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Faith… the belief in what cannot be proved… Is it foolish to put ones belief into the unknown? Or is it simply a pathway of enlightenment thought by the simple to be illogical? Is there a God? A creator, a manifestation of goodness? Where did we come from? A simple explosion of cosmic gas? Or is it something deeper? These are the questions that have been asked for eons… and some of them have yet to be answered…
A sudden screeching of rubber on asphalt sent a crescendo of honks blaring through the afternoon air. The sound filled the hot winds of New York, just as the afternoon sun peaked its way through a small glass window. Autumn Morad’s eyes opened slowly, parallel to the rays of the sun beaming down onto her body. Her soft brown eyes blinked slightly, the chocolate spheres turning in her head in the direction of the loud noise. Her mouth opened slightly in a yawn, and as the concrete jungle choir died down, she slowly sat up in bed.
Was it all a dream?
Her feet hung over the bed, her long slender legs hanging immobile over the edge of her blanket. She sighed slightly, brushing a long strand of brown hair out of her face as her eyes drifted over the small back room. The grey walls were unassuming, and the warm sunlight gave a healthy glow to the otherwise mundane living space. The sunbeams lit up the small bed, which stood against the corner of the room, along with other small furniture like mother dog with her cubs. A small dresser stood on one side of the room, next to which was a small desk, with a large mirror propped up against it. Autumn’s eyes followed the mirrors curve downward, to where it met a small alarm clock. The crimson digits read 2:30 pm… it was later than she thought…
“Must’ve overslept,” she muttered aloud to herself, pulling herself out of bed with a grunt, and standing up in the small back room. She glanced down at the red short-shorts and white tank-top that graced her petit body, and ran her fingers over the comfortable fabric with a sigh. Everything seems so normal… she thought to herself, turning to glance in the mirror, watching her small reflection looking back. Did it really happen? Any of it? She looked at her reflection, from her beautifully long strands of brown hair to her less then developed exterior. 16, and still a bit flat, she thought to herself, eyeing her reflection in the mirror, It all seems normal… She tore her eyes from the mirror, and walked slowly over to the dresser. Her hands felt like lead as she pulled open the brown drawers, and routinely pulled out a set of clothes. Her body was performing the action, but her mind was wandering…
Was it real? Did I really…
When she turned back to the mirror, she had pulled on a pair of torn jeans, clinging to her legs tightly as she pulled on a simple tie-dyed t-shirt. She stared into the mirror, her eyes glazing over slightly as she looked at the sixteen year old staring back at her. Everything seemed so normal. Was it possible that everything that had happened was all nothing? Her eyes caught the reflection of her bedroom door, an ordinary wooden door. She turned around slowly, staring at the door, a torrent of thoughts running through her mind. What if it did work? What if it didn’t?
However these thoughts were interrupted by a sudden yell that permeated the small room.
“Autumn! Are you still sleeping? Come on, it’s past noon, wake up!”
“Coming Auntie Grace!” she called back, turning around and walking over the door, which opened with a sigh before walking out of the small back room. She’d figure this out later; she’d better talk to Auntie Grace first… She left the room in a hurry, not bothering to close the door as she hurried out into the secluded hallway, winding her way through the grey walls to where the voice had come from. However, as she turned the corner away from her room, the ordinary wooden door swung shut with a soft click…
“I need the Palin article on my desk!”
“Where’s Barbara? There’s a return call from Primatech Paper!”
“Somebody call the janitor, the water cooler is leaking again!”
It was chaos. A crowded office building filled with a maze of identical cubicles and offices, all of which were swamped with endless groups of running people. People shouted and ran left and right, papers jumping from hand to hand like lice in elementary school. Yells leapt back and forth from desk to desk, and in the madness of the afternoon paper rush, a single voice rung out amongst the others. In an office shoved right in the corner, smothered in between two other ringing cubicles, a man stood his face livid as held one of the many cordless phones linked to the offices to his ear… The red tinge creeping up slightly pale skin made incredibly clear what sort of mood he was in.
“Listen man, I need this story, can’t you pull a few strings? Oh, I’m sorry? Apologies ain’t worth crap to me; I need to get in touch with the Indian! Does it sound like I care about political correctness? Ugh, can you get me the Navajo or not? Fine!”
He slammed the phone into its electronic cradle with the ferocity of an angry mother. The man known as Stroma Vermilion groaned, running a single hand through his sleek head of onyx black hair, each slick strand rubbing up against his pale fingers. He rubbed his left eye with his other hand, his right eye still open, revealing a single blue eye within its socket. The eye, despite its bright sky blue hues, was red with tiredness, and every breath that Stroma drew revealed only stress, after stress, after stress lining that eyeball. He put both his hands on his desk, his head bowing as a torrent of thoughts raced through his mind. Damn, I need a new job… he thought over and over again, his breaths coming heavily as his complexion slowly began to pale once more, Any more of this crap, and I’ll hit the classifieds again...
“Any luck?”
A single friendly voice amidst the torrent of madness surrounding him came through, and Stroma, looked up, his face splitting into a grin, masking his anxiety as he shook hands with the individual walking through the door.
“Ugh, none Sean, none,” he replied, rubbing his eye once more before looking back at the man with a tired grin, “These politicians get jumpy when you mess around with the Indian reservations. And especially after what happened last night, they don’t want anybody snooping around.”
“Makes sense I guess,” said Sean, shrugging his broad shoulders as he stared for a second into Stroma’s eyes, “I’ve pulled all the strings I can for you on this one Stroma; you’re on your own now.”
“I know, damnit, “ Stroma muttered, turning to face the window, his palms pressing against the class as he stared at his reflection in the glass… Two different colored eyes stared back at him, one the bright blue of the sky, the other a brilliant hazel… Natural Heterochromia… kinda freaked some people out occasionally… Sure made get interviews easier.
However, his train of thoughts was interrupted by a sudden familiar ringing. Stroma groaned, his eyes rolling at Sean who nodded, his mouth shutting as Stroma reached for that damned phone with a single pale hand.
“Modern Media, Stroma Vermillion speaking,” he said, putting the phone to his ear as Sean waved to him, mouthing a few words to him, before sliding a small manila folder onto the desk. Stroma gave him a thumbs up and a nod before turning his attention back to his call, using every ounce of composure he had to stop from shouting into the mouthpiece.
“Hey, Stroma.”
“Who is this?” snapped Stroma, his eyes shutting as he struggled to maintain his composure, “I’m very busy right now, can you take it up with someone else?”
“Jeez, you don’t even recognize your own sister’s voice? Thanks a lot!”
Stroma’s entire face relaxed instantly as the woman’s voice spread familiarly across his ear.
“Sorry Kate, I’m dealing with a lot of crap right now,” he said, rubbing his temples with one hand as he held the phone with the other, “What’s up?”
“Time to take a break bro, we need some catching up to do,” Kate’s voice said over the phone, her tone exasperated and somewhat humored, “Meet me in an hour for coffee over at Karen’s.”
“Sure thing Kate,” Stroma said, his tiredness and irritation evident in his voice, despite the obvious relaxation of his face, “Meet you there.”
“Don’t be late,” she said playfully, the line clicking dead with a subtle snap, and Stroma lowered the phone slowly, his eyes scrunching together as he let his thoughts rage for a moment. He breathed deeply, trying not to think about the four very close walls surrounding him as his head pulsated, throbbing in mental congestion… It was like a gong beating against his skull, and he gripped the desk tightly with his fists as he shut his eyes even tighter… All the frustration built up to a single infinitesimal point, and finally, Stroma slowly let it whisper way, his mind releasing, and his breath coming again as he slowly releasing his grip on the desk, his eyes opening wide as he felt a trickle of wetness rubbing against his fingers.
“What the…” he muttered, his head turning upward as water droplets fell from the ceiling splattering against his fingers with an endless choir of plip plop, plip plop. “Damn leaking water cooler,” he muttered against to himself, glancing annoyingly at the ceiling, which slowly appeared to be getting wetter by the second. He wiped his hands quickly, grabbing his coat from off his door, stepping outside his office only for a figure to run smack into him, a stack of papers in the boy’s hands soaring into the air. “Watch where you’re going boy,” snapped Stroma angrily, picking the assistant off the ground by roughly and setting him on his feet, “And get someone to fix that water cooler upstairs, my office better not be soaked by the time I get back!” He left in a hurry, not bothering to help the teen pick up his papers. The assistant looked up startled, opening his mouth, too startled to answer, but merely saying awkwardly after Stroma,
“But the leaking cooler is three floors down…”
The sun beat down on the ground, its burning rays beating down on the pavement like the soles of a thousand commuters everyday. The heat outside meant that pedestrian traffic was at a minimum, so nobody really noticed, when a lone figure lit up in the shadow of a tall skyscraper. The burning embers of a fresh cigarette was the only light that illuminated this shadowy figure’s face, and even as he brought the smoking death-stick to his mouth, the face of Admus Afilius was anything but mysterious. He held a blank look on his face, his entire body racked with an essence of frank tranquility. Being apathetically homeless did that to a guy… Take a deep puff inward, Admus blew a ring of smoke out of his mouth, his ratty black hair falling down to his chin as the smoke blew around his tattered black clothes. Anybody on the street would have dismissed him as a punk, as a homeless nobody. But Admus didn’t give a damn. He didn’t care about any of those stupid people’s opinions. A casual passerby with a dirty look might receive a flip of the bird, or no reaction at all. People get only what the deserve buddy… But most of the time, Admus just remained quiet… Only living to prowl these streets he claimed as his own personal pathways and smoke an occasionally cig when the time came for it… But somebody was threatening this peaceful ritual that Admus called life… Someone damn annoying…
“There’s another one,” Admus muttered to himself, barely a hoarse whisper between small puffs of smoke. He pulled another long breath, letting the cigarette pull away from his mouth as he let a puff of smoke slowly emit from his nostrils. He slowly began to walk out into the empty street, glancing here and there at a few cars which passed a few blocks over, being careful to remain in the shadow of the skyscraper as he walked over to a gray wall that stood alone encircling the side of a parking garage. This was another edge of the quarter he considered his territory… But that punk was at it again…
As he neared the plain grey wall that marked the edge of his territory, he stared at the mosaic of colors that were splattered against the wall. The dull, dark colors were sprayed onto the wall using traditional spraypaint, and the graffiti style of the vandalism was hardly out of the ordinary in New York’s more gang-filled areas… But this was the third one Admus had seen in his quarter… Same colors, same style, same kind of paint… And Admus was beginning to get pissed…
“Who the hell are you?” he whispered in annoyance, raising his hand to feel the concrete wall, his hand passing over a large graffiti-style letter ‘A.’ He let his hands fall across the letters on the wall, each character about one meter tall, with dark hued colorings…The shadow from his hand fell across one single part, and he let his hand fall to his side as he stared at the work staining his ‘property.’ “I’ll catch you,” he thought to himself, breathing another column of smoke from his mouth as he slowly turned around, beginning to walk back towards the alleyway, always keeping sure to stay in the shadows as he crossed the wide, sunlit street.
However, he paused, blinking for a second as he stood in the very center of the sunlit, empty street. A few screeching cars sounded a few blocks down, but Admus took no notice of them. He looked forward, his eyes following the path of the shadow until it stopped a meter away. He frowned, glancing behind him, only to see that the shadow extended behind him exactly one meter as well. Turning a full circle, he slowly breathed a column of smoke inwards, looking at the shadowy circle he stood in for a moment before glancing up into the sky… There was no object casting the shadow onto him…
“Hmm,” he shrugged dismissively, dropping his cigarette with a flick and stamping it out with his foot, walking forward as the circular shadow he stood in followed him, keeping the sun off of his body until he reached the comfort of his dark alleyway, disappearing into the darkness without a single glance at the graffiti painted behind him… And as he disappeared, the sun beat down even harder onto the dull colors of the fading graffiti. Blood-red letters gleamed in the sunlight, and the darkened image of bent figure, on its knees with its head hung down, and two magnificent wings extended as if about to push off in flight. The paint gleamed, and it the letters almost seemed to glow in the sun…
Faith… the belief in what cannot be proved… Is it foolish to put ones belief into the unknown? Or is it simply a pathway of enlightenment thought by the simple to be illogical? Is there a God? A creator, a manifestation of goodness? Where did we come from? A simple explosion of cosmic gas? Or is it something deeper? These are the questions that have been asked for eons… and some of them have yet to be answered…
Heroes: Legends
EPISODE I: AWAKENING
EPISODE I: AWAKENING
Autumn Morad, New York City, 2008
A sudden screeching of rubber on asphalt sent a crescendo of honks blaring through the afternoon air. The sound filled the hot winds of New York, just as the afternoon sun peaked its way through a small glass window. Autumn Morad’s eyes opened slowly, parallel to the rays of the sun beaming down onto her body. Her soft brown eyes blinked slightly, the chocolate spheres turning in her head in the direction of the loud noise. Her mouth opened slightly in a yawn, and as the concrete jungle choir died down, she slowly sat up in bed.
Was it all a dream?
Her feet hung over the bed, her long slender legs hanging immobile over the edge of her blanket. She sighed slightly, brushing a long strand of brown hair out of her face as her eyes drifted over the small back room. The grey walls were unassuming, and the warm sunlight gave a healthy glow to the otherwise mundane living space. The sunbeams lit up the small bed, which stood against the corner of the room, along with other small furniture like mother dog with her cubs. A small dresser stood on one side of the room, next to which was a small desk, with a large mirror propped up against it. Autumn’s eyes followed the mirrors curve downward, to where it met a small alarm clock. The crimson digits read 2:30 pm… it was later than she thought…
“Must’ve overslept,” she muttered aloud to herself, pulling herself out of bed with a grunt, and standing up in the small back room. She glanced down at the red short-shorts and white tank-top that graced her petit body, and ran her fingers over the comfortable fabric with a sigh. Everything seems so normal… she thought to herself, turning to glance in the mirror, watching her small reflection looking back. Did it really happen? Any of it? She looked at her reflection, from her beautifully long strands of brown hair to her less then developed exterior. 16, and still a bit flat, she thought to herself, eyeing her reflection in the mirror, It all seems normal… She tore her eyes from the mirror, and walked slowly over to the dresser. Her hands felt like lead as she pulled open the brown drawers, and routinely pulled out a set of clothes. Her body was performing the action, but her mind was wandering…
Was it real? Did I really…
When she turned back to the mirror, she had pulled on a pair of torn jeans, clinging to her legs tightly as she pulled on a simple tie-dyed t-shirt. She stared into the mirror, her eyes glazing over slightly as she looked at the sixteen year old staring back at her. Everything seemed so normal. Was it possible that everything that had happened was all nothing? Her eyes caught the reflection of her bedroom door, an ordinary wooden door. She turned around slowly, staring at the door, a torrent of thoughts running through her mind. What if it did work? What if it didn’t?
However these thoughts were interrupted by a sudden yell that permeated the small room.
“Autumn! Are you still sleeping? Come on, it’s past noon, wake up!”
“Coming Auntie Grace!” she called back, turning around and walking over the door, which opened with a sigh before walking out of the small back room. She’d figure this out later; she’d better talk to Auntie Grace first… She left the room in a hurry, not bothering to close the door as she hurried out into the secluded hallway, winding her way through the grey walls to where the voice had come from. However, as she turned the corner away from her room, the ordinary wooden door swung shut with a soft click…
Stroma Vermilion. Hollywood, Nevada. 2008
“I need the Palin article on my desk!”
“Where’s Barbara? There’s a return call from Primatech Paper!”
“Somebody call the janitor, the water cooler is leaking again!”
It was chaos. A crowded office building filled with a maze of identical cubicles and offices, all of which were swamped with endless groups of running people. People shouted and ran left and right, papers jumping from hand to hand like lice in elementary school. Yells leapt back and forth from desk to desk, and in the madness of the afternoon paper rush, a single voice rung out amongst the others. In an office shoved right in the corner, smothered in between two other ringing cubicles, a man stood his face livid as held one of the many cordless phones linked to the offices to his ear… The red tinge creeping up slightly pale skin made incredibly clear what sort of mood he was in.
“Listen man, I need this story, can’t you pull a few strings? Oh, I’m sorry? Apologies ain’t worth crap to me; I need to get in touch with the Indian! Does it sound like I care about political correctness? Ugh, can you get me the Navajo or not? Fine!”
He slammed the phone into its electronic cradle with the ferocity of an angry mother. The man known as Stroma Vermilion groaned, running a single hand through his sleek head of onyx black hair, each slick strand rubbing up against his pale fingers. He rubbed his left eye with his other hand, his right eye still open, revealing a single blue eye within its socket. The eye, despite its bright sky blue hues, was red with tiredness, and every breath that Stroma drew revealed only stress, after stress, after stress lining that eyeball. He put both his hands on his desk, his head bowing as a torrent of thoughts raced through his mind. Damn, I need a new job… he thought over and over again, his breaths coming heavily as his complexion slowly began to pale once more, Any more of this crap, and I’ll hit the classifieds again...
“Any luck?”
A single friendly voice amidst the torrent of madness surrounding him came through, and Stroma, looked up, his face splitting into a grin, masking his anxiety as he shook hands with the individual walking through the door.
“Ugh, none Sean, none,” he replied, rubbing his eye once more before looking back at the man with a tired grin, “These politicians get jumpy when you mess around with the Indian reservations. And especially after what happened last night, they don’t want anybody snooping around.”
“Makes sense I guess,” said Sean, shrugging his broad shoulders as he stared for a second into Stroma’s eyes, “I’ve pulled all the strings I can for you on this one Stroma; you’re on your own now.”
“I know, damnit, “ Stroma muttered, turning to face the window, his palms pressing against the class as he stared at his reflection in the glass… Two different colored eyes stared back at him, one the bright blue of the sky, the other a brilliant hazel… Natural Heterochromia… kinda freaked some people out occasionally… Sure made get interviews easier.
However, his train of thoughts was interrupted by a sudden familiar ringing. Stroma groaned, his eyes rolling at Sean who nodded, his mouth shutting as Stroma reached for that damned phone with a single pale hand.
“Modern Media, Stroma Vermillion speaking,” he said, putting the phone to his ear as Sean waved to him, mouthing a few words to him, before sliding a small manila folder onto the desk. Stroma gave him a thumbs up and a nod before turning his attention back to his call, using every ounce of composure he had to stop from shouting into the mouthpiece.
“Hey, Stroma.”
“Who is this?” snapped Stroma, his eyes shutting as he struggled to maintain his composure, “I’m very busy right now, can you take it up with someone else?”
“Jeez, you don’t even recognize your own sister’s voice? Thanks a lot!”
Stroma’s entire face relaxed instantly as the woman’s voice spread familiarly across his ear.
“Sorry Kate, I’m dealing with a lot of crap right now,” he said, rubbing his temples with one hand as he held the phone with the other, “What’s up?”
“Time to take a break bro, we need some catching up to do,” Kate’s voice said over the phone, her tone exasperated and somewhat humored, “Meet me in an hour for coffee over at Karen’s.”
“Sure thing Kate,” Stroma said, his tiredness and irritation evident in his voice, despite the obvious relaxation of his face, “Meet you there.”
“Don’t be late,” she said playfully, the line clicking dead with a subtle snap, and Stroma lowered the phone slowly, his eyes scrunching together as he let his thoughts rage for a moment. He breathed deeply, trying not to think about the four very close walls surrounding him as his head pulsated, throbbing in mental congestion… It was like a gong beating against his skull, and he gripped the desk tightly with his fists as he shut his eyes even tighter… All the frustration built up to a single infinitesimal point, and finally, Stroma slowly let it whisper way, his mind releasing, and his breath coming again as he slowly releasing his grip on the desk, his eyes opening wide as he felt a trickle of wetness rubbing against his fingers.
“What the…” he muttered, his head turning upward as water droplets fell from the ceiling splattering against his fingers with an endless choir of plip plop, plip plop. “Damn leaking water cooler,” he muttered against to himself, glancing annoyingly at the ceiling, which slowly appeared to be getting wetter by the second. He wiped his hands quickly, grabbing his coat from off his door, stepping outside his office only for a figure to run smack into him, a stack of papers in the boy’s hands soaring into the air. “Watch where you’re going boy,” snapped Stroma angrily, picking the assistant off the ground by roughly and setting him on his feet, “And get someone to fix that water cooler upstairs, my office better not be soaked by the time I get back!” He left in a hurry, not bothering to help the teen pick up his papers. The assistant looked up startled, opening his mouth, too startled to answer, but merely saying awkwardly after Stroma,
“But the leaking cooler is three floors down…”
Admus Afilius, New York City, 2008
The sun beat down on the ground, its burning rays beating down on the pavement like the soles of a thousand commuters everyday. The heat outside meant that pedestrian traffic was at a minimum, so nobody really noticed, when a lone figure lit up in the shadow of a tall skyscraper. The burning embers of a fresh cigarette was the only light that illuminated this shadowy figure’s face, and even as he brought the smoking death-stick to his mouth, the face of Admus Afilius was anything but mysterious. He held a blank look on his face, his entire body racked with an essence of frank tranquility. Being apathetically homeless did that to a guy… Take a deep puff inward, Admus blew a ring of smoke out of his mouth, his ratty black hair falling down to his chin as the smoke blew around his tattered black clothes. Anybody on the street would have dismissed him as a punk, as a homeless nobody. But Admus didn’t give a damn. He didn’t care about any of those stupid people’s opinions. A casual passerby with a dirty look might receive a flip of the bird, or no reaction at all. People get only what the deserve buddy… But most of the time, Admus just remained quiet… Only living to prowl these streets he claimed as his own personal pathways and smoke an occasionally cig when the time came for it… But somebody was threatening this peaceful ritual that Admus called life… Someone damn annoying…
“There’s another one,” Admus muttered to himself, barely a hoarse whisper between small puffs of smoke. He pulled another long breath, letting the cigarette pull away from his mouth as he let a puff of smoke slowly emit from his nostrils. He slowly began to walk out into the empty street, glancing here and there at a few cars which passed a few blocks over, being careful to remain in the shadow of the skyscraper as he walked over to a gray wall that stood alone encircling the side of a parking garage. This was another edge of the quarter he considered his territory… But that punk was at it again…
As he neared the plain grey wall that marked the edge of his territory, he stared at the mosaic of colors that were splattered against the wall. The dull, dark colors were sprayed onto the wall using traditional spraypaint, and the graffiti style of the vandalism was hardly out of the ordinary in New York’s more gang-filled areas… But this was the third one Admus had seen in his quarter… Same colors, same style, same kind of paint… And Admus was beginning to get pissed…
“Who the hell are you?” he whispered in annoyance, raising his hand to feel the concrete wall, his hand passing over a large graffiti-style letter ‘A.’ He let his hands fall across the letters on the wall, each character about one meter tall, with dark hued colorings…The shadow from his hand fell across one single part, and he let his hand fall to his side as he stared at the work staining his ‘property.’ “I’ll catch you,” he thought to himself, breathing another column of smoke from his mouth as he slowly turned around, beginning to walk back towards the alleyway, always keeping sure to stay in the shadows as he crossed the wide, sunlit street.
However, he paused, blinking for a second as he stood in the very center of the sunlit, empty street. A few screeching cars sounded a few blocks down, but Admus took no notice of them. He looked forward, his eyes following the path of the shadow until it stopped a meter away. He frowned, glancing behind him, only to see that the shadow extended behind him exactly one meter as well. Turning a full circle, he slowly breathed a column of smoke inwards, looking at the shadowy circle he stood in for a moment before glancing up into the sky… There was no object casting the shadow onto him…
“Hmm,” he shrugged dismissively, dropping his cigarette with a flick and stamping it out with his foot, walking forward as the circular shadow he stood in followed him, keeping the sun off of his body until he reached the comfort of his dark alleyway, disappearing into the darkness without a single glance at the graffiti painted behind him… And as he disappeared, the sun beat down even harder onto the dull colors of the fading graffiti. Blood-red letters gleamed in the sunlight, and the darkened image of bent figure, on its knees with its head hung down, and two magnificent wings extended as if about to push off in flight. The paint gleamed, and it the letters almost seemed to glow in the sun…
“WHO CAN CATCH A FALLING ANGEL?”
TO BE CONTINUED...
