Chapter 3: Another Patient

Aleksander, Zoe, and King get some time to know each other and learn some new things about Zoe and her ties to the races of angels.

"Wake up! It's just a dream! Wake up!" I heard a voice urge me over, again and again. It was Zoe's voice. I had grown to be friends with her, in a natural sense, rather than whatever voodoo stuff she had zapped my brain with before. I had become good friends with King too. I felt like in just the few weeks I had spent with them I had bonded more with them more than I ever had with my high school friends. I had learned too of the many patients here. There was the guy who I never saw the front of - he was always staring in the corner of a room staring directly into a wall. There was the blonde haired girl who always shook her head, snapped, and whispered about killing people she passed by. One guy narrated what he was doing in the third person, as if he were reading aloud a book about him as he did things. It was often quite articulate, but definitely it placed a reason why someone had him come here. There all kinds of people, but I had generally kept myself to hanging out with Zoe and King.  

I had taken some time out of one of the days and questioned King on the two angels that he had seen, the same two I had also seen. Unfortunately he had no more information than I had. We were just lucky enough to both be victims of their visit. He was declared insane as was I, but more disheartening than his situation...I was declared utterly nonexistent. No one in the world besides Marla, Zoe, and King even knew who I was.  

"What's going on?" I asked her, wondering what the emergency was. I was surprised to find her in my room lurching over me. During sleeping hours it was strictly forbidden for us to roam the halls or enter into other people's rooms. The drugs had made it difficult for me to even raise my head up to see her in the darkness of my room. I had been in a very heavily (the doctors said it was supposed to be government approved) medicated sleep. I hadn't ever smoked weed before, but I had the impression from some of my friends that there were kinds of marijuana that were of this power. Perhaps there was indeed some type of cannabis in my meds. I had no way of really knowing. All I did know was that I was down and I didn't want to get up.  

"I heard you yelling aunt - yelling someone's name," she told me urgently, slipping up her sentence a little. I had been too heavily drugged to comprehend her slip-up. I did remember though, as my mind worked to reboot itself through the drug-created stupor, that my room had conveniently been situated just next door to Zoe's room and across the hall from King's room. I had thought the boys and girls would've been separated out, but I suppose they didn't much care about gender dynamics here - we were all under the same knockout drugs. Whatever the case, here was Zoe, chipper and coherent as ever. Maybe as an angel she wasn't affected by human drugs like I was. 

"Who's name?" I questioned, wondering for a second why she had used a word that I had recognized as "aunt" but was unsure if she meant "ant" or perhaps another word entirely. My mind was extremely cloudy. 

"Marla...I mean I think you said Marla. Sounded like you were yelling for a person named Marla," she said sounding confident but then correcting herself with a level of uncertainty. Since I had known her she had something she seemed to be hiding, but considering she was an angel down amongst the land of humans, I just assumed there must be a lot she's forbidden to speak about with me or with King. I nodded. I hadn't heard of any sign of Marla since the time I had spent here with King and Zoe. I hoped she wasn't too worried or distraught from my absence.  

"She's a girl I know from school. The only girl to remember me," I told her, gaining my strength little by little. 

"You told us everyone forgot you," she said with a slight tilt of her head. 

"My head's starting to clear up. How's that possible? This stuff is supposed to keep us basically unconscious until morning. Are you doing that?" I asked, off topic. She shook her head. 

"Well...yes...but not with any powers. I did it the old fashioned way, a little subterfuge. I made sure they gave you less than half the usual dose. So what about you telling me everyone you knew forgot you?" she hastily brought the topic back.  

"All but one. Her memory was restored by one of your kind. Some woman who wrapped up her face so either of us couldn't see who she was. I know you're very tight lipped about your kind and where you're from, but do you know of a male angel with short brown hair, a little bit taller than me, dull perhaps hazel eyes...kind of like mine, and he has the ability to erase memories? King was telling me about the first angel he saw and how he erased his family's memories. After my dealing with the same angel everyone was made to forget about me. It seems apparent this might have the ability to erase memories," I said. From what I could see of her from the moonlight seeping in from my window I could see her lips fidgeting. Even through the dim moonlight I could see her piercing blue eyes. I half wondered if they were glowing, or something of the sort. It almost appeared so. 

"No," she said simply. The delivery of her answer caused me to question the validity of it. She said it so quickly it was as if she didn't even bother thinking over any of the people she might've known that could fit such a description. Regardless I left it be and went for my next question. 

"What about an angel of the exact opposite abilities? A woman, I can't really describe much about how she looks, but she has the ability to return memories. Perhaps there's more to her power than that, but that's all I know of," I inquired. 

"No, don't know any angels like that either. The only kinds of angels that have powers are the Malakah and the Archangels. Children of Archangels have powers too...they inherit them and are born as Archangels. Malakah and Archangels are different types of angels. Either way there very well might be a Malak or Archangel of Forgetfulness or a Malak or Archangel of Remembrance - maybe. I don't know them though. Never heard of them," she said, some bit of wavering in her voice. Still though, her answer was the most I had ever heard about angels or their community. With what she said I could now know that not only were there angels, but that there were other subtypes of angels known as Archangels and Malakah (apparently Malak was singular and Malakah was plural). 

"Is there anything else you can share with me? The more I know about your people and where you come from, the more I can understand what the hell is going on with me," I told her straight away. 

"Sorry. I can't. It's...it was extremely dangerous for me to journey here in the first place. It is punishable by death for us to even subtly interact in any way with your kind. Me coming down here, staying amongst humans - well if it weren't for the help I had in getting here undetected, let's just say I wouldn't have been able to stay here long," Zoe told me. 

"Why did you come here Zoe? Why were you looking for me?" I said, hoping I was riding in the right groove for her to continue answering questions as she was doing. I had tried this question with her once or more a week and was met with little more than a "no" and a shake of the head before she forced King or myself into more light-hearted conversation. 

"Hey, you guys aren't doing anything freaky in there are you?" I heard King's voice whisper in. 

"Very funny. No, you can come in," Zoe said. I wasn't quite sure about her being able to declare who could or couldn't enter my room, but I didn't raise much protest. King was one of the only friends I had in the world right now besides Zoe and Marla. If it weren't for them I might've fallen to taking my own life. King tip-toed in, taking a seat near Zoe at the foot of my bed. He glanced between Zoe and myself briefly. 

"Good. I thought metal-head over here was trying to make the moves on my lady," he joked. This had become a recurring theme. King always tried to claim Zoe was his, but she would constantly deny it - just the same as she constantly denied either of us questioning her past as an angel or otherwise. Both of them had taken to calling me "metal-head" on account of my hair's length. I didn't protest either. Coincidentally I did indeed enjoy me some metal, but I had expanded my horizons a bit since my days of enjoying Slipknot, Rammstein, and the like. 

"I don't care how many times you call me 'your lady' I'm not going to acknowledge anything beyond friendship King," she said. King mockingly acted as if he had been shot in the chest. 

"Cold blooded," he said in a tone that mimicked the way Dave Chapelle had in his skit about Rick James. The both of us laughed, but quickly we wondered if his volume had caught the ear of one of the guards. They weren't like prison guards, the guys who stalked the halls - they were more like guys who, when they caught someone meandering about the halls, simply hoisted the person to their room and determined whether or not a person needed an extra dose of pills to keep them in bed.  

If one of the regular guys caught Zoe and King both in my room, I wasn't sure how many pills would be allocated to the trio of us. It was not allowed for us to be hanging out so late at night. They would likely make sure we were drugged up enough that we wouldn't be killed, but we wouldn't be walking or thinking very well for the next week. King scratched at his face for a minute before speaking up again. 

"So what exactly were you doing in here though, Zoe?" he questioned. It wasn't a challenge as he said it, but more of a curiosity. 

"Metal-head was hollering in his sleep," she stated simply. 

"Really? With all the meds we're taking? How's that even possible, man?" he said with a raised brow. 

"Apparently little miss angel over here has been tampering with our doses," I chimed in. A sly grin cracked along King's face, his head twisting to Zoe. 

"So it turns out she's one of Lucifer's very own all along," he said playfully. 

"No. And even if I was, he isn't reigning over Hell anymore," Zoe said with a matter-of-fact tone.  

"Hey wait, did you just let us in on some of the secrets? You've spent all this time denying either of us any answers about your kind and you're just going to drop a vague little piece like that?" King said, his tone more serious now. As much as King was friendly or playful, he was very much a person to not be cross with. With what I've learned of him, he's as loyal as they come, but that didn't mean he wasn't ready to challenge someone when they needed to be. Perhaps he really was the perfect friend. I didn't know him for very long yet, but he seemed like maybe he could be. He seemed like the guy that would support you to the end but always had you making sure you were doing the right thing along the way. 

"I did. I've gotten expressed permission on what I can divulge. Nothing more and nothing less than any of that," she said with a tone of disappointment. It was as if she wanted to tell us more, but there was some kind of shadow lurking...watching to see if she slipped up and told us more than we should know. 

"Who helped you come here?" I went ahead and asked. 

"My...mom and a friend of my dad's," she stated. It answered almost nothing, but I knew that was the only kind of answer she was going to give right now. 

"Why did you come here to see Aleksander? Why did you need my help if he was to come to you?" King asked next, his serious tone matching mine when I had asked. 

"I came here to see him because it was the only chance I'd get to see him. After this...I'm not sure if I'll see him again. As for you King, I needed to see a friendly face as I came here. You are known for how well you get along with people. I've always known you to be that way," she said mysteriously.  

"Huh? 'Always known me to be that way'? Come on, Zoe - you can't just leave me hanging like that. We're all friends here because of you," King stated. 

"I was here to bring you two together. You are to be great friends to one another; you'll develop a bond that will not be broken. Even when your soul is gone, he will be there," she said.  

"Who are you talking to when you say 'even when your soul is gone'?" I queried right away. She shook her head. 

"I'm sorry for being so cryptic. I sound like him. I know people hate it when people talk like he does. I know I sure as f**k hate it when he talks like that to me," Zoe mentioned, looking over me to the window over my prison-style bed. Her wistful expression as she gazed to the moon and the stars behind me only provided with more of an enigma to whatever she was hiding. 

"Please Zoe...if there's just one thing you could answer...who's this 'he' you always allude to?" I questioned. 

"...I can't," she said with pity. For a time it was quiet. The only thing that could be heard between the three of us was the sound of our breaths and the sound of the beating our hearts. We were at an impasse with Zoe and her secrets, but that wouldn't provide for prolonged frustration. She didn't say much about it, but I could see much pain in her thoughts. I cared for Zoe now, not romantically as I did Marla, but like a long lost sister or cousin or something of the sort. I cared the same way as King now too, he was like a brother to me. They were my only friends in this place, my only friends in this world. I hoped someway or somehow I could have Marla join and befriend these people.

Zoe had eventually returned to her room and King soon after her. It had been an awkward "goodnight" between the three of us, but the mood picked back up as we greeted each other in the morning just as happily as ever. We had taken to playing 9-ball at the billiards table near the glass windows in the rec-room. King was vastly better than me, and I was vastly better than Zoe. The usual afternoon watcher came forth to speak to the lot of us. It was Colin. Usually when he bothered to speak it had to be important. He was a portly man with a very outdated mustache and his hair was nearly balding.  

He had straightened himself out though, he had gotten caught on one of the Mondays looking redder than usual, turned out he was absolutely wasted on the job. Somehow he didn't get fired and only got a slap on the wrist. Places like this worked like that I guess. Apparently he's since been to AA and has been off the sauce for a record number of days (for him at least). 

"Alright guys, I'd like to introduce a new patient today. I want you guys to give her a nice welcome. I wanted to show her around, but I was told that she didn't want any of that," Colin said. He tried his best to sound happy and inviting, but any of us that knew better (which might've only been me, King, and Zoe) knew that he could give less than half a s**t about any of us or any new patient. A few of our fellow patients applauded to Colin's announcement, one squawked like a bird, and one yelled an obscenity. He signaled behind him and the new patient was revealed, and with it my heart sank. 

"Marla?" I said quietly, stupefied by what I was seeing. Zoe glanced up with a great look of surprise on her face. A peculiar look of contempt briefly pained her face, but she seemed to hide it away without much hesitation. I wondered what about Marla she would find instantly displeasing to the eye. Marla herself (though I may be extremely biased) was a very beautiful girl. Her golden brown hair flowed just past her shoulders, about an inch or two longer than my own lengthy mane of hair. Her eyes sparkled almost as vibrantly as Zoe's, although admittedly Zoe's shined with a brightness I assumed were only possible for a person of her species. Considering Marla wasn't actually an angel, she nearly appeared so to me. Her eyes were the same color as mine, but a great deal more vibrant. Where my eyes were a dull greenish brown hazel, her eyes were an emerald green with a ring of amber just around her pupil. 

Marla was well kept too. She was a star player for the soccer team at E.S. High, she was the team captain and the team nearly made nationals the previous year. It was an understatement to stay she kept in proper shape. It may be creepy for some when I say this, but when I had a few chances to see Marla during her workout routine all fitted out in her gym attire - it nearly made me faint from how amazingly...powerful I guess I'd say she looked. Her best attributes were only accentuated as she worked her body to sweat out whatever frustrations she might've had in her life outside of the moments she spent running the track, doing drills with the soccer ball, or whatever else she did in during practice. 

I snapped myself back into reality as I saw her smile almost call out to me as it formed. The fact that she was looking at me and it seemed to spark such a smile upon her...it made my heart flutter with satisfaction. I couldn't help it, my face acted on its own, forming a dopey smile to match Marla's. I nervously ran a hand through my hair, it having been left loose, rather than tied up in a pony tail as I usually had it. 

"Aleksander," she said as she came over to me, King, and Zoe. Both King and Zoe seemed to leave us to our meeting, staying silent and discontinuing the 9-ball game for "take turns hitting the pool balls into the holes". I had to ask how she got here. Why was she put up in this psychiatric hospital? Who would deem her crazy and why did they? 

"What are you doing here?" I asked her. 

"Well hello to you too," she teased. She was very much the same girl I knew since grade school. That angel that had returned her memories had done so fully. Whoever that masked angel was, if I found her, I had to thank her immensely that she had returned Marla to me. She was apparently the same angel that gave King some way to find and befriend me along with Zoe. Whereas the one who erased memories was a damned prick who I wanted to take a few swings at with a bat or other blunt object, there was the masked angel who restored memories...she corrected the other angel's evils. 

"Come on, we both know things have gotten weird," I said to her simply. She nodded. She had to know that fact to be true. Things had gotten quite strange. There was no way anyone could tell me any of what was happening was normal or anything even in the neighboring universe of normal. 

"I know. I remember...two different things happening. Back about nearly a month ago just before you disappeared I remember there was some kind of winged man - or something. He tried to shoot me, but you took the bullet and died. Then I blinked and none of that happened. For a number of hours I didn't even know who you were until that winged woman seemed to bring my memory of you back," she stated. I nodded, recollecting where the two of us had left off. 

"I'm sorry Marla. I didn't mean to leave you. I really did intend on finding out together what the hell was going on. I got caught though and apparently there was some kind of record of me being registered here. They carted me off and I haven't had much contact with the outside world since. I have made some friends though. King? Zoe? This is Marla. Marla? King and Zoe," I introduced them. King warmly smiled and outstretched his hand and Marla shook it. 

"Metal-head is a very lucky man," he said, assuming too much. 

"Oh...umm...I'm not," she said awkwardly. It made my heart sink as she fumbled around with saying she wasn't, but I couldn't have expected her to make a claim that wasn't true. She wasn't mine. Even if the feeling I had for her was mutual we weren't anything official. Even thinking about being anything official made my heart skip a little. I couldn't believe that even thinking such thoughts made me slightly giddy. It made me feel a little like some sort of romantic sap, but to deny these things to myself internally would be lying to someone who I didn't need to lie to. All I wanted to do was to hold her hand and to call her mine, to be there for her.  

There were more carnal desires too that I wished for, but my simple desire to be with her superseded such thoughts. I felt a certain dedication to my new friends King and Zoe, but what I felt for Marla was romance. It was different. There was the same loyalty and caring as I felt for King and Zoe, but there was more to my thoughts of Marla. 

"My apologies, it just...you seemed to be very comfortable with each other," King admitted to his interpretation. 

"We've known each other for a while now. What's it been now Aleksander? Since second grade or something like that right? So like ten or so years, huh? Wow," Marla said, thinking about it out loud. She turned her eyes towards Zoe and stretched out her hand to the blue eyed, pale-skinned, freckled friend of mine. 

"Hello, you're Zoe?" Marla questioned politely. Zoe nodded and shook Marla's hand. She was eerily quiet. Zoe, of the time I had come to know her, spent much of her time throughout the day talking up a storm. Her silence coupled with her initial reaction to Marla had caused a suspicion to stir inside me. Why was she not jiving with Marla? For a second I would've thought it might be jealously, but she had expressed pretty openly that she hadn't been looking for me out of any sort of romantic interest. For all that I knew of Zoe she could've been some long dead relative that was allowed some time to visit with a member of the family line. Or she could be a guardian angel kind of thing. Or she could've indeed been romantically interested and was lying about it. I had no true way of knowing as I knew very little of her or her world. 

"I'm glad to see you, but why are you here?" I asked again. She nodded at me solemnly. 

"I tried to argue with some people about your existence. I insisted you were real and my friends and family all argued that I was making you up. I even showed them pictures of you and they declared that I was doctoring the photos. They all remembered taking the pictures, but they didn't remember you," she stated. 

"They threw you in here because they thought you had an imaginary friend?" I questioned. I knew there had to be more to the story.  

"Wow, so his story is true. I thought maybe he might've been actually crazy on that part," King half-joked. He seemed to genuinely appreciate that I hadn't made up the story about my friends and family forgetting me entirely. 

"No. Naomi...she remembers you. She doesn't remember any kind of masked angel like the one that came down that day, but somehow she ended up remembering you about a day or so after you disappeared. Together we tried to figure out why no one could remember you. We asked your friends Franklin and Marty if they could remember, and they never ended up remembering you. We tried phoning your house and they thought we were pulling some kind of prank call," Marla explained further. I was quite taken back that Naomi had remembered me...and without some sort of divine assistance. I glanced over to Zoe as Marla told her story and found her with a pretty happy grin on her face with her mention of Naomi's memory of me. 

"Naomi remembered me? Where is she?" I inquired next. 

"Well, we had a disagreement. She searched through whatever she could find for your name popping anywhere after that day you left. She found your name here. She wanted to visit right away and maybe find a way for you to get out, but I had a plan for us to be admitted here instead," she stated. 

"Sounds like the difference to me is that she wanted to free Aleksander and you wanted to throw yourself in the birdcage with him," Zoe said in a tone that wasn't necessarily polite. 

"Maybe so," she said, not denying it. Perhaps it was wrong for her to do so, but I couldn't feel happier about her decision or her admittance to that being her reasoning. 

"We still have to find our way to escape though. We've spent enough time here Aleksander. I only have limited time here before I have to go back to where I came," Zoe pleaded. I nodded. I'm not sure why she wanted to spend whatever time she wanted with me, but if it was the only chance she was going to get, I supposed I could do what I could to help her be glad with the time she spent. 

"Agreed. We'll just have to add a plus one to our plan...whatever the plan is," I stated. She nodded appreciatively. King nodded too. 

"Well we already got the brains and brawn right here," King stated with a jokingly heroic pose. Marla laughed at the remark, leaving King to raise a brow. 

"Think I'm a joke, huh? You know Aleksander, maybe we should do a minus on that plus one," King said, pretending to be upset. 

"Hey now, I didn't mean to offend you - I just it...sounded kind of..." Marla tried to apologize. It was then that Zoe and I laughed, knowing that King had gotten her back. 

"I'm just messin' with ya," King said with a sly grin. We all smiled for a minute until I spoke up to bring us back to what was of importance: getting out.  

"Brains, brawn, and whatever else aside - let's count our chips. Where is Naomi? If we have somebody on the outside it would help tremendously," I said. Talking about escaping with King, Zoe, and Marla almost had me feeling like we were talking out the script of some heist movie or something. It was strange for me to think that only a month or a little more ago that I was in my regular routine, going to school and dreading it. Now all I could wish for was return to normalcy. 

"She's doing the everyday thing, just going to school and whatever else. She wasn't as outwardly open about her remembering you. She kept it mostly to herself. It would've been nice to have her as back up when I was telling more people about you, but she tried to tell me it was better to try to uncover why this happened before trying to drop that kind of information on people," she stated. As she spoke it seemed she agreed with Naomi, but something drove her to act irrationally. I only hoped it meant she liked me the same way I liked her that she would act that way. It was selfish and I felt guilty for thinking it, but I would be lying if I said it wouldn't make me feel good to know that I was making her act irrationally. 

"Is there any way for us to contact her?" I questioned her. 

"No," Zoe chimed in right away. I glanced to her right away as she answered a question not particularly intended for her. 

"She may or may not drop by to see how we are, but knowing Naomi she's cramming whatever time she can allow to figure out why whatever happened, happened. She's trying to take a cautious approach to everything," Marla said as almost as if she was frustrated with Naomi's attitude. 

"Considering what you're dealing with, that's probably a good idea," Zoe spoke up again. Marla seemed to switch herself into being quite irritated with Zoe. King glanced to me with a look that confirmed to me non-verbally that we were seeing the same strange conflict arising between the two of them. 

"Pardon me, but who the hell are you anyway? You just some random nutjob Aleksander was kind enough to be friends with?" Marla said coldly. I hadn't really seen her be this way before. Something about Marla in general had her extremely agitated. She was usually a very kindly and receptive person, but whatever it was between her and Zoe had them at odds from the start. 

"She's an angel," I declared quietly. 

"What?" Marla said louder than I had wanted. King put his finger to his lips and Marla nodded appreciatively. 

"I'm an angel," Zoe stated again for us. Marla's brows turned inward. 

"Where's your wings?" Marla followed up with doubt. 

"I only have one. It's under my shirt. It makes my back look lumpy, my back isn't actually like how it looks right now," Zoe stated and snaked a little bit of her wing through the top of her collar, showing a few of her vibrant ivory colored feathers. With the sight Marla's eyes widened. 

"Does she know the angels we saw?" Marla asked me with surprise still clinging to her expression. 

"She's only allowed to give us a certain amount of information. She and the other two angels we saw apparently broke an extremely sacred rule of not coming down to Earth. She had some help in being here undetected, so I'm guessing the two we saw had some help from the same group or person that Zoe is using," I stated. Zoe seemed to express her own share of surprise from my conclusion. Apparently she didn't expect me to guess that whoever she got help from also provided help to the other two angels. Marla seemed to take a moment to process that one of our group was not human. It seemed to ease her tension with Zoe as she took a minute in what I supposed was a revaluation of Zoe's previous responses. 

"I guess we should focus on getting out of here before we start thinking about having a talk with whoever helped Zoe and the other two angels come down here. Did you guys have any ideas already in mind? What will we do after we get out of here?" Marla asked next, snapping into action. I glanced over to Zoe and she seemed to express some relief at not being questioned. I wondered if her handler was someone to be afraid of, someone who desperately didn't want to be found. Considering the complications, perhaps it made sense that the man would be extremely wary of his refugees tattling on him to us humans. 

"I've got one actually," King mentioned. Attention focused over to him as we awaited his plan.  

"Well - speak man!" Zoe urged. 

"It involves a man Zoe told me about before either of you got here. He is a man who can help us," King answered and turned his attention to Zoe and soon after Marla and I both locked our eyes on her. What man did she know who could or would help us? Was this the man that smuggled her here to Earth or was this another man? 

"A different person than the one who brought you here?" I decided to ask upfront. She nodded. Who could this possibly be? 

"Yes...he is someone else...a friend," she stated cryptically. I could accept her secrecy, but it didn't make it any easier, considering how strange everything had come to be. Regardless I would accept help wherever it came, angel or human. 

"Is he an angel?" Marla asked as bluntly as I usually ask my questions. 

"His name is Virgil, that's all he's allowed me to say," Zoe said cautiously. She had to know how hard this was for all of us. She had a well of information that would likely make the whole situation easier to cope with and understand, yet she wasn't allowed to let us have it. She had to know that we would become irritable with her loyalty to whatever rules she was following. It was as if we were all in a desert, dying of thirst, but she had a canteen of water and only allowed us sips if we were lucky enough to get any. She was probably doing the right thing but each of us wanted a full drink of the water that she had. I could appreciate her dedication, though it didn't make me any less frustrated. 

"This Virgil person will help us though?" I questioned. Once again she seemed uncomfortable with talking. 

"He's here to do...just that," she said hesitantly. It was as if she didn't want to bring him into the picture. There was something ominous that she seemed to be avoiding. 

"How will that dude help us though? He have a way to sign four unrelated nutjobs out of a mental ward?" King asked next. 

"He'll help you escape and at the same time you'll be helping him help his friend," Zoe said, again cryptically. 

"Okay I have a feeling that I have to just set aside my frustrations with how you answer our questions. Let's just skip to how he'll help us. Do you have a way to contact him?" I asked. She nodded. 

"He's already coming to help us. He'll be here in two weeks," Zoe admitted. 

"He's already coming? What the hell? How did he know to show up?" Marla inquired. All that Zoe seemed to want was to escape questioning. She wanted to go back to us playing pool, making jokes, and laughing. She seemed to want nothing to do with Virgil, the other angels, or anything from the life that was outside of whatever fun she had with me and King. 

"I can't say," Zoe said robotically. It had grown to be a common saying of hers. 

"Alright then, whatever and whenever - it's good Zoe. Thanks. So, how's 'bout we get back to hanging out until when this Virgil guy shows up? You know how to play billards, Ms. Marla?" King said, trying to bring everything to a lighter and friendlier situation both for us and for Zoe. Zoe seemed to smile at King's gesture too, appreciative of his ability to mediate things towards positivity and progression rather than negativity and stress. King seemed to always know or see a way that we could move forward (sometimes it was slower, sometimes it was faster) that didn't involve us stressing out and getting into our own realms of depression. We knew King had his own issues and his owns chinks in the armor, but he knew better than us in how to stay smart but also stay happy. King was a great friend, one I would hope to never lose - this life or the next.

Author's Note

If you notice any grammatical errors/typos be sure to let me know so I can fix it up. Enjoy reading!