"Wait, *our* President?" asked Josh.

"Yeah. I mean, the American President. Yes."

Hailey gasped and nearly stumbled on a paver's edge, "Wow, Jesus, I didn't like the gu... well, I mean, geez."

"And it was an actual angel?" Josh tried to confirm.

Hitomi shook her head, "I don't know! I barely know anything about angels except for cartoons. But it wasn't a hal, halli, um,"

"Hallucination?" offered Hailey.

"Right! It was not. Definitely: not. I mean, the President really died. And then the security guards, they all shot at it and the bullets just, uh, disappeared!"

"Figures they'd try to shoot an angel," said Hailey.

Josh snorted. "What were they supposed to do? The thing went and murdered the President on live TV!"

"So... we missed the rapture?" Hailey asked, wonderingly.

"Rap-ture? What is a 'rapture?" Hitomi wanted to know.

"Uhm, it's when it's the end of the world and God takes all the faithful people up to Heaven and leaves the sinners behind to suffer."

Hitomi was uncertain. "Um, I don't think *anyone* went to Heaven."

"Think it's aliens, then?" Hailey asked them.

"Or Wizards, like from Harry Potter," said Josh, looking around, sweeping the streets for threats.

Hitomi had never considered that anything supernatural could ever really be real. Sure, she knew some great ghost stories from her childhood. Japan had awesomely weird folktale monsters and eldritch creatures woven throughout its culture. Like, how weird were Kappas?

But could magic be real?

She loved Harry Potter books, and sure, but she didn't think a wizard, or even a group of wizards, could pull off what had just happened.

The Voice had been in her head, in her own language. Did everyone hear the Voice across the whole world? She stowed that question away for later.

"I am so impressed by how calm you two are. I have NEVER been so frightened!" Hitomi exclaimed.

Josh laughed. "Well, there's an old American saying: you either get busy living, or you get busy dying," he said, with a faux accent of an older sounding man.

Hailey punched him in the shoulder and sighed, turning her head apologetically to Hitomi: "He likes to quote movies, it's his 'thing'." She punctuated the end of the sentence by making air-quotes with her fingers.

"Hey! Shawshank Redemption is a classic."

Huh. It was surprisingly calming to hear a casual - call it playful even - conversation, after everything Hitomi had just been through.

She laughed. Oh, it felt so good to laugh! Ow! Damn. It hurt her ribcage to laugh.

Hitomi was still sore from catching a baby with her chest.

The situation may be absurd, but as she felt her satchel bouncing on her thigh, she suddenly felt very happy that at least her laptop had survived somehow too! That was a huge bonus. Her precious YouTube was safe. Well, once the internet came back up, she thought.

"So, hey, Heetomi?"

Why could no one say her name right? She was too shy to correct the helpful and kind young lady next to her.

"Yes?" she asked.

"So... um, about what happened back there."

Josh quickly jumped in, "Yeah, speaking of magic, how did you do that teleportation trick when you saved the baby?"

Hitomi stopped in shock.

"Whhaaaaa?"