His lips met mine in another close embrace. I trembled in his arms. He held me close to him, to where our bodies were completely pressed together. Our lips collided with such fierceness that it caused my body to quiver. But with every collision a strange feeling flooded my body. It coursed through my veins, making me weak.
Why did Niall make me feel like this? I couldn’t identify the feeling, but it caused me to be impulsive and kiss him like this. Maybe I always felt this way; I just never put any thought to it. Seeing Zayn and Ayame holding each other like they did made me feel lonely. Niall took that loneliness away. When I was in his arms like that I was safe; protected from whatever dark and scary things this uncertain world could attack me with. I know he thought that he was useless, but to me he was one of the most important people.

As I stood there in the middle of my small dorm room, our arms wrapped around each other, and lips carefully caressing the other’s, I thought of how this was the boy I met just a month ago. When I first met him, I thought he was insane; him and his group of strange teenagers who spoke absolutely nonsense about this strange, new, impossible world. He was hyperactive, fun, and spontaneous. He was beautiful, caring, and different.
I ran my hands through his hair, exhaling all of my emotions into our kiss as I thought of this. I wanted him to never leave me. Could we stay like this forever? Could we continue whatever life this was intertwined, young, and blissful? In this place, we would never grow old, we would never get sick, and we would never die. We could remain this way forever. No one would notice our absence. Would wouldn’t even have to breathe, technically, we could stay like this forever. That would be a wonderful life, but an empty life.

Niall finally pulled away, taking in big heaps of air, and smiling at me. I smiled with him and removed my fingers from his platinum hair.
“Impulsive,” he breathlessly chuckled in his thick accent.
“I’m sorry,” I helplessly blushed. I had realized what I had done and was about to take the consequences; my own awkwardness.
Under his bright blue gaze, I continued to blush and shiver. I felt so small in front of him. I was like his junior, a fragile child learning from him. I was learning from him, actually. He was supposed to teach me how to defend myself, the ways of this afterlife, and how to fight God.
Lost in my own thoughts, I hadn’t noticed that Niall had taken me in his arms again. Our bodies were once again pressed together, his head rested on my right shoulder, his hand on the back of my head. He took his index finger and began twirling it around my dark curls. I followed his actions and began to play with his hair.

“This is nice,” he muttered to no one in particular. I think he was only speaking out loud, but I replied anyway.
“It is. I finally feel…normal, if that makes sense,” I said.
“It does. I’ve spent my life here empty, unable to fill this hole inside me. I never knew what fit there, but now I know that it’s this,”
“Whatever this is,” I chucked. I was unaware of what to call this. The word love passed through my mind, but I was too unsure to spin that around my tongue. I simply inhaled whatever feeling this was; all of the uncertainty, strangeness, and loveliness that came along with it.
“I didn’t just come to apologize.” Niall finally spoke up as we pulled away again, “We need to go to the woods so I can finally teach you to shoot. There’s a mission coming up tonight and you need to quit dying.”
“You make me sound bad,”
“You are bad. Liam hasn’t even died yet,” Niall joked about.
“Maybe Liam was a weird, gun obsessed kid when he was alive,” I said in an attempt to defend myself.
“No, Liam was some this musical theater kid, but he had this kidney disorder so he had to quit” he explained. He looked out the small window of my room and sighed, “The suns going down, so we should go,”
Niall took my hand like it was a regular thing and lead me out of my room. Oddly enough, we held hands the entire way. Students gave us strange expression as we passed them. I noticed this, but Niall had his goofy smile plastered on his face the whole time. Somehow, that smile took away my awkwardness. I guess I had a fear of rejection and seeing everyone stare at us like aliens only amplified it. Nialls silly face numbed that fear. I began to lean on him as we walked. Eventually, an equally goofy smile appeared on my face. I liked it and let it stay.

Once we cut through the woods and found a safe spot to practice, I pulled out the small black gun from my pocket. I was still uneasy holding it. I didn’t like the idea of shooting something, but the Crowleys were our enemies and they were so hostile. I wouldn’t be able to talk my way out of a fight with either of them. Michael seemed like a sociopathic sadist. It was obvious that he found enjoyment out hurting us. Gabriel on the other hand, I couldn’t read anything on him. He was silent during his attacks. He seemed almost robotic, more so than the NPC’s. The way he fought was perfect; he didn’t speak, unless muttering to himself, or hesitate. With one swift strike of his blade, he could take down his target.
Niall gave me instructions on how to hold my gun, squeeze the trigger, and shoot. Apparently, I was terrible at it. The recoil startled me and I’d flinch whenever the gun went off. He had to stand behind me to hold my hand a certain way.
When he placed his hand on mine, I began to quiver. Since he was pressed against my back, he felt it.
“Hold still, Harry. You’ll never hit the target if you don’t,” he ordered.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. His lips were so close to my face that I felt his breath run against my ear. He didn’t mean to, but he made it worse. I tried to quail my nervousness, but it nearly impossible.
He tightened his body around me in an attempted to stop the shivering. It helped a bit, but not enough.
“You’re holding your breath. Don’t do that,” he told me. I didn’t even know that I had stopped breathing. Instantly, I took up the habit again.
It took forever for me to learn how to shoot. Niall gave everything that he could. All the tricks he had learned by being here and having to defend himself, I now knew, but it didn’t help my aim. My only target was a large tree off in the distance. I could see it and hit it with anything but a bullet.
“I’m just not good,” I sighed, dropping my tired arms. Niall released his grip and let out a sigh as well.
“Don’t just give up, Harry,” he spun me around and looked straight into my eye. His eyes were so bright and blue.
The sun had almost completely gone from the sky, but the small amount of light still there kissed Niall’s face perfectly. Half of his face lost in the gray shadow, while the other half shined brightly.
“Maybe I’m just not a fighter, Niall,” I protested, about to shove the gun back into my pocket, and forget about it.
“If Louis, whose almost an idiot, can get Liam, who almost cried when he first watch Anna shoot down Michael, to shoot something, I’m pretty sure I can get you to his a tree,” Niall replied with serious look on his face. He was determined to get me to shoot something.
Once again, Niall took his place behind me, and wrapped his arms around me to help me aim. He whispered in my ear all of the steps one more time. I tried to ignore the obvious nervousness that caused my knees to quiver. I held back all of the strange feelings that Niall made me feel and stood strong. My feet were planted into the soil of the forest, my arms were perfectly a line, and my breathing was steady. For once today, I felt completely calm. I inhaled the smell of fresh of pine trees and nature. It wasn’t something I was familiar with, but the fact that I knew this was a fake scent sort of ruined it for me.
I took one last deep inhale and then squeezed the trigger of my gun. A loud bang exploded from the small barrel and a small wound appeared on the trunk of the tree in front of me. Though it was a minor accomplishment, I still felt a sense of victory. It was like remembering my name; it was so meaningless, but at the same time meaningful.
Nialls guiding embrace turned into a gentle hug. He rested his head on my shoulder as I smiled at myself.
“Good job, Rookie,” he playfully teased.
It just made me smile more and all of those strange feelings burst inside of my body.
Night finally came. We all met in the Battlefront’s headquarter. We were preparing for another concert mission, where the Battlefront’s band would preoccupy the Crowleys and students by holding a concert in the gym. Last time it was complete failure. The Crowleys were violent, ruthless fighters. Michael would pay no expense to destroy whoever got in his way, I’m pretty sure Gabriel was the same way, but he was more of a sociopath, while Michael was a complete psycho. You could literally see the enjoyment in his eyes when he attacks someone. It was like watching a monster devour it’s pray.
Everyone went through their usual routines of shoving ammo into their guns, polishing their knives, and giving tips to Liam and me, since we were the newest members. For the first time, Louis had sat me down to talk. Liam sat next to me on the plush purple couch while Louis sat on the coffee table, and began giving us pointers to the fight. I hadn’t noticed before, but Liam shook. His small tremors found their way to me, and I began to feel them. Perhaps Louis intimidated him, but that couldn’t have been the case. I didn’t know Louis well, but he came off as unbelievably kind and docile. His charming, boyish smile could calm the most violent monster. He was very good looking and sweet.
The handsome boy looked to me with a stern, yet soft face, and began talking directly to me.
“Harry, you’re the newest, and you’ve also died the most, so we can’t have you on the field again. We don’t want to see you getting hurt like that again, it’s rather embarrassing,” he stated plainly. I was a little taken back, but I tried not to show it, “I understand that Niall taught you a few things today, but I rather to practice more and sit the battle out than end up in the hospital again. So, you’ll be going with Anna, Iquan, and Niall,” he explained.
The new name popped up and made me curious, but I was more upset that I wasn’t filled in on the actual mission.
“Where are we going?” I instantly asked.
“We found out how to get into Gabriel Crowley’s base. We need you guys to go in there, with Iquan, and help her hack into his hard drive. It’s your job, all of you guys, to find out as much information you can before the concert ends. While you’re doing that, the rest of us will be fending off the Crowleys,”
“Whose Iquan?”
“Some you’ll meet soon. You just have to focus on the mission at the moment. You guys are literally the most important thing right now,” Louis said before turning to Liam, “Liam, you’re beautiful. Don’t be scared of hurting anyone,” he began to tell Liam not to hesitate with any one comes after him.
I wasn’t aware that Liam was so scared to fight, but somehow he was better than I was.
I figured that Louis was done talking to me since he was focused on Liam for a while, so I hopped up from the couch, and went to talk to Niall. When I reached my hand out to get his attention, the office door swung open and a thin, lanky girl with thick rimmed glasses jogged into the room. She held a laptop tightly in her grip, pressed up against her chest. She almost bumped into me, but I managed to move out of her way before we could collide.
“I’m sorry if I’m late, Anna, I got here as quick as I could,” she squealed in a breathless voice.
She must have been running for away because she looked tired, though she had an athletic build to her. It would have a few miles of running to wear her down.
“You’re fine, Iquan, the band isn’t even here yet,” Anna replied from her desk.
She waved her hand as a gesture to let it go.
The new girl in the room sat down on the couch next to Liam and began typing on her laptop, ignoring the rest of group in the room. Her name must have been Iquan, since that’s what Anna called her. It was an unusual name, but I couldn’t judge her for that. She was small, like the other girls, but she had a strong build on her. Her muscles weren’t completely showing, but it was obviously that she had to be on some sort of team, though at first she may have come off as “nerdy”, with her glasses, and laptop.
Her hair was short and ginger colored; her eyes almost matched. They were a soft, light brown color, and shielded by her glasses.
Anna jumped from her desk and did what she usually did; introduce the people who were too shy to do it themselves.
“Rookie,” Anna called to me, getting my attention, “this is Iquan Tushima, don’t expect her to talk much, she honestly doesn’t even know I’m talking about her right now. She’s wicked smart, can hack any computer, and she can kick your ass. Her swings aren’t that good, but don’t let her get you with her legs. She ran track for a while and still has the muscles. She could knock you out with a single roundhouse, and with your history, she’d probably kill you,” she explained.
Was Iquan someone I could be scared of? She didn’t look very threatening. She was actually kind of cute; the way she surrounded herself in her own world, and could easily shut out everyone else.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said pointlessly. She would reply and I should’ve known that. I guess it was just a habit.
The band finally arrived soon after Iquan. They ran through their set list with Annaliese, as well as the mission plan. If all hell broke loose, the members had their weapons on them, and we ready to fight. I honestly wasn’t paying attention until Jack brought up her new song.
“I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind me adding in a new song,” she spoke it.
It caught my attention since I ran into her earlier, in her attempts to practice a new song. She pulled out a small box guitar, took a set on the coffee table, inhaled, and then began to play. As her fingers strummed along the guitar strings, I watch Niall poke his head up, and listen to her intensely.
Before the girl could even sing, Anna stopped her.
“Is it a ballad?” she asked with a strange look on her face.
“Well, sort of,” Jack replied unsurely.
Anna quickly rejected the song and told her to stick with the songs they found in music room. Anything that soft wouldn’t keep the Crowleys or students at bay. Though she knew Anna was right, Jack still showed the sting of rejection on her face. She winced slightly, but shrugged it off.
It was time for the mission so we all split up. Anna, Iquan, Niall, and I went on the hunt for Gabriel’s base, while the others ran towards the gym to set up for the concert. It really wanted to fight and get more practice in, but since it was an order, I had to obey. I trailed behind Niall as we ran through the vacant hallways. Iquan was in front of us all, running faster than anyone. She really did have powerful legs. Her feet barely touched the ground when she ran; she appeared to be gliding across the tiled floor. It was rather amazing, but soon she went out of view as she turned the corner.
We stopped outside of a normal looking door with a number on it. I looked around the corridor we were in and noticed we were standing outside a dorm room.
“I thought this was his base?” I whispered, in case anyone could hear us. I figured everyone would be at the concert, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.
“This is his base,” Anna replied as Iquan picked the lock on the door.
She quietly pushed it open, revealing an average looking boy’s room. When I stepped in, I almost half expected there to be a secret entry to a lab somewhere, but upon further inspection, I realized that it was just a normal bedroom. It almost looked like mine, but it was bigger, seeing as Gabriel is the vice president.
“This is just a bedroom!” I accidently shouted, thought Anna didn’t scold me for it. She simply turned around as Iquan set up her laptop to Gabriel’s computer hard drive, and giggled at me.
“What did you expect; a secret lair?” she asked with a grin.
Actually, I did expect a lair, or mad scientist’s lab. I was let down a bit, but I kept quiet so I wouldn’t seem stupid.
I sat down on Gabriel’s perfectly made bed, along with Niall, and watched at Iquan typed away on her laptop. She probably typed a thousand words a minute. She didn’t speak or make a single sound, besides the furious tapping of her keyboard. Various things popped up on Gabriel’s computer monitor, but nothing that I could make sense of. It just looked like scrambled URL’s and strange words. It seemed to make complete sense to Iquan, since she only had to take a fast glance at the screen and then continue to work.
After about ten minutes of typing a novel’s worth of keys, Iquan stopped, and stretched for a second.
“I’m in,” she said cheerfully as a diagram of Gabriel’s body came up on the screen.
Anna looked at the monitor and tried to make sense of it, like Niall and I, but she was having trouble as well.
“What does this mean?” she asked.
“Basically, Gabriel is programmed, like the other student’s here, but at the same time he’s human. He’s not a robot or simply coding, he has a fully functional human body, mind, and even a soul. God must have taken him from somewhere and re-programmed his mind to make him the way that he is,” Iquan explained as she clicked on a few things, “Here are his weapons and abilities,” she showed us a list of what Gabriel was capable of, “Notice, that the abilities aren’t taught, and his weapons are literally inside of his body. That’s how his blade appears out of nowhere and seems attached to his hand, because it is. I think he does this all himself, after God taught him how, but deep down, Gabriel is human,”
“What about Michael?” Niall asked curiously.
“I can’t find anything on him. If you want my opinion, I think he’s human too, but he’s just psychotic. The way that they fight is completely different. While Gabriel is robot and perfect, Michael is crazy, but skilled, like he had to learn what he knows. Michael has his own special technique, while Gabriel plays precisely by the book, since he basically has a book in his head,” Iquan went on to explain how Gabriel may have been programmed, but it all went over our heads.
Suddenly there was a statically hiss from Anna’s walkie-talkie. Louis’s came from the other side in a high pitched yelp, “Anna! You have to come down here. The Crowleys have called in the teachers to shut down the concert and the students are causing a riot. We need some extra help,” he pleaded desperately.
“I’ll be down there in a second,” she replied. She gave out a harsh sigh and then commanded Niall to follow her to the gym to fix the problem. She told Iquan to try and erase some of Gabriel’s programming.
The two ran out of the room with their guns in hand and left the two of us completely alone. The room was silent, besides the clicking of the keyboard. I went to say something, but my words came out as sharp chirps. Before I could reevaluate my words, Iquan spoke up.
“My name is Iquan Tushima, I’m fifteen years old, and I’ve stuck here for as long as I can remember. As for my background, if you’re really curious, listen up because I don’t want to repeat myself. I ran track for five years of my life, from seventh grade to my junior year of high school. I won championships, scholarships to universities, and was even supposed to the train for the Olympics,” she began as she continued to type and click, “then, somehow, I got leukemia. My legs no longer worked and I was bound to a hospital bed for the rest of my life. One moment, I was a straight A student, track star, and on my way to the perfect life; in an instant it was all taken away by some stupid disease. The treatments didn’t do anything but make me sick and take my hair. Eventually, I died, and now I’m here, hacking some arch angel’s computer so we can actually stand a chance of beating him for once,” she finished in one breath.
It almost seemed as if she had told this story a hundred times. It was fresh in her memory and she was ready to tell it to whoever wanted to hear.
“I’m sorry,” I began, but she cut me off before I could finish.
“Don’t be. Life sucked then, but this one isn’t too bad. I mean, I have my legs and I can’t get cancer again,” she said plainly.
“Okay then, I’m not sorry,” I said awkwardly. It took me a moment to realize I had said something stupid, again.
“That’s a little rude,” Iquan giggled before turning around in her chair to look at me, “It’s done. I couldn’t delete any programs, so instead I added one in that would deactivate his shield and hand blade ten seconds after he uses it. He should be harmless now,”
The moment those words escaped her mouth, her walkie-talkie hissed with Anna’s voice.
“Can you guys get down here? We sort of need you,” she said in a calm voice. I thought she would be desperate for help.


Without discussing it, Iquan and I ran to the gym to see what was happening. The riot had gone out of control.