intro
They associate everything dark with Night, thinking as dusk falls and stars climb into the sky criminals must be crawling into the streets; they become unstoppable while the sun rests his eyes. Always death by moonlight; in metaphors shadows are always lurking yet invisible, consuming the cities, all while sadness is thought of as blue and black like bruises on knees. This is etched throughout human history, anything resembling darkness is told as horrid or ugly, whether it be eyes or skin, devils or music, or times when stormclouds block out the only redeeming qualities of nighttime. Since technology has given such opportunities, eliminating anything witholding light has become the subconscious top-priority for human kind. Fair enough, I can say. Nothing good comes from stubbing your toe when there was no light, from black spiders, or from criminals who decide I am their ally. I can understand why you may prefer Day over me, but darkness is not always something to fear. Think of all the lives that had been saved from hiding in my shadows from something truly evil, think of all the irreplaceable dark-skinned children from throughout your world, or of the sky you love so much but could not have without the sun setting onto somewhere else.

part 1
When I met Day in person for the first time it was at sunset. After half an eternity of indirectly working with one another to ensure function across our universe, it seemed strange how one could be so familiar yet foreign with someone else. He somehow felt like a long lost best friend and a complete stranger all at once. He stood, seemingly glowing, the essence surrounding him composed of everything bright and good in the world. This was the first time I had ever known that light and dark could work wonderfully together, as he bore radiant ebony skin with delightful golden undertones. The orange skies shone through lone pieces of his black, curly hair.
After a silent few moments where we stood taking in each others presences, the first thing I said was, “You are more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.”
He grinned, his smile as bright as, well, the sun.
I stood self-conscious after those initial few moments; as Night, I’d never pictured myself or anything I was deemed responsible for as something memorable. Meeting Day, especially during his sunset; one of the most remarkable and adored points during throughout the daytime right before my moon comes and takes it all away, left me feeling flustered.
He took a step towards me as he took my left hand with his right. We stood as his sun sunk lower and lower behind us into the civilization that surrounded us on all fronts. He said, speaking every word like pure poetry, “I’m sorry we never got a chance to meet sooner”. His voice was low yet soft at the same time, and innocent like he’d never had a bad day in his life, which I knew was untrue for I had seen the storms.
I mentioned how we hadn’t intentionally met, only that I’d ran into him while rising my moon the same he was setting his sun.
He’d laughed, which was when I fully realized that there could not possibly be one non beautiful part of his being.

Later into my night, my stars shone brighter than they ever had before. Me and Day laid underneath the sky on a clifftop, this was one particular spot where everything that was mine presented the best. He was absolutely blown away by it all, although I never saw the elegance he did and I was sure he’d seen my nighttime sky before.
We laid, shoulders touching; he spoke and I listened to every word. We’d only met hours before but someone every moment felt like a reunion; I thought of human soulmates, and of how I’d never felt alone before, but somehow now I felt complete. He said to me, “While many across our universe may have this aversion to you and associate your darkness with Death, both of us know that you are nothing like her. What human kind and many others fail to, and what you must realize, is that both of us bring life. You bring protection and places to go along with homes for all the nocturnal creatures. You bring a far more interesting sky than I do. You bring beauty as I do, and even more so. I, for one, hope the sun never rises again.”

and so, the flames rise up and take over, filling in shadows and dark spaces, only to have smoke pollute vision once again. blue and orange spark and crackle and bounce off the brown irises that circle around. one stands next to the other and both stand victorious. years ago at a time and place on a night like this, they would call for celebration. placing bets and toasts to whatever might come next; glasses always raised high and always half-full. instead, they stand, consumed in dark and heavy suffocating silence, reflecting but never longing. thinking back to wooden barstools and rumpled cards tossed down on worn tables. a different kind of victory, one innocent and easier and so much simpler. still, after harder and downright horrible victories they stood covered in blood and grime, and yet still smiles, and they had something to celebrate again. any victory meant everything.
now, silence.
now, they stand covered in blood and grime, staring straight ahead at everything they caused.
now, the wind whistles and flames crackle but somehow it’s still dead silent.
now, it’s too late.
all good memories become bad. it’s better to remember nothing.
now they stand half cloaked in darkness, half lit by flames and stars. looking up, stars are reflected as only brighter flames falling and falling and already dead. they don’t dare look up, they stare straight ahead watching fire turn to rubble. they never used to watch the destruction that fell to their fault, only headed out, high on victory; off to destroy themselves, then off to another case.
year by year it started eating away at them.
minute by minute the fire eats away at everything it was set out upon.
it’s better to remember nothing, reflecting but never longing. they learn the hard way.
now, all they have are hollow victories.
they stand, shoes singed and caked in dirt while stuck in place, unwilling to leave and reluctant to move on. a city on fire right at their fingertips, their minds and voices on mute, while old snapshots flash in front of their open eyes.

“you ever just wanna quit and never come back?” one says, breaking a silence that was never there. the air around them still suffocates.
“it’s too late for that now,” the other says. they still stare straight ahead, absorbing nothing and everything all at once.
the radio calls in above them, “get a move on, boys. you got a lot of work ahead’a ya and standing around won’t get ya nowhere.”

part i
There was Charlie Anderson, a 16 year old boy, who wasn’t entirely a boy and was completely forgettable. Later a hero, a prophet, something beyond mortal. But in the beginning he was 16, with a dead mom and a series of large hand-me-downs from his six ft. tall, distant father. He’d been letting his dad down since he was eight, when his mother died in a car accident, and he took after her with brown hair, and brown eyes. He’d been letting his dad down since he was 13, when he hit 5’7 and stopped growing, winding up shorter than both his parents. He’d been letting his dad down since he was 14, when the only friends he could keep where the town’s biggest misfits; since he was 14 and he started dating boys; since he was 14, since he was 15, and ever since.

His mom died and they moved to a smaller, shittier apartment, and his dad started working full time and then some, and Charlie was left to take care of himself by himself.

Their apartment had one bedroom, which Charlie had claimed as his since his dad was never home, a barely functioning bathroom, a kitchen that was empty most of the time, and their entrance/living room with their pull out couch and his dad’s turntable and old record collection.

His guitar playing seemed to be the only thing he could get right, to both his father and himself. His dad seemed to forget what a fuck up he was when he picked up his guitar; it seemed to be the one thing that made sense, and it impressed all his friends, especially David. He was a legend in the safety of his bedroom, but that was far as it went.

There was Leah Hill, the orphan who grew up running from foster homes and stealing from lost and founds. There was something very plain about the way she looked, something very human, yet everything about her was perceived as beautiful, magical even. She had long, light brown hair; always at the perfect length, always out of the way. She had striking, light-colored eyes that seemed to have no color able to be determined by any human being.

Despite her very human looks, she wasn’t. She’d learned at a young age that she was an Immortal. With being born on Earth, she took the appearance of a human being, but she very much wasn’t. She learned nearly everything she knew about her life, about who she was, about what she was capable of, and about how to survive from her older brother, Lucas.

The two of them weren’t blood related, but they had a strong connection and were family. As an Immortal, you weren’t born into anything; destiny was non-existent. Most of the time, anyway. As for Leah, she’d spent her childhood running away from humans, and now she spent her life chasing after them. She had a job as a Messenger. She was recruited by the Leaders, which was rare enough as it was, but being only 19, she was nearly one of a kind. She was far younger than Lucas, far younger than most Immortals in general to be entirely honest. Still she took her job seriously, as she took most things. If anything, she took it more serious than most, in order to prove herself. Everything about her was straight to the point, she refused to be belittled by anyone, especially human men who seemed to think they were somehow above her, when in fact it was quite the opposite.

Like most Immortals, she could see straight through human’s lies, thoughts and feelings. This resulted in her never quite catching the hang of human interactions. Most of her conversations with non-Immortals were disastrous. She much preferred speaking to Lucas, although he’d often laugh at how awful she truly was at her interactions.

She was inexperienced, yet she was efficient.
Charlie was, reluctantly, at a party, scouting the room for David. He couldn’t remember why he’d agreed to this; he hated parties, especially when no one he knew was anywhere in sight. He was very seriously considering leaving and texting David some bullshit excuse he likely wouldn’t believe. In another attempt to find him a bright light flashed across his vision and wave of dizziness washed over him, as he grabbed onto the table next to him for support, knowing what came next.

There was his mom, right on cue, as he remembered her; always happy, always kind, always curious. There was his mom as he’d never seen her before; a little girl, laughing, happy, full of imagination. She was running, playing; she was innocent and pure, free and excited. Unknowing and still optimistic. Alive. This was new, but not different.

Then, something flickered, and his mom was gone. There was a sense of someone else, something else; a shadow, a silhouette. He could feel it, that they were close and they were something else. They were dangerous, but they were here to help. They were annoyed, growing impatient. A name made itself known, in the same language all of his weirder fantasies had. It wasn’t English, not even slightly; it was older, stronger, and somehow realer. According to libraries, to history, to everyone else: it didn’t exist. Yet he had no problem translating it to English.

The name: Leah Hill.

He was sent crashing back into reality, and everything unpaused all at once. The room was loud and sweaty and David was standing next to him.

He said something, smiling down at Charlie.

“I can’t hear you,” Charlie said, trying to yell over everything happening around them. He already had a headache from his… vision thing or whatever. He still had no idea what to call them. The music and the yelling weren’t helping.

David said something else that he still couldn’t hear, but David grabbed his hand anyway and started to drag him outside.

Outside, the two of them sat on the porch of whoever’s house it was.

“I can’t believe you convinced me to come to a party,” Charlie said. Although outside it wasn’t nearly as loud, his head was still pounding.

“What, were you planning on staying home and doing homework instead?” David asked, taking a sip from whatever illegally obtained alcohol was being served inside.

Charlie laughed, “Ooh, that’s a good one.” He felt uneasy after his fantasy thing, which was new entirely. These things never invaded his reality, and he was good at controlling that. This time, something felt different and something felt off. This time something felt real.

“Are you alright, Charlie?” David was staring at him.

“Oh, yeah. I just have a headache, that’s all.” That wasn’t entirely untrue.

Something inside him, his instincts probably, was lighting up. Whoever Leah Hill was, they were important on a level greater than human kind and planet earth, and somehow and for whatever reason, Charlie was involved. He had no idea how he knew any of this, or how any of this was real at all, but it was and he knew it. Instincts, probably. As if his migraine wasn’t already enough to make his head explode.

David looked disappointed. “Oh. Well I guess we could go hang out at your house,” he suggested.

He sensed David didn’t want to leave, but he was set on spending the night with Charlie. He smiled at him and said, “Hey, you’ll probably drag me along to whatever party comes next anyway.”

Back at Charlie’s apartment, his worst nightmare came true: his dad was home. And now, so was David.

He’d successfully avoided anyone he’d dated meeting his father since freshman year when he introduced Oliver Tran as his boyfriend, and his dad responded with an “Oh” and a sad look, before turning away and leaving for work.

And now he sat with the same depressed look he seemed to always have since Charlie’s mom died, staring at the wall across the room. Hearing the door open, he turned his head and said, “Hey Charlie.”

Charlie froze and hesitantly said, “Oh, uh… hey dad; you’re home.”

He nodded and asked, “Who’s this?” motioning to David.

“This-this is, uh, David,” he answered, awkwardly looking behind him.

Facing the wall again, he gave a half-hearted wave and said, “Nice to meet you.” He paused, then continued, “You know, Charlie, you should really introduce me to your boyfriends more often.”

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck and didn’t say anything. This was somehow worse than how he ever imagined this going. He felt himself blushing, just like he felt David trying not to laugh at him.

“You should sit with me,” he said to Charlie. “We don’t see each other that often. We should talk. And David, you’re welcome to stay too, if you like.”

Next came the most painful hour Charlie had experienced yet. He listened to his dad talk sadly about Charlie’s mother and how perfect everything was before she died. David listened intently while Charlie felt like an asshole.

He realized how much he and his dad were strangers and how destroyed he really was. Every time prior he wished he in his dad were closer, or that he was around more often slowly disintegrated the longer his dad went on. All the good memories he’d had of his father were put in a new perspective.

Lucas dropped a folder on the table Leah was sitting at. “This kid,” he said. “Some Visionary or something. They asked for you specifically on this one. They also said ‘don’t fuck it up’, ’cause he might actually be important.”

“I don’t fuck things up,” Leah said, grabbing the folder.

“I know.” He sat across from her.

She opened it, quickly scanning and flipping through the papers inside. Still reading she asked, “His name is Charlie Anderson?”

“I didn’t look,” he replied, staring at the ceiling.

Leah looked up at him and sighed. “Of course you didn’t.”

Lucas laughed.

“What’s my timeline for this?” she asked, looking back towards the folder.

“There isn’t one.” Lucas stood up. “But you should start on it by the end of the day; they still don’t trust you.”

She looked up at him. “I’m already aware, Lucas.”

“Alright,” he sighed. “I have to go hand out 13 other things to 13 other people.” He paused. “I wish I had your job.”

“You don’t have my job because you’re awful at it,” she said as he walked away.

She was left alone, looking down at her newest case. She was bored of cases like this; the whole ‘maybe a somebody, but probably a nobody’ idea was getting old. On top of this, Charlie Anderson lived in Chicago, Illinois (a city she hated) and he was only 16, meaning he would be resistant and annoying.

“Lucas isn’t the only one who hates his job,” she said to herself.

With nothing else to do instead, she started to prepare everything she needed.

Just her luck, Anderson was at a party. He was easy enough to track, but she really didn’t want to deal with some reckless, stupid, party animal. She stood across the room from him, while drunken teenagers shoved her out of their way. She was already growing annoyed, but she forced herself to concentrate. She was here on business, and couldn’t afford to have anything go wrong. Being so young, none of the Leaders trusted her yet.

She located Anderson and was about to approach him, but instead she watched him tripping after someone dragging him along. She sighed in annoyance. She didn’t know who he was with, or whether they went outside, or to another room, or wherever else they could’ve gone. She shoved her way through the swarm of people, who didn’t seem to notice her the the slightest. She decided to leave for tonight, partly because if she was around anyone any longer she might explode, and partly because it’d be much easier to finish this case tomorrow, when this kid wouldn’t be intoxicated out of his mind, or doing who knows what to some girl, or off who knows where. Despite technically being one herself, she loathed teenagers. Generally, she just loathed humans.

The next day started out relatively uneventful and boring for both Charlie and Leah.

Everything seemed to resume to normal. Charlie’s dad was back at work and David had spent the night since he had no way of getting home that wasn’t expensive or inconvenient, considering he lived across town. The uneasy feeling from his… hallucination was probably the right word, had disappeared.

He woke up before David, who was sleeping like he might never get up. Charlie shook his arm until he opened his eyes, and said, “Dude, get up. We have to go in like, 10 minutes.”

In another idea, normal would be the right word for Charlie. Just classes and classes and none of them interesting. With nowhere to ditch to, and no will to anyway, he was stuck. The only thing at all worth noting was more visions of this Leah Hill, which made him feel on edge.

The only thing that seemed like it would redeem the day for him was that he, David, and their group of friends had plans to do… something after school. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t remember what it was, he just needed to be somewhere else.

Instead, before he could find any of them, someone pulled him aside. He’d never seen her before, but everything about her felt familiar.

“You’re Charlie Anderson,” she said.

She didn’t ask; she just knew. “I, uh… yeah?” he said.

At the same time one of his friends, Nicole, was walking towards them, yelling after Charlie.

The other girl didn’t say anything as Nicole looked at Charlie and asked, “Dude, are you coming?” She paused. “Sorry,” she said. “Who’s this?”

Charlie looked back at her and as he was thinking, ‘I have no idea’, she said, “I am Leah Hill.”

His eyes widened. “Shit. You’re -” He stopped himself, turned to Nicole and told her to wait for him. He pulled Leah to the side.

“Who are you?” he asked. He stared at her, trying not to look as anxious as he felt. He had no idea who she was, aside from his visions, but he could literally feel how powerful she was.

“Leah Hill,” she repeated. “You have to come with me.”

It didn’t surprise him, but still he asked, “Why?”

She sighed. “It’s a lot to explain. You’re someone important, someone more than human, and you have to come with me.”

He looked at her, afraid to ask anything else. Somehow, none of what she said seemed crazy; it was reassuring in a way, like something he couldn’t admit to himself. He knew she was right. He could feel it. He didn’t really want to hear it, anyway. He ran his hand through his hair and exhaled. He figured David was probably already annoyed that he bailed on the party last night, and he guessed that he wouldn’t be too excited to hear that he had to leave at the last minute. He had just realized how often he seemed to do that.

He sighed again and looked back at Leah. “Can you give me like, an hour or two?” he asked.

Ignoring his question, and staring at him like she was studying him, she asked, “Who’s David?”

Startled by her response, he hesitantly gestured toward where his group of friends were standing impatiently and answered, “My boyfriend. How did you -”

“Not important,” she interrupted. “It would be best if we left now.”

“Shit,” he sighed. “Okay.”

She gave him another once-over. “You can have your hour.”

Charlie looked up, surprised. He got the feeling she didn’t offer this to many people, or anyone rather, and quickly said, “Thanks, um -”

“Meet me back here,” she said. “In an hour.”

“Okay, okay. Yeah.” He walked over to his friends while she walked in the opposite direction and seemed to disappear.

For Leah, the day was tiresome. The case folder for Anderson gave her the address to his home, and his school. She didn’t bother with his apartment, figuring he spent the night elsewhere, but took a shot with the school, not having any other leads. She waited outside, impatiently, ready to jump on anyone who ever slightly resembled the photo she’d seen.

Which is what she did. She didn’t hesitate, she didn’t stop to think about how she sounded; she just wanted to get out of this awful city. Charlie Anderson was entirely different than she suspected. He was short, for one thing. Shorter than she was. And he was the first Visionary, especially teenage, who grew up human that she’d attempted to recruit who didn’t show her complete resistance and act as if she was insane. He seemed very matter of fact about every very vague detail she gave him, which was a trait she liked seeing in people. She figured she could lose an hour.

It was four minutes past the hour she’d agreed to give him when he finally showed up. “You’re late,” she greeted, with her arms crossed.

“What?” He looked confused. “No I’m not.”

She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now; let’s go.”

“Okay, wait. Wait,” he said. “You’re gonna have to explain some of this to me at some point.”

“On the way there, I will. That’s how these things work.” She hated this part of her job more than any other part. Explaining the same thing over again to humans who likely wouldn’t believe her had a certain annoyance to it.

He asked, “Where is ‘there’, exactly?”

“There’s no name for it,” she said. “Not that I know of anyway.” She had never called it anything other than ‘home’, but that was a fairly fitting name, she figured. It was home to her, and it had always felt like one.

He shrugged and said, “Okay.”

What annoyed Leah about this boy was how hard he was to read. It took a lot to understand what he was thinking and how he was feeling about all of this. While it was somewhat refreshing he was so cooperative and unfazed by all of this, she couldn’t tell how he was really feeling. If she focused, she could understand his thoughts, but nothing more than that. While annoying, she was used to picking up unwilling and terrified Visionary’s and such, it was almost worse not knowing how to handle this type of situation. For a moment, she felt set up; as if the Leaders knew she wouldn’t be able to handle this one, gave it to her specifically, so they would have a reason to demote her. She felt almost offended, then paranoid. She sighed. She decided then it’d be best if she got out of this horrible city sooner rather than later. It was haunted by bad memories, making her already on edge, and over thinking wasn’t helping anything.

“Let’s go,” she said to Charlie, who was looking at her the way she stared at humans when trying to figure someone out. Seeing it at this perspective annoyed her.

On their way, she explained everything about Immortals, and about how he was a Visionary, and what that meant, and how his life would mostly likely be from now on, provided they didn’t need him for a quest.

She had said these exact things to many other Visionaries. Charlie seemed to be taking it better than most. She felt somewhat embarrassed of her previous impression of him.

Eventually, inevitability, he asked, “Do I have to leave my, uh… ‘earth life’ behind?”

The question always made her sad; it wasn’t so much the question itself, but the things they would think about when they asked it. Usually a wide variety of mainly selfish things, but they always had so much emotional attachment to everything that came to their minds. For Charlie, all that seemed to come to his mind was the boy David he’d mention earlier, and vaguely his father. She couldn’t tell if it was because he was simply hard to read, or if those were really the only people and the only things that seemed at all noteworthy to him.

Either way she said, “Not exactly. You don’t have to stay here, and you could live on Earth, but if the Leaders need you for anything at any time you’ll have to leave and come here immediately. The problem is that you never know when they’ll need you, or how often, and it could conflict with the other things you may have going on.”

She couldn’t tell exactly how he was feeling, but she could see he was conflicted. For whatever reason, she felt more sympathetic towards him than she normally did with others.

It was a lot to take in for Charlie. He had no idea how’d they’d gotten to… wherever they were. It wasn’t earth, that much he could tell, but at the same time it was very similar.

He felt somewhat resistant to having to leave everything behind, but he didn’t act on it. Everything Leah had said sounded totally crazy, but at the same time it made perfect sense. The idea that these people here were immortal, or whatever she’d called them, was relatively mind blowing. And that he was apart of it in some way was insanely cool.

At the same time, he was reluctant to be apart of this, enough he wasn’t leaving much behind, because he liked the way things were.

They reached a building where Leah had said that he needed to talk to the Leaders, and she would only be there for the first few minutes. He didn’t understand most of what she said, but it sounded a lot like she was turning him in as some sort of assignment.

There were three people, who he assumed were the Leaders, sitting on something you might see a judge in a courtroom sitting in. The rest of the room was empty and completely spotless. They looked human, although he knew they weren’t. He didn’t know if they were Immortals, but he sensed how ancient and powerful they were.

When they walked in, Leah opened her mouth to say something, but the one sitting in the middle said, “Oh, good. Leah, Charlie, we need to speak the both of you.”

Leah felt confused, while Charlie felt overwhelmed by their presence.

The one on the left said, “We have a very important quest the two of you specifically will need to attend.”

Charlie felt himself getting a migraine, the kind he would get before and after his visions. He felt some sort of information trying to push itself into his brain, but he forced himself to focus on the present.

Leah felt a sense of stunned honor, although she knew this was an act of chance and partially fate.

The third one picked up a folder, like the one Leah had received earlier, and handed it down to the two of them. Leah grabbed it, since Charlie looked like he was trying not to pass out.

The one sitting it the middle spoke again. “Everything you need to know is in there. We would like for you to go over everything in the folder sometime in the next 24 hours. There is no official timeline for this, not unless more urgent details surface, but it would be a preference if you started sooner rather than later.”

The left one glanced towards the middle one and said, “You will be allowed one person to accompany you; whether they are a human or an Immortal is up to you.”

Leah thought of Lucas, and Charlie thought of David. They both looked at each other. They were excused, and left the building without saying anything to any of the Leaders, out of not knowing what to say. The two of them sat at a table outside, and stared at each other. Neither of them knew whether to look at each other like friends or like strangers.

She opened the folder and laid it out on the table, so the both of them could read from it. They both only read across the first page.

“Holy shit,” Charlie said.

Leah looked up at him and nodded. “Yeah.”

part ii

Charlie sat, his leg bouncing up and down impatiently, while he waited for everything to fall back to him. It seemed as of recently he spent most of his time waiting around for everyone, or he was absolutely bored out of his mind. Somehow he’d gotten stuck with the shit job of book research. He was in charge of finding out whatever this lost kingdom thing was, and why this quest was relevant in the first place, since the folder he and Leah had been given held only tasks, but not any information. This was driving him stir-crazy, and as soon as he saw Lucas turn the corner and walk over with a smile on his face, he knew that he kept Charlie waiting on purpose. Lucas set two hardcover books on the table in front of Charlie and said in an almost singsongy voice, “Here you are.”

“Took you long enough,” Charlie grumbled, bitterly turning around and looking over the covers of the two books.

“Hey,” Lucas said defensively, “I have other work to take care of besides you.”

Charlie looked up and glared at him as he sat down on the opposite side of the table from him. With a mocking tone, he said, “Then why don’t you go get to your other work?”

Grinning, he said, “Oh, no, I already finished the rest; I saved you for last.”

Charlie sighed and gave his attention back to the books. “This is all you found?” He sounded desperate, and he was. Researching was definitely the worst most boring job, and on top of that there was damn near no information about this lost kingdom thing. Instinctively, he’d searched online first, but according to Lucas, since the Internet was a human invention, it’d be something of a miracle if anything had showed up.

Lucas leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “Yeah,” he said, suddenly carrying a serious tone. “There isn’t much. And it’s the called Kingdom of Fault,” he leaned back, “it just happens to be lost.”

“Whatever,” Charlie sighed. He put his head in his hands. “This sucks.”

Lucas chuckled at him. “Anyway, there is virtually nothing on the Kingdom. Not much had ever been printed on it, these books were all I found for you but, they’re about what it was like, and what went on there. And they don’t mention where it was located, other than Earth, and it also doesn’t mention what happened to it, so I asked around for you and apparently one day it just wasn’t there.”

Skimming through the pages of the first book, Charlie asked, “So why’s it called the Kingdom of Fault?”

“You know what a misprint is, right?”

Still reading, he made a gesture with his hand. “Yeah, of course, it’s when you try and print something out and it doesn’t come out right.”

“Yeah,” Lucas sighed. “The place is like that, almost. It’s like that but with people.”

Charlie looked up from the book. “Holy shit, no way. With like, actual human beings?”

“Not just Humans, Charlie, all kinds of other species too. It’s basically the dumping grounds for when the Creators ‘misprints’.” Lucas looked back at him, waiting for him to respond.

Charlie stared at him in bewilderment. “And they fucking lost it?”

“Yeah,” Lucas nodded, staring back at him, “They fucking lost it.” He glanced over Charlie’s shoulder, looked back to him, and said, “Hey, Leah and David are back. Aren’t you glad I found you some information you can take credit for finding?”

Charlie flashed him a grin and said, “Yeah, thanks.” He grabbed the books, and walked over to Leah and David saying, “Hey guys, guess what.”

Leah was already sick of David. He was relatively useless, and he was very simpleminded, and he was boring.

When it was time for she and Charlie to pick someone to accompany them on their Quest, she had immediately suggested Lucas, and she watched Charlie reluctantly agree they would ask him. But when Lucas had declined (very bluntly, he laughed, “No way, sister. Like you said, there’s a reason I don’t have your job”) and she returned to Charlie to tell him, (“He said no. Any ideas?”) he grinned in a triumphant way and said, “Remember David?”

What Leah didn’t understand was how Charlie got David to agree to something he knew nothing about, but somehow he’d done it (grinning with an unreadable smile, he returned with David trailing behind him and said, “Meet the newest member of our Quest”). David ruined her first impression of him as soon as he’d asked Leah, “So you like, can’t die?” She stared at him, while Charlie bit back his laughter, and said, “Yes.” He’d gotten off to a bad start, but Leah would have admitted that she had held her expectations higher because of Charlie.

David reminded her of the kinds of Humans she’d been trying to get away from for her entire childhood. Because of this she didn’t trust him, even though he was too stupid to be a threat, and she had make sure that we they split up she would be with him (trying to figure out how they were going to split up the work, without blinking Leah stood up and declared, “I will take field research. David should come with me. Charlie, you should stay here and get as much book research as you can while we’re out.” To which Charlie stared up at her and said, “You’re kidding right?”) so she could keep an eye on him. This of course backfired on her when she realized how boring and annoying David was, and how on more than one occasion when they got back from interviewing anyone they could find, Charlie would be playing on his guitar or talking to Lucas after finding out nothing useful, or nothing at all, the entire time she and David were gone.

The day seemed like it was going roughly the same. She and David had gotten nowhere asking people questions. Besides that, David was impossible to work with. Any time they would talk to someone who didn’t resemble a Human, he would lose focus. He was driving her insane.

After they’d gotten another door slammed in their faces, let sat at a bench outside. Leah, fed up, said, “May I ask you something?”

David looked up from his feet and her. Just from looking at him she could tell he was startled. It seemed her feeling of dislike towards him was mutual. “Uh… yeah. Yeah, sure.”

She stared right at him. “How on Earth did Charlie get you to agree to come along for this Quest when you have no experience in any of this?” After she’d asked the question she realized it sounded more like an insult than she meant.

David’s eyes widened briefly before he looked back down at his feet. “Oh, uh,” he cleared his throat, “he’s, uh, well you know….very persuasive.”

Leah scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, whatever. Let’s just head back and see if he found any information today.”

In a painfully awkward way he said, “Yeah, uh…yeah.”

Walking to where they had agreed to meet back with Charlie, Leah lead their way. She hardly checked back to see if David was still trailing behind her or not; it honestly didn’t matter to her if he was there or not. They walked in silence, while Leah hoped to herself that Charlie had found something of relevance for their Quest. Although the three of them hadn’t been working at this for longer than a few weeks, she wasn’t a patient person and she hated waiting around for anything. She and David turned the corner to the meeting place and were about to approach Charlie and Lucas when Charlie stood up, tripping over the bench of the table he’d been sitting at, and instead made his way over to them. Leah hopefully presumed this meant he had good news.

The next few days had them insanely busy and completely overwhelmed, and somehow Leah handled all of it. She would sit opposite from them, hogging the only two sources of information that existed on the subject, leaving Charlie and David useless most of the time. She swarmed over the books, like she was memorizing each word. Charlie and David sat across from her, talking, and laughing, and not contributing at all, while Leah practically buried herself inside the books, only occasionally looking up to glare at them. Charlie got the sense that she was annoyed that they weren’t helping, even though she was the one who wouldn’t let them help. She was some annoying mix of not a team player and too much of one.

Then, Leah was strangely on edge all the sudden. After only about ten minutes of dealing with them, she looked up and said coldly, “I have a task for you two.”

Charlie looked over at her and away from David, somewhat relived they might finally get to do something. “Yeah?”

She closed the book she was reading and pulled a piece of paper that she had sent under the list. Handing it over she said, “This is a list of supplies I need you and David to retrieve. Most of them are here in my home, but there are a few errands you will have for run. Those ones are marked. Then we will be able to set off on our Quest.”

David stared at her. “But we don’t even know where we’re supposed to -”

“Inside the second book, I found a map hidden in the back.” She took that out next, handing it to Charlie.

He stared at it for a minute before setting it on the table, eyes wide.

“What is it?” David asked.

He stammered, “It looks exactly like -”

“I know,” Leah cut off.
to be continued