I'd often thought that maybe, just maybe, ghosts had consciousness of their own though I'd never really given much time to experimenting. I'd also wrongly pictured them as aggressive beings who would wither away at one mention of any holy text. Unfortunately, this was when life decided to answer my questions.

"God. Angel. Jesus. I don't know much, Ughh I can't read! What about the Quaran? Lord Krishna? The freaking twelve Olympians?" None of it seemed to work, and I think it's not counted as progress when the table goes from levitating to shaking unsteadily. One might think that supernatural thing might be laughing at me.

The point is, it got distracted. And one thing to remember while calling the shots is never let your guard down.

Without wasting another moment, I edged off the table, dragged a floating Messiah, and booted the two of us out the Loner– all that while wondering what was wrong with the world. It was quite a feat, I must say.

I tumbled out onto the pavement, and I'm sure I must have punctured a lung or plausibly both, but I didn't let go of my Messiah. I was clueless about how I was supposed to snap him out of his stupor and more than a little shaken after the incident. Nothing crawled out of my now ex-haven, as it happens in those unrealistic horror films. If not for Messiah beside me, I would have thought that this was another crazy hallucination. I may have surprised that thing, but I definitely didn't stop it.

"Psst. Over here." Great, just great. Now inanimate objects were beginning to talk to me. "You heard me– over here!" I would have ignored such unhelpful locations, but I sensed an urgency in the voice, which I also dismissed.

"Nope, he wants to kill you." That sounded somewhere beside a tree. I had a horrible vision of those old paintings with a woodcutter chopping a speaking tree. I whirled around, foreboding the possibility of a maniacal grin pasted on the bark of the tree. Instead, I met with a strikingly handsome fellow– And I do not give compliments that easily. Sharp jawline. Slightly tanned, but otherwise creamy face. Beautiful ruby eyes. Muscles? You mean a lorry truck? Lofty burgundy hair– My hand itched to touch it. And there was the maniacal grin– fixed on his thin lips.

Only when I gave him a second glance did I realize that he was... impossible. First of all, what's up with that odd eye colour? 19th Century dress-up? Were his legs hovering in the air? I couldn't tell his exact age– His get-up was twenty years old, but his eyes shone with old socks and wrinkles. A bit of wisdom too, but my pride won't let me admit that. And please, no one that good-looking was supposed to exist– Mass women stampedes were fatal.

But he was not the only thing I saw.

The other voice? The one that extended aid towards me first? It came from a traffic light. Well, another gorgeous hunk leaned against the yellow pole, mastering the art of looking mesmerizing while performing ordinary activities. He had more sharp, sly features than adorable– angled eyebrows, dark shady hair looming over his obsidian eyes, and a pale complexion. Basically, the kind that makes your ovaries go ooh-la-la but is also sophisticatedly unapproachable and with full-clad asperity. His hands were in his pockets, and if victorian clothing could attack a person, those full-cuffed shirts with a zillion button and those thin-stripped overalls would crucify you alive. It wasn't legal for something this alluring to live either– I would have compared them to angels, but of the fallen kind.

It was like one of those moments when all you've got is a handful of pennies, but in front of you paraded the entire candy selection enough for the next ten years, and each of the savouries begged you to pick them. The only difference, I didn't have that handful of pennies.

I stared at no one in particular, mouth slightly ajar– Just like I'd pictured the worst-case scenario when I would finally meet hot guys with extraordinary swag. "I'm dying. Don't interrupt." I muttered and re-focused all my attention to Messiah.

I wish I hadn't. Messiah was there alright, but something was hugging his neck. It had familiar rusty shoulder-length hair, with the (somehow) natural blonde highlights clashing against the black– Oval amber eyes, with pronounced eyelashes and burly eyebrows. I might have thought that I was staring at a mirror had it not been for the porched, gray layer of what you'd regard as skin. Do you know how a volcano looks when it's about to erupt?– Molten magma snakes underneath the rocky surface, trickling, undermining through the fissures. The result is a glowing beam of brightness wending its path of soil and stone. Except for her face– A gray, sandpapery mass replacing the rock and an even darker abyss ousting the magma. An unearthly smile curved on the edges of her mouth as she cradled a floating Messiah as if she'd known him for a great deal of her life. She was me, but at the same time, my counter rival.

I felt a hand grip my shoulder, but it felt a million miles away. I supposed I should have rooted in place– Either screaming like a lice-infested monkey I was or unable to use my gift of vocals at all. Running away like a hooligan wasn't that bad anyway. But without Messiah? I would have settled for conventional animosity making me want to murder someone, but no, I had to choose that.

I took a deep breath, hoping what I was about to do would provide an improvised means of distraction. Then I punched myself flat on the nose.

Yes, you read it right. The self-controlled, refined me pulverized my vulnerable, innocent nose for no apparent reason. I needed to improve my knowledge of my strength– Where my nose should be was a lot of blood squashed and mulched. But I didn't feel any pain– Only confusion. While my brain tried to figure out what the actual heck happened, I seized Messiah and bolted.

If I was muddled, the boys were supremely befuddled by my unusual characteristics and choice of action. The one leaning on the pole slipped and fell into an open ditch nearby, and the redhead's jaw was never coming back, judging from how low it hung. Under other circumstances, I would've laughed so hard that I collapsed, but some situations so bring out the best in you. The supernatural disaster looked surprised for a second, and then it followed me, snarling and whining. Gone was my doppelganger– And all that remained was some ferocious, nasty piece of work with serious mental issues.

The thing was nearing with an alarming speed, its arms reaching out to hug me in a firm embrace. Yeah, encircling those rotten masts of flesh around me, clogging my air supply forever. So cuddly.

I cursed myself and my incompetent body– Why, oh why could I run without staggering? Where was my sense of direction? On other days, a death sprint wouldn't be a problem, but since panic and uncomprehension had overtaken my brain, who knew what else could happen? I ran into streetlights, post boxes, and even entangled Messiah with a pile of bicycles. I twisted both my ankles and sprained my knee. Pretty sure Messiah would agree with me– Stop the torture. Yet I ran because having your life on line is something that gives enough intuition.

I looked behind me– Big mistake. It was so close that I could have sworn its horrid breath was wilting my hair. And it was drooling wi-

ZONGGG!

"GODFUCKINGDAMMIT!"

I pressed my hand to my nose– ow– and glared at the street sign into which I'd crashed. Enough was enough. I gave the notice a hard kick. "Do not run on the street."

A moist hand touched my shoulder. In other words, a slug was trying to squeeze through my armpit. Time froze– Well, except for some slime dripping down my shoulder. An unidentifiable shock rippled through my system. The street sign suddenly looked terrifyingly hair-raising, and those letters wanted to eat me. The entire world seemed scary. My vision became unfocused, the scenery blurring into blackness. An-

Messiah. He was disappearing too. Just like every other thing/person I'd held dear. I stopped struggling– Let it take me. What was the point of living when everything you adored was gone? For a few horrid moments, nothing happened as my blackness clouded over. Then, I saw something in his white eyes, a fraction of his former self. It wasn't much, but the glint was enough to let me know that my Messiah was still there, waiting for me.

Determination filled me, and I was no longer the one toiling. Victim? I was a survivor. If I could live twenty years of my life, then I could make it through another day. Ever read those manga comics? The next moment could've been one from that.

I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips. These kinda problems needed some attitude to show them who was boss. Shrugging the arm off my shoulder, I turned around and jabbed a finger at the thing.

"You, " I said threateningly. "Not one rancid toenail near me."

It lunged.

Blades-or-nails extended from its fingertips, and its skin exploded into a mulch of gray and black. Its hair danced in the air– Punk style, not ballerina– so much that it was hard to tell it apart from a hedgehog. Drool escaped its mouth like saliva, and either it was just trying to tear me apart, or it broke a recently filed nail.

"Alright, you want a fight?" I said, more frozen on the spot than courageously facing the enemy and prepared for the blow and-

Kept preparing. Nothing struck me. Or at least, nothing supernatural, and all of the things the dark side of me was. A flower burst through the thing's heart, and my dark doppelganger started to dissolve like those matrix effects you had in computers, staring from that hideous face. The redhead from earlier half-stood in front of me, holding a hibiscus like a knight wielding a rapier.

He raised an eyebrow coyly, "Who is the wonderful lady over here?"

I may have blushed. "I would have beat its bones if only you didn't ruin it."

"My, my, that's one long name."

Minus one for the redhead. "Fussy."

"Yes, my brother can be like that." I jumped. The dark-haired boy who'd fallen in the gutter stood behind me. A bit of soot on his clothes, but otherwise crisp and fresh. "I'll have to admit you surprised me there." He tilted his head to one side. "I've never heard of a human who can see the elliptical."

That was the moment I changed my description of the two boys from hot to creepy stalkers. If that redhead could've just vanished that monster, what was he doing all this time? And the fact that his brother was just as annoying was not helping.

"We wanted to see what you would do, could do." The dark-haired boy whispered from behind as if reading my mind. "I can see in your head." He added in a bored tone, "You want to kill me, but before that, you desire to know my identity. I'm Lucifer."