Chapter 16

At that moment, Sean truly understood the meaning of absolute darkness.
    He opened his eyes wide, his pupils straining. He could almost feel them widening in the effort to detect any pinprick of light. But there was nothing. Sean stared into the empty void, with no shape or glimmer of illumination. He felt around in front of his face with his hand. He waved. Far away, and close up. He knew he was waving his hand, he could feel his fingers fanning back and forth in the utter blackness around him. He could feel the air being disturbed in front of his nose.
    He couldn’t see his fingers.
    Opening his eyes as wide as he could, he looked around. Looked around for the subantro.
    He couldn’t see its glow anymore. It had vanished in the myriad of fog that surrounded him. Sean frantically gasped, then breathed out heavily. Breathed in through his nose, a sharp inhalation. Then he blew out through pursed lips. He blinked several times, trying to let his vision adjust. For his eyes to adjust to the darkness. His eyes weren’t adjusting. His night vision wasn’t working. Sean could almost feel his pupils widening to their maximum width, his eyes focusing in and out, in and out, looking for the red and white glow in the darkness.
    Sean stretched out his hands. Felt the sill. The rough coarse wood with his fingers. He felt the tiniest splinter inject itself into his skin. He moved his hands down and to his left. He felt drywall and the peeling paper. He scrabbled across it until he came to the corner he knew he had deposited the subantro. Then a glimmer of light entered his sight. It was like looking a fire growing in magnitude, from an ember to a spark then to a small tongue of flame.
    Putting out both hands, his fingers wide open, Sean reached for the glowing red and white half sphere. The light grew brighter the closer Sean got. He kneeled down in front of it, his breath materializing in front of his vision. The atmosphere was getting colder. Fast. Sean could now feel it in his hands and at the tips of his ears and his nose. It was the fog. The air around him was suffocating like the fog back at the 7-Eleven.
    Blinking away a sudden flicker of drowsiness, Sean clenched his jaw muscles. He cradled the subantro in both of his hands and stood up shakily, nearly losing his balance. His perception of balance was greatly altered by the lack of vision. But once Sean steadied himself, he felt his mind clear. He looked down at the subantro. It emitted a dull glow. Like a dying bulb, or a very, very weak nightlight. It just wasn’t bright enough. Sean tried walking a few paces forward. Trash scattered underneath his feet. He advanced farther, to where he thought the windowsill was. Sean kept stepping forward. He bumped into a wall, the subantro almost being nudged out of his hands. Gripping it firmly, Sean turned around. He was lost. Lost in a room barely twenty feet across and ten feet long.
    “Can anybody hear me?” Sean whispered, his voice sounding as if it were being amplified through a speaker. “Please respond.”
    Sean’s words didn’t back to him. But whenever he did hear himself, he sounded dull and muted. It felt like he was in a padded cell or recording studio; all noise from the outside and most sound from the inside was suppressed and bogged down. The fog was disrupting his speech. Sean tapped the gel comm in his ear, hearing nothing.
    Then a brief note of static.
    It died away just as fast as it had come.
    Sean’s breath began to climb, his heart rate rising rapidly. His eyes darted around the supremely limited vision that the subantro in his hands had to offer. Then the subantro flickered as Sean heard and felt the scream.
    A lecherous scream. An ear piercing, glass shattering squeal that pierced through the vale of the fog and the suppressive barrier around Sean. The sound of a baby crying and wolf howling. The noise din entered Sean’s ears and played around in his head. It bounced back and forth inside of the seemingly cramped atmosphere Sean stood in. A voice overlapped the deafening screech. A deep, thunderous timbre that rippled the skin of Sean’s eardrums.
    Where. . .
    The single word died away, the rest of the sentence coming back a full three seconds later. It rose and fell, in pitch and in volume. Like a damaged tape recording on playback.
    Where. . . are my items?
    Sean could feel the words enter his chest. He heard the voice in his ears, in the gel comm. It was everywhere and nowhere. The speaker was far away, but also behind Sean’s back, leaning over and whispering his ear. Then shouting, a loud barrage of words that were as powerful artillery fire.
    It’s four sixteen. You’re late.
    The gel comm in Sean’s right ear crackled, the line croaking static. Then Sean heard Percy’s voice. It was clipped and the quality of his voice degraded.
    “We can’t. . . the deal if. . . take away the fog. . .”
    The gel comm sparked another note of static.
Silence.
    Smyth did not come, I see.
    “You know. . . cannot travel at night.” Sean could hear Percy’s voice tremble on the other end. A pause. Sean’s chest began to rise and fall like a tempestuous oceanside. The voice blared and rose in pitch; a warbling sound. The Angel sounded irritated.
    I delivered you my demands. I expect you to deliver. . . or else. . .
    Silence.
    “I won’t make excuses-” the feed signal of Percy’s voice cut out for a second, causing Sean to reach up to his earpiece and tap it gently. Percy’s voice came back, louder than before.
    “-is under no circumstances to come. Please understand.”
    No! It is you that must understand!
    The Angel of Death’s voice cracked and spluttered, his words becoming barely audible, the scratch of static masking most of his speech. Sean winced, flinching his head to the left. He picked the gel comm out of his ear, waiting until the Angel was finished screaming. When he put it back in, the Angel’s voice had gone down. Not only in volume, but also in tone as well.
    Is that custodian’s spawn there?
    Static.
    Silence.
    Sean swallowed, and licked his lips. He glanced down at the subantro he held in his hands, then stuffed it under his shirt. When he wasn’t able to see the remarkable red and white illumination of the half-sphere, Sean stepped towards the window. Slowly. The line was still crackling from static as he tip-toed over the sill, his ears bent on listening to any noise that came from the window. Nothing. Not a hush of breeze. Not a stir of a leaf. Not a single chirp or skitter. Sean tried to slow down his breathing by taking in deep lungfuls of air through his nose then exhaling slowly through his lips.
    He counted to three, looked at his mind’s eye where he could feel where the window was located, and stepped forward. He took another. Then another. His foot scraped carefully against the wall, and Sean knew he was at the sill. He could also feel an unsettling chill of air that floated in over the sill. If Sean didn’t know any better, he would guess there was snow out there. Sean leaned his head out the window, just so that his face barely peeked out from the window’s edge. He felt the the dead freezing air outside.
    The static in Sean’s right ear clicked and purred and buzzed. Then silence. Then the Angel’s voice came on.
    I can smell his flesh.
    Sean’s eyes were wide open, but he still couldn’t see anything. He began to ever so slowly inch back his face into the room when the Angel’s voice barked.
    Stop. There’s no use in hiding.
    The tip of Sena’s nose was still poking out from the window. It was a strange sensation. It felt like the end of his nose and some of his brow were being stuck into a bowl of semi frozen water in a bowl. Except this was a vertical bowl of semi frozen water he was taking his face out of. The tip of Sean’s nose and brow began to become numb from the cold.
    The Angel continued, dry, placid humour in his tone. Where are you going? Don’t expect to go away so quickly.
    A pause. Sean blinked hard, feeling the urge to move back and into the room. Away from the cold. Away from the outside chill. But it was too late. He couldn’t feel anything anymore. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to. He no longer was in control.
    You have already shown your face to me, the Angel growled, his voice inauspiciously low and slow. Let me show you mine.
    Without the ability to move, Sean could only watch. Outside the window, Sean spotted a light from over the edge of the building directly across from the apartment’s room. But it wasn’t sunlight. The glimmer that peaked over the horizon of the building was paper white in the inky black darkness. The sight was that of a monochrome sunrise. It looked artificial in some way, as if trying to replicate the sun’s rays, but not fully capturing any of its color of its vibrancy. The glimmer sprung into a flash that blinded Sean. Sean blinked, regaining his vision, looking away from the growing light. It illuminated the street in front of him. The street. The lamp. The buildings, the houses, the town hall, the mail office. The sky was nowhere to be seen, a dark black void of nonexistence above the intersection. Sean thought he was looking at another world, or another plane of existence.
    Or a bad dream.
    Do you want to see your family?
    Sean squinted harder as the blinding light grew brighter, fully encompassing the entire intersection and several blocks in its wide perimeter. The Angel’s voice was no longer speaking to Sean through the gel comm covered in crackling static. The Angel was talking directly into Sean’s ear. The Angel was in the Sean’s ear. In his brain. In his mind.
    Do you want to see them again? The Angel repeated loudly. Sean’s breath was uneven as he panted. He swallowed. He blinked rapidly.
    He coughed. “Yes! Yes! I want to see them-don’t hurt them! Please. Stop!”
    Sean regained control over his body. His nose and brow detached from the icy veneer covering the apartment window. He staggered back from an invisible blow that toppled him over. Sean fell on his backside, the breath being crushed out of him. The subantro lay on the floor, directly under the windowsill. Sean couldn’t see its light anymore; the piercing white glow overpowering the subtle red and white shine from the subantro. Sean scrambled up to his feet and rushed to the edge of the window, careful not to stick his face out of it. He stared out at his limited perspective of the street. The town hall. The post office. Everything was irradiated by the monochromatic light source hanging in the sky. The buildings and lamp posts cast disturbing shadows of pure black on white. Color had been completely eradicated from the street. He couldn’t see Elise anywhere. There was nobody.
    The Angel’s voice grated against Sean’s skull.
    And what would you trade for your mother and sister’s safe return?
    Sean gulped. He spoke, his voice wavering. His voice sounding small and insignificant. “We have the three artifacts you requested. We have them. The unicorn, the boots, and the sword. Where is my family?”
The Angel laughed. A halting, canned bark of laughter that echoed in the night. 
    You know not what you bargain with. Why would I receive it?
    “It’s what you asked for!”
    It is, the Angel replied. But I also requested Smyth’s presence. That was integral for this to happen. Everything hinged on Smyth’s arrival. Can you see him? Is there with you?
    Sean licked his lips, finding them dry and chapped. He scratched the back of his head, scraping away the needles of anxiety from his skin.
    Is he hiding in your pocket? If so, please produce him.
    “He’s not. . .”
    He’s not. . . what?
    Sean’s voice felt stifled by the constricting of his throat. He sighed. “Smyth’s not here.”
    Are you sure? Your family-well, the remaining members of your family depend on the truthfulness of your answer.
    “Sean is telling the truth.” Percy’s voice echoed faintly in Sean’s right ear. The static had disappeared, but his voice was muffled. “Angel of Death. I suppose you have a point to where you’re going with this?”
    Nothing. Silence again.
    The line crackled once, then twice. The bright paper white sky outside flickered simultaneously with the static. Then the Angel spoke.
    I want Sean. Bring Sean to me.
    “Absolutely not.” Lance’s voice. The sky rippled as the static filled the line. “Sean, stay where you are. Don’t move, don’t go anywhere. I mean it-don’t move.”
    The Angel of Death’s voice echoed. You can’t stop me.
    “I don’t intend to,” Lance’s voice faded out quickly, all audibility gone from the gel comm. The line had been severed. Sean looked over his shoulder, to the open doorway of the room he was in. Outside there was a straight corridor that stretched to the end of the building with a staircase that led down to the floor under. Doors lined the corridor, but they were all closed when Sean had seen them last. A window occupied the opposite wall at the end of the long hallway. Garish white emblazoned the view of the window. Sean looked back to his window. Glanced down at the subantro on the floor. He moved to pick it up, reached down, and stood back up, the half sphere in his right hand.
    Sean tapped his gel comm gently. “Hello? Lance? Percy?”
    Nothing.
    A rush of needles crawled up and down his spine as a gust of window blew through the entire building. A savage rush of air that caught Sean full in the face, the sudden and unexpected flurry of wind causing him to topple backwards. Already unbalanced, disorientated, dust and random particles being blown in his eyes, Sean stepped further back. Closer to the window. Covering his eyes, Sean rubbed the specks and fragments that had been lodged there. He faced the window, aware that he was somehow being pushed by the wind closer and nearer to the sill. The wind grew more intense, with more strength. It was like a hurricane had descended into the apartment. Furious, raw destruction throwing everything in its path into disarray and confusion.
     He felt the subantro dip in his grasp. His fingers grasping at it. The empty air as the half sphere fell from his hands. Sean used both of his arms this time, the meat of his biceps and his elbows covering whatever he could of his face. Whatever that wasn’t covered was splattered with specks of dust, splinters, discarded woodchips, and lost bits of metal. A fifty mile per hour gale of unknown fragments flying around and directed at Sean. Shards bit into his legs, sand flecked through his hair, and particles slapped his hands. Sean couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear anything but the overpowering roar of air coursing around the room. He thought he heard the whisper of voices coming from his gel comm, but they were lost in the whirling sandstorm that tore into him. Sean was spun around so many times, he didn’t know which way was up. He couldn’t even tell whether he was standing, kneeling, or just lying on the floor. He was completely disoriented.
    Then Sean felt something solid smash into the center of his spine. A heavy, rigid object plowing him forward, causing him to stumble and teeter. Tripping forward and succumbing to the blow, Sean hit the windowsill and toppled out onto the street.

    Weightlessness. It was a confusing feeling. 
    The hurricane hadn’t followed him out from the apartment. It had served its purpose. Tipping over the threshold of the third story window, Sean hurtled toward the ground. He plummeted headfirst, and it lasted no longer than two seconds. Sean didn’t have any time to process a single thought from his journey to the ground. He perceived it as it happened. No slowing of time, no sense of his fall feeling longer than it actually was. Sean hit the ground two seconds later, his head colliding two inches short of the curb. He felt his face grind against the pavement of the road, his shoulder impacting the ground. The rest of his body followed in a ragdoll-like manner, his hips then his knees and eventually his feet slapping over his head and onto the street. He rolled in an undignified manner like a dropped burrito, his hands and arms flailing wildly.
    Sean lay there for a second, staring up into the vacant black sky above, observing its emptiness. The apartment building loomed over him, its brick inlay looking pale in the stark white light. Sean could see the window he was fallen through. It looked high up. He had fallen a long way. Three stories high-that was about thirty feet. He could still remember the dull scrape of pavement scratching his cheekbones. His shoulder hitting the street. How had he survived. Even under the most favorable of circumstances, any normal person hurtling out of a three story window and landing would be deadly. But Sean was fine. But how? Sean raised his head using all his strength and looked down at his chest. His clothing had been ripped apart, torn to shreds. What peeked out was Sean’s answer. The medallion. The silver shield glimmered, the brushed steel face now a clean and sparkling blood red. Whether it was just the color of the medallion or his blood, he couldn’t tell. Whatever kind of magical spell imbued into the medallion, it had worked. Sean had fallen headfirst, and yet he was still able to move. Not very well, but he could still move. He tried moving his head to the right warily, half expecting the motion not to happen. But his nerves cooperated, his muscles obeyed. His cheek touched the cold street. And he saw it.
    Him.
    The Angel of Death.
    It was him, striding towards Sean, standing nine feet tall. In the smoky arrow message, it was hard to see any true detail because of the mist, but now that the Angel was here, barely twenty yards away, Sean stared, eyes wide. The Angel was more rigid, more rugged, and more terrible in real life. His shoulders were shoved out in grotesque points. His arms and legs were long and thin, to call him lanky was to undersell the picture. He was a true skeleton, underneath his black garb. Everything on him was black. He wore a plate carrier that looked a little loose on his figure. Slinged over shoulder was a ridiculously large gun; a sniper rifle. The barrel poked up high behind the Angel like a signpost. But it stayed rigid against the Angel’s back, not straying away or dipping below his waist. It moved wherever he moved, and it moved fluidly without interrupting his actions.
    The mask was the hardest to look at. In its mirage-like fog form, it was detestable to look at. Now in real life, whenever Sean’s eyes strayed up to the mask, he felt a pang of dread enter his chest. The longer he made eye contact with the tribal war mask on the Angel’s face, the stronger the feeling of terror festered inside of Sean. It was like a hand crushing air out of his lungs. He looked away, feeling winded.
    Sean blinked hard and tried to stand. He found he could prop up his legs. But he was to slow. Even if he could stand straight in the time the Angel reached him, Sean would still be too groggy to even fight. How could he fight? Was the Angel indestructible? Could the Angel die? If he was as old as Percy had said he was, then did Sean even have a chance?
    Turning to face the ground, Sean put both hands on the street. He pushed himself up, an awkward motion that moved his upper body a few feet in the air. His legs wouldn’t move. Nothing in Sean’s body seemed to work right. He breathed in and out ragged breaths, closing his eyes and opening them again. His heart didn’t do anything to help, instead it beat fast and irregularly inside of his chest. Sean strained against the street as he saw in the corner of his air the Angel come to a stop ten yards away. Sean looked forward, not able to look the horrible figure in its eyes. In the mask. The cold had now unbearable.
    “We. . . we got what you wanted.” Sean managed to gasp, stomach flat on the ground, his arms the only thing propping himself upright. He looked the Angel of Death in the chest. It was the only safe place for him to look at without toppling over breathless. The Angel laughed, and kneeled down. Sean kept his eyes on the Angel’s knees, still watching, but not making eye contact.
    The Angel’s voice grated loudly in Sean’s ear like sandpaper. “Then where are they?”
    Sean coughed, then motioned with his head down the street, to the entrance of the post office. Three boxes, varying in size and shape stood erect in front of the office. They had appeared as Percy had promised, although Sean hadn’t seen when they had arrived.
    “There.” Sean managed to say. The Angel laughed, a booming noise like thunder yet as ear splitting as foam against foam. The Angel stood, rising to his full height. Sean switched his gaze up and watched as the tall man raised an enormous foot. As it came down, Sean shuffled forward, trying to scuttle out from underneath the rapidly descending foot. It came down, but not as fast as Sean had thought it would, if it was supposed to be a killing blow. Instead the boot of the Angel pinned Sean to the ground by a loose hem of his tattered clothes.
    “Toys and trinkets are, I must say, trivial to me.” The Angel snarled as he moved his other foot over Sean’s head, barely clipping him with the toe of his boot. The giant man stepped over Sean with mild ease. Sean glared at the back of the Angel. He stared at the comically long rifle strapped to his back. The barrel glinted maliciously in the disturbing light from above. The length of the rifle was two feet taller than Sean, and he himself only stood barely at five feet and ten inches. The Angel moved in a slow canter towards the post office, his voice still remaining the same level as if he were kneeling down next to Sean’s head.
    “I have come for a greater purpose. Something more. . . personal in nature.”
    The Angel crossed the intersection as Sean was able to stagger to his knees. The gel comm inside his ear flared to life with a voice shouting. It was Percy.
    “Sean! Where are you? Where did you go?”
    Affixing it to a better position in his ear, Sean replied as he looked on at the Angel stepping onto the sidewalk of the town hall. “I’m fine. Kind of. Okay, not really.”
    “Get somewhere as far away from the Angel as you can-” Percy’s voice broke several times, the signal being lost and coming back in segmented intervals.
    Sean hissed and cursed under his breath, tapping the gel comm with his finger lightly. The Angel hadn’t turned around to look. He kept trodding in his self-pleased manner to the three crates.
    “Do you hear me, Sean?” Percy said.
    “Yes,” Sean replied, getting his feet shakily. His knees wobbled once. Then his right leg gave out entirely, his kneecap striking the ground. He didn’t feel a thing. Sean continued to scrape and hobble like a washed up fish onto the sidewalk in front of the apartment. “Where are you guys?”
    Percy’s voice chittered. “Don’t go to the extraction point. We can’t open the doors to our vehicle-we’re stuck! You hear me, we’re stuck inside the van! You’re going to have to shelter yourself inside the apartment-or any solid building while we come to get you. Do not go anywhere-do you understand?”
    Sean wasn’t listening. The Angel had turned around. He was facing Sean. The mask was facing Sean. Even from a distance of half a football field, the effect of looking into the mask was still potent as ever. In fact, its intensity had been increased. Sean felt himself tumbled over backwards onto his haunches. A torpid half slouch, half crouch with his spine being bent backwards like a slinky. Sean tried his best to remain upright, but most of his will had been disintegrated in his abrupt landing on the street. The Angel’s voice sounded all around Sean’s head.
    “Do you want to see your family?”
    Percy’s voice came back in his ear, ragged and gasping. “Under no circumstances must you go anywhere, Sean! Get to safety now!”
    Staring into the mask, Sean could see every dent, every imperfection, and every scrape. He saw the ridge line of the jaw, the indents of the temples, and the grooved teeth smiling back at him. They were long and ragged and pure white like the rest of the mask. The lipless, grotesque smile covered half of the Angel’s mask. Sean couldn’t move again. He couldn’t feel the cold anymore. He wasn’t shaking. His lips were blue, but Sean couldn’t sense any sense of the freezing air around him. In fact, he had begun to heat up. He couldn’t feel his heartbeat that much anymore. It had slowed down. It was barely there, a shadow of a pulse still remaining in Sean’s chest.
    Head swimming through molasses as he leaned against the side of the apartment wall, Sean looked at the Angel. The tribal mask on the tall man’s head seemed to grow slightly.
    “Your family are on the roof of the apartment.”
    Sean fell a notch from his unsteady position from the wall. His family? Dad? Was he here? And his mom? Why would they be here, that didn’t make any sense. Was he there to rescue someone? Possibly. Sean found it was harder to think when his eyes were open. His vision became blurry, and he decided to rest his eyes a bit.
    “Your family is waiting, Sean Knite.” The voice of the Angel no longer sounded so harsh; not so gruff and loud. Instead, it sounded like a normal person talking to him. Like a normal sentence, a conversational prompt. Your family is waiting, and you’re down here? You should be up there, with them!
    Sean’s eyes flicked open. In his dazed confusion, he had crumpled to the floor in front of the brick apartment. His family. They were waiting. He planted both hands on the wall and pushed himself up. He regained his footing, using all four of his quivering limbs to a side door at the end of the building. His family was waiting. His family. Why was he here again? Sean tried to remember, his eyes half closed as he stumbled along the brick wall of the building to the side door. Once he got there, he flung it open. Past the door was a set of concrete stairs leading up. Sean took the stairs one a time or three a time, depending on how well his legs and arms would cooperate. It was struggle, having to will his feet to move six inches up over a step. Then another six inches over another step. And again. And again. Until he made it past one floor.
    Sean’s vision cleared up a bit once he made it past the first floor and headed onward up to the second. The higher he climbed, the less he felt warm and the more colder he felt. The only sense of warmth pricked him in the center of his chest. Sean gripped a hand in that spot, his fingers closing around the silver shield. He didn’t look at it. He only kept his eyes forward and up, not looking at the stairs in front of him but at the stairs a flight ahead of him. There was the occasional voice that flickered in Sean’s ear sporadically, but he ignored it. All his attention was focused on crossing the seemingly never ending set of stairs. He stared blankly, no longer being able to feel his toes or fingers. Clenching or wiggling them hadn’t elicited a response. His head swam less the farther he climbed and he made better progress. Flopping a hand onto the final landing, Sean felt like he had spent all his reserves of strength. The cold was part of Sean now. His mind felt shriveled and weightless, bouncing around inside his cranium. But when he lifted his gaze to the door, he knew he had to keep going. His hand was still on his chest, clutching tightly to the silver shield when another cold burst of wind showered down his spine. He didn’t shiver. Note even a flinch.
     Sean couldn’t feel much by that point. He closed his eyes.
    Pushing himself up to the maximum level his arm could extend, Sean flopped his hand onto the door’s handle and jerked it down. He heard the latch disengage. He shoved his shoulder against the face of the door. He couldn’t think any more, couldn’t process what was really happening. He wasn’t really aware of what he was doing, if he was doing anything at all. He just did. Scraped his head against it. The door swung lazily open as Sean sagged in the open doorway, his head peeking beyond the door jam. At first it was a tingle that sparked at the back of his skull. Then it spread outside, blossoming across his face and neck. Once it reached his shoulders, it rippled fast all over his body like a boulder being dumped into a still water pond. In the darkness behind his eyelids, Sean detected a glimmer of golden light. Sean turned his head and squinted up at an arm latched onto the base of his skull. That person’s arm was Elise.
    In the dim cloud of blurred fog that dimmed the edges of his vision, Sean saw that her lips were moving. But he couldn’t hear her. He couldn’t feel her hand or her fingers on the back of his neck. Elise patted the side of Sean’s jaw. Lifted his eyelid. Sean moved his head away, but Elise smacked him on the opposite side of his cheek. Her lips were moving rapidly; she was shouting. Her hood was gone, Sean noticed. As if it had been ripped off. Her hair was burned and singed at the edges, it was stringy from sweat and frayed out to the sides like timeworn sackcloth. She stood up and crouched down, her mouth still moving, her hands coming down and grabbing underneath his armpits. She began to drag him through the doorway. Once Sean’s entire body had passed through the doorway, his hearing returned slowly with a slight high pitched whine.
    “It’s okay.” Elise’s voice rang out dimly in Sean’s ear canals. He barely had any strength to lift his head to look at her. She knelt in front of him, a glowing golden palm laying on his forehead and her other hand placed firmly on his chest.
    “It’s okay,” she repeated. “Just breath in-Sean, can you hear me? I need you to breath slowly for me, can you do that please?”
    Elise’s voice was small and quavering, but her tone was still confident. They both were huddled underneath a golden bubble, the thin layer of halcyonic protection contrasting with the black sky and paper white sunset. Elise closed her eyes, her exrepssion clouded in deep concentration. Then Sean’s body convulsed. It leapt up and coiled and flopped up and down on the rooftop. Then it was over, as soon as it had began. Elise rested Sean’s head on the cold gravel. Sean could hear again-really hear. He could hear Elise’s deep breathing. He heard the crunch of the rooftop underneath his body as he made minute movements in the grit. He felt warm again. His chest was on fire. Sean sat up, his shoulders heaving, his pulse thundering like a tight skinned drum inside of his body.
    “Why did you come up here?” Elise snapped, sitting back on her haunches and taking a breather. “What made you come up here?”
    Sean tried to speak. Instead, a sickening wet cough racked his body and he sat up, bent forward, and threw up. Wet, miasma goop spilled forth from his throat. It was just as dark as oil and it had the same bubble veneer sheen on its surface. Sean spat and coughed as a line of spit curled out of his mouth and mixed with the pebbled roof. He looked up at Elise and grimaced.
    “My. . . my family-” he started, but Elise began to shake her head.
    “Do see anyone up here Sean?” Elise threw both hands out, gesturing out to the roof top. Sean squinted, held his head with one hand. A migraine ache of all headaches throbbed in between his eyes. He put down a hand, his fingers digging into the gravel underneath him. Beyond the pale shield, Sean could see three figures. All three of them turned and looked at Sean and Elise. Sean crawled forward, his eyes widening. He could see his father.
    “Dad!” Sean lunged forward, but Elise blocked his path, arm barring him from exiting the protective barrier of golden light.
    “Dad!” Sean repeated, louder this time, shouting it at the top of his lungs. “What’re you doing? Stop it! My dad- my family’s out there, can’t you see that?”
    Elise looked over her shoulder as she restrained a weak but steadfast Sean as he tried to pass her. She looked all over the roof top. She saw nothing. There was nothing to see. They were the only ones on the roof. She turned back and slapped Sean, effectively gaining his attention.
    “I have to get to them,” cried Sean, his voice cracking, his hands clawing to his family in the middle of the roof. They were right there? Why couldn’t Elise see?
    “There’s no one there, Sean!” Elise shouted back, using both hands, jamming them against Sean’s shoulders and heaving him back onto his rear end. She pointed at finger outside. “I don’t see anything. It’s obviously a trap! There’s nothing there!”
    Sean panted, staring at the three people. His mom and his sister sat on chairs, facing away now. Hadn’t they been facing him? The only one looking at Sean was his father. He was dressed in the same suit Sean had seen him wear before the business trip. His rugged features, his calm posture, even his white toothed smile all stood out against the backdrop of the ink blotted sky. It was Sean Senior. Sean’s father had come back.
    “Let go of me!” Sean screamed as he fought off Elise, his movements wild and manic. He needed to get out there and meet his father. He wanted to hug him, to ask him a million questions that had piled up ever since the funeral. Sean wanted to ask him why he left, if he was really part of the Vanguard, if he really was a custodian. Tears streamed down his eyes as Sean finally broke free from Elise. She gripped onto a ragged shred of his shirt, but it broke off once Sean shoved her away. He stepped out of the golden barrier.