EPISODE I: PILOT

 I heard their screams in the middle of the night. I was fourteen at the time, and I had no idea what was happening. Standing up from my bed, I could just see a car pulling out of the driveway. Thinking it was nothing, I walked slowly down the stairs.

My parents were on the floor, a knife between them, and a pool of blood underneath their lifeless bodies.

My mom's red hair almost looked like the blood. My dad's black hair, on the other hand, was a black contrast to the red on the linoleum.

I ran through the door and grabbed my mom's cell phone. She had already tapped out the message on the touchscreen keyboard, so all I had to do was press the send button.

Their deaths had been expected. There was no time for mourning. I had to do what I had been trained for: to follow and kill Louise Rentradt.

The front door was wide open, and I could feel the cold air blowing in at me. My black leather jacket flew off the hangar and slipped itself on my body. Other than that, I was wearing the dark jeans I had worn the day before, and a white tee shirt. I ran outside, my neck-length black hair blowing in the wind.

As soon as I was on my Skybike, I was flying.

My Skybike was black with a single blue stripe going the middle, and about the size of a motorcycle. However, it looked much sleeker than a motorcycle, with a faint blue light where the wheels should be. It flew over 300 miles per hour, and could fly up to a mile in the air. It had cost around 400,000 dollars, but with my parents pay, it didn't even put a dent in our family savings.

Flying through New Chicago, I could see everything. From far away, it looked beautiful, with blue lights emanating from almost building in the city. However, as soon as you get close, you realize that it isn't as beautiful as you first thought; it looks run down, with garbage in the streets and the less fortunate sleeping in groups on the sidewalk.

I flew through the streets of the city, disgusted by the stench rising from the streets below, until I saw a car, an old 2037 Frickter, driving down a dark street. I followed him until he parked his car in front of a run-down hotel.

As soon as the Skybike was parked and off, I rushed inside of the hotel.

The place looked worse on the inside, and since I wasn't wearing socks or shoes, I could feel the cold, wood floor beneath my feet.

“May I help you?” the receptionist asked.

She looked to be about fourteen years old. Her hair had a strange style to it. It was short, except for a single section in the back, which was brought over her shoulder and reached just below the bottom of her chest. She didn't look like a normal receptionist, wearing a pink blouse and, from what I could see, blue jeans.

“I'm Chaos Rose,” I said to her. “I'm here to see Louise Rentradt?”

“Oh, thank God,” the receptionist said. “ I was afraid you would want to check in, and I probably would have had to kill you. I'm the one you're supposed to meet. My name is Lilith. What's yours?”

“My name is Chaos,” I replied. “I'm being completely serious.”

“Oh,” Lilith said. “That's an interesting name. Anyway, we should probably go up there now. We don't want her to suspect something.”

“Why would she suspect something?”

“Because she's expecting somebody to try to kill her. If nobody shows up, he's gonna think something's up, and jump ship.”

“Then let's go,” I said.

Running up the stairs in the hotel, Lilith told me her story.

Lilith had been born into a family of assassins, much in the same way I had. However, after she had been trained, she killed her parents. They had wanted her to quit, but she liked killing too much. Then, she became a full-time assassin, with contacts all over the world, although she liked jobs in the U.S. Best, since they were easier to get to.

She had met my parents on a job, and they had asked her to team up with me when the time came that I would have to become an assassin.

And when that day came, we worked together perfectly.

“I'll get us in,” said Lilith, her girlish, high-pitched voice already getting on my nerves.

I pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the door.

While knocking on the door, Lilith yelled, “Louise Rentradt? I have a private message for you. Could you open the door?”

The door creaked open, and a woman, maybe in her mid-thirties, stood behind it.

Pointing the gun at her, I said, “Louise, walk backwards now. If you make any noise, you die. If you try to run, you die. If you do anything we didn't tell you to do, you die. That includes speaking.”

The lady slowly backed into the hotel room. I could see tears slowly forming in her eyes.

“Any last words?” I asked her.

“How could a boy your age be so terrible?” she asked.

“Simple,” I replied. “It makes me feel fucking amazing.”

And with that, I pulled the trigger on the handgun.

*

2 YEARS LATER...

*

“Chaos,” Lilith said as the two of us stared at our latest assignment in amazement. “It's not possible...”

“Unless we failed,” I replied with disbelief in my voice.

For on that napkin, left in the garbage can of a small diner on the outskirts of town, was scrawled a name in the worst handwriting imaginable.

And that name was Louise Rentradt.

TO BE CONTINUED

JANUARY 3...

EPISODE II: TRUTH

“Fuck,” I said as Lilith and I looked at the napkin.

We had killed her. Surely, there was no way she could still be alive...could there?

I mean, I had shot her in the chest. What if I had missed all of her vital organs, and she had managed to call the police? Then she could still be alive...

Failure was different fromany thing I had ever felt before. Sorrow, anger, happiness, it was different from failure.

“We have to get her,” I saidto Lilith. “We have no choice.”

At this point, everything in the apartment was floating a few inches off the ground. I hadn't even noticed that the stuff was being lifted. That only happened when I got nervous; usually, I could tell it was happening.

Louise Rentradt, I thought, prepare to die.

*

“You'll never get away with this,” the girl said. “They will kill you. I'm surprised they haven't already.”

“They think I'm dead,” Louise said. “I was shot in the chest two years ago, and since then, I haven't done anything that would warrant somebody to hire an assassin to kill me.”

“They will find you,” thegirl said. “I've already made sure of that.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I made somebody hire them.”

*

The two of us were dumbfounded.

We had never failed before. Or, so we thought. Apparently, we weren't as good as we thought.

Hacking into the New American Republic's archives was easier than I thought it would be. I just had to enter a few lines of code, and voilà, it was unlocked.

Louise Rentradt, age thirty nine,was admitted to a hospital on October 3, 2082. She had taken a bullet to the chest, and had it surgically removed. It took her two weeks to recover, but when she did, she left the city and disappeared for one and a half years. Then, in 2084, she reappeared. She took out a huge loan. The money was to be used to fund scientific research which could help everyone. After that, she disappeared again.

“Do we know where she's staying?” Lilith asked me as she searched my apartment for a cigarette lighter.

“No,” I said. “In fact, we don't know much at all. She left the hospital two weeks after she was shot. She disappeared for two years. And now she's gone again.”

“Maybe she knows we're coming,”Lilith said. “Maybe she knew that, if we found her, she'd be dead.”

“Maybe...” I said. “If you're right, that means that she's anticipating us, and she's prepared. Even if we do find her, we don't stand a chance.”

“Well,” Lilith said. “Maybe we need to find her, and make sure she knows we know where she is.Then, either she will leave, and we can kill her when she's traveling, since she'll probably be unprotected, or she'll come after us, and we'll kill her then.”

“That might work,” I said.“How are we gonna find her?”

“We'll leave that,” Lilithsaid with a smile, “to chance.”

*

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Louise screamed as she threw clothes into a suitcase.

“I'm tired of being held captive,” the girl replied. “If you don't let me go, I'll make somebody call them on the phone and tell them where you are.”

“Well,” Louise said. “Ain't that what you would do. It's a good thing the full machine's still hidden, and that one is only for making the power source.”

And with that, she pressed abutton on the outside of the machine.

The girl screamed.

*

Lilith ran in with a big box ofcigarettes, a huge smile on her face.

“Oh, my fucking God,” she said as she set the cigarettes on my table. “Guess what.”

“You got the big box?” I joked.

“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, but that's not what I'm excited about. I just found out where Louise is hiding.”

“No fucking way,” I said disbelievingly.

“Yeah,” Lilith replied. “Some old lady was just standing outside. She asked me if I was Lilith, and I told her I was, and she told me Louise Rentradt was staying at the Royale on Elm.”

“If you're wrong, you're gonna have hell to pay,” I said as I picked up a cigarette out of the box and lit it.

“I understand,” she said.“Now let's go kill this bitch.”

*

Lilith and I arrived at the Royale at around noon. It was one of the only nice buildings left, after the Panic of 2012. That's when everything went to shit.

We walked in, trying as hard as we could to look like we belonged.

“We're here to see Louise Rentradt,” I said to the receptionist. “We're her grandchildren.”

“Of course,” the lady said.“Room 201.”

We took the elevator to the second floor.

“Are we ready?” I asked Lilith.

“Hells yeah,” she said.

The door flew into the room.

“She's gone,” the girl said.“But I'll help you find her if you let me out. Oh, and since when did you have telekinesis? Louise never mentioned that...”

The girl was hooked up to a very dangerous-looking machine, with exposed wires and jagged edges. There was dried blood below her mouth. I knew almost immediately that we could trust her.

“Okay,” I said, and walked towards her.

EPISODE III: KIRINA

"My name is Kirina," the girl said as she sucked down a bowl of cereal. "No need to introduce yourselves, I already know who you are."

Lillith and I had taken the girl back to my apartment after finding her in Louise's apartment.

"So," I said. What's your story?"

"Not so fast," Kirina said. "There's one thing I need to know."

"What's that?" I said.

"When did you get telekinesis?"

I thought about that question for a minute. Honestly, I had no idea. I had always been moving things with my mind, and I had never thought about where it had originated.

"I don't know," I said. "As long as I can remember."

"Wow," Kirina said. "I've never encountered something I didn't already know about..."

"Could you just get to the story?" Lillith said, a hint of impatience in her voice.

"Sure," Kirina said.

*     *     *

Kirina was born on January 8, 2068. She had discovered early on that she could control people's thoughts and actions. By the time she was eight, she had killed her parents, her sister, and three of the neighbors. That was the first time they came after her.

The government had heard about the girl who could control people, but they had never had any info on where she was hiding. Then, in 2076, they got word of several people commiting suicide in this small town. They linked the suicides back to her, and they tested their theory by sending someone to kill her. She made him commit suicide, and within seconds, she was in the back of an armored truck, unconscious.

She woke up in a prison completely alone, and she stayed there for five years. They had given her food by use of machines, but not a single person ever got close enough to her for her to kill them.

Finally, when she was thirteen, they sent somebody to make sure she was alive. She mad him tell her where she was, and made him take her out with him.

Kirina had kept her ability hidden from then on, not wanting to be sent back to the prison. She survived on her own for three years. Then, in 2084, a woman named Louise Rentradt threatened to reveal Kirina's identity to the government if she didn't meet with her. However, Louise had somehow found a way to stop Kirina's power, and Kirina was taken by Louise. Kirina had sent someone to hire Lillith and me because she knew we had almost killed Louise two years earlier, and she knew we could save her.

And that was how we came to save her.

*     *     *

"And here I am," Kirina said when she was done with her story.

"That was..." I began, "interesting. Just one question. Why didn't you control somebody to come save you?"

"That would have been stupid," she answered. "They would have died as soon as they got through the door. Assuming, of course, they even got that far."

"I've also got a question," Lillith said. "If there are two people with powers like you two, doesn't that mean that there are probably more of you?"

"Probably," I replied. "But it might not be a good idea to go out and look for them. They are most likely dangerous."

"I never suggested that," Lillith said, irritated.

"Look, you two," Kirina said. "There are others, but they aren't important at the moment. Who is is Louise Rentradt. I have no idea where she is at the moment, but I can find out."

"How?" I asked.

"Simple," she replied. "I just tell everyone in the vicinity to call us if they see her. That amounts to around 500 people. With that many people looking for her at one time, we're sure to find her."

"That works," I said. "When will they start?"

"They already have," Kirina said. "Now, all we can do is wait."

*     *     *

"I really hope this works," Louise Rentradt muttered to herself.

Everything she had done in the past two years had led up to this. If there were any mistakes, it could mean the end of the humanity, and it would be her fault.

Louise knew the risks, which made her that much more scared. However, she also knew that if she didn't take the risks, humanity would end anyway.

It had to work.

Kirina Rose was the best power source she could hope for. Behind Chaos Rose, of course.

*     *     *

We got the call at five o'clock PM the next day. Kirina answered the phone.

"Yes, this is she," she said. "The sewers? Seriously? Ew. Yeah, I know I asked, I never said I didn't. Listen you little bitch... Hello? Damn."

Then she hang up.

"Louise was spotted sneaking into the sewers," Kirina said. "That was ten minutes ago. We might be able to find her if we hurry down there."

"Let's go," I said.

The three of us headed out of the apartment and into the sewers.

TO BE CONTINUED

JANUARY 10...

EPISODE IV: SEWERS

"Thank God," Louise said as she pushed the button on the side of the machine, and the Orb began to glow.

Maybe keeping a portal into another world several miles underground in a sewer in one of the biggest cities in the country wasn't the best idea, but she hadn't had many options.

Louise Rentradt turned and walked away. The machine could do the rest on its own.

*     *     *

The flashlight went out almost three hours after we began our search.

"Fuck," I said as the light winked out of existence. "We'll never find her without light."

"We'll never find her with a light," Lillith said. "These sewers go down for around five miles. Even if we find her, she could easily get away."

"She's right," Kirina said. "We're gonna need more help."

"Where are we gonna get it, though?" I asked.

"Really?" Kirina said. "Just...really?"

All of a sudden, I could hear manholes throughout the sewers opening up, and people climbing down.Then it hit me: Kirina was making them help.

"Yeah..." I said. "I feel stupid now."

We searched all night. We made it down three levels.

We found nothing.

*     *     *

Louise was in her hotel by the time the three of them had gotten help. They wouldn't have found her. It wasn't possible. They weren't looking in the right place.

She knew that wthey would die. It wasn't the same for her, though. They killed for a living. They no longer felt guilt, and even enjoyed the power they felt when they took another life. They were sick. She, however, wasn't a killer. She still felt guilt, and she didn't want to do it.

She had no choice. She had to kill the Roses, and there were two of them in the perfect position for her to kill them.

As soon as they discovered their origin, they would realize why they had been born.

She couldn't let that happen.

*     *     *

"Can we just call it a day?" Kirina asked me as we trudged threw the third level of the sewers. "I don't think she's down here."

"She is," I said unconvincingly. "I'm sure."

"Um," Lillith called from ahead of us. "We might have a problem..."

"What is it now?" I yelled ahead.

"You are going to have to see it yourself," she replied.

I turned a corner to where she was.

She was standing in front of something that looked like a giant, black wolf with red eyes. It was glowing.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Lillith replied.

Suddenly, it charged.

The three of us ran.

"Kirina!" I yelled. "Get the other people out of this hellhole!"

"Got it!" Kirina replied.

Suddenly, I was tackeled and on the ground.

"Shit!" I yelled.

I picked up the thing and threw it against a wall, then began running again.

"Down here," Kirina said, and she disappeared downwards.

Lillith and I followed her, and Kirina pulled something over the hole.

*     *     *

"Are you really proposing this weekend?" one police officer asked.

"Of course," the other replied.

"That's a waste of money," the first one said. "Thousands of dollars, so that you can be miserable your entire life."

"That's not true," the second said. "And if it is, then you get to say, 'I told you so.'"

"Well," the first said. "Whatever you say. You have until we open this manhole and see what the fuck's going on down in the sewers to change your mind."

The first one bent down, grabbed the manhole cover, and pulled.

As soon as it was off, a giant, black wolf-like creature jumped out and attacked the second officer.

He never got the chance to propose.

*     *     *

Within the next five hours, while the three of us were working on getting out of the sewers, the city of New Chicago slowly deteriorated. After the demons escaped the sewers, they began killing anybody they could find. People were panicking, and, slowly, society within the city disappeared. The government sent the military to control all borders, and try to keep everything and everybody inside the city. Things went to shit within five hours of the demons leaving the sewers.

*     *     *

We finally got out at around nine o'clock that night.

There wasn't a soul in sight, and there was debris scattered throughout the streets.

"What happened out here?" Kirina said as we walked back to my apartment.

"I don't know," I said. "Nothing natural could have turned the biggest city in America into a desolate wasteland."

We reached my apartment building, and climbed the stairs. When we reached the top floor, we found a man, maybe thirty years old, sitting on the ground.

"They can't get me here," the man muttered as he rocked back and forth. "They can't get me here..."

"What happened?" I asked him.

He turned and looked at me for a second. Then, he jumped at me.

I used my telekinesis to throw him out the window. He landed on the ground, and as we looked down, we saw one of the wolf-like things approach and begin eating his body.

"I think I know what happened," Lillith said.

We were all thinking it.

Whatever had attacked us in the sewer was out. And it would kill anything it found.

TO BE CONTINUED

JANUARY 17...

EPISODE V: QUARANTINE

Piles of bodies in the streets. Debris throught the city. The smell of decay filling the air.

As I ran back to the apartment, these were just a few of the things that I experienced.

It had been two weeks since the city had been quarantined, and Kirina, Lillith, and I were almost out of food. We hadn't seen another living person since the guy that tried to kill me, and we feared the worst. But we were alive, and we just had to figure out how to get rid of the things that filled the city.

I ran up the stairs, flew through the apartment door, and used my powers to slam the door closed and lock it.

"Are you okay?" Lillith asked me.

"I think so," I replied. "Look what I got."

I had taken the best stuff I could find; canned green beans, canned fruit, and best of all, soda.

I dropped the bag of food on the table.

"Yes!" Kirina said. "This should last a few weeks."

"Chaos," Lillith said as we sat down to sort out the food. "We need to talk."

"No more assassinating people?" I said. "Done."

"That was easy," she said.

"I have a newfound sense of humanity," I said. "I now know what it's like to know that you're probably about to die, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"Me too," she said.

"You two still have one hit you have to do," Kirina cut in.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Louise Rentradt," Lillith said. "She caused all this, I'm sure of it. That means that she could do it again. We have to kill her to protect everyone else."

*     *     *

"God fucking damn it!" Louise shouted as she looked in the last cabinet of her hotel room.

She was out of food. She knew she had to get more, but she couldn't do it. There was a high probability that she would run into one of the Dogs, and they would kill anything that moved.

She grabbed her shotgun and headed out the door.

*     *     *

"Shit," Kirina said as she looked out the window. "Fucking shit."

"What is it?" I asked her.

"I can see some people outside," she replied. "They don't look too friendly."

"God damn it," I said. "Close the curtains."

Kirina obeyed, and I locked the door.

We were silent for ten minutes.

"Check the window," I said.

Lillith stood up and walked over. She pulled back the curtain just a little bit.

"I think their gone," she said.

"Good," I said.

The three of us sat back down at the table.

"Those were the first people we've seen in weeks," Lillith said. "Maybe there are more people out there."

"So, are we going to end this thing?" I asked.

"We should," Kirina said. "But we're going to need to go back to the sewers..."

"We can do that," I said.

"When do we leave?" Lillith asked.

"Tomorrow," I said. "We'll need an entire day to find...whatever's making these things."

*     *     *

Louise ran through the streets, managing to escape the demons. She was beginning to think that this hadn't been the best idea in the world.

Food was the most important thing right now. Nothing else mattered. She needed food, and if she didn't get it, she would die.

As she arrived at the store to find it being guarded by one of the demons, she began to wonder: was it worth it?

*     *     *

Kirina, Lilith, and I flew on our Skybikes to where we had entered the sewers the last time. We saw two of the wolf things on the way. It took us two minutes to fly the four miles to the opening.

"Are we ready?" I asked Lillith and Kirina.

"Yeah," Kirina replied.

"I guess," Lillith said.

We started three levels down, since we had searched the other two. I knew it went down around twenty levels, and it would take us a long time to find what we were looking for, but, in the end, it would be worth it. We didn't see any of the wolf-things, and we had made it to the eighth level by five o'clock at night. That meant we were making progress.

"I think we should start looking at the bottom level," Kirina said when we finished looking on the eighth. "If she caused this, and whatever she used is here, it's probably really far down, sincde nobody would think to look down there."

"You're right," I said.

We found an elevator and took it all way to the bottom level. Once out of it, we began searching. It took us less than ten minutes to find it.

"What is it?" Lillith asked.

"I think it's a portal," Kirina said.

"Well," I said. "Whatever it is, we need to shut it off."

"Pull out that blue orb floating in the glass box on the right," Kirina said. "That's the power source."

"How do you know that?" Lillith asked her.

"She used me to make it. That's the machine you found me in."

I used my telekinesis to shatter the glass, and then pulled out the orb.

*     *     *

Louise instantly felt that something was wrong. She could feel that the Orb had been removed, and that couldn't happen.

"Shit," she said as she stood up from the cheap plastic chair in her hotel room. "Fucking fuck."

There was only one more option.

She would have to kill them herself.

EPISODE VI: THE ORB

THE STORY SO FAR...

Lillith and I met on my first hit. We were supposed to take out my parents' murderer, Louise Rentradt, when I was fourteen. I would have been able to kill her myself before she had even gotten back to her hotel, but I was stupid and didn't realize what had happened until I had seen my parents' bodies, and I had to follow her to a hotel. Lillith and I shot her in the chest and left. We became a team, and became some of the world's best assassins. Two years after we met, we received a hit for Louise Rentradt, believed to be dead.

We tracked her down, only to discover that she had escaped, leaving a girl around my age stuck in a very ugly machine. We rescued her, and discovered her name to be Kirina. She pointed out that I had telekinesis, and that she had the power to control other people's minds. She used her power to help us discover that Louise was in the sewers. We followed this lead, and were attacked by giant, wolf-like things. We escaped, and when we emerged, discovered that the entire city had been overrun by the wolf things.

We hid in my apartment and tried to figure out where the wolf-things had come from. While there, Lillith and I decided Louise would be our last hit. Finally, the three of us decided to look in the sewers, since that was where our first encounter had been, and they had appeared while we were there.

While in the sewers the second time, we found a portal-making machine. Kirina revealed that the machine we had found her in had made the power source for the machine. I removed an orb at her advisement.

*     *     *

The pain shot up my arm and through my body. It was the worst thing I have felt in my life, but in just a second, it was gone. The orb had changed color, from blue to black, and I immediately felt more powerful. However, at the same time, I felt exhausted.

"What happened?" Lillith asked.

"Yeah," Kirina said. "The thing changed color right after you touched it."

"I don't know," I replied.

In all honesty, I had no idea. I may be a murderer, but I am not a liar. Or, at least, I wasn't right then. I was too tired.

"Let's go back to the apartment," Kirina said.

The three of us left the sewers the way we had come. As far down as we were, it took us a while to get back to the surface. We flew back to my apartment and sat down at the table. I had brought the orb, and I set it on the table.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb," Lillith said, "and say that that thing is useless now."

"It should be," Kirina said.

"Hey," I said as I realized something. "You knew this was the power source. What else have you not told us?"

"That's it," Kirina said. "I don't know anything else, except that it was taken from my power, and I've deduced that our power is like blood; if you don't take too much, it will regenerate."

"Okay," I said. "Now, we have to find Louise. She is now our main objective. She obviously wants us dead, and she would go so far as too kill everyone in New Chicago to get at us."

Saying that made me wonder why we never tried to leave the city. I mean, of course they had obviously made a border to surround the city, but we could have escaped. It was a random thing that floated through my head, but important, nonetheless. I voiced this opinion.

"It's because we knew Louise was still here, and we couldn't leave her alive," Lillith said.

"That makes sense," I said. "Now, where is she?"

The three of us discussed where she could be hiding. After two hours, however, we had made no progress.

*     *     *

That night, I had a dream.

I was lying in the middle of the street. The sky was black, and all of the buildings were destroyed. There were seven other people on the ground with me, Lillith, Kirina, and Louise included. Also, there was what I can only describe as a demon. Standing over us, there were two other demons. When I tried to get up, I felt that I had no power. I knew I was dying, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I woke up in the middle of the night, screaming, again feeling the pain that I had felt the moment I picked up the orb. Again, within seconds, it subsided.

*     *     *

A week after we began our search for Louise, Kirina burst into the apartment.

Kirina usually got the three of us coffee and cigarettes in the morning. I was smoking my last one from the previous day.

"Oh, my God," Kirina said. "Fuck yeah!"

"What happened?" I said as I got up from the table.

"I found her," Kirina replied.

"What?" Lillith and I said in unison.

"How?" I asked.

"It was complete chance," Kirina said. "I walked into the coffee shop, and there she was. I have somebody following her right now. She didn't see me."

"Well," I said. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

TO BE CONTINUED
NEXT THURSDAY

EPISODE VII: FINDING LOUISE

"Yeah," Kirina said into her cell phone as she, Lillith, and I walked out of the apartment building.

She tapped the screen, and put the phone in her pocket.

"She's at that old asylum just outside of Chicago," Kirina said.

"Which one?" I asked.

"Obviously the OLD Chicago," Lillith said. "There are no asylums here."

Old Chicago, as it was called now, had been the subject of a horrible catastrophe twenty years ago. Three five-year-olds broke out of the daycare in the university and found their way to the nuclear physics lab. They pressed a button, and a nuclear explosion destroyed most of the city. The university was in the center of the city, and the explosion took out everything except the outside edges of the city. New Chicago was built thirty miles outside of the wreckage. The asylum was one of the only things that survived the blast.

We walked to where we kept our Skybikes.

"Can we stop to get some cigarettes first?" I asked the others. "We know where she is, and it would only take two minutes."

"Sure," Lillith said.

Kirina nodded.

"Oh, yeah," Lillith said. "Can I be the one to kill her? I really want to."

"No, Kirina gets to," I said. "She was tortured. She gets to kill her."

"Aw," Lillith said. " I really wanted to."

*     *     *

Louise took the elevator to the bottom floor.

She knew she had been followed. That bitch, Kirina, had sent someone. But that was okay. Soon, all three of them would be dead.

In the basement, Louise set up the trap. It was extremely elaborate. None of them would see it until it was too late.

They would exit the elevator, and a pressure plate would feel them leave. It would set off a chain reaction that would result in all three of them being gassed. They would pass out, and Louise would put them in padded rooms.

This was her last option. If it didn't work, the world would end.

*     *     *

"How'd Louise find out about you?" I asked Kirina while the three of us stood in line at the store.

"What?" she said.

"Louise had to have known about you to threaten you," I said. "How did she know who you were?"

Kirina was silent for a moment. Then, she said, "I don't know. I never thought about it. Honestly, I don't think that really matters."

"You're probably right," I replied.

I was lying. There was something bad happening, and Louise was in the middle of it. I knew we would have to figure out what it was.

*     *     *

The Three watched Chaos, Kirina, and Lillith with much interest. They would do well. After all, this was what they had been createdd for.

*     *     *

Kirina, Lillith, and I arrived at the asylum fifteen minutes after we left the general store.

"We need a plan," I said as we climbed off of our Skybikes. "She's probably got something set up in there to kill us as soon as we walk through the door."

"We can rush it," Lillith said. "It won't get us if we all gang up on it."

"But we don't even know what it is," Kirina said. "What if it's something that is too big or powerful to rush it?"

She thought this over, then said, "I don't know. I didn't think about it."

"I think the best plan is to go in and see what happens," Kirina said. "Try and figure something out as we go."

"With the little we know, that might be all we can do," I said.

The three of us approached the asylum. It was big, and it looked like a castle. I pushed the door open, and the three of us walked in. The lobby looked like a picture out of a history text book about the 1950's. There was a metal elevator behind the main desk. The three of us walked over to it.

"Up, or down?" I asked.

"We should start from the bottom," Lillith said. "That way if she's above us, she will be forced upwards."

The three of us got on the elevator, and I pushed the basement button. It made a horrible screeching noise as it started.

It moved very slowly. It took several minutes for it to reach the bottom floor. We got out, and a white gas immediately began pouring from the walls. I felt myself become light-headed, and fell on the ground wretching. After around a minute of this, I passed out.

EPISODE VIII: GOODBYE, LOUISE

I woke up in a straightjacket, in a padded room.

"Hello?" I yelled. "Louise, I know you can hear me. Let me the fuck out of here, or I will make fucking sure that your death is as painful as fucking possible!"

Nothing.

"I'm not fucking kidding!" I yelled.

Silence.

So, since she wouldn't come to me, I figured I would have to go to her. I took off the straightjacket and unlocked the door. I walked out and looked down the long hallway I was standing in. I knew I couldn't handle her alone, so I began looking into the other cells to find Lillith and Kirina.

*     *     *

Louise was asleep in her chair. She didn't realize that I had left my cell. The fact that I was able to excape was her fault. She should have put me somewhere where I would have died if I moved anything. She knew about my power. She just never put two and two together.

That mistake cost her a life.

*     *     *

Lillith was tied up from the ceiling by her wrists. She had been hanging there for a long time. She could feel the rope burns.

Finally, I came upon her room.

"Are you okay?" I asked her as I untied the ropes holding her up.

"I think so," she said as she slowly floated down from the ceiling.

"We have to kill Louise today," I said.

"Yeah," Lillith replied. "We can't let her get away again. This time could mean the endo of the whole fucking world."

The two of us ran out of the cell.

*     *     *

"Would somebody please let me out?" Kirina screamed.

She was in a metal box, with just her head sticking out. It molded to her body, which meant she couldn't escape. The room looked like a crematory.

Suddenly, she felt the metal at her feet begin to heat up.

"Shit," she said. "Let me out! PLEASE! I will FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU BITCH!"

The box began moving. Lillith and I burst in just as she felt the metal begin to soften.

"Get me out!" shs yelled.

I ran over to the switch that made the conveyor belt move and turned it off. Then, Lillith and I ran over to the metal box, which was partially in the fire, and pulled it out. I split it down the middle, and pulled Kirina out. We could see she had burns on her feet.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked.

"I think so," she replied.

"Good," I said. "Now let's go find this cunt!"

*     *     *

Louise watched in horror as I saved my two friends, and knew it was over. She watched as we came up the elevator to the top floor, and she watched as we looked in each room, getting closer and closer to the end of the hallway...

She typed a command into the computer, and a timer came up on the screen. It was counting down from thirty minutes. She would win, one way or another.

*     *     *

The three of us came to the last door in the hallway on the top floor of the asylum.

"She's probably got some sort of trap set up," I said. "We need to make sure we don't trip it."

"Got it," Lillith said.

"Okay," Kirina said.

I blew the door off the hinges and across the room.

Louise was sitting behind a desk at the far right of the room. There was a computer, and there was a large projector on the other side of the room.

It was counting down from twenty five minutes when we walked in.

"Oh, look who decided to show up," she said. "You three are going to die no matter what. I hope you know that."

"I don't think so," I said. "You, however, are most definitely about to die."

"And why would you want to kill me?" she said. "I mean, I never did anything to you specifically. Sure, I sicked a bunch of demon-wolves on New Chicago, but at least I didn't keep secrets from you, like Kirina did."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I asked.

"You don't know?" Louise said. "Didn't Kirina tell you about the slight coincidence? You both have the same last name. And you both have paranormal powers. And you both were under investigation by me."

"Well, then," I said. "Tell us about this investigation."

"On January 8, 2068, four people appeared in the national database," she said. "They weren't born in any hospital. They all had different parents. They all had the same last name. And they all had some sort of paranormal power. Originally, I was part of a team of twenty people. They all died. I am the only one left. And I have deduced that the four people are all siblings. The two of you make up half of the group. Chaos, there's a reason I ran from your house when I killed your parents; I knew what you were capable of, and I wanted to avoid it."

"Cut the crap," I said. "There's no way we're siblings. We don't even know each other."

"Unless you were made by some force more powerful than humans."

I was silent for a moment. Then, I said, "Well, that isn't relevant. What matters now is that we're going to kill you."

"Come at me, bro."

I threw her at the ceiling, then slammed her on the floor. Then, I snapped her neck.

The countdown was at one minute.

"Run," I said.

The other two ran out of the room. Before I followed, I grabbed a file I saw on the desk.

Only seconds after we escaped the building, the four corners exploded and the building caved in.

*     *     *

"What did you take?" Kirina asked me as we walked into my apartment.

"This," I said, taking out the file and throwing it on the table.

"Let's look at it," Lillith said.

We opened it. What we saw surprised us.

TO BE CONTINUED
FEBRUARY 14...

EPISODE IX: OPHELIA'S KIDNAPPING

THE STORY SO FAR...

When I was fourteen, my parents were murdered. They had trained me to be an assassin, and I joined forces with Lillith to kill their killer, Louise Rentradt. Together, we thought we'd killed her. The two of us became a team, and over the next two years, became two of the best assassins in the business. Then, we discovered that Louise hadn't actually died.

While trying to find her, we came across Kirina Rose, a girl my age who had the power to control people's minds, and also had an axe to grind with Louise. She pointed out my telekinesis, and together, the three of us discovered Louise hiding in the sewers. However, she had unleashed some demon dog things, and they ravaged New Chicago. We managed to send them back to Hell before continuing our search for Louise.

Finally, in an extreme coincidence, Kirina found her in a coffee shop. She made somebody follow her while Kirina came back for us. We went to an asylum in Old Chicago, and once there, we were gassed. When we woke up, we were all in separate rooms. I escaped and helped the others before we went after Louise for the last time.

Louise was hiding in the top floor of the asylum, which she had rigged to explode. She told us that she had been investigating us when she had killed my parents, and that Kirina and I were brother and sister. I killed her, this time for sure, and we escaped just as the building exploded. As we left, I took a file I had seen on her desk. That was where the story left off...

I couldn't believe what was in the file. It shouldn't be there. It had to be faked...unless...

"You knew," I said, turning to Kirina. "You knew what was going on, and you didn't say a word! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

"I didn't know," she said. "I swear."

"Don't play stupid," I said. "I want to know now if you're hiding anything else. If you tell us this second, we will forgive you. If not, we'll kill you."

"I really don't know anything," Kirina said.

I didn't believe her at all. At least, not at first. However, the thought that she was telling the truth began spreading through my mind. I managed to figure out what was happening in time to prevent it.

"You're not controlling me," I said, and turned to Lilith. "Lilith, if you think that there's even a possibility that she's telling the truth, realize that she's controlling you. That's how Louise managed to stop her."

"Got it," Lilith said.

"Now," I said. "Time for you to explain."

"Fine," Kirina said. "I'll start from the beginning..."

* * *

Ophelia walked home from school this way every day. She was sixteen years old, and had been adopted before she was even a year old. She had no idea who her parents were. Or, her biological parents. Her REAL parents were the ones she lived with.

Her latest client, Jerome, was standing a block down from her house. She ran up to him.

"I thought I told you never to come to my house," Ophelia said as she took out the small bag of heroin.

"You did," he said as he took out the money. "But I'm dry."

Ophelia was one of the biggest drug dealers in New York. She dealt to nearly every dealer in the city. Her parents had no idea what she did to get all of her money, but they could never get a straight answer, so they pretended like it didn't matter.

They exchanged, and she turned around and began walking back to her house.

She made it fourteen feet before Jerome grabbed her. Within seconds, she was in the back of an armored truck.

"What the fuck is going on?" she said. "Let me go, or I will fucking kill your asses."

"Sorry, sweetheart," said Jerome. "You ain't gettin' away."

"Shit," Ophelia said.

Very slowly, the heat in the armored truck began to rise.

Then, her head was banged against the wall and she passed out.

* * *

"So, you're saying that you knew about the four of us," I said, "you knew we all had powers, and you knew where the other two were, but that's it?"

"What else could I possibly know?" Kirina said. "I only know that stuff from Louise."

"Whatever," I said. "Right now, we need to focus on finding these other two...Ophelia and Lightning."

"Quick question," Lilith said as she looked at her cell phone. "This may seem like a few too many unlikely coincidences in a single day, but is it at all possible that one of the other two Roses is a drug dealer in New York that goes by the alias 'Shattered Skeleton?'"

"Yes," Kirina replied. "That's Ophelia. Why?"

"She's being held for ransom," Lilith said. "Some people kidnapped her and will sell her to the police for 1 million dollars."

We were all silent for a moment.

Finally, I said something:

"Shit."

TO BE CONTINUED
FEBRUARY 21, 2013...

EPISODE X: OPHELIA'S RESCUE

They didn't know what to do. The police hadn't yet responded to their offer, and if they didn't soon, Ophelia would have to die.

* * *

Ophelia, a.k.a., the third Rose, was unconscious, with a group of criminals ransoming her to the police. She couldn't escape, so we had to save her. How would we save her? Simple: break into the warehouse she was being kept in, kill everyone inside, and pull her out.

Easier said then done.

As Kirina, Lilith, and I flew on our Skybikes towards New York, I realized this, and spoke up about it.

"So," I said. "It's going to be really hard to get this Ophelia girl."

"We're assassins," Lilith said. "We can manage."

"Okay," I said unassuredly.

I knew we wouldn't be able to manage. First off, we didn't even know how many people were holding her. It could be one, it could be eighty. We had no way of knowing. Second, we didn't know the layout of the place she was being held.

We flew all the way to New York. The police left the kidnappers alone. It took us three days. She didn't wake up.

* * *

"What are we going to do about the girl?" One of the two kidnappers said. "The police aren't accepting or denying."

"I don't know," the other one, the one she had been selling the drugs to, said. "If the police don't take, we could always ransom her to her parents..."

"They can't afford that," the first one said. "Even if they sell their house. And they don't know about her business."

"So..." the second one said. "We could kill her."

* * *

The three of us arrived in New York on our Skybikes three days after we left New Chicago. It was dirty. I could smell the smoke. Everybody looked like they were homeless.

"Um," Lilith said as we walked through the streets, looking for the warehouse. "We have a problem. The kidnappers have decided that if the police haven't paid by the end of the day, they'll kill her."

"Shit," I said. "We have to go get her right now."

We began running back to our Skybikes and climbed on.

"I'll check the northwestern third," I said. "You guys split the south and west."

I flew off.

* * *

The Three watched as the Roses and Lilith searched for Ophelia. They were amazing. They might actually complete their task.

* * *

After only twenty minutes, Lilith called me on my cell phone.

"Hey," I said as soon as I answered. "What's up?"

"The warehouse is on the west edge of the city," Lilith said. "Come here now."

I flew over to her. Kirina was already there.

"How are we getting her?" I asked.

"There are two people in there," Lilith said. "We could take them."

We ran over to the door, and I blasted it in.

The fight only took a few seconds. I threw one of the captors threw the highest window in the building, and threw him nearly one mile in the air. Kirina controlled the other one and made him shoot himself in the head. Lilith grabbed Ophelia and carried her out while all of this was happening. She was unconscious still.

We put her on the back of my Skybike and began flying back to New Chicago. I held her on with my telekinesis.

* * *

The four of us stopped after two hours. Ophelia still wasn't awake. We got her own room and left my door open into her room. Finally, at around midnight, she woke up.

She had straight, blonde hair that reached her waist. She was wearing a Catholic school uniform.

"What's going on?" she said.

The temperature began rising significantly. I remembered from the file that she had the power to raise the temperature in any area to any temperature, and possibly lower it, but that hadn't been confirmed.

"Calm down," I said. "We saved you. And we need your help. And stop heating up this room, I don't want to burn to death."

The temperature stopped going up. I walked over to my bag, opened it, grabbed the file out of it, and threw it to her.

"You are one of four people that has a paranormal power," I said. "I am one. My friend, and my friend Kirina is. My other friend, Lilith, isn't. We are trying to figure out where we came from."

"That's understandable," she said after thinking over it for a moment. "I'll help you."

"Okay," I said. "First, tell me your story."

"Okay," Ophelia said. "I'll start at the beginning."

* * *

Ophelia was adopted before she was one. Her parents loved her very much, and trusted her completely. She began selling drugs when she was fourteen, and by the time she was sixteen, she was the biggest drug dealer in New York. Of course, she was just a legend to the police. She was that good.

Her story didn't reveal anything.

* * *

It took us two more days to get back to New Chicago. The three of us had sparked a new interest in Ophelia's origin, and she had decided to come with us.

As the four of us looked at the file in my apartment, where we had all begun living until we found a bigger one, we realized that the fourth one would be very much harder to find. Nobody had seen him in years. His last sighting had been in California. We had no idea where he could be.

And the worst part: the hard part hadn't even begun.

TO BE CONTINUED
FEBRUARY 28...

EPISODE XI: LIGHTNING

Lilith, Kirina, and I were waiting for Ophelia to finish with her phone call. She thought she might know someone that could help us find Lightning.

Finally, she hang up.

"I've got nothing," Ophelia said. "Absolutely nothing. This has never happened to me before."

"Where was his last known residence?" I asked Kirina, who was holding the files.

"A small town in Maine," Kirina replied. "But it's been completely abandoned.

"We should start there," I said. "Maybe he left some hint as to where he went."

The four of us went out to our Skybikes (we had bought Ophelia one just after we arrived in New Chicago), and began flying towards Fog, Maine.

* * *

The Three knew it was almost time. They would win, and what they wanted would be what happened. The Roses couldn't stop it even if they wanted it to.

* * *

Lightning was at the store. He needed more food. The cans were running out, and when that happened, he would have to go to another town. That wouldn't do. Not at all.

He had to find another way to get more food so that nobody discovered him.

* * *

The four of us rode our Skybikes for four days before we finally arrived in Fog. As Kirina had said, the place was completely deserted.

"Where did he live?" I asked as we walked through the town.

However, I didn't need to. Just ahead of us, I saw a person turn and begin walking in front of us. We quietly ran up to the person.

"Excuse me," I said. "Do you know where Lightning Rose lived before everybody left here?"

The person turned around, and I immediately recognized his short brown hair and blue eyes from the picture. I pushed him over and held him completely still except for his face, and walked over to him.

"Finally," I said. "We're not going to hurt you. We just want to ask you some questions, and then, you can do whatever you want."

"Fine," he said. "What do you want to know?"

* * *

Lightning had lived in the town of Fog his entire life. At an early age, he had discovered that he had the power to create portals to another realm. He had used these portals to get rid of everybody that had anything to do with the town, and he soon lived by himself. Nobody had discovered him until the four of us came looking for him.

* * *

"So," I said. "You have no idea where we came from?"

"Well," Lightning replied, "I can make these portals. Maybe if we go through, we'll find something."

"Let's try," I said.

I released him, and he used his fingers to cut a ractangle in the air. He entered first, followed by Kirina, Lilith, Ophelia, and finally, me. We walked forward a little ways, taking it all in.

The sky was red, and the world we had entered was barren except for a single speck on the horizon.

"Let's go that way," I said, pointing towards the speck.

We began walking.

TO BE CONTINUED
MARCH 7

EPISODE XII: DEMON SPAWN

As Lillith, Kirina, Ophelia, Lightning, and I walked towards what we could now see was a city, I got my first look at Lightning. He had brown hair that reached his neck. He had brown eyes. He was wearing a Catholic school uniform, which confused me, since he hadn't gone to school in a long time.

Nobody had spoken since we had started walking, so I decided to say something.

"What do you guys think we're going to find once we get there?" I asked.

"Something or someone that want's to kill us," Lillith said.

"Why do you think that?" I asked her.

"Because that's happened a lot lately," she replied.

After that I stopped talking.

It took us three hours to arrive at the city.

* * *

"They're here," Julius said. "Should we greet them?"

"Yes," Tequa replied. "It's been a long journey. They deserve an explanation. We'll answer any questions they might have."

* * *

The five of us walked through the streets of a desolate, run-down city. It looked like New Chicago would if nobody had lived there in two hundred years.

We walked for around ten minutes before finally coming to a building with power.

"Should we go in?" I asked the others.

"Sure," Kirina said.

"Okay," Lillith said.

"I don't see why not," Ophelia said.

The five of us approached the building, and I pushed the door open.

Inside, there was a single overhead light on. standing under it were three...things. They looked like nothing I had ever seen before; they had horns and claws, their skin was completely white, their eyes were completely black, and their arms and legs were unproportional to the rest of their bodies.

"Hello," the middle one said. "My name is Tequa."

"I am Julius," the one on the left said.

"I am Karinda," the one on the right said.

"What are you?" I asked, choosing my words carefully.

"We are your creators," Tequa replied. "You were all given to parents we thought would raise you to fulfill your mission."

"Which was...?" I said.

"You are to bring about the end of the world," Tequa said. "It is what you were created for. I have to say, you are better fit for this job than I expected. You took out Louise even faster than I would have thought possible."

"You were watching us?" Kirina said.

"Yes," Julius replied. "We had to make sure you were good enough, or we would have had to destroy you."

I was silent.

"Well," I said. "We won't destroy the Earth. It's our home."

"You don't have a choice," Karinda said. "You have been chosen. No matter what, you will end the world."

"What if we all kill ourselves?" Lillith asked.

"It will happen anyway," Tequa replied. "You don't seem to understand. You are ending the world no matter what you do. It's your destiny."

"Unless we kill you first," I said.

All five of us got into a battle stance. I used my telekinesis to throw Tequa at a wall. Lillith had taken out her guns and was shooting Julius and Karinda. Kirina had grabbed an antique-looking sword and was attacking Kirinda. Lightning had broken a table and was using the legs on Julius. And Ophelia was heating up the air around all of them.

They were taken off guard, but once they regained themselves, they began attacking us. Julius hit Ophelia and Lillith to the right, and they were knocked unconscious. Karinda threw Kirina and Lightning on the ground. And Tequa picked me up.

"You cannot kill us," the demon said. "We live forever."

Then, I was thrown on the ground.

"Lightning," I yelled. "Make a portal. I'll get Ophelia and Lillith. Lightning opened a portal to Earth. I picked up Ophelia and Lillith as I ran towards it, and we were all out of it within seconds.

"Eight days until the world ends," Tequa said as Lightning closed the portal to Hell.

To Be Continued
March 13.

EPISODE XIII: THE END OF THE WORLD

The story so far...

My parents were murdered when I was fourteen. I thought that my best friend Lillith and I had killed their killer. We found out two years later that we had been wrong, and after several detours and a new recruit, Kirina, we managed to kill her.

As we were escaping from the place of the murderer's death, I stole a file. In it, the three of us discovered that Kirina and I were technically brother and sister, which explains our powers, and that there were two others. Almost immediately, another one of us, Ophelia, was kidnapped by a rival drug lord. The three of us rescued her, and she joined us. We then began searching for the final one of us, Lightning. We found him living in an abandoned town, and discovered that he has the power to open portals to Hell. We entered one of these portals, and met with three Demons, who told us that we were going to bring about the apocalypse. We fought them, and lost, but we managed to escape. Just as we fled through a portal back to Earth, we discovered that we had eight days until the end of the world. Now, we must try to find a way to stop it...

* * *

Eight days left...

It was an impossible deadline. We had eight days not only to figure out how the world was going to end, but also to figure out how to stop it. Then, we would have to execute that prevention plan. It was shitty.

The five of us had to do it all ourselves. It was going to be hell.

* * *

The five of us arrived at my apartment with seven days left until the supposed end of the world.

"What are we supposed to do?" I asked the other four as we sat at my table. "We can't just let the world end."

"I think I learned about those demon things at school," Ophelia said. "We could start by looking up myths and stuff..."

"That might work," I said.

The five of us went to the library down the road from my house and began looking for anything on myths that might mention the Demons.

* * *

Louise had had no idea Carla was still alive.

The final living member of the task force. She was supposed to have died years ago, but she was still alive. Now, she knew what they were up to. Bugging Chaos's room had been the best thing she could have done.

They were going to end the world. Carla couldn't let that happen; they had already hurt too many people as it was. Something had to be done.

Reluctantly, Carla walked over to her cell phone and picked it up.

* * *

The five of us searched for almost three days with no luck. Then, on the third day, Lightning found something.

"It has a painting of them," Lightning said as the four of us peered over his shoulder at the computer screen. "It says that they will create four humans that will bring about the end of the world, whether they mean to or not..."

"Does it say how to stop it?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "But it says they're called the 'Gregmoir.'"

"Okay," I said. "Now search for the Gregmoir. Try and figure out how to stop the humans they created from destroying the Earth."

We went back to our computers.

* * *

The Gregmoir were waiting. There were only a few days left until the end. Carla was going to try to stop them, but she would fail. There was no stopping them now that they had started.

They had done well.

* * *

We found it two days before the end of the world.

I clicked on a link I was sure would be completely worthless, and it gave the most information possible.

"Guys," I said. "I figured it out."

"What do we have to do?" Lightning asked me.

"The only way to stop a Gregmoir apocalypse prediction," I said, "is to merge Earth and Hell. To do that, we must open the biggest possible portal. Then, they will be sucked into each other, and neither will end."

"How do we do that?" Lightning asked. "We have two days. It would have to be a giant portal."

"Exactly," I said, turning back to the computer. "I'm buying us plane tickets to Australia."

It would be a straight flight. If Lightning opened a portal from here to there, it would surely be big enough...

Right?

TO BE CONTINUED
MARCH 21, 2013

EPISODE XIV: MERGE

In the early 2000's, one of the longest flights in the world was from California to Australia. However, since the planes have been upgraded as technology progressed, the longest flight in the world in 2084 was a straight flight from New Chicago to Australia.

The five of us needed to go on that flight. It would most definitely be long enough to open a portal that would merge the two worlds.

I booked us a flight for the day of the apocalypse.

* * *

Carla sat on the plane as the Roses and that other girl boarded. They were going to use this plane to destroy the world. She knew it. So, she had to stop them.

She knew they probably knew the assassins she had hired. The hired killers might even be hesitant to kill them at first. But, in the end, they would do it for money.

* * *

"Okay," I said as the plane sat at the gate, waiting for departure. "Remember the plan. Kirina, you control the people and the pilots so that they stay calm and act normal. Lightning, you open the portal that will take out the back of the plane, and begin the giant portal. Ophelia, you keep the temperature stabilized, and I will keep the air particles in the plane. Lillith, get the masks on the people, just in case something happens."

"Okay," they all said in unison.

They all went about their various jobs, and within a few minutes, we were off the ground, with a giant hole in the back of the plane and Lightning opening a portal behind us. However, almost as soon as we were in the air, Kirina said something troubling.

She came up behind me and whispered in my ear: "I can't control the other passengers."

"Try harder," I said. "You could control them earlier, couldn't you?"

"Yeah," she replied. "But then, they kind of forced me out of their heads, and now I can only control the pilots."

"That's strange," I said. "The only person that's been able to block you before was..."

Immediately, I began to panic. She couldn't be alive. She had died in the explosion...right? The truth is, I wasn't completely sure. Yes, I had hurt her so much, anybody else would have died, and yes, she should have been trapped in the asylum...but then again, it wouldn't be the first time she'd surived something that should have killed her.

Had Louise survived, hired a bunch of assassins, and taught them to block Kirina? It wasn't impossible.

"Keep the pilots under control," I said to her. "I've gotta check something."

If Louise had hired these people, I could be sure that she would have come to watch. I don't know why I was so sure of this, but I was.

I began walking from the front to the back, but Louise wasn't on the plane.

It was odd, though, that they hadn't reacted to the giant hole in the back if the plane...

All of a sudden, I had been tackled to the ground. I threw the person off of me, over Lightning, and out the back of the plane.

"Protect Lightning," I said to the others.

Within seconds, Lillith was stabbing one of the people in the back, one of the assassins' skin was boiling, and I had thrown two others out of the plane.

The fight was over in under a minute.

Then, a person came out from the front, with their hands in the air.

"Stop," she said. "I give up."

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked her.

"I'm Carla," she replied. "I worked with Louise."

"I thought she was the only person on the task force that was still alive," I said. "How did you survive?"

"I hid," Carla replied. "The same as she did after you tried to kill her the first time. And now, I'm going to stop you from destroying this planet."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I asked her. "We want to save the planet, not destroy it."

"Really," she said, unconvinced. "Then what's the point of that portal?"

"It's supposed to merge this universe with Hell," I replied. "That's supposed to stop the apocalypse."

"Well, it won't," she said. "And I know I can't stop you on my own."

"So what are you going to do?" I asked her.

"I don't want to be here when the world ends," she said. "And it looks as if that's going to be today. So, goodbye."

I tried to keep her from doing it, but she ran to the back of the plane and jumped. I couldn't slow her fall, since I lost sight of her within seconds.

"Go back to your jobs," I said. "We need to do this. It will save the world."

And that was the end of the task force that Louise, Carla, and eighteen others had been a part of. With Carla's suicide, the group ended forever.

TO BE CONTINUED
MARCH 28...

EPISODE XV: APOCALYPSE

The flight lasted twenty one hours. It was hard to stay awake the entire flight, but we did. We kept ourselves and the pilots alive.

It might have been the worst thing we had done yet.

* * *

"Finally," Kirina said as the plane landed. "That took forever."

The five of us climbed off the plane through the hole, and looked up at the sky. You could see through the portal, but that wasn't what we were looking at.

The portal was basically a line across the sky. However, slowly, it was spiderwebbing. It was like the sky was a sheet of glass, and it was breaking. The part that was on the ground by the portal was splitting three dimensionally, and it didn't look good. Suddenly, from the portal, there was an earsplitting sound.

We all covered our ears, and began to run. We jumped the fence, and ran away from the airport. We didn't stop running for almost five minutes, even though the noise stopped after only a few seconds.

Once we stopped, I turned to the others.

"Shit," I said. "I think we fucked up."

"Nah, really?" Lillith said. "It's the end of the fucking world here."

"I think this is what was supposed to happen," Lightning said.

"What?" I said.

"Actually, it makes sense," Ophelia said.

"Yeah," Kirina said. "The demons probably planted the false knowledge that a portal this big would save the world so that, when we came along and had decided to save it, we would actually be doing exactly what they wanted."

I thought about it for a moment.

"You're right," I said. "That means we need to get out of here."

We ran to a house. I broke the garage door off, and we stole the flying car inside. As we flew away, a man came out and tried to chase us, but we were gone before he could do anything to stop us.

Lillith was driving, and I was sitting in the back. I turned around to see a shadow covering the entire landscape, and most of the things that were being covered died almost instantly.

"We need to kill them," I said. "We seriously need to kill them."

"We can't," Ophelia said. "It's not possible. They're immortal."

"There is one way," I said.

"What's that?" Lightning asked as we drove away from the shadow even faster.

"I'll tell you when we stop," I said.

The truth was, I was scared out of my fucking skull; for the first time in my life, even counting the demon-dog-things in New Chicago (we never actually figured out where they came from), imminent death seemed like a real threat. So, when it came down to talking about my solution, I chose not too.

Because, when we had been researching during the eight days, I discovered how to kill them. However, in doing so, I would most definitely die.

I was scared, and I didn't want to tell them.

* * *

The five of us didn't stop going. We were just a little bit faster than the shadow, and since the car we had stolen was new, it was solar powered.

As we drove, we listened to the news on the radio. The shadow was spreading at an amazing speed, and everything it touched seemed to die. There were only a handful of people that had survived it. People were advised to hide in their basements, and try to avoid going outside at all costs. It was spreading in four directions, and it was going to meet at a point over the Atlantic Ocean.

At some point, we were going to hit it. We had to kill the Gregmoir before that happened.

* * *

As the Gregmoir walked the Earth for the first time, they saw what was happening to their creation. The Earth was being destroyed. Almost everyone was dying.

They smiled as they watched the world burn.

* * *

"We're over the atlantic ocean now," Ophelia said as we began to pass over a huge bodyh of water. "We're going to meet with the other three parts of the shadow."

"Keep going," I commanded Lillith. "We'll be okay."

We were able to keep going for twenty minutes before we came to another part of the shadow.

"Turn around!" I shouted.

Lillith obeyed, and we were met by the shadow we had been escaping.

We were on the point where the shadow was going to converge. The radio had been static for a while now, and we knew that almost everybody was dead.

As we tried to drive away, the shadow converged on our location, and the car was thrown across the ocean.

I don't remember anything after that.

TO BE CONTINUED
MARCH 28, 2013...

EPISODE XVI: THE GREGMOIR

I woke up inside the car. It was smashed, and the other four were still knocked out. I pushed the door open, and climbed out of the car.

The landscape was barren; there was no water, even though we had crashed in the ocean. It looked almost like a desert. I looked at the car, and saw a piece of paper attached to it. I picked it up and looked at it.

Chaos,
You have lost. You did exactly what we wanted, and now your world is over. However, you can still live forever. Simply come back to where all of this began, and we will give you the locations of all the remaining humans.

I knew that the only way to kill them would be to go back to the beginning. That would either be the asylum, or my childhood house. But I couldn't do it alone. I would need my friends to help me.

The Gregmoir would die. And, possibly, the world would come back to life. It wasn't guaranteed, but it was a possibility.

I waited for the other four to wake up before I left. That might have been a bad idea.

"We're coming with you," Lillith said. "I won't take no for an answer."

The others nodded in agreement. I knew there was absolutely no chance of changing their minds. I also knew that they would probably die.

"Then I should tell you my plan," I said. "I was going to use my telekinesis to condense everything in the immediate area into a single point. Then, I was going to expand it. That would have caused everything to disintegrate, including the Gregmoir. I discovered that disintegration could kill them when we were researching ways to stop the apocalypse, and figured out that I could do it on a small scale in the apartment during lunch one day."

"Wouldn't that..." Kirina began.

"...Kill you?" Ophelia finished.

"Yes," I replied.

"That's not going to happen," Lightning said. "There has to be another way. And besides, how would they even know how to kill them? They haven't done it before."

"We're in this together," Lillith said. "We won't abandon you."

I felt terrible. I thought there was no way to stop them other than my death. However, with them, it was possible that we would be able to put an end to all of this.

* * *

The five teenagers would come. They had to. It was their fate. And when they did, they would be killed.

* * *

"It's a great plan," I said. "But how do we know they'll fall for it?"

"Trust me," Lightning said. "They will."

I picked up the car, fixed it so that we could all get inside, and once we had all piled in, I made it fly towards the U.S.A.

We had a plan. It would work. And there was even a possibility that it would bring the world back to life. After all, it was their existence that had caused this apocalypse...wasn't it?

It would work. I knew it.

* * *

When the five of us finally arrived at the wrechage that was my childhood home, the Gregmoir were standing outside.

"Why did you make this world?" I asked them when I had climbed out of my car. "Did you really build it just to watch it die?"

"Yes," Tequa said. "It's extremely fun, you know. It's like a movie. You should try it sometime."

"I'd rather not," I said. "I just have one more question. Why did you make us? Why couldn't you just come to our world and destroy it on your own?"

"Because we couldn't," Tequa replied. "We couldn't create a world and then go to it on our own. So, we created you and nudged you in the direction we wanted you to go. Then, once our world and your world merged, we could watch as the world died."

"You monsters!" I yelled.

That was the signal.

I threw Lightning into the air, and moved him around until he had created a portal big enough for the Gregmoir to fit through, fast enough so that they couldn't get to him.. Then, while holding him above it, I forced them halfway into it, halfway out. Then, Lightning closed the portal, and they were all cut in half. The half still in our world disintegrated immediately.

I honestly didn't know if this one would work. Since our world and Hell had merged, I thought there would be nowhere to open a portal to. But apparently, Hell and the Gregnoir's world were two different places, and Lightning could still open portals. They hadn't expected that, and we had used the element of surprise to our advantage. And even if it hadn't worked, I could have always done the condensing/expanding method.

Where the portal had been, a bright light began to emanate. It got so bright that I couldn't see.

I lost consciousness.

THE END OF VOLUME I.
VOLUME II COMING APRIL 11...