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by Michele Vroom




Chapter One



1 year ago

Siasma had silky hair running through the wind with slanted eyes and a flowing white gown. Her people were unique. If an Angel cried five times, the fifth time it would be blood. Their blood had a mesmerizing scent and taste that drove the demons mad. It had supernatural and chemically matching components of the Tanti gem from Planet X, often referred to as the Tai blood. Siasma despondently strolled through another corridor, the orange wind softening. She had been doing this for years, wandering the hundreds of stories of the palace on X while quietly directing the demise of the demons. Her demon king had locked himself in his chamber, and hadn’t emerged since.

She knew Ijin hated the angels. They biologically had a deep inner power, that if awakened would prove strength beyond his greatest soldiers. This left her no choice but to use the union to eliminate as many of the demons as possible. Her concern heightened when she realized that in eliminating all of Ijin’s people, Ijin would still remain a risk. Their son Carris would be a risk as well, being half demon. She would need to figure out how to carefully remove them so the angels could take both Cyber and X. Siasma’s plans for conquest involved leaving Hell to be the empty graveyard that her people originally wished it had been. Siasma was unaware that in Ijin’s chambers, Ijin was building up revenge for what she had done and was doing to him and his people.

Siasma’s focus, even if it meant losing her son and her husband, had to be a noble one- she thought. Noble desires had to triumph over evil. Ijin also underestimated an essential component. He activated the Tanti gem because Siasma had grabbed it simultaneously. The Tanti gem could not be activated without an angel, and if he were to destroy all of the angels then the Tanti gem would be useless.

Meanwhile on Planet Cyber...

Monitors flickered akin to light bulbs blinking to extinction, the room’s complexion a fallacy of stage lights dancing about the young, dazed girl who pranced along the floorboards. Her arm extended to the air, as she sang the inscription, “One little girl wants to save the world.. Can’t see past the line, murder at her side..” Imagined winds brushed the brown strands of hair across her pale face, fiery pedals streaming into the scaffold of intermittent crystal walls that circled a marble floor. Once, then twice, her eyes closed. The illusion of the outdoors returned to the recessions of her mind.

Beneath her was the silver placard, where the poetic inscription that had driven her life into fairy tales rested. At the age of ten she had read the eerie tale over and over, captivated by its literary construction. The mysterious and loner child desired no companions, needed no one, and thrived on such stories that helped remove her mind from the atrocious reality her family was planted in.

Before she knew it, arms bundled her like a pillow sack and shifted her mind back into the cold hands of that reality. Two very mean looking men with knife sharp clothing and painted faces were relocating her. “Hey!” Trixie cried, “Stop it!!” she fought to no avail with her baseball fists, becoming more frustrated as her beloved poem was taken from the floor and slung into one of their gilt belts. “Hey that’s mine you neutrimetracklistical psycodermic anesthisiacs!! Give it BACK!!” Trixie yelled.

“Aww, it's just a wee tot learning to make up words,” one of the men said.

“Let go of me you tard-spits!!” Trixie screamed. Her head hurt, and it was too blurry to make out the details of the yellow and white tiles as she went rocketing away with them.

* * * * *

Dr. Russ Jen flipped through the papers- the ship had been constructed well, but the force shield still was not strong enough. He had created a masking signal that would cause a diversion so that the Emperor Ijin, whom dwelled on planet X, would be unable to tell a Space pod was escaping his domain. Russ and his family sought to escape the horrors of demonic dictatorship to a freer, more democratic galaxy. In order to do that, Dr. Jen had to create a space vehicle that could protect itself from the Hell-Light barriers, using Tai.

The sizzling fresh meats, produce, and doughy breads had been confiscated by the remaining demons the year after life had become worse. Those who had homes lived in sheds of hay with half-inch mats for bedding and no electricity. The community continued to suffer from poverty, knowing that only months ago they were modernized, rich and plentiful. The siege against the demons was returned with a Hell-light barrier from Ijin, plus his own ordered siege carried out by young Prince Carris against the angels for any further resistance.

Somehow Dr. Jen’s family and employees had managed to survive in an underground building with two huge rooms built on top of each other, the main lab and the basement. A sewer operated as the hallway that led to the central processing room. The place was crammed with supplies, computers, and technology forbidden by the dictatorship. Medicines, clothing, and food storage filled the high rows of shelves on every last wall. Goods were sucked into transportation hosepipes that surfed through the sewage walls and shipped supplies from one room to another.

A thin trail of plastic steps led up to the small indoor balcony at the corner of the main lab. At the current moment Russ was pacing back and forth between workstations, nibbling on his fists. He had soft blue eyes, firm hands, and pale skin with a face that was a little too thin. To either side of him his employees typed away. Unable to bear the tension any longer, Russ rushed over to the nearest staff member. “Julia!” Dr. Jen called, getting halfway up the stairs, “Have you heard from my son?”

The mousy haired assistant turned her head from the computer screen on the balcony. “The last I saw, Crip went that way” She pointed with a crooked finger at the rusty door in the back of the lab, which led to the restricted basement where the space pod lay.

Russ ran a hand through his long hair, then assembled his lab coat. “ Thanks,” he sputtered. “Oh, and Cs go into drawer 695 Jullia, you put the Cs in the wrong one! Anyway, I’m going back down-Make sure the group keeps up!” Russ directed. Julia shrugged his orders off and got back to what she had originally been working on. There was not a lot of motivation left among any of them when existence felt so restricted.

Dr. Jen maneuvered his way out. Other workers glanced up, observing the man’s sudden fluster, though letting it fall. When Dr. Jen arrived upon the last step in the dim gray light, he saw neither his son nor daughter in the vault. His children used to go to school, and they were bright- exceptional students performing above their grade level. Everything was normal so recently until the Demon Prince. Perhaps what confounded the people the most had not been the young Demon Prince’s destructive power, but that being half angel like them, he still sympathized with none but those who gave him orders.

Russ tapped his fingers through the beads of his scalp, running down the oceanic hair strands. He quickly checked over the dusty cement wall and floors, failing to find his children. A frightening notion struck his thoughts- What if his children and his wife Trine-

“Dr. Jen, you can’t leave here! You it said yourself we have to stay underground!” an employee yelled. “What if someone sees you?”

Dr. Jen ignored the few other protests as he keyed in the code at the secret panel. The creaking metal door wheeled open to reveal the cold, green sewer that curved around for the processing center. The room watched him wordlessly.

Russ rushed through the sludge. The tunnel was cold as ice. He called his wife and kids’ names with a wavering voice, hearing only the drip-drops of slime dispatching from round barriers. He glanced down. Recent footsteps led to the control room...Dr. Jen stooped, examining the prints. It appeared like there had been a brawl of some sort. He fumbled to undo the lock, then grabbed the wheeling doorknob and wrung it around until the metal ring popped out and the rusted door screeched open.

His eyes widened at what was before him. The center of operations had been invaded. In the ceiling the dim glow rods now cast lemon yellow sparks of dying static, save for the deep glow of large, bulky shapes blocking two detectable silhouettes. Russ froze as their painted faces emerged.