The next morning was pretty normal. I ate some breakfast with Cornelius. He was busy booking the bar for tonight's festivities while I munched on some fried eggs. Afterwards, Maio took me into town to run some errands. I called my uncle on a payphone, got him to pay off my student loans, and then paid the amount through crypto to him. Good thing the coins Berny recommended to me were untraceable. I finally got to pay off my student loans! No more being stuck only paying parts of the interest instead of the loan, I was finally free from the heavy chains of academia.

I went to the library to use the internet to figure out how to get my brother out of prison. I had some law books sprawled on the table with web sites about the article on my bro open on a laptop  I borrowed from Cornelius when I heard Xiz ask “What’re you up to?”. He sat on top of a bookshelf while stacking a teetering tower of books.

I popped in some earbuds so it looked like I was on the phone instead of talking to myself. “I’m trying to get my bro out of prison.”

“Oh yeah, I remember seeing his mugshot in that van that was spying on us. Why’s he in prison?”

“He saw two police officers beating up a man in handcuffs. Guy was defenseless against them. He fought them both and now he got arrested for assaulting officers. Really did a number on the popos. He’s gonna be locked up for 10 years now because of it. The cops turned off their body cams and covered the dashcam with the car’s hoods so there was no footage to prove my bro’s side of the story and no one was gonna testify against the cops. So that’s why he’s going to prison while they get a short suspension. Their internal investigation didn’t prove anything useful.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, it does, but now I can get a good lawyer and pay off the bail. Hopefully I can get him out soon.”

“Yeah, hopefully. Being stuck somewhere for a long time away from friends and family sucks, not able to do what you want and being forced to do whatever someone else wants.”

Sounds like he’s speaking from experience.

I went back to my work while Xiz knocked the tower of books on to a poor passerby. She fell to the ground but when she looked to see what had hit her all the books were gone, leaving her confused and bewildered as to what happened.

Damnit Xiz.

He laughed then swung from the hanging lights to go mess with someone else. I read some pages from different books, continued doing research online, and also looked for some houses on sale. I could finally buy a house instead of renting. The day went on like that with me getting distracted here and there, catching up on some manga and comics that I fell behind on. I heard on the intercom that the library was closing soon so I packed up and left the building. I saw Xiz in the parking lot laughing at a confused person wondering where their car went, pressing the unlock button on their key fob and then hearing a beep coming from the roof of the library.

The poor confused man took out his phone, made a call and said “Hey Babe, you’re not gonna believe what I’m about to say but the car got on the roof of the library… I’m 100% serious … What do you mean it’s parked at home? I pressed the unlock button on the key fob and the sound came from the roof, I’ll try again.”

He pressed the button on his car keys but no sound came from anywhere around us. “I don’t hear it now but I swear to God I drove here… You’re standing in the garage and it’s there?... The keys are still on the key rack. What the heck are you talking about, you’re tripping, they’re in my h-” He looked at his hands that were holding the keys just a second ago only to see them empty. He patted all of his pockets, going so far as flipping them inside-out, looking everywhere to see if they’d fallen to the ground but to no avail. He scratched his head, questioned his own sanity, and said “You can see me standing on the lawn talking to you!?! WHAT THE F-” Suddenly he disappeared mid sentence in front of me. I looked around then, with my heightened hearing, heard a scream coming from the suburbs.

Xiz was rolling on the ground now laughing at the man’s reaction.

I rolled my eyes as I left Xiz to his mischief.

***

We entered the par with the party at full swing. The guards were happy and drinking to their heart's content, playing pool and chatting with each other. I just stuck with trying all of the non-alcoholic drinks, they were nice. Everyone seemed pretty drunk so I just spoke with Xiz normally.

“Who was the invisible guy you were getting all of that info about Archy from?”

Xiz was playing the knife game, stabbing each of his fingers as he answered “The demon that’s been assigned to him.”

“Assigned to him?”

“Yeah, everyone’s got some demon assigned to them since birth. They’re the ones who try to give them evil ideas. Everyone’s supposedly also got an angel assigned to them but they never talk or show themselves to us so can’t confirm that. Pretty useful, you can get a lot of info from them.”

“So I’ve got one too?”

“Everyone’s got one. Why? Can’t see ‘em?”

“Am I supposed to?”

“Well yeah, you’re not human anymore, you should be able to. Hmm, maybe it’s because you’ve never tried to see more. It’s probably gonna be rough though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the best analogy I can give is that you’ve been living in the dark for your whole life. After fumbling in the dark for so long now you found a light switch. It would be overwhelming to you, probably blinding, if you turned on the lights. You’d need to get used to it, else you’ll go nuts.”

“Hmm, I guess I’ll try then.” I closed my eyes, focused really hard on seeing every little detail, and then opened my eyes. I saw colors I’d never seen before, strange beings watching us, and some weird entities sitting on peoples shoulders. One of the guards even looked like some hyena man. The new sights were overwhelming, giving me a headache so I quickly closed my eyes and stopped focusing so hard. I slowly opened my eyes, feeling a splitting headache. Everything went back to normal. I grasped my head and muttered, “Jeez, that was painful”.

“Yeah, it’s gonna take some time to master, I’d do it slowly if I were you.”

I got some aspirin from the bartender and then the headache slowly subsided. I played pool, chatted with the guards a bit, and threw some darts. Clarence said he’d be working for a secret organization but he’d have to kill us if he told us what it was, jokingly. That’s when I started noticing something odd. Everyone seemed to be getting a bit drowsy.

At first I thought it was because it was late in the night but then I realized that not everyone at the same time would start getting tired. I saw Cornelius being out like a light while Marcus slowly approached him, like a hunter stalking its prey.

“Haha, looks like you’ve had a bit too much to drink. Don’t worry guys, I’ll take him home” said Marcus as he chuckled, lifting him up and leaning him against his shoulder, taking him out the door. That’s when the drowsiness hit me. I didn’t drink any alcohol so I wasn’t drunk, the drinks had to be spiked.

I saw some of the others fall asleep. I rubbed the drowsiness out of my eyes with no luck while heading out the door after them, realizing the door was locked.

What the heck is going on. Panic set in. I ran through the back as the bartender snoozed on the ground behind the counter. The backdoor was locked so I teared it off its hinges, ran out, and straight to the front, seeing Marcus pushing Clarence into the back of a dark van. “Hey!” I yelled.

Marcus made eye contact with me. “Damn, you’re a tough SOB aren’t you? I put enough drugs in your drinks to knock out a herd of elephants. Who cares though, there’s only so long you can stay up and besides, you have some more pressing matters to attend to” he spoke with a smile as he lifted his phone, pressing the call button on some random phone number. I ran up to him, suddenly hearing an explosion, spinning around to see the bar engulfed in flames.

“What have you done!” I yelled as the car's doors slammed shut and drove away. I couldn’t chase the vehicle now, the place was on fire and I struggled to stay awake. “Xiz, follow them! I’ll deal with the flames.”

“Way ahead of you” he replied while zipping after them.

I forced myself to get to the fire hydrant in front of the bar, hitting it so a large torrent of water would come spurting out. The water was flowing upwards so I forced it to go towards the bar with my hands, taking out some of the flames but soon my strength faded. Finally, I let go, the water blast forcing me to stumble backwards into the street. Everything started to fade as I could no longer force myself to stay awake.