Chapter 2
For the next several days, I tried thinking up names for the girl in my dreams, but none seemed to fit. Actually, it was like my mind wouldn’t accept and recognize what I picked to be her name. I would think up a name, and when I’d try to say it while imagining the girl and associating her with it, the name would suddenly become inaudible to me. I would hear that sound from my dreams, the muffling sound that always blocked out her name, even when I spoke it. I could feel my lips shaping the word and my vocal cords shaking to create the sound, but I could never hear it when I spoke it.
As always, my meetings with the girl were much less calm and platonic than that magical night. I would wake up, we would talk a little, and sometimes I would be able to wrap my arm around her and hold her for a few minutes, but it never advanced past that.
I was standing in the boy’s bathroom at school, muttering curses in front of the urinal. I had been there for more than five minutes and I needed to piss like a truck driver, but I couldn’t even break the seal.
“Goddammit, I don’t need another health issue. Just piss already.”
I finally groaned as the reserves were released, but as soon as I looked down into the urinal and saw the color red, I gritted my teeth and began to shake in frustration. After finishing my answer to nature’s call, I walked over to the sink and leaned against it, trembling from head to toe.
“SON OF A BITCH!” I roared, punching the nearby wall and splitting my knuckles.
With my hand bleeding, I walked out of the bathroom and back to class, where a math test was being taken. Returning to my desk, I began stuffing my things into my bag, splattering blood from my hand and muttering curses.
“Marcus, is something wrong?” the teacher asked from her desk.
“I need to leave, I need to get to the hospital. It seems my kidneys are now failing.”
I was with my parents in Dr. Turner’s office, who was looking over the results from my blood tests. With a sigh, she closed the folder.
“The good news is that the damage isn’t permanent, at least at this stage. The bad news is that the kidney failure was caused by highly excessive pill usage. We originally had you set at the maximum possible level; did you think you could go even further without consequences? Just the number of pain killers alone you’re taking are enough to kill you, add in the anti-convulsion meds, the blood thickeners, and everything else, and it’s a miracle you’re still alive.”
“Right, so I should just get on my knees and thank God that I’m not dead yet, I should just be grateful that I get to keep living each day with never-ending agony and mind-tearing seizures,” I muttered, keeping my face downcast with my hood over my eyes.
My parents looked at each other in both nervousness and fear, wishing that there were something they could do.
“I’m afraid that you’re going to have to start cutting down on your medication if you don’t want to continue urinating blood. You may even have to give up cold turkey until your immunity wears off so that when you resume taking them, they’ll be affective once again. If you keep going at those pills the way you have been, your kidneys will become completely unusable and you’ll need a transplant, and considering your disease and your drug habits beyond pills, no transplant committee will let you so much as look at a healthy donor.”
“Beyond pills? Marcus, what is she talking about?” my mom asked desperately.
“Last week… I tried heroine. It was just once and it didn’t work as well as I had hoped. I certainly don’t feel any cravings for it.”
“Marcus, are you crazy?! After everything you’ve been told about drugs and after all the times we’ve warned you about their dangers, you would resort to using heroine?” my dad exclaimed, more upset and desperate than angry at me.
“Well it’s not like my life can get any worse!” I yelled before getting up and storming out of the office.
In the weeks that passed, my parents tried to limit the amount of pills I took, but it was just as difficult for them as it was for me, because just by looking at me, they could tell how badly I needed them. As expected, my pain increased, as well as the intensity and frequency of my seizures. I stopped sleeping, unable to ever calm myself down enough to relax. As January moved onto February, I finally gave in and quit taking my meds, allowing my body to work the chemicals out of my system and lose its developed immunity.
I spent that hellish week at home in bed, howling at the top of my lungs while the seconds ticked by with sadistic slowness. Without anything to even muffle the full stimulation of all my pain receptors, my body was essentially ripping itself apart from the inside out. I couldn’t even tell when I was having a seizure or not, it just all felt the same. Every second, I felt like my flesh was being shredded away by flaming chainsaws while twin lobotomies were performed on my brain with jagged icicles.
My parents had to stay home from work to take care of me, as I could not go to the bathroom or feed myself. They could do nothing but sit by my bed and listen to me scream, always trying to think of a way to help me. They tried to endure it, unable to ask my little brother or older sister to look after me without feeling any more guilt than they already were. For days, my sense of time blurred. I was unable to tell night from day, hot from cold, or dream from reality. When I was awake, I often hallucinated, and the only times I ever slept were when I finally managed to pass out from pain or exhaustion, and even then, it never lasted longer than an hour.
Lying in bed, in the throws of a seizure, I felt a deep thud in my chest, as if my heart had just slammed against my ribcage. My sweat became clammy and I began to lose my control over my limbs. Barely able to breathe from the pain already surging through me, I felt a second powerful thud in my chest. I could sense my pulse, hear it pounding in my ears, and feel the loss of rhythm. My heart was struggling to continue beating, unable to bear the strain any longer. Neither of my parents was in the room and I couldn’t call them, my lungs refusing to work.
‘Is this it? Will I finally die?’
My heart at last stopped, but instead of closing my eyes, I continued to stare upwards, watching as the ceiling of my bedroom vanished to reveal the eye of God, spinning overhead. My bed disappeared beneath me, my room following suit to reveal the vastness of space. I was so close to the celestial nexus that I could almost see the individual tongues of flame in the typhoon surrounding the black hole pupil. The star occupied the entire horizon, as if slicing reality in half so that one side was the dark cosmos and the other side was the sea of nuclear fire. I was about a kilometer from the surface of the black hole, which had shrunk down to the size of a ten-story building.
‘So close… I’m so close…’ I thought, desperately reaching out to be accepted into desired oblivion.
The clothes I had been wearing were vaporized from my body, signaling my last ties to the real world being severed. But answering my silent call, the girl from my hallucinations appeared, flying out of the black hole towards me, arms outstretched, tears in her eyes. She slowed as she reached me, coming to a stop before gently embracing me and holding me close with our unclothed bodies pressed together.
“Marcus, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I know how much you’re suffering, I know how much pain you are in,” she whimpered, crying with her face buried in the side of my neck.
She then looked up at me, her blue eyes trembling. “But it is not your time to die yet, just a little longer. Please, darling, hold on just a little longer, for me.”
I tried to say her name, but once again, only the indecipherable noise was heard. In reply, the girl smiled and wiped away her tears. Wrapping her arms around my neck, she leaned forward and kissed me. “I love you, Marcus. With all my heart, I love you. This is the most selfish thing I will ever ask of you, but please, live on! Please, you must wait just a little longer! Go home, Marcus, it is time for you to go home. You still have to name me, remember?”
She then separated from me, pushing me away. The moment her hands touched my chest, a single powerful heartbeat rocked me to my core, causing cracks of light to flash across my vision as if reality itself was fracturing. I reached out to her, trying to call her name while a second beat of my heart sent more cracks through the fabric of space.
The girl floated back towards the eye of God, tears rolling down her cheeks but a smile on her face. “I love you,” she murmured.
A third beat of my heart broke the cosmic vision and I woke up, back in my bed with my arm raised, still trying to make contact with the angel. My heart had resumed beating, albeit slowly. While it surely would not last, my pain had all but disappeared. Just as she had, I too began to cry, letting my arm drop and cover my face.
“I love you too.”
Eventually, I was able to resume taking my medication, and it was hard for me not to swallow every pill I could get my hands on. I’ll admit, they certainly took the edge off, but I had already made up my mind. I was done. I didn’t know why the girl wanted me to wait, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t handle living any longer.
It was February vacation and a winter storm was howling outside. The blizzard had been going for almost three days and power had quickly been lost. The house was dark, the only light coming from the eerie gray aura passing through the windows. My family had gone to a friend’s house to enjoy their electricity and running water, while I had chosen to stay home. I wanted to be alone for this. I sat at my desk in my room with a glass of water and a pile of pills next to me. They were sleeping pills, painkillers, and everything else I had. I was slowly writing a suicide note, trying to use my best penmanship. I included the instructions for my funeral and how I wanted to be buried. I finally put down the pen. My hands were almost always trembling, but now they were finally steady.
“Goodbye pain,” I said before I took a handful of pills and swallowed them, followed by the remainders.
I then moved over to my bed and lied down, staring at the ceiling and contemplated my life while I waited for death to come. It really had been a worthless life. Maybe I would finally learn what relief was in dying, but considering my luck, I would probably just end up vomiting the pills and surviving. In time, I could feel my body becoming heavier, my pain dulling, and my mind slowing down. I was almost there, so close. Closing my eyes, I whispered one final goodbye and apology.
I was hovering in front of the black hole, still eating the star from the inside out. The black hole itself was now only about the size of a toolshed. The whole mass looked less like an eye now and more like gargantuan maelstrom, with a holographic black orb in the center, hiding the true heart of the quantum singularity. I was a hundred feet away from the surface of the black hole and the girl from my dreams was hovering in front of me. The two of us were naked, and while she was smiling, her smile was sad and there were tears running down her face.
“So, you couldn’t wait. I hold nothing against you for it; it’s unimaginable that anyone could even last half as long as you did. I’m so proud of you, Marcus. Your will is unparalleled.”
“What’s going on?” I asked as she and I were pulled closer and closer to the star-eating black hole.
“We are moving onwards into eternity. It’s a shame, it was my dream for us to live our lives happily and together, but as long as we have each other in this eternal realm, I have no complaints.”
“Wait, what do you mean?”
I reached out and tried to grab her hand, even though she was well out of reach.
“I wanted to live my life with you, to exist solely for you, and to die with you. I wanted to see the world before coming here, to see everything before returning to nothing. It’s pointless now, you made your choice, one that I fully understand and love you for. Come to me, Marcus, and let us return to the Source together. Let us become one within the end of all reason.”
I began shouting her name, but as always, I heard nothing but that indescribable noise. I had not been able to find out her true name, so this moniker was all I could use. I cursed as the girl slowly made contact with the surface of the black hole, resting upon it like she was sunbathing on a boulder. After only a second, I was forced to watch in horror as she slowly began to be absorbed into it, sinking beneath its surface like it was made of tar. I followed soon after, desperately trying to bring myself to a stop but unable to fight the gravitational pull. I collided with the black screen, feeling no pain in the impact even with it being quite solid. I tried to push myself off, to fight gravity, but with the slightest exertion, the surface beneath my hands gave way and I began to be sucked in. Simply acting on instinct, I took a deep breath before my head was pulled in. The girl was in front of me, just out of reach, hovering in a vast spinning torrent of bright violet light, a vortex leading onwards into infinity.
As my lower body was slowly absorbed into black hole with me, the girl looked me and smiled. “Your dream was to live happily with the one you loved, so that too became my dream. Your wish was to find your soul mate and be happy for the rest of your life, so I sought to grant you that wish. Do not be afraid, we can still be together forever.”
My eyes widened and I fearfully gasped as her body slowly began to dematerialize, breaking up cell by cell. Looking down, I realized that I too was falling apart, my flesh and blood literally being shed from my physical form, but without any pain or sensation.
“If I had waited, what would you have been?” I shouted desperately as I finally entered the vortex fully.
With her legs and much of her torso gone, she opened her eyes and smiled at me. “Whatever you wanted me to be.”
From her words, a blinding epiphany flashed in my mind, I now understood, and I had regained something I thought I had lost. I reached out to her while the flesh painlessly melted off my fingers. “Tell me, what was your wish?!”
“To live and be happy with you,” she murmured, as the top of her head and her left arm began to disappear.
“That was my wish too, so I’m going to grant it! I want to live my life and be happy, and I refuse to do either of them without you! I change my mind, I want to live, and I want to live my life with you!”
I then called out her name, her true name, finally able to hear it. At the sound, the girl’s one remaining eye bolted open, and the twisting vortex of violet light began to churn violently. I shouted her name again and reached out with everything I had and grasped what was left of her hand with what was left of my own. As soon as she and I touched, our bodies were fully reformed.
“Marcus,” she gasped.
I said her name in return, making her smile warmly and blush.
Holding onto her tightly, I looked back at the surface of the black hole. It was so close and yet so far, like fresh air to a drowning man. Pulling the girl with me, I reached up with all the strength in my body and soul, not caring if my muscles tore and my bones snapped in the process. Just as I thought I was about to fail, my fingers broke through the surface and I grabbed on, feeling the exterior become hard beneath my grip. Roaring in desperation, I pulled the two of us back up and the dark hole released us with a geyser of violet energy shooting out like a volcanic eruption. The girl and I were thrown out into the cosmos, clutching each other for dear life.
“So can we live our lives together and be happy?” she murmured with her face buried in the side of my neck.
I smiled and held her close. “Yes, we can live and be happy. We’ll be together always, Angel, my Angel.”
My eyes opened and I immediately turned my head and threw up, emptying the contents of my stomach onto my bedroom floor. The majority of the pills were still intact, letting me survive by the skin of my teeth, but enough had been absorbed and dissolved into my bloodstream to leave me feeling sick and dizzy. Gasping for air and shaking more than ever in my life, I spat out the last of the vomit and wiped my face. I had tried to kill myself and lived, but that dream, had I really chosen to live or did I just throw up as a natural reflex?
As I lied back and stared up at the ceiling, I realized that I was not the only one in that bed. Looking over, my eyes widened as they fell upon the unconscious Angel. She was right beside me, covered in blood and some sort of other liquid, but… she was there. I knew that this was different than all of the other times I had woken up next to her. The way she was weighing down on the mattress, the way the blood on her skin was staining my sheets, just the way she looked… she was real, she was completely real. This wasn’t a hallucination.
My initial shock was replaced by fear, realizing as if for the first time that she was covered in blood. I reached out and pressed my fingers against Angel’s neck, checking her pulse and finding a strong and steady heartbeat. Moving as quickly as my chemically-shocked body would allow, I dashed out of my room and over to the bathroom, grabbing all the towels I could and coming back. Climbing back onto the bed, I rubbed her down with the towels and wiped away the blood and the other mysterious fluid that covered her. I looked desperately for any cuts or signs of injury, but I found nothing. She was completely unharmed.
After again checking her pulse, I stopped and just stared at her, completely memorized. Angel, the light of my life and the girl of my dreams was literally right here in front of me. How had this happened? How could a human being just suddenly materialize out of thin air? My questions were interrupted by the noticing of a foul odor in the room. Oh yeah… I had vomited on the floor.
I smiled and looked down at Angel, gently pulling the blanket over her naked form. Real or not, I couldn’t let her wake up to such a mess. While I waited for her to gain consciousness, I cleaned up the vomit and sprayed the stained carpet with every chemical I could get my hands on to remove the smell. The rustling of blankets could be heard as I was returning from dumping the towels in the laundry room. She was starting to awaken. More nervous than ever in my life, I sat down on the bed and wrapped my hands around hers. Her eyelids slowly rose, showing her two beautiful blues.
“Hey,” I said softly with a small smile.
She gave a small hum and a look of peace, as if waking up from a much-needed sleep. “Hi.”
A flutter ran through me at the sound of her voice.
“Do you remember anything?”
She closed her eyes and was silent for several moments and a look of worry crossed her face. “I don’t know.”
After everything I had seen, this did surprise me a little. Ok, so the situation was 99% perfect…
“Are you sure?”
She was silent for a few more moments. “Wait, I remember… my name. My name is Angel, I think.”
I smiled at her realization. She was real.
“Who are you? Where am I?”
“My name is Marcus, and don’t worry, you’re safe. You’re in my home. I found you outside, crying for help.”
What was I supposed to tell her, that she had somehow materialized out of thin air because I dreamt her up?
“Now, how do you feel? You don’t look hurt.”
“I feel fine, just tired. Thank you for saving me. I can tell that you are truly kind just by touching you.”
With a sugary sweet smile on her lips, she clutched my hands tightly. I could feel my face becoming red in embarrassment. Holy shit, she really was an angel.
“Are you hungry?”
She nodded.
“Alright, I’ll get you something to eat.”
As I stood and turned away from her, I could hear her try to get up.
“Did you undress me?”
I turned around and saw her holding the blanket over her chest.
“No, I found you that way. Don’t worry, I didn’t touch you or anything. Your safety was the only thought on my mind.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes,” I said with my voice raspy.
Several seconds passed where the girl stared into my eyes, and I stared into hers. Finally, she smiled. “I believe you.”
She stood up and I quickly stopped her. “You need to rest.”
“Please don’t leave me.”
I gave a small but warm smile. “Very well, whatever makes you happy.” ‘She’s in completely new surroundings, so she is trying to find something familiar, or at least something that makes her feel safe and happy. I was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes, and she wants to stay close to whatever seems even remotely familiar, even if we only met a minute ago. She needs something to cling to.’
With the blanket and my arm wrapped around her, we made our way to the kitchen with me holding her up. After her experience, I didn’t want to risk her not being able to support her own weight.
“Is soup ok?”
“Yes please.”
She was starting to feel better; I could see her relaxing with the situation. I filled a pot with one of the large jugs of water my family had saved for the loss of power and put it on the stove. While it did require a match to compensate for the loss of the electric start, I was able to get it going without trouble. With the water heating up, I turned to Angel, sitting on one of the stools at the island table. She had a small smile and it was reflected on me.
“You don’t remember anything… but you know what soup is?”
A look of confusion crossed her face. “I didn’t even notice.”
“Its obvious you have some form of amnesia, but I’m not surprised you remember non-personal stuff. It means that there are some things that your mind still remembers.” ‘Maybe she isn’t retaining those memories, maybe those memories have been put in her mind.’
I looked around the kitchen. “Try to name as many things as you can. The mental stimulation might bring some memories back.”
She began looking around the kitchen and naming everything she saw, but still no memories appeared in her head. With the water in the pot soon bubbling, I poured in the flavor packet and brick of noodles, and stirred, waiting until it could be served. Ah ramen, the perfect comfort food.
“When the power returns, we should probably call an ambulance for you. Plus maybe they can help you regain your memory,” I said as I passed her the steaming bowl.
“Marcus, maybe I shouldn’t remember.”
Having turned off the stove, I looked back, seeing that her smile was replaced with a look of sadness.
“You found me stumbling through the snow and coated in blood. Maybe it would be best if I don’t remember.”
Pained by the loss of her smile, I placed my hand on her cheek. Her skin was so soft and smooth that I wanted to kiss her right then and there.
“Don’t worry. If you feel that you don’t want to remember, we won’t talk about it.”
She held onto my hand, brushing it against her cheek like a cat seeking affection.
‘No two strangers can get along this well in less than ten minutes. She really is Angel.’
The lights came on and a beep rang out from the smoke detectors and ruined the moment. I checked the phone but there was no dial tone. The phone lines must have been more heavily damaged than the power lines.
I turned my attention back to Angel. “Ok, eat your soup and I’ll start a bath for you. I wasn’t able to completely clean you off.”
I sat next to the bathtub, watching as it was filled with hot water while holding my hand beneath the downpour to make sure it was the right temperature. While I waited, Angel walked around the house, exploring her surroundings and simply trying to stimulate her mind. With the two of us separated, I now had a moment to truly think. This girl, she had somehow come out of nowhere, this figment of my imagination becoming a real person. Either some sort of unexplainable miracle had just taken place or my hallucinations had now reached a whole new level of depth… or maybe I really had died and this was heaven.
Either way, it would be hard explaining her to my parents, and no matter what I said or did, the police would probably end up getting involved. Either I would stick to my lie and keep saying that she just appeared naked at the door asking for help, or compromise and say I just woke up with her next to me and had no idea how she got into my house. For all I knew, she could have been a burglar or high on PCP. Whichever path I took, it would be difficult, but as long as I had Angel, it would be worth it.
“Angel, the bath is ready!”
When no reply came, I stood up and strained my ears. Had she fallen back to sleep, had she even passed out? Shaken by that fear, I scoured the house and found in her my room. She was standing over my desk, still wrapped in her blanket with her shoulders trembling and my suicide note in her hand, now dotted with her tears.
“Angel…”
She turned to me with liquid pearls rolling down her cheeks. “Marcus, you were going to kill yourself?”
I slowly reached out and took the suicide note from her, proceeding then to crumple it up and stuff it in my pocket. “I was. Listen, the bath is ready, we’ll talk after you get cleaned up,” I replied, unable to meet her teary gaze.
I put my arm around her and guided her to the bathroom, where the tub was waiting with clouds of steam wafting up.
“All right, I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Just holler if you want me to get you anything.”
“Marcus, wait. Don’t leave me.”
“Well I shouldn’t be here while you—”
She let go of the blanket, letting it fall to the floor around her ankles. I had lost track of how many times I had seen her naked body, but now with her standing before me in the flesh, she had never looked more beautiful.
“You’ve already seen me like this, it’s ok for you to be here. Besides, I want to keep talking to you.”
She stepped into the tub and settled down, letting the last of the dry blood and other liquids wash off her body and grant her unclothed form a beautiful shine. She purred in happiness as she submerged herself in the hot water, letting her whole body soak before she brought her head back up and laid back, with her long crimson hair listing and twirling around her body like seaweed around a mermaid. Seeing her breasts floating on the surface with wave after wave gently lapping at her delicate flesh was firing up hormones inside of me that I never even knew I had.
“Marcus, please tell me… why did you try to kill yourself?”
“I thought you read the note.”
“I want to hear it from you,” she whispered desperately.
I sat down on the edge of the tub and was silent for several moments. “There are people all over the world who suffer worse than I do: infants dying of starvation, kids used as sex slaves, adults forced to watch as their families suffer with nothing over their heads but the roof of their hut. I admit, even my life could be far worse than it is now, but there is a key difference between those people and me: they are capable of being happy. They have the will to live and the ability to smile. Me… there is nothing in this world that can bring me joy, I am physically incapable of being happy.
For most of my life, I have not known what happiness feels like. Even as a child, I could never bond with others and I always felt out of place in the world, like I was incompatible with this reality. My real depression began eight years ago, when I was constantly teased and ridiculed by those around me for no reason. I was simply picked at random to be used as a punching bag. I was tormented for years on end, but the ones who brought me so much pain never got the punishment they deserved. In order to “give me a reprieve from my torture”, I was transferred to a school for troubled kids. That place was hell, with the screams of the mentally disturbed echoing down the hall. It was like being in an insane asylum but with homework. I lost a year there while my tormenters still faced no punishment. For a year, my mind rotted, up to the point where I even began to hallucinate.
I was desperate for a cure to my anguish, something that would make this frustration and constant torment worth it. I decided that the only thing that could possibly bring me peace is love… or death. So I searched for love, for my soul mate, trying to find the one girl who could take away my pain, for even when I was just a kid, my heart ached. My loneliness, depression, and anger poisoned me. Toss in hundreds of hours of forced psychiatrist sessions and prescription anti-depressants that didn’t do jack-shit, and my life lost its light.
What I’m about to tell you is something that I have not told anyone. I was so desperate for relief that I even took a blade to my own flesh. It was not a suicide attempt, but I was hoping that I could cancel out my inner pain with outer pain.”
I showed her the scars on my arm and Angel placed her hand on the faded lines and gave me a look of deep sympathy.
“No matter what, I could not find a human that could be my salvation, so in my sorrow, I developed a deep hatred for humanity. I’m disgusted by my species and I wish that humans would just all die out. I’ve even given up on finding a soul mate because every girl I met was just too heavily tainted by the world to do anything other than disgust me and trigger my loathing. But with my loneliness still plaguing me, I knew that my suffering would continue. With my mind filled with chaos and the world always stuffing my mouth with the taste of ash, I decided that death’s sweet embrace was the only thing that could bring me peace. The only reason why I didn’t kill myself then was because I did not want to put my family through the pain and grief,
Then… a couple months ago… I collapsed into a seizure. I was in more pain than I thought possible, all of it coming out of the blue. I found out that my brain is riddled with tumors, focused mostly on my brainstem and limbic system. All these years, my limbic system was basically being smothered by useless tissue, leaving it incapable of producing chemicals like serotonin and other compounds needed in order for the brain to feel the emotion happiness. No wonder I had always been miserable; I was basically a car running without oil.
The other tumors, the tumors on my brainstem, had finally grown large enough to interfere with my nervous system, causing full body nerve stimulation of pain receptors. For every second of every day since then, I’ve been in indescribable agony, constantly downing painkillers and fearing of my numerous daily seizures. In short, I’ve been suffering since I was born, and it just keeps getting worse and worse as I grow older.”
Turning around in the tub and moving over to me, Angel placed her wet hands on my cheeks and pressed her forehead against mine. Her touch, her tending loving touch, essentially made me melt in happiness. Yes, happiness, only with her did I finally know what it felt like.
“Marcus, I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be, you saved my life.”
Angel stared at in surprise.
“I was half dead from a pill overdose when I heard you slamming on the door. My body kick-started and I threw up the pills. I would be dead if it weren’t for you.”
“But I thought you wanted to die?”
“When I found you, I found the will to live. While I was waiting for you to wake up, I was eager to meet you and hear your voice, to see you smile. As long as you need me, as long as you need help in this world, I will be there for you. I refuse to die as long as there is something I can do to make you happy.”
Crying now with tears of joy, Angel wrapped her arms tightly around my neck. “Then if staying with me will make you happy and keep you alive, I will never leave you. You saved my life, so I will save yours and stay with you forever.”
Her words brought a wave of emotions through me, so intense that I was practically shaking. With no one else on the planet could I have bonded so well, not in a century, let alone a single hour. This girl, this true angel, we had been in love longer than she knew and her feelings were pouring out, even with her memories having yet to return. Once her memories fully came back and she remembered the life we shared before her physical arrival, our lives would become paradise.
We stayed in that bathroom for as long as the water was hot. I told her about my family and recanted some pleasant memories, and while she listened and scrubbed herself with a bar a soap, I even shampooed her hair. Eventually, her occasional yawns began to grow in frequency and I could tell she was feeling sleepy.
“Come on, you should get some rest.”
I grabbed a towel and the two of us stood up. Just as Angel was about to step out of the tub, she slipped and landed in my arms. Holding her wet naked form pressed against me, I felt my manhood become so erect that I almost thought it would pop. I just had to hope that Angel would not notice the bulge in my pants. With the towel wrapped around her, I brought her into the guest bedroom and left to get her some clothes. My sister Emily was the same size as Angel, so her clothes would fit. Giving a sigh, I closed my eyes and looked away while I opened my sister’s underwear drawer. Shuddering from the shear amount of wrongness, I grabbed the first pair of panties my hand touched and quickly wrapped them in a t-shirt.
With a pair of sweat pants, panties, and an undershirt and blouse, I walked back to the guestroom and stood in the doorway, watching as Angel dried herself with the towel. It was not a physical arousal I was feeling, but an emotional one. I wanted to make love with her, not sex, not the act performed by porn stars and drunk teens. I felt a physical attraction to her, but it was an emotional one that was far more powerful. I walked in and handed her the clothes and she got dressed, save for the blouse. With a smile in the back of my mind, I regretted seeing her clothed. She lied down in the bed and I wrapped her in the blankets.
“Just try and get some rest. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”
“Do you promise that I’ll wake up and still be here, and you’ll still be with me?”
I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Of course.”
I walked downstairs and into the kitchen. On the island table, hidden behind a box of cereal, was my bottle of pain meds. A shiver ran down my spine as I realized something. There was no pain. The whole time I had been with Angel, I had been feeling no pain, just like whenever I dreamed about her. I pulled the suicide note out from my pocket and stared at it, my eyes fixed on the teardrops that she had left when she read it.
“I don’t feel any pain…”
I walked into the living room and grabbed the lighter above the fireplace. Igniting the small butane torch, I held the flame under the suicide note and then tossed it onto the bed of cold ashes, letting the flames destroy was could have been.
“I’m not sure I believe in God, I honestly don’t know what to believe after this miracle, but I do think that fate has brought you to me, Angel. You took my pain away.”
For the next three hours, I simply sat in the easy chair in the living room, thinking about my future and the life I would live with Angel. As fantasy after fantasy passed through my mind, I heard the front door open, signaling the return of my family. My sister, younger brother, and parents stepped inside.
“Marcus, you really need to start getting out of the house. You need to spend time with people,” my mom nagged.
“I have,” I muttered under my breath as I stood up and walked over, carefully choosing my words.
This was going to be difficult.
“There is something I need to tell you…”
“What?” my dad asked.
“I haven’t been alone. A girl showed up at the backdoor, naked and covered in blood. She’s alive, I managed to save her before she froze to death, but says she can’t remember anything.”
“Marcus, that is messed up, even for a joke,” my brother said squeamishly.
“She’s upstairs, sleeping in the guestroom. Sorry sis, but I had to give her some of your clothes.”
Finally my family was convinced that I was telling the truth.
“Marcus, is there really a girl here? Is what you’re saying true?” my mom asked nervously.
“Either that or I’ve finally snapped and I just hallucinated the last four hours.”
“Well have you called her an ambulance? The power is on,” my sister asked.
“The phone lines are still down and you know I don’t have a cell phone. I’ve been waiting for you to come back so that we can drive her to the hospital. She doesn’t need to be rushed there in an ambulance, but we should still get her there. Want me to wake her up?”
“Sure,” my dad said, rubbing his forehead as he tried to process the sudden information, “get her down here.”
I walked upstairs, taking deep breaths and trying to calm myself from the conversation only moments prior. I approached the guestroom and stood in the doorway. Angel seamed to be shrouded in a veil of light through my eyes, but I knew she was really there. I silently walked towards the bed and crouched down. I placed one hand on Angel’s forehead and my other on her hand.
“Angel?” I whispered.
She opened her beautiful eyes and hummed a reply.
“Sorry to wake you, but we need to get you to a hospital. We need to get you checked out to make sure that you are really all right.”
“You’ll come with me, right?”
I moved my hand to her cheek. “Of course.”
She stepped out of the bed and I immediately realized that I couldn’t show her to my family, not in her current state.
“Here, put this on,” I said, holding up the blouse I had taken from my sister’s room.
“What? Why?”
Unable to suppress my grin, I pointed at her chest, where atop the colossal mountains that were her breasts, her nipples were poking through the thin fabric of the undershirt like fingertips.
“I don’t want you accidently poking one of their eyes out.”
Blushing in embarrassment, Angel covered her chest with her arms and turned away. “You pervert!” she giggled.
Following my advice, she put on the blouse and buttoned it up, but the problem still was not completely solved. Unlike the tank top she was wearing underneath, the fabric of the blouse did not stretch. It merely clung and constricted when the wearer’s proportions weren’t… fitting. Suffice to say, the bottom of the blouse barely came down to her belly button, and the buttons were silently screaming as they struggled to hold in Angel’s breasts. This time, I made no attempt to suppress my laughter, to which Angel playfully smacked me.
Once I was done laughing, I looked into her eyes. “Ready?”
She nodded and took my arm. Walking out into the hall, I could hear my parents and siblings talking downstairs. They were all certain I was either hallucinating or just playing a practical joke. My brother actually said that I had found a blow-up doll out in the storm and was just using it as a gag prop. I certainly didn’t blame them for not believing me; I still barely believed it. However, when they all heard the sounds of two pairs of footfalls on the stairs, all doubts were erased. Eyes widened and gasps were suppressed as Angel came into view, cute as a button with a blush of nervousness and her arms wrapped tightly around mine.
“Everyone, this is Angel. Angel, this is my family. That’s my sister Emily, my brother Phil, my mom Laura, and my dad Alex.”
Everyone stared at her with shock. Not only was it strange just to finally meet her, but also her beauty was incredible. Shocked most of all was Emily, not only by Angel’s existence, but by her… appearance. She certainly couldn’t remember any of her blouses clinging to her like that, and she had to fight the urge to look down at her own chest for a miserable comparison.
“So our son saved you?” my dad asked in amazement.
“Yes, though I don’t remember ever being outside or anything before. I just woke up with Marcus holding my hand, and even without my memories, I knew I was safe.”
Her nervous murmur melted the hearts of everyone in the room.
“Emily, can Angel barrow your coat?”
She jerked as if awoken from a trance and quickly pulled off her jacket and handed it to me. I put it around Angel and held her close.
I turned to my parents. “All right, let’s go to the hospital.”
With Angel using a pair of my sister’s shoes, my parents and I brought her outside and we got into the car. I sat in the back with her, keeping my arm around her at all times. The drive into the city was silent as the sky darkened with its usual winter speed, and as we maneuvered through the snow-caked city, Angel stared out the window with wide eyes, hoping the scenery would trigger some dormant memory. I didn’t say anything about it, not just because my parents were in the car with us, but because I knew there weren’t any memories for her to recover.
As expected, the emergency room was almost completely filled with people, the majority of them having suffered from car accidents or other injuries brought on by the extreme weather. While my parents dealt with the paperwork at the front desk, I sat with Angel. As before, I had my arm around her to comfort her, and she had her head on my shoulder. I’m not sure how long we waited, if my parents had written a possible rape in the paperwork and it sped up the process, or how many people we saw entering or leaving the ER, but we were all relieved when a nurse finally came up to us.
“Clive?” she asked. I nodded and the nurse turned to Angel. “Please come with me.”
We all got up and followed the nurse. Unlike the people who were just getting casts for broken bones and stitches for large cuts, we were all brought into a hospital room like the one I had woken up in after my first seizure.
“Just wait in here and the doctor will be right with you in a minute,” said the nurse before walking away.
Angel and I sat on the hospital bed, while my parents sat in two chairs. They didn’t take their eyes off of us for a moment.
After a few minutes, a doctor walked in. “Hello, I’m Dr. Anderson. Due to the nature of your visit, the police have been contacted and we’ve been asked to perform certain tests, including a rape kit. This will be an overnight visit. I suggest one of you stays, simply to keep her comfortable and to answer any questions that she can’t. Now, could you please give me a detailed recant of everything that has happened?”
Making sure I avoided any deviations in the story, I retold the lie that Angel and my family had heard: I had found Angel at the back door, naked, covered in blood, and crying for help. I pulled her inside, managed to warm her up, cleaned her off, and let her take a bath. That was all there was to it.
“If that is everything, then I shall go and tell the detectives outside everything you have told me, then we can commence with protocol. I’ll send in a nurse to bring you a hospital gown.”
Once the doctor left, I turned to my parents. “Mom, dad, you two can go back home. I think I’ll stay here with Angel tonight.”
“But Marcus…”
I held Angel close. “Mom, please.”
“Son, can we talk to you outside?” my dad asked, but it was more of a demand than a request.
My parents and I stepped out into the hall.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” my mom asked. “I really think it would just be best if we tried to limit our involvement with her. With everything that is going on… with you… we should try and prevent further complications. You saved her, you protected her, and you did everything right, but we’re all strangers and it’s time to let the state do its job.”
“Mom, dad… she needs me… and I need her.”
“Marcus we should really—”
“I haven’t been in any pain since I met her.”
My parents became silent.
“Ever since I found her, I haven’t had to take a single pill or experienced a single seizure. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but it’s like my cancer has vanished. When I’m with her… I feel happy, happier than I’ve ever been, even before I was sick. I didn’t just save her, she saved me, and I can’t abandon her to return to my agonizing excuse for a life. I’m staying with her.”
Still not liking my decision, my parents accepted it and left. They would come back the next day. Over the course of the night, Angel changed into a hospital gown and underwent several tests. We learned everything from her age to her blood type. She was both the same age and blood type as I was, augmenting my thoughts about her supernatural existence. During the rape kit examination, I stayed beside her and held her hand, never leaving her side. By the time all the tests were done, it was past midnight and Angel and I were in her room, mentally exhausted. The majority of the test results would be given tomorrow.
I stood by the door and turned off the light. “All right, Angel, you should get some sleep.”
“Marcus, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done,” she said tenderly, the two of us alone in the darkness.
“You’ll never need to.”
I walked over to the chair beside her bed, preparing myself for the uncomfortable night’s sleep, but before I could reach it, I felt her hand clasp mine. She sat up and leaning against me, her voice a crystalline whisper. “After everything you’ve done, I can’t let you spend the night sitting in that chair. Here, the bed is large enough for the both of us. Besides, I want you close to me.”
“Angel,” I said softly, stroking her long crimson hair and thanking every deity I could think of for allowing me to be with her.
Happier than ever in my life, I discarded my jacket and shoes and climbed into the bed. I lied down next to her and held her as close as I could with her back pressed against my chest and the blanket around us sealing in the warmth of each other’s bodies. I held her so close that we could feel each other’s heartbeats.
“Angel, I promise that I will watch over you forever.”
She rolled over so that we were facing each other and I kissed her on the forehead.
“Thank you, Marcus, and I’ll watch over you too,” she whispered, placing her hand on my chest.
Angel and I were eating breakfast in bed and talking.
“I’ll go call my parents, then we can head home.”
“Home?”
I smiled. “Well, you’ll need to stay somewhere.”
Leaving the room, I found a payphone and called my parents, asking for them to pick us up. My mom sighed when I used the word “us”. As I rounded the corner on my way back to Angel’s room, I saw Dr. Anderson and two detectives by the door. They were both men, late forties with peppery short hair.
“Oh hell no,” I growled.
I stormed over and put my hand on the door before the doctor could open it. “Excuse me, what is going on here?” I demanded.
“Relax, son, we’re just here to ask her some questions. I’m Detective Francis, this is my partner Detective Baum,” one of the detectives said with a pen and small notepad in his hand.
“She and I have already told our story a dozen times, there is nothing left to say. I heard her crying for help at my back door, I found her naked and passed out with blood all over her body, and I brought her inside. I didn’t see anything outside, I didn’t notice anything unusual, and I have never seen her until now. She can’t answer any of your questions; she doesn’t remember anything other than her name, and we aren’t even sure if that really is her name. Now I heard the results from the tests. Her rape kit showed no signs of assault, there were no drugs in her system, and she didn’t have any injuries. There is nothing else I can tell you.”
“Well there are two test results that you haven’t heard. We found traces of the blood on her, as well as a certain other fluid. It was mostly scrubbed away in that bath you gave her, but we found small amounts all over her. It is impossible to get a match on the blood because it is devoid of white blood cells, which are the only cells in blood that contain DNA. We also found amniotic fluid,” said Dr. Anderson.
“So what are you saying?”
“The blood on her had to have been treated to have the white blood cells removed, and unless she was just born yesterday from a giant cloned uterus in a lab somewhere, there is no explanation for why she would be covered in afterbirth.”
“We’re hoping that by telling her this, it will jog her memory,” Detective Baum stated.
“All right, but I want to be in there with her.”
“Actually, how about you and I wait out here, have a little talk between men,” Detective Francis grunted.
It was not a suggestion. I could feel the blood boiling in my veins with the desire to stand by Angel and protect her, but this was out of my control.
“Very well.”
While Anderson and Baum stepped inside Angel’s room to try one last time to jog her memory, Detective Francis and I stood out in the hall face to face.
“So I’ve heard from the staff that while you two have been here, you and Angel have been quite cozy with each other. The two of you are complete strangers, but no one has seen you separated for more than a minute and you two slept in her hospital bed. The horniest teens on the planet couldn’t get that close in a single night when one of them only knows her name.”
“I’m telling you the truth, I’ve never seen her before. The relationship we have (I use that word carefully due to time constraints) is simple: I want to protect her and she feels safe and comfortable around me. Yes, we get along really well, amazingly well even, but yesterday was the first time we met.”
“So when we get the dogs to search your property for any scent trails, we won’t find something surprising or contradicting to your story?”
“Disregarding the fact that it snowed all night and anything that your tracking dogs could have found is long gone, no, you won’t find anything.”
“Well until this matter is taken care of, she’ll be put up in a public shelter. You don’t need to worry about it anymore.”
“I’m not going to let you take her away. You can perform your investigation, but I’ll take this court if she isn’t released into my custody. She needs me.”
“If she’s put in your custody, then she’s your responsibility. If something bad happens, then it’s your fault.”
“That’s all that I ask.”
The door was opened and Dr. Anderson and Detective Baum stepped outside. “No luck, she remembers nothing.”
“We’ll be at your property later today to begin the search. Thank you for your patience,” Francis said dryly before he, his partner, and the doctor walked off.
I stepped into the hospital room, seeing Angel sitting on the bed with a shaken look on her face. Blood devoid of DNA and amniotic fluid… so she hadn’t just materialized in my bed, she had actually been born. I walked over and wrapped my hand around hers. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let them separate us, I promise.”
As my parents signed the temporary custody papers, Angel and I sat in the car, just enjoying being close to each other. I could tell that she was happy about having a home to go to. We both knew that eventually she would become a permanent member of the family, even after the police had performed their investigation.
“I don’t have to stay, do I? If I have to waste my time, I’d rather it not be in the freezing cold,” I said dryly to the police.
I was standing with a squad of cops at the edge of the woods behind my house. The dense forest went for miles and it was the only direction Angel could have come from if she was found at the back door. Without even looking, I could sense her watching us from the windows.
“We need to make sure that you aren’t lying and maybe destroyed some evidence,” one cop said with a bloodhound next to him.
“Look around, Mother Nature destroyed your evidence. A monster truck could have rolled through here and you wouldn’t know it.”
One of the cops pulled out one of the towels I had used to clean off Angel when she was in my bed. He held it up to the bloodhounds and the dogs immediately seemed confused as they sniffed the ground, unable to pick up the slightest scent other than the slight trace Angel left at the house when returning from the hospital. I certainly didn’t expect them to find any traces of her, and I had to hide my relief when they finally gave up.
“Feel free to search the area, but if you need me, I’ll be with someone who needs me more.”
Angel and I stood in the guestroom. It was the early afternoon and the house was empty. My dad was at work, my brother was at a friend’s house, and my mom and sister were out shopping for clothes for Angel to wear while she stayed with us. The cops had quickly left, unable to find any evidence to confirm or deny my story, but they would eventually come back.
“Now this is your room.”
I looked at Angel and could tell that she was tired. I placed my hand on her shoulder. “You should get some rest; you had a long night and woke up early.”
A small smile crossed her face. “I am tired, but I slept so well last night. I think it’s because you were with me. Will you stay with me again?”
“Of course,” I whispered, feeling like I was finally on the right path.
With the shades drawn to keep the room dark, we both climbed into the bed and I put my arm around her. Underneath the blankets, our bodies pressed together like two puzzle pieces, I felt so warm and comfortable that my eyelids suddenly weighed as much a pair of dumbbells.
“Marcus?” Angel murmured.
I could only hum in reply.
“I think I remember something.”
My eyes bolted open. “What is it?”
“I was supposed to meet someone, I was supposed to meet him and bring him happiness, just like the happiness he would bring me. I can’t remember who it was, but I think… I think that person is you. I think we were supposed to meet and make this world paradise.”
She tightened her hold on my arm, clutching it against her chest like it was a lifeline. I knew that it was pointless to say anything; she had already fallen asleep. There was nothing to do but join her.
I woke up a couple hours later, my body feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds simply from how cozy that bed was. We had separated during the nap, there was about a foot and a half of space between us, and we were on our sides facing each other. I felt a shiver crawl up my spine, realizing that Angel was in the exact same position as when I would wake up to see her as a dream. I looked upon her beautiful face, unable to form a single thought. Slowly, her eyelids opened, and her blue eyes held a faint glow. Her face was stoic, but her eyes were filled with love, inviting me to come closer. I felt a pulse of warmth crawl throughout my body as a light seemed to shine in my mind. This was the moment I had been waiting my whole life for.
She closed her eyes and rolled onto her back and I slowly moved over to her. Shaking from head to toe but knowing that everything was as it should be. I leaned forward and kissed her, gently at first, but her quick reaction and mirroring of the act drove me to proceed with more passion. She kept her eyes closed the whole time, as if half asleep even while kissing me. I placed my hand on her collarbone, feeling her body becoming hotter and hotter as the kiss continued. I moved my hand down and cupped a warm breast. Angel let out a hum of pleasure as I squeezed, unable to hold the entire mass in my hand.
I slowly pulled up her shirt, brushing the tips of my fingers along her slim belly. Angel raised her arms and pulled off the shirt. While we kissed, I moved my hand down to her waist. She let out another hum as I pulled down her panties, admiring her naked beauty without ever ending her kiss. While sporting a truly powerful erection, I calmly but hesitantly ran my hand between her inner thighs, completely at awe at how soft and smooth her skin was. I brushed my hand against her virgin slit, the vertical lips feeling like velvet beneath my fingers.
At my touch, Angel gave a soft whimper of pleasure and her legs slightly spread. I continued to tease her, caressing her womanhood with gentle—almost ticklish—strokes by my finger. Soon, I decided to go further, settling my hand like I was using a computer mouse and swirling the tip of my middle finger at the first level of her interior, where her soft flesh was moist from arousal with a vibrant pink shade. Feeling my finger probing such a sensitive place, Angel began to tremble and pant through our unending kiss. I continued my advancement, including my ring finger into the stimulation and working the two digits deeper inside of her. Burying them up to the second joint, I stirred her sleeve while rubbing her clit with my thumb.
Angel’s body was now moving like a wave, with a soft whine passing through her lips as I pleasured her. Taking it one final step, I ended our kiss and moved my head down, wrapping my lips around her right nipple and tugging on it gently. No longer bound by my lips, Angel’s whines of pleasure were now free to be heard, but I was certain that with the door shut, no one in the house would hear her. I didn’t even know if anyone had come back yet. I pushed that thought and worry out of my mind, focusing instead on pleasuring Angel. My attention was well directed, as within minutes, Angel arched her back and released a gentle but shrill holler of euphoria. While she tried to catch her breath, I pulled my fingers out of her and licked them clean. Her wetness, her essence, it tasted as sweet as I imagined.
I quickly undressed, knowing what was about to happen, but before I could move on top of Angel, she suddenly pushed me onto my back and climbed on top of me. Sitting on my lap, the wet lips of her pussy kissing the shaft of my rock-hard cock, she gazed at me with tender loving smile. Beautiful, she was so beautiful.
“Marcus, I remember.”
“What?”
“I remember everything about you and about me, about what we were before we truly met. We were like this, just like this, when I promised you eternal happiness. I remember you’re touch, your taste, your love, your pain, and your heart. I remember the undying strength and passion in your eyes when you finally realized and cried out my name. I remember it all, Marcus. I love you so much that I can’t even describe it! I’m so happy, I think I could cry!”
The air was pulled from my lungs and my body froze. This couldn’t be real, this had to be a dream! There was no conceivable way that my life could become so… perfect. Angel gave me a long and passionate kiss, once again reaffirming that she and the world around me was real. Before she could end the kiss, I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly.
“I love you so much, Angel. You’re the most important thing in the world to me. You’re the light of my life, the only reason I’ve been able to hold on this long. Without you, I was nothing. Without you, I am nothing. You saved me from the darkness of my own mind. You reached out and saved me. You gave me a home in a world I despised and was disgusted by. You aren’t just my Angel, you are a true angel,” I said, letting tears of happiness fall from my eyes.
Her cheek against mine, she whispered in my ear, “I told you before that if you named me, I would exist solely for you. Now I will fulfill my promise and make myself yours. No matter what you desire or what I must do, I will live for no reason other than to love you and bring you happiness, just as I know you will do the same for me. I will be the embodiment of your will to live and you will cherish me just as I will cherish you.”
She raised her head, keeping her face hovering over mine with her long crimson hair hanging down and sealing us within our own private space.
“I love you, Angel,” I said, placing my hands on her cheeks.
“I love you too, Marcus. Now it is time for me to grant you happiness and truly show you how it feels to love and be loved.”
Raising herself up, she reached down and grasped my cock, keeping it standing at the right angle. Key and gate now brought together, she gently lowered herself down onto my manhood, embracing it with her womanhood. I was truly left breathless by the sensation of entering her, unable to completely describe how good it felt. It was so warm, so soft, and so wet, but beyond that, every single aspect from the friction to the tightness was so perfect that it was as it her body was actually changing and adapting itself to my preferences.
Even more, beyond just the physical connection, I felt like our hearts, minds, and souls were merging together. I could feel her emotions rushing through the connection and into me, overflowing with warmth like water from the perfect shower, and just like our joined anatomy, I was able to penetrate her mind with my own emotions and felt her embrace me.
Angel whimpered in happiness as she reached the base of my cock, showing not a single twinge of pain. “Oh my god, it feels so good. It’s perfect; it fits inside me so perfect. I can feel it kissing the entrance to my womb.”
“It’s like we were meant for each other,” I teased, brushing my fingers against the side of her flawless face.
“We were, Marcus. We were.”
She then leaned forward onto her hands and raised her lower body, revealing the shaft of my cock with a sheath of blood from her ruptured hymen, the same shade as her hair. She lowered herself back down, whimpering in joy as I filled her to completion with my phallus. Moving in a gentle whiplash moment, she began raising her lower body and then swinging it back down onto my cock, driving it up into her with the perfect speed and strength and leaving me completely overwhelmed with happiness. Every time she dropped down, her perfect ass would jiggle against my lap. After mastering the rhythm and movements, she changed her technique and began rolling her lower body on me, grinding back and forth with my dick stirring her honey pot. She rode me like that for several minutes, allowing us to both get fully accustomed to the sensation of being intimate.
Soon after, she changed her technique again, leaning back and relying on her stomach muscles to lift her up so that she could bounce on my cock. Her face was blushing while she panted, and her large breasts jumped with her like a pair of melon-sized water balloons hanging from the bumper of dune buggy going off-road. I was almost hypnotized, but within m