The First of Countless Days - The Jackass - Ann & Shay - O.F.T: 6

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Day 1

Back inside the cavern. The traveler: "Herald, he seems... off."

Lucifer agreed and spoke. "He was off. He was a psychopath, but he was one of the most accurate diarchangel for statistical analysis. He formally ran the science division of W.A.R. I remember how he would rant on and on about the people in charge of heaven, specifically the Dal Republic. From my understanding of the man, he believed lizard people made choices for the nation of Dal and there was no way around it. He would single out issues in the form of problematic people like Gabriel the archangel. He hated him and would express this hate several times throughout his life." 

Lucifer chuckled before continuing on: "He too was hated, brilliant, and people hardly knew about him. He would publish books under the pen name Barabra. He said women needed more credit. The books were always so controversial. I'm not sure if he really wanted to help women in the first place, but people give credit where credit is due."

"I'm glad you like him," the traveler replied. "I'm curious. What was the reason he took you and your sisters in? He was an angel, was he not? That was not his job."

Lucifer: "You sound like he should have given us up."

"No."

Lucifer thought for a moment. "He took us in because... Oh, sh*t, I remember why now. Why do you make me remember these things?" Lucifer bent over backward to explain this one.

[ACT II: Back to Basics)

14 A.U.D. (the Apostolic Age), somewhere in Ellenstein, off the coast of the Sionit, in between the Dal Republic and the nations of Benign.

The caravan arrived at an outdoor area off the beaten path. Tents, banners and tables were set up. A large pit in the middle of the camping site was being dried out and used for fires. People scatter from tent to tent talking and drinking.

Everyone rushed out of the carriage for rest and relaxation. 

"Ohhh, baby, I need a drink!" A man said excitedly, putting his blood-stained throwing knife back into his satchel strapped onto his leg.

The boy looked for the driver. He had been off the carriage by a pin where several jackasses were housed.

In the driver's hand was a napkin. He unfolded the cloth corner by corner. Falling off his hands at those edges and, in the center incubated peanuts. The donkey's made an unpleasant noise. They hee'd and haw'd for the food the driver had. He brought the peanuts closer taunting them.

They must have been hungry, they got louder, and the hees and haws became a homogeneity of obnoxious noise.

A man yelled from the inner parts of camp: "Shut those fucking donkeys up! Can someone shut them up?"

The driver laughed, and his hat jingled. He did not laugh out loud but the noise was kept inside. He only did the action of laughing, not laughter itself. Like a mime, he acted. He was home. He could have dropped the act, but it was not kept up by the driver's unusual nature.

He was hysterical now. One hand was on his stomach, and then, with the same, he slapped at his knees. He threw the napkin as far as he could without feeding the hungry jackasses. He skipped away like he had achieved a life goal scratching off his bucket list.

The little girl to herald said, "I'm thirsty,". He told them to follow him.

In his tent, everything they asked for was to be written on a list. A pen and notepaper were provided. He lit a candle on his desk with a lighter and sat while the three stood up.

He said, "Write down whatever you need here." He tapped on paper, "And I'll provide anything I can." He watched them closely. He looked at the pen, back to them, and then towards the paper.

The middle grabbed the pen and declared: "I can do it. I know what we'll need for the rest of the week." She grabbed the pen and positioned it in between the thumb and index fingers.

Herald stood up from his desk to see what was being written. "Clean…water," Herald said, reading the first things she wrote aloud, scratching his head. "Huh… Where'd you learn this skill? Wait, first and foremost, how did you get here?" 

He had them right where he wanted them.

"Tell me, have any of you hit puberty yet?" They shook their heads. "Nothing strange..." There was an awkward silence, he felt the need to explain himself to children. "You see, demons when they hit puberty go through this metamorphosis. I've never personally seen it, but I have read a substantial amount." They shook their heads, and their stomachs growled. He said, "Right. Don't say another word. I have people on it. Once the bonfire is up, pigs are being prepared. Have you had pigs before?" 

The children couldn't keep up with his consistently fast speech pattern. He ramped up when talking for a longer period of time; he never slowed down or stopped to think; he only thought and thought a lot.

A woman entered his quarter. She was startled to see demons with Herald. "Oh shit! Can you lock up tents? I don't even know." Herald told her to stop.

She yelled, "What in the fuck?"

"Shhh! Shhh! Shhhhhh!" Herald harshly shushed the women. "Let me explain," he said. She waited for an explanation. "I don't... I don't have one right now, but I will if come back later, in like five minutes I will."

The woman threw what was in her hand onto the ground and said to Herald, "Did you find and bring back demons?"

Herald nodded his head in agreement, then shook disagreeing, and agreed once more. "They were literally down the road. What did you want me to do, Ann?" Herald said.

Ann looked at the little girl. "I'm telling on you."

Herald rushed from over his desk, tackling her to the ground. "Help me, will ya kids?" He asked, "There is rope and tape in that chest by my desk. bring it here."

 The children were more bewildered than before, thinking that they had been better off on their own. The children, in some sense of gratitude, obliged and took the rope and tape from the chest, assisting in restraining the women to the chair.

The lit candle on the desk illuminated the inside. Outside, silhouettes tussle in a show of shadow projections. People bleed into black blobs, fingers turn into tendrils that creep like spider legs over drapes, and quickly their shadows preposition back to their singular persons.

A drunk man holding his beer, watched and heard everything from the outside. He looked at his beer and shook his head in shame.

"Okay, now what?" Herald asked the children, looking to them for guidance. 

Ann woke up, her screams were kept back by tape.

 "Scream all you want," he said, "no one will hear you."

From the next tent over: "Did you hear someone's muffled screams?" He could be heard since the camping space was tight and compact. Everyone knew everyone's business. "Does anyone need help?!" He yelled out.

Herald smacked Ann on the head with a book he had found before she could be heard again.

Herald yelled out to the man, "Hey!"

"Yes?!" The man responded.

Herald asked, "How much did you hear?" The man didn't reply. "Was it a lot?" Still nothing. "I'll be right back," he said to the kids.

He had kidnapped another person, dragging him into the tent. "Don't worry kids, these are my friends," he said, restraining a man to a chair.

The women woke up. Herald stepped in front of her and said, "Don't scream Ann." Ann saw Shay, the man from the other tent, and did the exact opposite. "I expected that," he said, bonking the book on her head again. She wasn't knocked out, but she stopped in her efforts to struggle. 

"I'm going to remove the tape" he was an inch away from her face as he said this. She nodded, and he took the tape from her lips slowly. "Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch!" The man stopped halfway. He ripped the rest off like a bandage. Her lips were bright red.

"Herald You won't get away with this," Shay said. Herald took the piece of used tape and put it in his mouth. "No, please. Awww."

"Now if everyone were to just let me explain! Dinner is in a few minutes, I'm tired, and you both aren't ready to die." The children stood there watching the man calmly unravel. The little sister did not pay attention; she daydreamed.

She looked about the room like an observatory, a house wonder. The dim light from the candle flicked off abstract paintings, and puppets were in the corner by the chest next to his desk.

The chest by the desk contained: weapons, jewelry, and tools. On the desk: red capsule pills, scattered papers, and booze. Plans and mapping were drawn out on a chalkboard. She couldn't read but put together whoever made the painting must have written on the chalkboard too. The penmanship's perfect lines matched the symmetrical lines in a handful of drawings.

She was brought back to reality, seeing that the conflict had risen to such heights that Ann had Herald in a headlock.

"Don't you ever try that again? Now explain yourself!" She said she was giving the man his options.

"Fuck you and your options." He said, muffled, trying to bite her.

Ann tightened her hold. He muffled more, becoming a muffler. What did you say? She listens closely, letting up her hold.

He said, "Let me go, this hurts."

Ann said," No, you hit me with a book and kidnapped everyone in this room."

"This chokehold is inappropriate. Tie me to the chair, at least."

"Explain!" She tightened her choke again, this time she clamped her hands in an S shape hold, and Herald tapped.

Herald coughed, "okay, sh*t." He said: You won't believe me.

"No, please, shoot": She said it with heavy satire.

"Okay, you asked for it." 

She peddled her arms, insisting on him to tell the truth.

 He explained, in one word, "cracks."

"Cracks?" She repeated.

"Yeah, cracks in heaven lead to hell, and vice versa. My hypothesis is." the man tried to release his arm from her pinning. He managed to release his arm, pointing at the chalkboard. "Kids, could you please?" The boy flipped the board toward them.

On the board was a concept for these theoretical "cracks" within heaven. Wormholes where the fabric of space is breached. He explained that this is how these children got to heaven.

"Okay, but how did they get here? In camp, in your tent?"

"Oh well, that's easy, I brought them." The woman was unsatisfied with the answer. "How else was I supposed to talk to them? We need to study these creatures more." She tapped her foot, and Herald took note, saying, "They could help us learn a lot... Do you trust me?"

Ann said, "Of course I trust you. But demons?" This is exactly what we're fighting against.

"They're children," he said, settling the argument in a way.

She gave a good, hard look at the demons. She has killed countless demons, but these children looked particularly normal, in a way she couldn't put a finger on it. 

"What's wrong with them? Why do they look like that?" She finally saw past the red horns. They did not have tails or any other demonic disfigurement. Their skin was a healthy color, not red nor pure black, as she'd seen so many times before.

"By the looks of it, I think they're half demons" Herald glanced at the kids. "Am I right?" They did not reply. "It's okay to talk now. I'm Herald, this is Ann."

"And I'm Shay," said Shay, strapped to his chair.

Herald threw his arm up, rolling his eyes. "And there's Shay."

Ann shook again. She was astounded by Herald. What was he thinking? 

She went to the children, asking for their names politely, "Don't listen to the guy, he's a meanie." She looked at the youngest who smiled at the remark. "A big meanie butt." The little girl laughed, which caused Ann to smile. "And your name is?"

The little girl happily spoke, "Noa." She twirled shyly, her hand behind her back, her head slightly tilted down and her eyes looking up.

"Well, Noa, we should take a bath. How does that sound? And eat and drink..." It sounded good to her and the others. "And your name?" She said towards the middle.

The middle answered, "Litcht."

Ann's eyes lit up. "That is a beautiful name! I have a friend named Litchte. Does yours have an 'e' at the end?"

She shook and said, without the 'e.'

She finally asked the boy, "What is your name?" She was fascinated by their names and now really wanted to know the boys.

He second-guesses whether or not he really should tell her. But the angels were assisting them in whatever strange way they could. The boy exhaled. Breathing back, he said his name "Lucifer."

The middle pitched in, "You can also call him Lucille, they're both his first names," she flaunts her knowledge about the boy.

Herald observed the nature of this interaction leaving the tent. Ann saw this prompting her to say, "Shower time then... Follow me, I suppose." They left the tent. Shay was the last inside.

"Guys, a little help?" Shay said to himself, "Well, I'll be here. Alone by myself as usual."