said softly. The door of the room opened and a nurse poked her head in.
“Marcus Clive, we’re ready.” She said. 
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.” She said with a smile as she pointed to it. I grinned and held Angel’s hand. 
“So my cancer is gone?” I asked.
“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.” She said. I looked at Angel and could see the care and tender love in her eyes.
“Thank you.” I whispered to her.

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 before kissing me. We tried to ignore everyone watching us. 
My siblings, parents, and I went outside to the car. The February weather seemed especially cold, and I realized it was because I didn’t have my arm around Angel. We all got into the car and drove down the bumpy driveway, and I could feel my body becoming colder and colder with every inch of distance between Angel and I. 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. 
“Let’s just say that I found the perfect treatment.” I said as 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.” One of the other students said as he started doing chin-ups. I chuckled as I 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 pussy. Whatever, if he wants to fight me, he can go ahead. It’s not like he can do anything to hurt me.” I scoffed.

As the day wore on, I missed Angel more and more. I longed to look into her eyes, to hear her angelic voice, and to hold her in my arms. I would sit in class, looking out the window. Everything around me was drowned out, as Angel 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 my legs around my waist while I entered her. Holding her against the wall, I began thrusting up into her 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. Angel 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 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 finger joints, 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!” She cried out.
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 her 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 said. 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.” I said. She smiled and snuggled up next to me, trying to get as close as possible.
“Well it is thanks 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?” She asked.
“Great. It was so nice to be without pain. I can never even begin to show my gratitude for saving me from the darkness of my own mind.” I said as I kissed her.
“You don’t need to thank me, just love me.” She smiled.
“Some people didn’t believe me when I said that I found the perfect treatment for my pain…” I began. 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.” I said. Angel 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. You freed me from the iron shackles of forced social rituals, I can now sever all ties with almost everyone else on the planet.” I said with relief. Several silent moments passed by.
“Something else is on your mind.” She said dreamily.
“How’d you know?” I asked. 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.” She said. 
“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.” I said.
“Well just don’t kill him. I don’t want the cops to take you away.” Angel said.
“Yes dear.” I chuckled. I then got up and held myself over her.
“Enough of the outside world, let’s get back to you and me.” I said.
“Alright, but let’s go slow this time. We satisfied the hunger of our bodies, now let’s satisfy the hunger of our souls.” She lovingly whispered.

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 felt since meeting Angel.
“You want to fight me? You think you can even hurt me?! You’re nothing more than an insect!” I howled. 
“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 broke connection, but Tom’s arrogant grin was immediately 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 cackled before lashing out and punching Tom in the nose with all the strength in my body, literally holding nothing back. Tom 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 seen my own death, I’ve witnessed the end of all reason, I’ve suffered more agony in the last few months than you will ever experience in your lifetime, my hatred for this human world is completely indescribable, and I’ve 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 boomed before lunging forward and punching 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 delivered another punch to his face, giving an instant black eye. Roaring in pain and rage, Tom 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 eventually reached up and caught Tom’s fist, stopping his barrage.
“What the fuck are you?!” He screamed, unable to believe I was still conscious.
“An investment. All those years of torment you put me through? Consider this the day you sell all your stock options.” I chuckled before slamming my elbow into his face and fracturing his eye socket.
“Now 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 laughed.
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’ll 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 honey, let’s get some ice on those bruises.” Angel said, 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.” I whispered in her ear.

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, making it so that the bliss was both in the physical realm and the dream realm, then go have breakfast, and wait for Angel’s tutor to arrive. Once her tutor 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?” I asked with a small smile. 
“Ready.” Angel replied. 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 looked up into the falling snow. I rolled onto my side and looked at Angel’s flawless visage. 
“You’re the true beauty.” I said. She looked at me and placed her delicate fingers on my cheek. I pulled of my glove and did the same. Angel didn’t shiver as my chilled hand brushed against her soft marble-like 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.” She asked. I sighed as I tried to think of how I was going to explain it.
“When I was in that mental institute, my soul was full of rage. Not only were my tormenters getting off without punishment, but I had also 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 said bitterly. 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.” I said with a warm smile. Angel’s eyes sparkled as she smiled. 
“Can we head back? Its cold out here.” She murmured. 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.” I said.
“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 all my work done, 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 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.

Halfway through March, global warming was injected into spring like steroids into an athlete. 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 weather, because I knew that the summer would be unbearably hot. With the warm weather came spring fever, and Angel was getting me to do the one thing that no one else could make me do: exercise. I had good 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 woods. Actually, Angel was jogging; I was shortening my lifespan by trying to keep up. We eventually reached the meadow, two miles from the house. I was leaning on my knees, trying to catch my breath. I nearly collapsed from relief when I heard Angel speak those four golden words: Let’s take a break.
With budding leaves wrapping us in a warm shade, Angel and I 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. Angel was gently humming soft tune and I could sense a strange feeling of blissful relaxation come over me. The fresh spring air was mending my aching lungs, the perfume of the thawing ground and the revived plants was giving me a light tiredness, 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.” I said.
“Oh really? What did you come up with?” Angel 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.” I began.
“How do you figure?” Angel giggled.
“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 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, then my whole life could just be a single memory, a movie playing in my mind that is sixteen 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 to an incredibly long life. But that’s not good enough; 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, if I am living in a memory of my future self, then that memory must go on forever. 
The only way this memory can continue is if there is a mind able to play it back, to retain the information. So if in the unrecorded future I die, then 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.” I hummed. Angel giggled.
“That’s fascinating. I’d love to hear more.” She said.
“Sorry, but that’s all I’ve got so far. But 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?” I asked.
“Yes, that is right.” She replied.
“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.” She murmured.
“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. Angel would still being 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. 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. Yeah, put a bunch of teenage boys in a woodshop class and tell them to do whatever the hell they want, THAT’S a good idea!
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.” He announced. I didn’t even acknowledge him and just continued with my work.
“Is it someone here or from another school?” He asked. 
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.

Summer finally came, and I was longing to give Angel a present that I had made her. On the first night of vacation, I stepped outside to see what the conditions were. There wasn’t a single mosquito around. Instead, there were millions of bright fireflies. There were so many that they practically illuminated the forest. 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?” I asked as I stepped inside. Sitting on the couch watching TV, Angel 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.” She whispered. 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 alter their colors, the leaves gained a dark blue-green shade, and the tree trunks seemed to have a purplish tinge. 
The fireflies illuminated everything, but almost in a haunting way. You could see what everything was, but your sense of distance and perception was warped. You could reach out to touch a leaf and your hand would only pass through its shadow. You could take a step towards something several meters away and realize that it was right in front of you 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. 
“You really are an angel. No one could affect nature like this. No one could take away my pain like you have. You are far too divine to have been birthed by human parents… but you are far too pure and unique to have been made by some sort of god. You are an angel of fate, an angel of light, and an angel of life, not a creation of some deity or regular humans.” I murmured under my breath as I gazed upon her beauty.
“Did you say something?” She asked as she turned to me.
“No.” I said softly. 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.” I said.

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 creating islands, dotted with ferns and shrubs. The creak 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. 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. It all formed 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.” I hummed.
“Marcus, this is so beautiful.” She said.
“Angel, there is something I want to ask you.” I said. She turned to me.
“I know that we are way 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 said as 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 rose wood 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, but barely touching at all. 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.
Angel was breathless.
“Angel, will you be my future fiancé?” I asked, using the smallest amount of humor. 
“Yes Marcus.” She whispered as she put on the ring. It fit 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 said as I kissed her.
“I know,” Angel cooed.
“I was just about to say the same thing.” She said as she kissed me.

Angel and I were in bed, making love in the missionary position as a way to celebrate Angel’s new ring and the promise we had made. We had been like this for over an hour, moving as slowly and gently as clouds. As I moved 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.” She giggled. 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.” She purred. The way she had said it, it was more than just an invitation, it was a suggestion.
“Angel, you really mean wherever?” I asked. 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.” She cooed. 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.” I said.
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.” I said to her.
“Don’t worry, nothing you do could ever hurt me.” She murmured.
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 felt like a completely different shape from her velvet sleeve. 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 to the movement, 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 looked 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 twenty 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.” She said seductively as she sat up.
I gladly laid down with my cock hard and waiting like a felled tree, and with her eyes filled with hungry lust, Angel leaned down and ran her tongue up 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 I could barely move, I just laid there 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, 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 ten 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 fifteen 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.” She murmured.

It was a sweltering Saturday afternoon and my older 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 would probably be skipping 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 windows of the car were rolled down, for the air conditioner was busted. 
“I got to stop off at the bank, I left my money at home.” My sister cursed.
“Good, I need some real air conditioning. Just an oasis of cold air would be nice.” I said, sticking my hand out the window and wishing that the relieving chill would reach the rest of my body. 
“You can say that again. It’s a sauna back here.” Angel said as she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around my neck.

We reached the bank parking lot and braced ourselves once the car stopped. We stepped out of the car, 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.” Emily said as she walked to the counter.
“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?” Angel 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.” I shrugged.
“So do you have anything that you’re saving up for?” She continued. I smiled.
“An apartment. As soon as I’m done with high school, I want us to move out and get a place of our own, just the two of us.” I said.
“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.
“Alright, let’s get going.” She said. 
Just as Angel and I stood up out of our chairs, the door slammed open and three guys stormed in guns in their hands. They were wearing bulletproof vests and cheep plastic masks.
“Everybody down!” On of them yelled.
“Oh shit, looks like my old luck has returned.” I muttered. Angel had a look of fear in her eyes, but I put my hand on hers and could instantly feel her body relax.
“Its alright Angel. Let’s just do what they say.” I said calmly. She looked at me with a mix of worry and bravery and then nodded her head. Everyone got down on the floor and the gunmen gave the order for the vault to be emptied. Within minutes, I could hear the cops gathering around the bank, summoned by the silent alarm.
“Don’t even think about it, we got hostages!” One of the gunmen shouted as he opened fire on the police. I clutched Angel’s hand tightly.
“We might be here a while.” I murmured. 

As the hours dragged on, it became obvious that this hostage situation wasn’t going to end easily. I did my best to comfort Angel and my sister, but it was difficult when the three gunmen were constantly arguing over what their plans were. I was trying to formulate a plan of my own… something that I could do to make this end. The time eventually came when I was fed up with staying on the floor and seeing the fear in Angel’s eyes was giving me heartache. I stood up, stretching my muscles. 
“Hey, get on the fucking floor!” One of the gunmen yelled as he aimed his weapon at me. I held up my hands.
“Relax. I want to help. Listen, use me as your getaway hostage, that way you can make your escape now and no one can get hurt. Please, use me as a human shield if it means that the others can go free!” I pleaded.
“I told you to get down on the floor! If you say another word, I’ll fucking kill you.” One of the guys said as he pulled back the hammer of his gun.
“Marcus…” Angel murmured, sitting up and pulling on my arm. I stood like a statue.
“Get on the fucking floor, or I’ll put a bullet between her eyes.” He said, moving his gun over to Angel. My blood turned cold.
“Ok, I’m going.” I said as I quickly got back to her. 
I sat down on the floor and held Angel’s hand, but the gunman didn’t take his weapon off us. I was filled with fear, not for my life but for Angel’s. The glass door of the bank shattered as a sniper’s bullet passed through the building, just barely missing the gunman with his weapon aimed at us. The gunman flinched and his finger pulled the trigger. I saw the whole thing take place in slow motion, 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. It zoomed across the bank, striking Angel’s shoulder and imbedding itself in her flesh. The air was ripped from my lungs as I watched Angel collapse in a pool of blood. 
Like a great punch, I felt adrenalin 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 spontaneously combusting but also filling me with unstoppable strength. Roaring in fury, I bolted up and charged towards the robbers, moving faster than ever in my life. One of them aimed his gun at me and fired. Like with Angel, the bullet slammed into my shoulder and was lodged in the muscles, but adrenalin and rage were keeping me from feeling pain and allowed my arm to maintain its strength. 
I tackled the first gunman 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 forearms and they both got hit in the leg, causing them to drop their weapons in pain and collapse. Pulling my victim’s head 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 from his neck, I rode the gunmen down to the floor. The taste of blood, the feel and texture of raw flesh, and the screams of agony from the victim, they only 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 and a mangled strip of flesh and muscle held between my teeth. I spit it out and attacked again, this time closing my jaws around his windpipe and ripping 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 pierced 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. Quickly, 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 the third gunman with enough force to knock the air out of him. I 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 heard Angel whimper. I turned around and stared at her 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 said shakily.
“I know my love. I’m not going to leave you.” She whispered. 
“The bullet is still inside. I need to get it out.” I said. 
As gently as humanly possible, I placed my fingers on the wound, causing Angel 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. Angel 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 blood that coated the floor. Her hair was scattered out in all directions, blending with the blood perfectly and almost making it look like the blood was just her hair melting. 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?” Angel asked.
“We are the same blood type. I’d give anything to keep you alive, even the fluid in my veins.” I replied as 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. 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. But 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 and her hands were wrapped around mine. Her arm was wrapped 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.” I cursed. It was a bypass machine. It was no wonder that there was no heart monitor; I had no heartbeat. The bypass machine was keeping my blood flowing. I looked into Angel’s eyes.
“What is the verdict?” I asked. Angel took a deep breath; it was evident that she had been crying.
“One of the gunmen 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. They were able to close the wound, but every time they let your heart beat on its own, the tear opens back up. They’ve already sutured and cauterized the wound twice, and if the tear opens one more time, it will be beyond their ability to repair.” She explained.
“So my heart is too wounded to work properly and this machine is the only thing keeping me alive?” I asked with a shaky voice.
“Yes. Your parents are doing everything they can to find a donor heart, but because of all the damage the cancer has done to your body and your history with depression and self-destructive behavior…”
“There is very little chance of me actually getting an organ transplant, let alone a heart.” I groaned. I looked at the machine keeping me alive. To pull the plug was inevitable, and probably imminent. There was no way it could keep me alive for an extended period of time, I would either get a new heart or I would die. 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.” She said warmly. While under normal circumstances, this would be good news, I was completely horrified.
“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!” I tearfully murmured as I grasped her hand. Angel slowly pulled it from my grip and instead reached up and placed her delicate hand on my cheek, immediately calming me.
“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 for 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.” She said without any fear in her soul.
“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.” I asked desperately. 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?” She whispered.
“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.” She said tenderly.

Angel and I were in the surgical room, both on beds. 
“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.” She replied.
Respirators were both 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 the planet earth below me.
“What is this?” I asked, looking up into the black hole as it eternally consumed the star around it.
“The Source.” I heard Angel say, suddenly appearing 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.” She said sweetly.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“It’s time for you Marcus, the day has come when I can finally explain everything to you.” Angel said, floating over and embracing me with our naked bodies pressed together.
“Tell me, do you know how souls are formed?” She whispered in my ear. I shook my head.
“Through the 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. 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.” Angel hummed. 
“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.” I said.
“Close, but not completely right.” Angel replied.
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, they fuse 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.” I said sleepily, feeling so calm that I could barely form the words.
“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. 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. While 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.” She murmured. 
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.” I concluded.
“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, 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.” She said.
“So it’s basically like I was underwater, slowly floating to the surface as I came closer and closer to death, and you were hovering in the air just above it. I broke through the surface, caught you, and managed to pull us both back down into the water.” I said, finally understanding. Angel took her head off my shoulder and stared into my eyes, with her own eyes filled with love and warmth.
“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.” She said, holding me as tight as possible. 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.” I whispered in her ear.
“Now, before we can go back and resume our lives, there is something we must do.” Angel murmured.
“What?” I asked.
“We must balance the equation. You took a life from the Source and that debt must be repaid with a life.” She said, pulling away from me.
“What are you talking about? Shouldn’t the people I killed make up the price?”
“No, that is outside of the exchange me 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?” She asked reassuringly. My eyes widened.
“You said that only when we both lived would we be able to create life for ourselves.” I recalled.
“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.” She said warmly. I smiled.
“Compared to everything you have done for me, that isn’t much of a debt. Alright, let’s create a life.” I said as I re-embraced her and gave her a long kiss.
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, we had to rely solely on each other. While 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 love, our naked bodies pressed together, our lips joining like yin and yang, our tongues forming a sensual wet helix, and our physical gender identities locking together like a key in a lock. 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 Angel could sense and in turn, everything I experienced was picked up by Angel, as if our very nerves were now wrapped together. With our awareness and sensations now joined, we both experienced an orgasm 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 after I pulled out and we separated, I saw a look of contentment on her face. Looking down, we both saw that her pelvic region was glowing brightly.
“It’s done, I’m pregnant.” She hummed. 
At her words, a sphere of light the size of an apple passed out of flesh from above her vagina 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 heart 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 was. 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 slowly moved our arms and placed our hands on our chests, beneath the bandaged scars of our transplants. The feeling was orgasmic, almost indescribable, 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’s, 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 itself 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?” Angel whispered.
“Yeah?” I replied.
“Can you do me a favor? Not right now, but in the future?” She asked.
“Of course, what?” I asked. Angel rolled over and stared at me, our faces just an inch apart.
“When you’re done with school, we’ve gotten a place of our own, and we can support ourselves… 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.” She murmured lovingly. I smiled.
“Of course, but only after you marry me, deal?” I teased.
“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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