I still remember the feeling of his eyes staring at the back of my head, leaving a gentle tingling sensation that made the corners of my lips curl up. I knew I had him in my grasp. With an elegant sweep of my eyes, I compliantly turned my head toward the window to gaze at the world outside whilst I was trapped inside these walls. Warm and humid air caressed my face and the verdant trees reached their hands to the sky, as I watched jovial birds teasing the leaves of the trees that would never touch the azure heavens.

On my hand rays of light warmed my skin, filling me with heat that flowed through my entire body. A gleaming flicker of light caught the corner of my eye. I quickly snapped my head to examine the side of the window where I had seen it. After a few moments of silence, a butterfly from behind the curtain darted towards me and stirred the air around my head before settling on my desk. It was beautiful. I had never seen anything like it. The wings were lined with a gold luster, its veins shinning. I tilted my head to better study the delicate creature gently flapping near my hand. My mouth opened to let out a soft gasp as I realized its wings were clear crystal that dazzled throwing the light into drops of rainbow on the window sill and my clothes. I slowly extended my fingers to hold the magical animal before me, but upon contact, it wavered in the light and vanished. Gone without any evidence that it had ever appeared.

Frantic and confused I looked up to see if anyone in the classroom had seen it. But it was to no avail, they all mindlessly stared forward and listened to the professor and his endless list of dates and numbers from times long past. Rotating my head in unsatisfied defeat once more towards the front of the room, my eyes met his.

Directly across the room, he sat resting his head on his arm calmly watching me. I held his gaze pressuring him to assure me he had also seen it. In those seconds we stared at each other, I saw his brown eyes twinkle with honey gold speckles. After a knowing smile he shrugged his shoulders turning away from me, throwing me into a river of so many questions and frustrations. I always thought he was mysterious and aloof. I didn’t even know his name. He had hardly said a word to anyone since he transferred to our school a month ago, only sitting at his desk withdrawn and self-satisfied as far as I was concerned. Since he first transferred, he and I have been playing mind games with each other, battles of power.

When classes had ended for the day, our homeroom classroom was consumed in a hum of chatter. Instead of joining the conversations, I stood stiffly to connect my eyes with his across the room. To my relief, he did the same. What are you hiding? I interrogated with my eyes. Understanding the message, he quietly chuckled and put his fingers to his lips as if he was silencing me. His eyes responded to mine with a challenge. You figure it out. At that, he threw his brown leather jacket over his shoulder and grabbed his bag and left. At the doorway, he stopped with his back to me and waved sardonically.

Boiling in anger, I threw my books slovenly into my backpack and ran after him down the hallway. I would not, and could not let him have the last word. I would show him that he would not charm me into submission with his smiles. Scorning myself for not have leaving faster, I sprinted at full speed down the corridors and stairs to the front of the school. In the pit of my stomach I felt sure that he would be gone by the time I reached the iron gates of the school entrance. To my misfortune, I was proved right by a busy street corner crowded by a sea of students and cars that ruined any chances of finding him. For some reason, I couldn’t help the disappointment that flooded me at the thought of not seeing him until Monday. I guess curiosity does do that to a person.

The wind began to blow colder as I stood there. Suddenly, I heard the hiss of a snake. Looking down at my feet, I saw an ebony serpent twist and writhe around my shoe. Its fangs ready to pierce my ankle and lace its venom into my blood. They always came for me. The creatures of the night that creep into my scariest nightmares and into my room at night to hide in the shadows of the ceiling and the floor. I screamed as loud as I could, hoping that just this once someone would see it too, until tears came to my eyes. None ever did, and would always simply dismiss the black creatures as apparitions of my imagination. At the noise, the snake looped away into the evergreen bushes near the gate while I dejectedly swiped the rivers flowing from my eyes, feeling the stares of strangers.

I tucked my backpack under my arms and ran down the roads to my sanctuary. The cheerful sky mocked me as I ran away from humiliation in endless pools of new tears rolling back at the corners of my eyes. Breathless, I closed the door to my home and slumped against it grateful to be home where it was safe and warm. A place where there were no secrets or strange creatures.

My brother and I waited at home until it was pitch black to take the car to pick up our mother from work in Philadelphia. The sputtering old car on Friday nights was where my brother and I had spent most of our funniest memories. The chips and loud music served as the perfect ambiance for jokes and absurd conversations between us. I think my mom knew that which explained why she even let a seventeen year-old drive her younger brother into the city. Nevertheless, it was now a Friday tradition in our family that my brother and I drove the ten miles to the heart of Philadelphia to take mom to dinner before we all drove home.

Ahead the lights from an intersection glowed red and green that reflected on the black pavement of the street a wash of iridescent color. I drove steadily closer and prepared to turn when the blood rushed away from my cheeks. Three black crows sat upon the top of the traffic light preparing their wings for flight. I looked down at my hands on the steering wheel to see them trembling.

I could hear them before I saw them coming. The birds piercing the twilight with their shrieks, raced towards us. Their charcoal beaks caught the light in a razor sharp sheen pointed to the windshield. Panic pushed me to rip the steering wheel to the right. Before I could realize my unforgivable mistake, the colors flashed under my eyelids as 1,000 shards of glass cut my face.

To this day, I am unsure how long I was unconscious. All I know is that the pain was excruciating when I awoke. It was not the blood I felt trickling from my cheeks or the bruises I felt developing on my legs. Instead, it was the sight of my brother in the passenger seat dreadfully white and a gash on his neck. Even his lips were no longer his normal youthful shade.

Ripping off my seatbelt, I struggled and clawed with seat belt of his seat in the crushed car. My hands were battered and cut, but I did not care as I fought to free him from the car. His legs caught under the metal that crushed his fragile body and parts of the door that I saw were shallowly embedded into his abdomen. Muscles screaming, I closed my eyes and pulled us from the broken vehicle wedged in light post to the concrete.

“Jack,” I croaked. He did not stir. “Jack, wake up,” I whimpered.

His dark auburn hair was matted in blood and his body twisted at odd angles. I pulled my hand to my mouth and felt hot tears and sat by my poor brother in misery. With fisted hands I hit my legs and wondered why it had to be the people we love who paid for our worst mistakes. It should have been me, why was it an innocent child?

The cold feeling of my brother’s fingers snapped me out of my reverie. The feeling of touching his cold skin was unbearable as I pressed my hands to his chest. In a fast mess, my hands stumbled while I tried to press his badly beaten body. Dark thoughts whispered through my mind. He’s dead, it’s no use. You killed him. Strong hands roughly pushed me aside from Jack, onto the hard ground. Dazed, I looked at the boy leaning over my brother. In anger, I began to weakly push him away, but the light stopped me. Threads of light extended his hands, weaving them into Jack’s heart until his body glowed with blinding light. It was only seconds before Jack’s gasping breath broke through the night, and when the luminescence had died, I saw that he had been completely healed. His skin revealed no wounds, his color held a warm glow, and his small chest softly heaved up and down, the ultimate sign of life. I touched his warm skin and gladly laid my head on his chest to hear a child’s thrumming heartbeat.

“You don’t have to worry you know...He’s alive,” the boy said.

Happy and thankful I turned around to look at our rescuer, but a smile changed into gaping astonishment upon the discovery of his identity. The boy who had saved my brother was the same infuriating boy from my class.

“Thank you....,” I started uncertainly.

“Anthony,” he finished for me while smirking down at me.

As he helped me up I saw him retract another thread of light that lay on the ground that encircled us.

“Who are you?,” I softly questioned. I closed my eyes waiting to hear the answer.

“The question is not what I am, but what we are... This,” he gestured to the crash and continued sympathetically, “How did it happen?”

With a heated face, I lowered my eyes and turned my head abashed.

“You see them don’t you,” he sighed.

The way he said the word them with such vehement disgust revoked personal memories of the abhorrent black beasts that had plagued me since I was a child. I wondered if maybe Anthony could see the animals like the birds and the snakes of today, too. Hopeful, I looked into his eyes, “The creatures.”

In serious understanding, he moved his head in agreement, “That is their form, but they are demons.” Seeing my displeasure at the word demon, Anthony hastened to add, “Perhaps it might be better to show you what I mean.”

Anthony grabbed my wrist and held me against his chest as he took my hands in his. Bending over my shoulder he whispered instructions for me to imagine a plant growing. As I thought of a small flower sprouting from the earth, I looked down at my hands and saw the threads from Anthony’s hands weaving light into a small blossom. Pressing my hands harder into his, I thought of the precious light that had saved my brother, how the light of life had literally filled him, and a silent promise to forever protect my brother from all danger. I would protect the ones I love.

“I knew it,” Anthony exclaimed triumphantly.

In my hands, golden light moved in threads weaving into his flower until the shape changed into ball of vivid light and dissipated. Blinking my eyes, I turned to check for any bystanders that had seen. Strangely, the intersection was abandoned on a Friday night, a night normally bustling with adults and teenagers alike ready to celebrate.

At the corner of my vision I saw it again, one of the crows that had injured my brother on the light post across the intersection. He cocked his head staring at me, and let out an unsettling screech. His wings spread aggressively, preparing for another flight to catch his prey. Instantaneously, Anthony bolted past me straight towards the lamp post and the crow. In a swift motion, Anthony’s threads spread in two sweeping arcs over the bird and enclosed it in a neat cage of shining light which he now held in his hands.
I headed over to where Anthony stood with the caged beast. Inside, the bird threw itself against the sides in an effort to escape with force.

“The demon is caught,” Anthony grunted while fighting to keep the bird within the encasement.

Utterly confused about tonight’s events, I could not resist the reasonable temptation to ask, “Why are they here, these demons? Why did they want my brother and me?”

Anthony pursed his lips in contemplation. “Too much information may be overwhelming. I will explain more Monday,” Anthony replied grinning as he backed away from me. “Where there is darkness, there is always light. The angels have assured us of this. We are assistants to them, and for one reason or another you were chosen to be one of us,” Anthony called out before he disappeared in a wave of light holding the bird in the golden cage.

I laughed. It seemed typical of Anthony to leave me shrouded in mystery. I sat back down next to my brother to wait for him to awaken, thinking about all that Anthony said. I resolved to climb out from the claws of darkness into the light; no longer would I live in terror of the demons that scared me. Exhausted, I pulled my fingers through my brother’s hair and pushed the hair away from his face. New air cleansed my lungs at the sight of his fingers twitching and I calmly let fatigue take me, hearing the shouts of help on the way in the distance.