Slumped in her seat in the waiting area at San Francisco General Hospital, Mattia Scagliotti couldn't believe the horrible turn her life had just taken. Not since the day her parents had driven her to run away from home after calling her out for the simple not-even-crime of engaging in premarital (and protected, even worse in the eyes of the devout Catholics who had raised her) sex with the boy she loved, had she felt so low and worthless. Since then, things seemed to have been going much better for her. After all, as was said in one of her and her little brothers' favorite childhood Disney cartoons, "When you hit bottom, the only place left to go is up."

That line may have been able to inspire the supremely adorkable hero of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, but in this moment, it had no effect on Mattia, even as the quote refused to stop chasing its own tail around her mind.

Almost two years had passed since that awful day in the summer of 2019, right before she'd turned eighteen. In those two years, she'd lived a happy life in a suburban apartment with her future rockstar of a boyfriend, Russell Gravely. She'd gotten a job at the local library in Pacific View, and was saving up to start taking classes at Mar Vista College. Then, Russell and his band, Toombs and Graves (so named based on the last names of its three members: lead guitarist and singer Andy Toombs; and the two Gravely brothers, Russell on bass and Seamus on drums), had been picked from a selection of almost a hundred local bands to open for Graviga at the San Francisco Fourth of July parade. Everything was looking up to the "great wide open, under them skies of white" (T+G loved covering that particular Tom Petty song).

But then, when Mattia and the boys were celebrating this great achievement at a San Francisco espresso bar (which Mattia had chosen because a quick Yelp search revealed that it was one of the few such places in the Bay Area that sold her grandmother's favorite drink, bicerin, and she hadn't had it since before she'd left home), everything had gone completely, absolutely, thoroughly to pear-shaped shit. After taking no more than one or two sips of his drink, Russell had an extreme seizure, completely out of nowhere. Convulsions, foaming at the mouth, the works. He'd been rushed to the hospital, but neither Mattia nor the other band members knew yet if he would live.

While they all sat and waited, Mattia kept sneaking peeks at Andy and Seamus. Both were trying to look as stoic as possible, but Seamus, in particular, kept showing cracks in his mask. Those cracks expanded when a doctor eventually approached them, his hands clasped together, to inform them that, unfortunately, they were unable to save Russell's life.

As Mattia comforted the guys, and they her, they were approached by another man. Compared to the doctor, this one was a younger, fairly average-looking angel. Thin but broad-shouldered, with square-framed black glasses. For some reason, Mattia couldn't help but think this guy looked strangely familiar.

Then it hit her. He'd been in the same café as them. And, because his first name was also Russell, he and her boyfriend had had a moment of confusion when the barista called for Russell to come pick up his drink. This Russell had ended up with that first drink - although the now-deceased Russell later said that he thought they'd still managed to get mixed up. He said that the drink he had in his hand was a decaf mocha with a single shot of espresso, something he never ordered - but he'd been willing to take the hand he'd been dealt anyway, metaphorically speaking.

Realizing now the grievous mistake Russell Gravely had made, Mattia rounded on this other Russell, a furious expression on her face. "YOU!"

"No, no, no, stop!" Other Russell cried as Mattia took him by surprise and pinned him to the wall. "Just...stop. Let me explain. This...this wasn't supposed to happen."

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," scoffed Seamus.

"You guys don't understand," said Other Russell, whose glasses were now askew. "That coffee the other guy had - that was mine. I-I-I didn't realize that until after I got the other one - I normally get the extra espresso. The one I had didn't have that. And I think it was made with skim milk too..."

"What are you saying?" Andy asked.

Other Russell finally managed to carefully pull himself out of Mattia's grasp. He then edged aside, looked down at his feet, and said, "They tried to kill me."

Mattia rolled her eyes. "Haha, and I'm the fucking Queen of England."

"This isn't bullshit," said Other Russell. "I'm being completely on the level here."

"Why the hell would anyone wanna kill you?" Mattia asked with yet another appraising look at Other Russell. He looked so...normal. Maybe a tad hipster-ish, with his glasses and two days' worth of stubble. Hell, if he were any good with a keyboard or rhythm guitar, he could easily have been a fourth member of the band. He definitely had a similar sense of style to the Toombs and Graves guys as well.

Other Russell scratched his neck nervously. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

"Then show us," said Seamus, crossing his arms. "If you can."

"Show us what?" asked Andy. "That you're some kind of Russian spy?"

Other Russell turned one of his hands, palm up. Then it was covered in elemental energy - except it was no elemental any of the others had ever seen before on an actual, living angel. (Or demon - Mattia having gone to Balthazar Academy, she'd crossed the Coldfire Creek Bridge and met a demon or two on the Hell side of town.) It was dark energy, pitch-black with the occasional swirl of bright, shiny indigo-gray peeking through.

"Oh my God," said Mattia, clapping her hands over her mouth. "What the...how? Are you an..." She couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence out loud, but in her thoughts, there was only one word: Archangel.

"You could say that," said Other Russell. "We prefer to call ourselves 'scrivs,' though." He stood back a bit and shuffled his wings, poking them out slightly from the back of his hoodie. Because the hoodie was black as well, Mattia and the others had a hard time realizing he was showing his wings. Instead, they initially thought he was just shrugging his shoulders more than any angel, human, or demon should ever have been capable of doing. When the truth finally dawned on them - it took a while, too, because the blackness of his wings didn't fit well with his medium-brown hair and eyes - their jaws dropped. Not quite simultaneously, but more like one after the other.

Retracting his wings, Other Russell pressed on. "You ever wonder where people go when they die? My world. Except my world already has a native sentient species - the scrivs. There are two types of us - dark and light. And, for the most part, dark scrivs like me - we're the good guys. Light scrivs, on the other hand, are usually the bad guys. Not always, but usually."

Mattia clenched her fist, which was just starting to subtly catch fire. "And you're saying the light scrivs tried to kill you, but killed my boyfriend instead?" The flames around her hand grew hotter and brighter. "Give me one good reason not to burn your skinny ass right now."

"The light scrivs don't just wanna kill me," said Other Russell. He grasped Mattia's hand with his, which was once again awash in dark energy. Her flames went out, as if their oxygen supply had been cut off. Maybe it had been.

In any case, Mattia didn't need her elemental to punch Other Russell in the face.

He spent a few seconds groaning in pain and clutching his scraggly jaw before continuing as if no violence had been committed against him. "The bad-guy scrivs are trying to kill more than just me. Or anyone else who opposes them. Their goal is to kill everyone in Heaven." He held up one finger, then two more as he added, "And Hell. And Earth."

"Okay, you're right," Seamus said. "We don't believe you. Do we?"

Mattia shook her head. She could see Andy doing the same out of the corner of his eye, and she also heard him make a fighting thought directed at Other Russell: Fuck off, Chicken Little.

Sensing defeat, Other Russell held up his hands before the grieving threesome could punch or cuss him out any further. "You don't have to believe me now," he said. "But if you ever reconsider..." He extracted a small notepad and pen from his pocket and scrawled his name - "Russell Aspen" - and number on three separate pieces of paper. "Call me, and I'll see if I can find a way for you guys to help us out."

"Help you with an interdimensional war?" Mattia muttered, sounding skeptical even as she took the proffered papers and distributed two of them to the guys. "Where's the bus stop back to reality, huh?"

"Two blocks down Potrero, and then take the 101 all the way down to Hollywood," Other Russell quipped. Seeing that his ill-timed joke was falling flat, he bent his head in embarrassment and added, "And if you guys still need a band to perform on the Fourth of July, my sister can help you out with that. She's got a three-piece band going on, but they need a drummer. They're called Midnight Daydream."

"That sounds like the shittiest band name ever," Andy muttered. "And how'd you know about the Fourth of July anyway? We sure as hell weren't thinking about it just now."

"Toombs and Graves is trending on Twitter right now," said Other Russell. "Not 'cause Russell's dead, but 'cause of your sweet new gig. It really is sweet - I always come to San Francisco in Heaven for the Fourth. They don't have a great show like that in Hell or on Earth." He flashed a smile for a split second before walking away. "And, uh, if me and my people end up losing our - what did you call it? - 'interdimensional war,' the first thing I'm gonna miss about this place is the Rock, White, and Blue Show."

OtherRussell then turned on his heel and walked away. The last thing he said beforeleaving their earshot was, "And I'm really, genuinely sorry for your loss,guys. I'm gonna have to live with that for the rest of my life now, knowing Iwasn't fast enough to save him." His back was turned, but Mattia could stillsee him reach up to wipe a tear from his eye before he finally left them forgood.pXю