Children from all over the internets, gather 'round and let me tell you a tale. It is a tale of grand proportions, a tale upon an epic scale, a tale so amazing that few can read it without being physically AND emotionally moved. It is a tale of a young lad, a lad named Keith.
This young lad had a very peculiar problem - he was love struck. He had eyes for one and no other, and he believed whole heartedly that they were meant for each other. However, it seemed, at least to him, that the universe was dead-set on preventing him from being with his love. This is not his story, but rather the story of The Dark Knight with Keith superimposed upon the main character!
Just kidding.
Here we go.

It was nighttime at the camp they had set up, and Derrek was loudly snoring in his little makeshift tent. Ben was sitting on the edge of the cliff they decided to stop upon, and he was gazing at the stars. He was thinking about aliens and how he was hoping that they wouldn't have to face them. "Sphinxes and trolls are one thing, but aliens are a whole different story," he told himself. "If we have to fight them too, we'll be screwed." He then began thinking about what the manatees had told them, and tried to decipher as much of the prophecy as he could, with what he saw and was told, he figured he may be able to get a better grasp upon it if he only focused on it.

While he was doing this, Keith decided to go to sleep. He figured that it was best to leave Ben alone and ask him if he'd figured anything out in the morning. Besides, they'd had a long day (they had fought a chimera, a gang of goblins and then chased down some other creature [they appeared to be centaurs with cheetah bodies instead of horse bodies] that had stolen some supplies). He figured it was best to sleep on everything, and maybe they would have some clues in the morning.
Neither of them had any notion that they were being observed.
* * *
In a faraway place, an island in the Bermuda Triangle to be exact, their campsite was on a small monitor. The room had a handful on beings in it, but the room was silent. There was no noise to be heard from the monitor, and none of them uttered even a syllable. After another minute, the monitor shut off. The room itself was barely lit, but one looking in on them could see a handful of beings (mostly but not all human) all shrouded in shadow. They were sitting around a table.

After another moment or two of silence, one of the men spoke. His voice sounded like everything he said would be funny in some way. He spoke with no rasp or lisp but with the occasional mispronunciation. His voice was neither high nor low, but sounded like he needed to take a breather. He was tall, but not gigantically so. He was also very skinny, and, despite the shadows, it was still quite obvious that he was beginning to bald. "We could always strike now. Get them out of the way before they can cause us any harm."

"I like the sound of that." This came from another (obviously human) man, a large man further down the table. He was toward one end, the end without someone at it. One looking in would assume he was a lower ranking individual at the table, and that one would be correct. His voice was loud and very bossy sounding. He was of medium height, shorter than the tall man who had just spoken. He did, however, have a bit more girth to him, enough so that he seemed large in an athletic sense. "Seems like a lot less trouble that way. I'll head the troops."
"Hold your horses man, I was only kidding."

"Yes, and doing so would be a very bad idea." This voice came from another human, the one sitting at the head of the table. His voice wasn't deep, but was dark and full of evil. "If we kill them now, before they find the other angels themselves, we will have much more work ahead of ourselves. If you like, you may tail them Mr. Uphoff, but striking now would be stupid. Besides, Keith will lead them straight to us."

Everyone around the table began laughing, with different levels of mania. Anyone observing would be caught immediately, for they would fall to the floor, writhing with pain because their ears were bleeding (figuratively speaking, of course).
And that is precisely what happened.
* * *
Keith was dreaming now...or at least that's what he thought at first. It turned out, however, that he was just having visions while sleeping. Had he been dreaming, it wouldn't have felt real, and it would have had no bearing. Both of those were false, therefore, he was having visions, not dreaming. Having recently been a part of many supernatural experiences, Keith found it easy to tell that another one was happening.

In his vision, he was standing by himself. There was nothing around him - no people, no beings, and no light even. He seemed to be in utter bleakness. He saw nothing, for there was nothing. Then a light began to shine. It shone in an orangey-red color far off in the distance, behind where Keith was floating. He could tell there was a light, but couldn't see it yet. He turned around, and six shadowy beings all facing the light as well. They were decently space out, which was obvious to tell because they each had wings. However, due to the shadowy nature of the vision, he couldn't tell what any of the wings were actually made of, and he couldn't tell who most of these beings were. There was an obvious gap in the center (his spot, he assumed), and he started by looking at the far left side. He could only tell that it wasn't human, it looked as if it had a hawk head or something...

Wait a second, he told himself, that's Derrek. He's an angel? His wings looked oddly globular and seemed to lack and consistency or structure, and Keith couldn't even wager a guess as to what they were made of. He then looked next to Derrek and saw what was probably a (human) woman, and although he knew that he couldn't be sure, he felt as if she was human and as if he knew her. Her wings looked similar to Derrek's, except hers seemed to be much more consistent, and fluffy instead of globular. Next to her...well...he couldn't tell, because the wings next to her were so huge that he couldn't tell what they were and who was behind them. They also seemed amazingly non-uniform, but it was really hard to tell. If there was some light, then maybe it would be different...

Past the gap, he could tell it was Ben, for he could see the jagged bottoms of the wings along with the very straight nature of the edges. He also, oddly enough, could recognize his odd-shaped head and hair. Next to Ben, he saw someone taller but fairly similar looking. His wings seemed different. They were similar to Ben's in the way that they seemed to be made of a large amount of similar objects, but he had no clue what object it could be. They all seemed oddly and differently shaped. Once again, the lack of light wasn't helping the situation, but Keith really couldn't complain. The person on the end on right seemed to have things that were a mix of wings and clumps of noodles, as odd as it sounded. He couldn't tell if it was a guy or a girl, because the "wings" were very sporadic and went in every direction.

Keith realized something about the angels. Those on the right seemed to have wings made of smaller and more consistent items, while those on the left had non-uniform wings that looked questionable. His wings were similar to both - non-uniform and yet made up of smaller Twinkies. He then noticed that his wings had been out the entire time. There was a blinding flash and he sat up. He was awake again, and it was still night. He thought about calling to Ben to describe the dream, but decided to do that in the morning...

TO BE CONTINUED...

INDEX