If you could tell me, just once, that what I did was the right thing, I would appreciate that.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Current Date: October 7, 2058

Character: Noah White
Race: Angel – Colours
Age: 90, physically about 25
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

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I think about Olympia every so often; she’s the reason I made it as far as I did in life. I won’t delude myself into thinking otherwise and I wouldn’t want to. She was just what I needed back then. She was an older sister, a confidant, that one person I could turn to whenever I had questions. Once I came down here, everyone and everything I had ever truly known about up there became this locked-away thing. I had made my choice to come down here and now I needed to live with it.

It was fine.

Thinking about Oly and dreaming about her are two very different things. I remember how she once told me that we didn’t dream about the others we knew, not above. I never asked her to explain that part to me, but she had a point, at least while I was up top with her and the others. The dreams I did have, and the ones I do remember, had to do with faces I didn’t know and things I didn’t really have to give much thought to. It was as though my mind was trying to make something up to keep itself entertained while I slept.

Of the dreams I do remember, Olympia has never been part of them. Her passing was unexpected but once I had accepted that she had gone, before I even came down from living up top, I think I had held on to some sort of hope that she would come to me in my dreams since she had moved on from the realm and she never had. So that she would be part of my most recent night has left me somewhat confused.

To say the least.

Her behaviour in my dream was so different from how I remembered her. I wonder if this is why I’m confused more than by her presence. It was as though I was sitting in a sort of role-reversal café. Because that’s what the whole scene felt like. We were sitting in a quiet little café and the place reminded me of one of the spots I spent a lot of time in after I had first relocated. It wasn’t far from where I’d started working and it was just a quiet place where I could go over the recent events of my life and put things into some sort of order.

As I woke up in the dream, so to speak, she wasn’t there. I was sitting at the quiet spot that I almost always claimed as my own whenever it was empty, and it was empty often at the hours I showed up. I settled there, a steaming cup of something in front of me—I can’t honestly remember, and it hardly matters, as is—and I must have been starting off, my eyes out of focus because one moment, there’s just me and the quiet talking of voices all around me, the next, she’s there, sitting in front of me. She’s wearing clothes that I’ve never seen her wear before but her hair, her eyes, and her whole face tell me what I need to know. I could never mistake her for anyone else.

The look on her face, though, that was something else. She looked lost and uncertain. Honestly, she looked so much younger than I remember her ever being. Not that she’d ever looked old, or even just her age, but there was youth in her face that was just faintly strange to me at that particular moment. Even now that the dream is fading, I remember how she was fiddling with the sleeves of the hoodie she was wearing. An item of clothing that I know she would have never gotten caught wearing before in her life.

Just something else to confuse me about the whole thing.

Eventually, I remember that after some time during which she mostly just seemed to stare at me, her eyes wide and clearly confused, she asked me that if I could tell her just this once, no matter how long it had been that she’d just done the right thing, she would appreciate it. It confused me even more. Olympia was the one person I’d ever known to never need that kind of reassurance.

That’s the thing too, the tone of her voice, the way she stated her request, it sounded like she was asking for reassurance, as though this version of her believed that there was nothing she’d ever done quite right in her life. This woman who had nearly raised me. This woman who had helped me make up my mind about where I wanted to go in life. This woman who deserved so much more than the death she did. She had done so many right things that I didn’t know where to even start.

I woke up not long after her request and it does make me a little sad that even in the dream, I didn’t get to give her what she’d asked for, but I know that I can’t change that.

Final Word Count: 848

I didn’t lie! I just… didn’t tell you everything.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Noah White
Race: Angel – Colours
Age: 88, physically about 25
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 765 words
 

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My first foray into the realm of mortals was… different. I’m not really sure what I’d been expecting. My mind had always been set. I wanted to help the little ones, I wanted to be around children so I could take their suffering away. I hadn’t really been told much about the world below our own. I just knew that there were little ones in need of help—as there was up here but quite fewer so and I didn’t feel needed—and that I would do all I could to help them.

When I first landed—no pun intended—I was at a loss. I looked at the tall man who had essentially dropped me off and he shrugged as though to say that he was just the messenger. I looked all around, a bustling city only some paces away but I was somewhere that resembled a park. Where were the children? I had been so hyped on the idea of starting to help children right off the bat that I hadn’t thought about everything else.

Lodging, food needs, clothing. I also hadn’t really been told about any of these things, if I were to be honest. I felt as though I had been lied to. In a way, looking back now, I know that’s not the case. I just hadn’t been told much. Many things had been omitted and I suppose that’s what it is. I wanted to rage at the people that had not prepared me properly for this world but, instead, I turned my focus on finding my way.

As Oly had often told me, I was gifted and not only in helping others. I was resourceful and I knew how to make sure things went the way I needed them to, in the long run.

Yes, it took a whole lot of walking and a whole lot of reading signs before I found out where I was meant to go. The angel that had dropped me off hadn’t even told me anything. All I had with me was a small bag with my few changes of clothes.

I did eventually find the little clinic that I recalled having been told about. A clinic run by others, perhaps not all like me, but similar enough to me. They helped me with the rest of what I did need so I could be living a comfortable life there, with them. They helped me find a roof over my head, they set me up in their system and while I was paired up with someone else for the first few months—to prove that I knew what I was doing, I suppose—I was then allowed to do my work just fine on my own.

None of that lasted overly long. I’m not wholly certain that I remember why I ended up in Atheria. One moment, I was doing my thing at the clinic, the next, I remember just walking up to the place and everything else is mostly history.

I’ve always been a stickler for making sure everything was done as per procedure, though, so I remember butting heads with Ethan a lot. It’s not that he wasn’t following procedures, but I guess that he’d been there long enough that he felt he could bypass some of them. Maybe, I don’t know. After the first few days, we didn’t work together much. I think our first meeting didn’t really put me in his good first-impression books, as I remember it, he hadn’t been scheduled to work when I popped up.

That was such a long time ago.

I did miss the clinic for a while, but eventually, I think I sort of was able to wrap my mind around how this place seemed better for me, and, in a way, I felt like I was helping even more here than I’d been helping at the clinic and that feels like it’s saying a lot. There were just so many people in that building, back then. I can’t say that there was a constant flow of people on the medical floor but there rare was a dull moment.

The one thing I do appreciate more than anything else, though, is that I was given pretty much all the information I needed right at the start. I didn’t have to wonder about anything though I had plenty to learn about, of course. But that just so happened to be one of those things.

No kids anymore here, not as of, well, at least two decades now but I don’t mind so much, not really.

You don’t have to save me every time.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Noah White
Race: Angel – Colours
Age: 87, physically about 25
Final Word Count: 649 words
 

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Olympia wasn’t just like an older sister to me; she was someone I could turn to, someone I trusted with some of my secrets to. I wasn’t very often opening myself up to others; I felt like I was too different, I was too bright, I wasn’t quite right. As was, I wasn’t an elemental, so most of them regarded me as being an outsider and as I was not simply ‘just’ an angel, others were also prone to just giving me odd looks. I don’t know what I am meant to be, exactly. I only know that I have some sort of control over the colours as they are perceived by others but that’s mostly it.

That and my general angel-based gifts, that is.

I’m not going to lie and claim that I was well-received in any of my classes, especially not in the ones where the vast majority of the other students were struggling to understand what we were being taught. It was just simple to me and it came naturally, I have an affinity with helping others but it made me even more of an outcast. Oly often had to come to my rescue as, after most of these particular classes, others would gang up on me and call me ugly names. They never resorted to violence but I think that the only thing that kept them from that much was their fear of punishment.

Of course, that might also have had to do with the fact that Oly was there waiting to ‘pick me up’ after these classes nearly every time. At one point, I’d been feeling so gloomy about it all that I remember snapping at her, I told her that she didn’t have to bother coming around to save me from these bullies every time, I could hold my own.

She only gave me this small little smile and let me sulk for the rest of the afternoon. The following day, all was back to the way it should have always been and she still was back to being there and waiting for me to join her for our own private lessons.

Those lessons didn’t last long, since she passed away only a year or two after that particular day. A raid gone bad. I wish she’d never gone, I felt like I’d lost a piece of myself when they told me she’d been in those whose lives had been lost. I almost screamed and ranted at them but I stopped myself from doing that, I bottled it up inside and just forced myself to keep my head up high.

When I was on my own, of course, things were different and there is no helping that but I’d like to think that I did get over it, little by little. It was hard and on some days I missed her so fiercely that I felt like I couldn’t function but over the course of the following year, I slowly climbed that slope back up and I could function almost normally by then.

I feel like she might have somewhat raised me, in a way. I never did see her as a motherly figure but she truly was like an older sister and she probably was the best older sister I likely ever could have had. I recall being teased about how much time I spent with her but, really, no one else truly wanted to spend any time with me, so it made sense to indeed spend that time with someone who did want me around and no better than someone who could tame down my wild hair into what it is now.

Memories of the years I’ve shared with her are usually met with a slightly sad smile, but, all in all, I think that I’ve had more happy years with her than not, so I really can’t complain.

Your hair keeps getting in my face.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 2nd Generation
Characters: Noah White
Race: Angel – Colours
Age: 86, physically about 25
Final Word Count: 657 words
 

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Not all memories of my time spent above, behind those pearly gates, are bad memories. I’d even have to say that a lot of the memories I do have of my time up there are good ones. They’re memories I find myself smiling at when they crop up, either because I saw something that reminded me of that time or I caught the scent of something else.

Just the same, not all the memories are good but I feel like there just are so many more positive memories to the negative ones that it’s easier to focus on the brighter side of things than the darker ones. After all, I have no idea as to what remains of the above world. When the mortals blew themselves up with their nuclear things and destroyed the world, I just don’t know whether or not it reached all the way into the other realms. It seems unlikely but it is a possibility.

I had a memory filled with amusement find its way to me this morning as I was tending to my dreads. Now, you have to understand, I know that, back before the world ended, dreads were probably one of these things that were half-half on the scale, some people took good care of theirs and others just let them go because they didn’t want to have to bother with the hair care. The thing is, my dreads are more braids than dreads, in a way. They’ve always been. I suppose they might be a little bit of both but anyway.

The memory was hard to forget this morning as I was going through my usual hair routine. I was remembering the first time my hair had been just long enough to try out the new style. I hadn’t been very old but I’d already been set on wearing my hair that was for some time and I had a friend, her name had been Olympia, who was more than willing to help me out with it.

Oly was like an older sister to me. She was my elder by a good forty years but she still looked like a teen. I suppose that’s the thing with our genes, really. Her hair was so long but she usually kept it loose or just tied loosely and when it was windy, her hair would be all over the place. The memory still brings a small smile to my face when I think about it but at the same time, it is a little tinged with sadness. Oly lost her life during a sort of raid, long before the world ended and I do miss her. It was before I came to live here. It probably is the reason why I came to live here.

We were sitting in one of the parks, figuring that the day was nice and clear and she was working on my hair but the wind—a breeze more than the wind—suddenly picked up. It would toss her hair my way, it was getting in my face, it was keeping her from working so after about five minutes of fighting with her hair and laughing about it, we switched our positions around, managed about another five or so minutes of work and then the wind would shift. It was honestly hilarious.

We tried for a little while more before we moved back inside. It was the only way for her to be able to work on my hair without having to deal with hers as well. I don’t really recall how long it took; just that she was careful and methodical. I still remember the feel of her fingers in my hair, I recall nodding off a little but she’d tease me back to awareness so she could work on my head without my nodding off motion.

All in all, I’m fond of that memory, even if it does make me a little sad.

I don’t understand! I only used a finger.

Timeline/World: Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Noah White
Race: Angel – Colours
Age: 84, physically about 25
Final Word Count: 534 words

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Certain people are idiots and some idiots I’ve met long before I ever came to this place. I know what I am, by nature, I know that I am meant to be helpful and that is where I was raised, up there, with others like me though none quite as colourful as me—I was the only one of my sub-species, so to speak.

One of the classes in which we were taught how to help others with our natural gifts was one of the biggest sources of ‘fail’ material I’ve ever witnessed. I don’t know if it’s because some of my classmates were born this way or just acting this way but you would have thought that they couldn’t tell the difference between a cat and a horse. I’m aware that the usual statement, in this case, is apple and orange but I don’t care so much, the point remains the same.

We were told that the best way to diffuse our power, when it came to helping mortals, for the most part, was with a full-palm touch. I suppose in a way this can be compared water pressure flowing out through a single pinprick point—very concentrated—or flowing out through a large open area—not very concentrated. Certain others just didn’t grasp this particular idea and actually thought it was the other way around, how they came to that particular point I will never be able to really understand.

So, when the time came to test this on poor victims—that is, our own classmates since we were mostly immune to one another but we still would feel the spark of pain, like snapping an elastic band against the wrist, if they did it wrong. We heard so many yelps in the class during those days and so many exclamations of ‘I don’t understand!’. It was worth face palming quite a bit and I know I did.

It’s in that class that we were finally divided into specialized group and I was one of the rare few who made it out of there with so-called top grades. I could get the ‘job’ I wanted and I kept it simple enough, I wanted to head down there because I wanted to help children, it’s all that really mattered to me and while they hesitated in allowing me to come down here, they knew it was the only thing that would actually make me happy and keep me in line and they gave me the go ahead.

If only they’d known what was bound to happen.

Not that it matters anymore, the world has changed in a drastic way and nothing that really was there is left anymore, not even what was above and below, the world truly and absolutely screwed itself over when it destroyed itself but I suppose that’s for the best. Mother Nature reclaimed most of the world to herself and the rest of everyone else, well they’ve either adapted or died off.

Not a whole lot of children here to take care of, not anymore in any case but I don’t mind, I’m still pretty happy with my current lot in life, I have nothing to complain about.