The weeks seem to blur as Aria slowly adjusted to life without her sister. She felt like a piece of her soul was missing as she trudged through one day after another. Her Uncle had visited her a few weeks later, offering her a job at a small record label he had purchased. She knew he was rich, but her parents had no idea where he had come by the money. She frowned as the thought occurred to her, a whisper of a memory tickling the back of her mind. She shrugged it away and bent back over the computer in the front office of the studio.
A woman entered the office, along with three men who all fit the rock band stereotype. Long hair, leather jackets, various chains hanging around their bodies. The woman was tall, with long brown hair that reached to her waist. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. Her face was pretty, with dark brown eyes that sparkled with life.
“Hi, we have the studio booked for the next two hours,” the woman informed her with a friendly smile. “It should be under the name Mandy Molletto.”
Aria nodded at Mandy, feeling a hollow smile on her face as she began clicking through windows on the screen. “Hi Mandy, let me get you checked in. The sound engineer is Robbie. He’s ready for you in the back, so go ahead and go on back.”
“Thank you…” the woman paused, looking at her questioningly.
“Aria,” Aria supplied, smiling perfunctorily.
“What a fitting name to work in a studio,” Mandy commented with a grin. “Thank you, Aria.”
Aria nodded with another attempt at a smile that was offset by her dull and lifeless green eyes.
Mandy stared into her eyes for several seconds, a look of concern on her face. Her band mates finally pulled her along with them into the studio. Aria looked back down at her screen and started writing some lyrics again. The doctors had told her that she should find an outlet for the grief, be it music, writing, or something physical.
One of the perks of working at the studio was that she could use the equipment after business hours to record her own songs. It had taken a few days to master the sound equipment and recording applications. She spent most of her nights recording tracks late into the night. Sometimes she could almost forget the hemorrhaging wound on her soul when she lost herself in the zone of creating new songs.
XXXXX
Mandy followed her guitarists back into the studio and found Robbie waiting for them. He nodded when she arrived, offering a handshake.
“I’m Robbie,” he introduced himself. He had a shaved head and a goatee. He wore jeans with a t-shirt and exuded a casual professionalism.
“I’m Mandy,” she smiled, feeling a bubbly sense of excitement that she was finally in a professional studio putting an album together. “Our drummer is out for a while, so we were hoping you could just add a drum track for us.”
Robbie rubbed his bald head, his expression thoughtful. “I could do that. I should probably mention that Aria, the receptionist, is a pretty talented musician and can tear up a drum set. She’s had a rough patch since her sister died a few months ago, so filling in for your drummer might be beneficial for both of you.”
Mandy felt a swell of sympathy as she remembered the look of pain in Aria’s eyes. “That sounds pretty rough. Were they close?”
“They had been best friends since their parents married when they were seven,” Robbie nodded, a sad smile on his face. “They lived together before the accident and were practically tied at the hip.”
Mandy sighed, feeling some of her excited energy plateau. “Yeah, I’ll go see if she’s up for some drumming.”
Mandy walked back out and leaned over the tall desk, her dark eyes full of compassion. “Our drummer was in an accident a few days ago and won’t be with us for a few weeks. We were just going to put some drum tracks in, but Robbie mentioned that you are an amazing drummer. Could we hire you to fill in for our drummer for a little while?”
Aria looked at her, those green eyes full of so much barely concealed pain that Mandy wanted to weep. Aria nodded slowly and stood up.
“Okay, sure,” Aria agreed, taking a deep breath. “But no need to hire me. It’s on the house.”
Mandy hesitated for a moment but then nodded. She walked back into the studio with Aria and discussed the metrics for the current song. In short order they gathered their instruments as Robbie prepared the sound equipment. Aria went into the drum room and put on some large headphones and waited for them to begin.
Mandy spent the next two hours in awe as Aria seamlessly melded her rhythm to their style of music. There was no question that she was more talented than their own drummer. Mandy almost dreaded the return of Jake, their recovering drummer.
As they were wrapping things up, Mandy made her way over to where Aria was exiting the drum room.
“Aria, that was freaking amazing!” Mandy exclaimed, grinning at her excitedly. “Thank you so much for filling in.”
Jared, Tim, and Mike joined her in their effusive display of gratitude, remarking on what an amazing drummer she was.
Aria had smiled and thanked them, her eyes hollow as she went back to the front desk.
“Man, that is one wrecked person,” Tim commented sadly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so devoid of life while still living.”
Mandy nodded her agreement, feeling a pang of sorrow at how cruel life could be. “Maybe we can have her play some more for us over the next few weeks.”
“Yeah, let’s get as much of her talent as we can before Jake recovers,” Jared commented wryly. “No offense to your cousin, Mike, but Aria was orders of magnitude better than him at drums.”
“You should see her on guitar,” Robbie told them with a rueful shake of his head. “I’ve seen some pretty good musicians over the years, but I’ve never seen anyone tear up a fretboard like Aria.”
“How many instruments does she play?” Mandy asked curiously.
“Pretty much all of them,” Robbie replied, his eyes impressed. “I’ve never seen her play any brass, but give her any stringed, percussion, or woodwind instrument and she’ll go to town. She stays and records late into the night. I’m not sure she ever even sleeps.”
XXXXX
Mandy arrived at the studio alone, feeling the brisk night air on her bare arms as she swiped her fob against the reader and entered the building. After four weeks of recording, they had completed their album. Aria had continued filling in for their drummer, her eyes never changing from the dull pain Mandy had seen on the first day. She knew loss was difficult to overcome, but usually time helped to dull the pain. Time didn’t seem to be helping in Aria’s case. She was functional and communicative, but she seemed to be completely checked out of life with no plans to return.
She had tried to invite Aria to go out with her and the band to eat or any other kind of entertainment, but she had politely declined. Mandy felt a driving need to do something to help Aria heal, at least a little bit. Now that they were finished with their album, they wouldn’t be seeing Aria anymore. Mandy wasn’t willing to give up so easily. If Aria really did spend her nights composing, then she was going to have company.
As she entered the front office, she could hear the sound of instruments being played from deeper in the studio. She walked back and quietly entered the main room. Aria was playing a harp to the accompaniment of some other tracks she had already recorded. Her eyes were closed and there were tears running down her cheeks as she played. Mandy felt her own eyes moisten as she watched her play. Despair blanketed the room as Aria played a song of loss and pain of such magnitude that rocks would weep to hear it.
Aria began to sing, her voice like a thumbscrew to the soul as she sang of a life devoid of hope and joy. It was the most beautiful voice Mandy had ever heard. It ravaged her soul with grief as she felt the devastation in Aria’s heart, a devastation too great to recover from. Mandy hugged herself as she wept, her heart breaking as she watched the broken woman in front of her grieve in soul crushing anguish.
As Aria finished singing, she slid to the ground and curled into a ball of grief, weeping bitterly. Large, wracking sobs shook her body as she wailed her sorrow.
Mandy walked over and knelt down beside Aria. She hesitantly reached out and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. Aria looked up, her face filled with grief. Mandy felt a renewed wave of pity as she saw the level of pain in Aria’s green eyes.
“What was she like?” Mandy asked, wiping the tears from her own eyes.
Aria stared at her blankly for several seconds. She closed her eyes as more tears flowed.
“She was the most caring and amazing person in this world,” Aria whispered, shuddering as she spoke. “She was always there for me through the worst life had to offer. Always smiling and joking. I could handle anything in life if she were by my side. I can’t do it without her. I can’t keep going. This place is an empty wasteland, a hollow shell that just echoes with promises that will never be.”
“If she were here right now, what would she tell you?” Mandy asked softly, gently stroking her shoulder with a comforting hand.
Aria stared at her, then let out a half laugh half sob. “She would have told me to stop having a pity party in front of a beautiful woman.”
Mandy laughed, blushing lightly at the odd compliment. “Was she also a musician?”
Aria nodded, smiling sadly. “She was always better at everything than me. She gave me something to strive for in life. She was so smart and talented with everything she touched. She had a heart of gold. Even though she loved to turn everything into a joke, she was always so compassionate and gentle when I was struggling the most.”
“She sounds pretty amazing,” Mandy murmured wistfully. “I would have loved to see the kind of music the two of you could make, considering how good it is with just you.”
“She had the voice of an angel,” Aria reminisced, her face growing confused for a moment.
“What’s the matter?” Mandy asked, concern in her eyes.
Aria shook her head and sighed forlornly. “I’m just losing my marbles. I keep having memories of some other lifetime where she is still alive. The doctors said I’m suffering from denial with grief confabulation and fabricating memories to cope. Sometimes the memories seem so real though. Certain things seem to trigger them, like the word angel.”
“I can’t even imagine what you must be going through,” Mandy told her sympathetically. “I’m not very close to my siblings or parents. What was her name?”
“Clarice,” Aria whispered, her eyes leaking more tears as she spoke her name. “How can I go on without Clarice? We were supposed to have forever in front of us.”
“Will you come with me?” Mandy asked her anxiously, her dark eyes pleading. “I’m going to get some food. You look like you are wasting away. Please come with me?”
Aria hesitated, her grief-stricken eyes dubious. As she stared into Mandy’s pleading gaze, she seemed to cave, much to Mandy’s delight.
“We’ll just get some takeout,” Mandy assured her gently. “We can eat it by the river. I go there to think sometimes.”
Mandy stood up and offered a hand to Aria. She had still been lying on her side from where she had curled up in grief. She took Mandy’s hand and Mandy pulled her up. As she felt how light Aria was she nearly wept. How long had it been since Aria had eaten to be so light?
As Aria stood up, Mandy pulled her into a warm embrace, willing her to feel better. She gasped when she felt a flood of positive energy fill her soul.
“Thank you, Mandy,” Aria choked out, her voice once again thick with emotion. “I wish Clarice could have met you. You really are a wonderful person. I know I’m a total wreck. Thank you for being such a caring person.”
As soon as Mandy pulled back, the flood of positive energy stopped. She stared at Aria curiously as they walked out of the studio and got into Mandy’s Pathfinder. There was something very odd about the beautiful crimson haired musician. She couldn’t articulate what it was, but there was something very special about Aria.
They remained quiet for the first part of the drive. Mandy wracked her brains to find something to get Aria talking. They arrived at a Chinese takeout restaurant right before it closed. Mandy ordered a variety of entrees, hoping to get Aria to eat something. While they waited at the window, a woman appeared to take her card.
The woman said something in Mandarin, but the only words Mandy understood were fifty five.
“Did she really just call us American swine?” Aria asked in disbelief.
Mandy stared at Aria in surprise. She opened her mouth to reply, but the woman was back at the window with her card. She spoke again and was immediately replied to in the same Mandarin by Aria, who looked both amused and outraged.
The woman’s face went white as she stared at Aria in shock, then she began apologizing profusely. “Sorry, sorry, I make mistake.”
“You might want to check your food for spit or other foreign objects,” Aria suggested as she stared at the retreating woman’s back dubiously. “They seem to have an anti-American vibe going here.”
“Where did you learn to speak Chinese?” Mandy asked curiously, happy that there was something to get her talking.
“I do?” Aria stared at her in confusion, her brows drawn down in puzzlement.
“You just carried on a whole conversation with that woman in Chinese,” Mandy told her slowly.
“I did?” Aria asked, looking nonplussed. “We weren’t speaking English?”
“Definitely Chinese,” Mandy confirmed, once again feeling the odd sense that there was something very special about Aria.
Aria stared back at her, the void in her eyes filling with a glimmer of hope. “Maybe I’m not as crazy as I thought,” Aria murmured, her eyes slowly coming back to life as she stared back at Mandy intently. “In this other world I lived, I spoke all of the languages.”
“Can you tell me about this other world?” Mandy asked curiously. She hoped she wasn’t harming Aria by encouraging her to talk about her delusions.
“It’s pretty wild,” Aria responded, her voice no longer devoid of life as she appeared to find a tendril of hope to cling to. “It’s definitely way out in the fantasy realm. I can understand why it seems so crazy. It’s just that it seemed so real. I remember conversations, events, and experiences that seem too detailed for me to have fabricated.”
“Were you in another world?” Mandy asked, pausing for a moment as the Chinese woman handed their food through the window. “Or were things just different here?”
“It was here. It all started when I was ten years old and this person named Calypso healed me and my sister in the hospital,” Aria began, her eyes far away. “I was given a few days to live after battling cancer for several years. Clarice wasn’t far behind me. This woman named Calypso volunteered to visit children’s hospitals and played songs for them. My parents had transferred me to one of the hospitals she visited due to the patient recovery rates being so much higher in that region. When Calypso sang to the children at the hospital, I was too sick to be moved down to the conference room where she performed. When Calypso heard that I was too sick to come down, she begged the receptionist and my parents to let her come and play for me in my room. My parents brought her up after seeing her perform for the other kids. She brought a harp and a laptop with wireless speakers she set around the room. She had prerecorded several other instrument tracks that she would play to accompany her harp while she sang. She played the most beautiful song I had ever heard. It shook my soul and filled me with fiery determination. I noticed while she was playing that she had lavender colored eyes. She wore tinted glasses but took them off while she played. I could feel so much power when she looked at me with those lavender eyes. When she finished playing, both Clarice and I felt completely healed. My mom had noticed that Calypso was more than she seemed, so when we appeared to be healed she insisted we stop receiving treatment and go home. Our hair started growing back the next day and we spent the next fifteen years living totally normal lives. I graduated high school early and became a physicist.”
“That’s a pretty detailed memory,” Mandy commented as she drew closer to her favorite thinking spot by the river.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Aria laughed, and it was like the sun coming up. Mandy felt joy flood her soul at the sound of that glorious laughter. “While growing up there was a YouTube channel called NOTESTOREMEMBER that eventually became the most popular channel on YouTube. It was a musician who always wore a mask, but it didn’t hide her lavender eyes. We knew who she was, of course, but we promised each other to never reveal Calypso’s true identity. She went on to become the most famous musician in the world, but nobody had any idea who she really was. She never replied to comments or posted anything in the descriptions except the date. It was a channel completely dedicated to music. Her music was so transcendental and uplifting that it regularly changed people’s lives. There were so many people on the brink of ending their lives who found renewed hope and solace after hearing one of Calypso’s songs. She was a true virtuoso, a master of every instrument. There were hundreds of YouTube channels where musicians would analyze her technique and skill. Very few guitarists could play some of her more complex songs, and the things she could do on a violin were mind blowing. Her performance at the hospital was the reason we originally became interested in music and began playing all of the instruments, but it was her YouTube channel that put our ambitions into overdrive. I think we secretly wanted to show her how much we had learned at some point. My story starts after she uploaded one of her weekly YouTube songs and Clarice and I decided to go see if she was still visiting those hospitals so that we could thank her for healing us all of those years ago.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Mandy marveled at the level of realism in Aria’s delusion. How could her mind have just invented so much detail for a story that was imaginary? “So did you find her again?”
“Oh yeah, we found her,” Aria laughed ruefully.
They exited the car with the go-bag of food and moved over to a bench near the river and sat down. Mandy silently cursed herself for not grabbing a jacket. The night air was getting brisk in the late summer. She glanced at Aria and noticed that she seemed completely untouched by the cold air.
“What kind of food do you like?” Mandy asked as she rifled through the bag. “Eggrolls?”
Aria blinked as she looked at the food with a peculiar expression. “I can’t eat, I don’t have a stomach.”
Mandy frowned as she studied Aria’s face worriedly. “When’s the last time you ate anything?”
“I haven’t eaten anything since Clarice…” Aria couldn’t seem to bring herself to say it. “We didn’t eat in the other world because we didn’t have stomachs. I was so used to not eating that I hadn’t realized that I haven’t eaten for months.”
Mandy peered at her in concern as she realized this delusion could have serious health implications if she thought she didn’t have a stomach.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Aria sighed, looking into Mandy’s concerned eyes apologetically. “Maybe it is part of this delusion, and I only think I don’t have a stomach. When I was still an angel my eyes were golden. You would think I would be able to accept that I’m a normal mortal again, considering my eyes are green again, I don’t have wings, and my super senses are gone. If it was nighttime I could prove to myself that I’m no longer an angel, since I would no longer have night vision.”
Mandy blinked, looking out at the dark waters in the dim starlight. She held up the bag of food and pulled the receipt off of the staple. It was completely indecipherable to Mandy in the dark night. She handed it to Aria with a sense of curious anticipation. “Does this receipt have the name of that lady that called us American swine on it somewhere?”
Aria glanced at it briefly and shook her head. “It’s just got a cashier number and the date. This was freaking expensive. I’ll give you some money when we get back to the car.”
Mandy shivered, and it was only partially related to the cold night air. She is able to see in the dark!
“So, angels, huh?” Mandy prompted, feeling an odd sense of anticipation. “Is that later in the story?
Aria nodded with a lopsided smile as she stared out at the river. “We talked to the receptionist at the hospital, Julia, and she was ecstatic that we had come back to see Calypso. She had been working there since before I was healed and had watched Calypso come into the hospital every other week for over fifteen years. She suspected that Calypso was healing the children but stayed silent so that the healings wouldn’t stop. We went back to the conference room where Calypso performed and waited for her. I had some serious PTSD from the many years I spent in the hospital undergoing cancer treatments. Clarice was there to hold my hand and comfort me. She was always there for me.” Aria paused reflectively as she stared into the river. “Anyway, we were expecting a forty year old woman when Calypso came to play for the children. Instead, we found the same exact person, looking not a day over twenty. We had suspected she was special, considering she healed us of a terminal illness, but this still shocked us. When she entered the room you could feel a wave of benevolent love wash over you. We re-introduced ourselves to her, but she remembered our names. She was ecstatic to see some of her former ‘little ones’ as she later referred to us. She gave us a hug and it was like being wrapped in a blanket of positivity and love. We referred to them as Calypso hugs. You just never wanted them to end. We watched her perform for the children and it truly was like magic. You could see the moment they were healed. We also discovered the reason that she set up the surround sound speakers was to disguise the fact that the harmonizing voices were coming from her in real time, not from the laptop. When she finished healing all of the children and the nurses took them back to their rooms, she came over and talked to us. We discovered that she had no idea that her YouTube channel was the most popular channel in the world. She used an app on her laptop to upload them and never actually looked at the channel. We asked her how she looked so young. She was totally unaware of the actual date.” Aria chuckled as her eyes reminisced what was clearly a tender memory for her. “She was shocked to find out that it was 2026. She was just over a hundred years old. She never looked in mirrors and was oblivious to anything but her music and the children she healed, so she had been unaware of the decades flying by, or the fact that she didn’t seem to age. We exchanged contact info and talked her into letting us come and drive her to the next hospital visit a few days later. She was so excited to have some friends. She hadn’t even realized how lonely she was. She’s the kind of people pleaser that doesn’t want to let other people do anything for her for fear that it will be an imposition. We had to be kind of pushy to get past her concerns that she would be inconveniencing us. On our way home, we discovered that some reddit user had discovered her identity after a cousin at one of the hospitals had recorded part of her performance. They revealed both that she was healing children and that she was the mysterious owner of the NOTESTOREMEMBER YouTube channel after seeing her lavender eyes. We immediately turned around and drove to her house, arriving at the same time that she did. We convinced her to come with us to our house before the media and the government showed up. We were afraid they would think she was an alien or something and dissect her. That turned out to be a wise move, as we learned later. During our drive home we discovered that she didn’t ever sleep. Once we got to our apartment we also discovered that she never eats. We started theorizing that she might be an amnesiac angel. Okay, Clarice theorized that she was an amnesiac angel, which turned out to be the case.”
Mandy was feeling a sense of vertigo as Aria recounted her story. It was like she could hear echoes of that other reality. When she spoke the name Calypso, it rang like a bell in her head. Aria noticed her behavior and paused, watching her with concern.
“Mandy?” Aria asked worriedly. “Are you okay?”
“Maybe?” Mandy answered slowly. “I feel like reality is bending around me or something. This Calypso person sounds so familiar, like a name I should recognize but it’s just out of reach.”
Aria looked down the path next to the river, her face suddenly wary. “Do you get many creeps along here in the day?”
“Aria, it’s nighttime,” Mandy told her softly. “I can’t see a thing.”
Aria paused, her breathing suddenly coming quicker. “Could it be real?” she whispered with so much hope in her voice that it nearly broke Mandy’s heart.
A beam of light suddenly illuminated them as four men walked around the bend in the path by the river. They paused when they saw the two young women, then moved forward.
“Isn’t it a bit late for you two lovely ladies to be outside all alone?” a leering voice asked from the man holding the flashlight.
“They look cold,” another man’s voice noted, filled with provocative suggestion. “I think we should help them get warm.”
“They look lonely too,” the third man drawled in a southern accent. “Let’s show them where the wild goose goes.”
“I’m only going to warn you guys once to get lost,” Aria told them in a tone that sent shivers down Mandy’s spine. There was a hint of ethereal power behind it that threatened a future of pain if ignored.
The men halted when they heard her voice, with one of them even backing up a step. The one in the lead, laughed raucously and started pulling his belt off.
“We should run,” Mandy whispered into Aria’s ear. She felt a shiver of terror as she realized there was no way they could get into the car without being overtaken. She felt Aria’s hand take hold of hers and suddenly all of the fear drained out of her, replaced by overwhelming joy and love. She gasped as the emotional overload nearly made her fall over.
“It’s okay, I’ll take care of them,” Aria assured her as she stood up and faced the four men.
The first man had finished taking off his belt and was holding it like a whip. He grinned as she approached him. “I like a girl with spirit.”
“Oh my god, please tell me I imagined him saying that,” Aria groaned despairingly.
He swung his belt forward like a whip toward Aria’s face with another laugh. The laugh cut off as Aria snatched the belt out of the air and then jerked it out of his hands like he was a toddler. Mandy felt a sudden sense of foreboding as waves of righteous fury rolled off of Aria in waves. The man in the back seemed to have a stronger survival instinct, because he turned and ran back the way he had come. The first man snarled after losing his belt and lumbered forward with a heavy swing of his meaty fist. Aria caught his fist, stopping the punch effortlessly. Then she squeezed. The man suddenly dropped to his knees with a scream as the sound of breaking bones cracked loudly in the night. His buddy rushed up past him and dived at Aria with grabbing hands. She kicked up and planted her foot into his clavicle, knocking him back into the river fifteen feet away with a piteous scream of pain. The third man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at her threateningly.
“Get down onto the ground, facedown,” he bellowed, his voice a mixture of fear and rage.
“No,” Aria responded coldly, pushing the first man backward by his broken hand so hard that he also rolled into the river with a splash and a scream.
“I mean it,” the man blustered, more fear than rage in his voice now.
“If you turn and leave right now, I’ll let you leave with all of your bones intact,” Aria told him in a quiet voice that was even more terrifying than if she had shouted. “If you pull that trigger, it’s going to be worse than broken bones for you.”
Mandy gasped as she noticed a dim glow emanating off of Aria’s skin. The man pointing the gun at her certainly noticed. With a terrified yelp, he turned and ran back down the path.
The glow around Aria vanished as she sighed and walked back to the bench. She sat down with her head in her hands. “I can’t believe I’ve heard someone say they like a girl with spirit twice now. Do guys really go around saying that? I’m blaming Hollywood.”
Mandy just stared at her silently, too stunned to speak. As the silence stretched on, Aria turned to face her.
“Are you okay, Mandy?” Aria asked, concern heavy in her voice. “I’m sorry you had to deal with those scum. I remember how scary it could be.”
“Aria, you were glowing,” Mandy finally managed to get out in a strangled voice.
Aria sighed again, her shoulders slumping. “How am I supposed to know what’s real and what’s fake? Are you a product of my imagination, Mandy? Am I so desperate to have Clarice back that I’ve fabricated this entire experience?”
Mandy started shivering in the cold air as her adrenaline finally wore off. She felt a pang of sympathy for Aria as she watched her battle with her own mind. What must she be going through right now if she couldn’t even trust the reality around her to be real?
“What happened after Calypso joined you?” Mandy asked through chattering teeth.
Aria snapped out of her daze and looked at Mandy with concern. “You’re freezing. Here, let me warm you up.”
Aria slid closer to her and wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close. Mandy gasped as she once again felt love suffuse her soul. All thoughts of being cold vanished as she reveled in the warm comfort of Aria’s love infused embrace.
“You hugs feel like what you described Calypso’s hugs feeling like,” Mandy murmured contentedly. “I feel so loved and happy right now.”
Aria shifted slightly, and Mandy felt her doubt. She must have been doubting her reality again.
“Aria, I know you’re worried this is all in your head,” Mandy told her softly. “But so what if it is? Would you rather go back to what you felt before?”
She felt Aria shiver. “No, I never ever want to feel that loss again. I’m just so so afraid that I’ll get my hopes up that she is still alive somewhere, and that I can find her again, just to have reality destroy me again. I know I won’t survive that kind of loss again.”
“Then let me help you figure it out,” Mandy suggested gently. “Tell me the rest of your story and let’s figure out what really happened. I’ve seen enough to know you’re not crazy. There is something very special about you, and I feel like I can help you, if you’ll let me.”
The sense of love flooding her system intensified as Aria pulled her in tighter. “Mandy, if you are real and I’m not crazy, you are one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. That’s a really high bar to reach. Thank you so much, Mandy.”
“You’re so welcome, Aria,” Mandy whispered affectionately.
Aria took a deep breath, resting her cheek on top of Mandy’s head as she held her close. “While we were at our apartment, we discovered that acts of love seemed to cause Calypso to evolve her abilities. She had never experienced any kind of personal contact with other people, aside from hugs. I gave her a shoulder massage and she was overcome by emotion. Her eyes changed from a misty lavender to a sharp violet with a lavender ring around the iris. Her eyes were already more like an anime character than a human, so when the color changed it was very noticeable. A little while later Clarice gave her a back massage on her massage table. It triggered another evolution, making her eyes actually glow. When Calypso cried, her tears were like quicksilver. They usually evaporated into the air before landing, but one of her tears landed on me and another on Clarice. It triggered a kind of rejuvenation and actually made our features change, becoming more feminine. Both Clarice and I started having a bad premonition and so we decided to go to my mom’s house. That turned out to be a good thing, since our apartment blew up a little while later. While we were driving, there was this idiot biker who was trying to show off next to us. He ended up wrecking and dying. Calypso brought him back to life and healed him. There were a lot of people who knew what Calypso looked like since that reddit post went viral, so we ended up getting captured on video by a lot of people. After we left, we called my mom for advice on how to hide Calypso. Now that people knew she was with us we were sure it wouldn’t take long for people to find our parent’s house as well. My mom called my uncle, who happened to work for a shadow agency that controlled most of the world governments. He had a cabin we were able to hide out in the mountains. While we were there, we discovered that angel tears are like seeds, and that after one touches you, you turn into an angel if you say a specific phrase. Both Clarice and I turned into angels, and later my mom and dad. We were still trying to verify that we were actually angels, but we were pretty sure after Clarice gave Calypso a back massage because we found these ridges under her skin where it looked like wings would attach.”
“What was the phrase to turn a human into an angel?” Mandy asked in fascination.
“You had to swear to vanquish evil,” Aria answered with a small smile. “We did a lot of floundering as we struggled to understand what angels really were. I’m going to condense the story and give you the broader outline. This is basically the creation story. In the beginning, there were nine beings called Seraphim. They consulted a thing they referred to as god and found instructions for creating the realms of light and angels. There were three light realms, with the more powerful angels populating the higher realms. After millions of years, some of the angels began to grow bored with eternity, and some of them became hostile in their boredom. Angels were immortal beings and could not be killed, so there wasn’t a law that could be enforced with any kind of punishments. The Seraphim created the Cherubim and gave them the ability to kill immortal entities. The angels who sought an end to their immortal lives were given an end, and the ones who were tormenting other angels were also given an end. This worked for a long time, but eventually there were so many angels getting bored with eternity that the number of angels seeking an end grew concerning to the Seraphim. They consulted this god entity again and were given instructions for building the mortal realm, where angels could incarnate without any memory of their former self and live a life where they could experience sorrow, pain, and loss. Angels can’t feel things like pain and discomfort, and they have perfect memory recall. The angels who went through an incarnation in the mortal realm returned with the memory of pain and loss. It made them realize just how amazing the positive energy was that suffused their bodies. Angels don’t have organs like humans. They have a matrix of meridians and nodes where positive energy flows, filling them with love and joy all of the time. After experiencing life without that energy, the angels who returned suddenly knew just how wonderful they had it in the light realms. Their perfect recall made it so that the memory of mortality never faded and the positive energy charging their souls was always profound. Only one third of the angels experienced mortality. Many of the angels, including four of the Seraphim, were afraid of becoming mortal. They wanted to limit the use of mortality to a rehabilitation system for angels who were hostile. Five of the Seraphim wanted everyone to experience mortality at least once. Many of the Cherubim were terrified of losing their power and convinced the four Seraphim that there was a plot to supplant them while they were in the mortal realm. They used the divine instruments to re-write reality, forcing four of the Seraphim into the mortal realm. One of the Seraphim was turned into a demon lord. The fifth Seraphim took two of the four divine instruments and melded each of them to part of the souls of the Seraphim who were in the mortal realm. Seraphim were too powerful to have a single soul in a human body, so their souls were divided, inhabiting two bodies. Grodek, the fifth Seraphim, was embedding the divine instruments into the other Seraphim so that nobody else could use them except for those Seraphim. The four Seraphim who were afraid of mortality attempted to use the remaining two divine instruments to turn Grodek into a demon lord, but he managed to break the instruments while they were being used. He ended up as an imp instead, and he scattered the pieces of the last two divine instruments throughout the mortal realm. The Seraphim used the mortal realm as a political prison for any angels who objected to their view of reality. They had also created demons early on to punish those who were hostile. The demons discovered a way to turn angels into demons eventually, and in our current time there were almost no angels left. Demons are driven by a lust for power and will do terrible things to get it. They are also subservient to the will of their demon lord, so even the angels who were forced into becoming demons were forced to do evil. What was meant to be a place for spirits to grow and experience the spectrum of human emotions was instead turned into a prison where demons controlled almost everything in the world. Countless angels are stuck in a reincarnation loop, unable to return to the light realms because four Seraphim are too scared to experience mortality once. That’s the scene where Calypso and the rest of us entered the picture.”
Mandy felt shell-shocked as she listened to the story. It seemed so fantastical that it couldn’t be true, but something about it resonated with her soul. She felt like she had been submerged in water her whole life and had just taken her first peak at the sky and the land up above.
“So how did you avoid the demons that were running the world?” Mandy asked, completely captivated by the story.
“When we first discovered demons were real, it was when we were tracking down a police chief who had been involved in child trafficking. We tracked him down to a bunker underneath a silo in an abandoned dairy farm. When we went down into the bunker we discovered forty children being tortured while their blood was drained to make a drug for the demon lords. We vaporized the demons with angel fire before rescuing the children. It was a pretty horrific ordeal. Calypso was able to wipe most of their memories, or their minds wouldn’t have recovered. That was our first encounter with demons. We were worried that there would be more powerful demons that would wipe us out. We had only been angels for a few days while many of the demons had been there for thousands of years. We thought they would be immeasurably powerful. We didn’t know anything about Seraphim, Cherubim, or any of the other ranks of angels at that time. However, it became clear before long that there were not going to be any demons we could not handle. We discovered that Calypso was a Seraph, and we thought we were Cherubim, since we were told only Cherubim could kill immortals. It turned out that Clarice and I were the other two Seraphim. Lucifer was the fourth. Up until that point, once an angel became a demon, there was no going back. They believed they were stuck as demons for all eternity. Calypso changed that when she redeemed the first demon. When she redeemed Lucifer, we were now four Seraphim strong, with Grodek still waiting to be redeemed. We had two of the divine instruments. Calypso had the harp, and I had the tin whistle along with the rest of my soul. Clarice had just received a large piece of one of the broken divine instruments as well as the other half of her soul. We were so close to the point where we could rewrite reality and remove the four renegade Seraphim from the upper light realms. We had just helped four of our human friends ascend as angels when a wave of vertigo hit me and the next thing I remember was waking up in the apartment that had been blown up, and Clarice was…gone.”
Aria frowned as she rewound her memory to just before the end. “Calypso had known they were rewriting reality…I remember now. She said they are doing a rewrite, don’t believe any-…and then she cut off.”
“Wow,” Mandy breathed in wonder. “I don’t think people have delusions that complex, do they?”
“According to the doctors, they could theoretically get that complex,” Aria sighed, feeling a sense of frustration at not being able to trust anything in her mind. “They said the delusions usually don’t have backstories, but that it’s still consistent with someone suffering from overwhelming grief. I mean, if you step back from the bigger picture, what’s more likely? That I had an angel save me from cancer and then went on an epic quest with my sister and said angel to save the cosmos from renegade Seraphim, or that I’m unable to accept the death of my sister and will invent anything to give myself some kind of hope that she is still out there somewhere? If we look at the facts, it makes it pretty obvious that I’m suffering from delusions. My apartment is still there. Calypso’s YouTube channel doesn’t exist and never has. My reality is in shambles, and I can’t trust anything I see. I’m pretty sure you are a figment of my imagination too, just like those guys I imagined beating up.”
Mandy pulled back slightly from Aria and stared up into her eyes, unable to see them in the dark, but knowing Aria could see hers. “I am not a figment of your imagination. I don’t know how to convince you of that, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll repeat what I said earlier. Would you rather fall deeper into a fantasy where your sister still lives and angels are real, or go back to where I found you last night, on the floor wishing you were dead?”
Aria’s breath caught at her words. She stared back at Mandy with golden tears in her golden eyes as an ethereal glow began emanating from her skin. The energy Mandy felt coursing through Aria suddenly burst out like a super nova, washing over everything and turning night to day. “I will not accept this reality!”
Reality shattered and the world folded in on itself. Mandy gasped in shock as Aria held her tightly. She stared in awe at Aria as she beheld the large wings on her back and the overpowering presence of a being more powerful than she could imagine. There was nothing but a black void in every direction. Aria began laughing as huge golden tears coursed down her cheeks, one of them landing on Mandy. Mandy felt her whole body fill up with warmth as she began to glow softly.
Aria held Mandy tightly to her like a teddy bear as golden tears of relief ran down her cheeks. “Thank you, Mandy. Thank you thank you thank you.”
