CHAPTER ONE

“Nnh…hnn…h-…huh…”

            Shey slowly opened his eyes, but was forced to close them right away from the glaring white light.  He heard soft, beautiful music, and in an instant he knew exactly where he was.  He was…it was hard to believe, but he was dead.  And this…this place he was in was Paradise.  That box he used (or rather, that box he’d thrown)…it have been some sort of strange weapon…

            “Heheh, this one’s a cutie.”

            And that must be an Angel who’d come to welcome Shey to his new home, come to take him to wherever it was Souls stayed in Paradise, a heavenly chorus playing the entire time, all bad feelings gone, replaced by eternal happiness and joy.  No more troubles whatsoever.  He didn’t know what to feel.  He was dead, which was bad, but…this is Paradise…and he’d been wrong all along, there was a goddess…Aeden really did exist…

            “Oh shut up, Axel.  You say that about pretty much everyone you see here,” a voice growled from the right.

            And that was…an…angry…Angel…?

            “It’s not like I can help it if the ship is full of cute guys!” the Angel on his left replied, the one that the other had called ‘Axel’.

            Huh…I guess there are still fights in Pa-…w-wait, ship?!  I-is Paradise a b-boat?  O-or maybe it’s, like, some mystical boat that takes your soul there…y-yeah, that’s….that’s gotta be it…I mean, P-Paradise as a boat?  Haha, r-right…

            With that thought, Shey tried to open his eyes again, but the light was just as blinding as ever.  He guessed it would take a while to get used to the bright sun or…or bright, beautiful sky he supposed Paradise must have.  It was the first explanation for the light that came to mind, not that he’d ever really thought much about it before.

            “Come on, Dargan, don’t tell me there’s nobody here you think is sexy!” the ‘Axel’ Angel teased his…er…friend?  Was it possible to have enemies in Paradise?  Everyone’s supposed to be friendly…

            “I w-want more in a guy than just that!” shouted ‘Dargan’, though it seemed like he was avoiding the other’s point.

            Geez, Shey thought, for Paradise it sure seems a lot like Earth…  He tried opening his eyes once more, but to absolutely no avail.

            “Damnit, Axel, stop shining that light in the kid’s eyes!”

            Wh-…what?

            There was a click, after which ‘Axel’ spoke up again.  “Fine, Mr. Buzzkill.  Geez…I wonder what this does…”  This was followed by another click.  Shey was finally about to say something, but he suddenly began to feel slightly lightheaded.

            “You can open your eyes now, cutie.”

            He tried to do exactly that, but, while the light was gone, everything was now…blurry…and he found it hard to think straight for more than a moment at a time…no coherent thought stayed coherent for long.

            “Uhh, Dargan, I…think something’s wrong…”

            “What?”  There was a creaking noise and ‘Dargan’ started to growl again.  “Grr…Axel, you idiot, you injected the anesthetics!”

            Silence.  Shey heard the words, but they meant nothing to his mind, which wasn’t quite working its best at that time.  He was far too busy fighting with the dizzy drowsiness that was overtaking him so suddenly to pay them any mind.

            “…what’s a ‘thettick’?”

            “…a what?”

            “You said I injected something in his thetticks…”

            “…”

            “…”

            “Ugh, you idiot, ANESTHETICS!  I SAID YOU INJECTED HIM WITH ANESTHETICS!  STUFF THAT MAKES YOU NUMB AND PUTS YOU TO SLEEP!  AN-ES-THET-ICS!!!”

            Another silence.

            “Ohhhh……crap.”

            Shey’s mind’s garbled translation of those two words was the last thing his brain managed to register, and he drifted off into a medically-induced, numb, Paradise-boat-filled sleep.


****************************


            “Shh, I think he’s waking up.”

            Shey slowly came to realize that he was conscious, and he felt a strange warm wetness on his forehead.  When he opened his eyes this time, the light was much less intense, though it still took a moment to adjust.  But after a few seconds, he could actually see.  Not that there was anything in his sight other than a rather bland white ceiling.  He let out a slight groan and rolled his throbbing head to the right, looking for something, anything, to see.

            “Good morning, sleepy-head!”

            The sound and sight of a person made Shey jump, and suddenly someone in the background laughed.  He found the voice behind the laugh somewhat familiar, but wasn’t too concerned with it at the time.  Shey looked to the left, and saw someone he was immediately rather glad to see.  It wasn’t that he knew the person, he’d never seen him in his life, but rather just that he just looked like he was going to be really a nice and sweet guy.  He had pretty long blue hair that covered his left eye, while the one eye that was actually visible was a nice golden-yellow colour.  And…he found it weird to be thinking this, but…the guy was pretty.  Maybe his head was a bit shaken up still…

            “…h-…who are you…?” the teen choked out, finding it hard to speak at the time.  He was confused, lost, and, he had to admit, somewhat scared.

            Nonetheless, this new blue-haired person smiled happily at him, seemingly totally undaunted by Shey’s uncomfortable demeanor.  Shey couldn’t tell if he had experience with confused lost people, but either way he was damn good at being comforting.  “I’m Ezakiel Arale,” he chimed, “but you can just call me Zacky!”

            Somebody else popped up behind him, and Ezakiel gave an abrupt shout that turned into a laugh as he was grabbed around the waist.  The guy that appeared was…tall…like, really tall…  He had black hair and…

            “A-Aeden…your eyes…”

            The tall guy stared blankly at him for a few seconds before saying anything back.

            “Umm…I’m…not “Aiden”…and yep, I have eyes.  So do you.”

            Shey’s dazed mind had too little energy to focus on more than one stream of thought at a time, and so it stuck with the first, which meant that it was kind of busy freaking the hell out at the fact that this huge guy shared a creepy eye colour with the only other person Shey had seen with red eyes.  And since that “other person” just so happened to be Shizad, it was really quite a bad freak out.

            Luckily (sort of) for all of them, his body and his brain weren’t totally in sync at the time, so this fear manifested itself differently than usual.  Meaning in the form of Shey screaming at the top of his lungs.  And as quickly as he’d started, he cut off mid-yell.

            “A-Axel?”

            The room went quiet(er) as the pair looked at him, absolutely dumbfounded.  Until the bigger guy spoke up.

            “Ooh, I know!  He must have that thingy where he can read minds and see the future and all that stuff!  You know, ESPN!”

            Zack sighed.  “ESP, Axel.”

            “Yeah, that!”

            “N-no,” Shey interrupted, “you’re, uhh, that guy that was talking to…umm…”  Shey closed his eyes, trying to think of the other guy’s name.  He knew it was something weird…it started with ‘D’…Derrick…Drago…  “Oh, Dargan!  You guys were arguing and then you…uhh…injected me with something!”

            Ezakiel gave Axel a worried glance, fearing that this kid might be a total nutjob, but Axel wore a nervous smile.

            “Uhh…Axel…you did…what?”

            “Well there were buttons just sitting there, and I didn’t know what they did so, see, I just had to press them!” Axel protested in his defense.

            Zack sighed and smiled apologetically at Shey.  There was something about his smiles that always seemed to make Shey feel a little better.  He found a smile naturally spreading across his face, and let it do just that.  Zack let out a small giggle and moved his hand to Shey’s forehead, to remove the damp cloth Shey had forgotten even existed.  He then felt Zack’s hand in its place.

            “Well…the fever is mostly gone, so that’s good!” he exclaimed.  Shey was just about to make an inquiry when he realized he was overlooking a considerably large and important aspect of all of this…

            “Wait, w-where the heck am I?!” he shouted, sitting up.  Zack gasped as he did so and fell back onto his butt.  Axel caught him (a bit late) and glared at Shey, who only looked at Zack confusedly, who sighed and got back up, smiling again.

            “Actually, we wanted to ask you where you came from.”

            Shey was just now noticing how badly his head hurt.  He pressed his hand against the side of it and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and furrowing his brow.

            “Traël.  Well, I mean, that’s where I live.  I was in the desert outside of it when…uhh…I…”  He froze up.  Wait…what…did happen?  I…was fighting with Shizad and…uhh…I…I threw the box and…then…a bright light and…everything went dark, and I had that weird dream where that…that dark…thing…talked to me…and then I woke up at that place…  He shook his head.  “S-something happened and I woke up at…with him and the other guy…Dargan.”

            Axel and Zack had been giving him a weird look since he started talking.

            “Traël?” they asked simultaneously.

            “Umm…y-yeah.”

            “…umm…what country is that in?” Zack continued.

            “Tanyn.”

            “…Tanyn?  Umm…what continent is that on?”

            “…what’s a continent?”

            They once again gave him that what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look, which didn’t honestly really do that much to help lessen Shey’s confusion.

            “…w-…” Zack started to speak, then gave a sad sigh, looking sympathetically at Shey.  “You poor kid, you must be so confused right now…”  He just as quickly went back to smiling and ruffled Shey’s hair.  “That’s okay!  I’ll go see if Rayven or Vail or someone knows anything about Traël!”  At that he gave Shey a quick kiss on the head, got up, gave Axel a big smooch on the lips, and walked out of the roo-…  W-wait!  A-A big smooch on the lips?!  W-wait…are they……Axel did call me cute…

            The two left alone in the room sat staring awkwardly at each other (or, rather, it was awkward for Shey, Axel sat there with a big grin on his face).  After at least half a minute must have passed, Shey decided to go ahead and ask his question.

            “Are…you two toge-“

            “You’re cute,” Axel interrupted.

            “…Umm…th-thanks…”

            “Can I see you naked?” Axel asked.  “You should totally get naked.”

            Shey found himself at a complete loss for words.  He wasn’t sure how you’re even supposed to respond to a question like that.  ‘No, thank you very much’?  ‘Screw you’?  Listen to him and do as he requests?  He doubed that last one.  It didn’t really matter, he supposed, since he was too polite for the second one, and didn’t think he should decline and then thank him for offering it in the first place.

            “Uh-umm…n-nah, I’d rather n-not…but…a-are you two…umm, you and, uhh, Zacky…umm, l-like, b-boyfriend and…boyfriend?”

            “Well duh,” Axel told him bluntly.  “Geez, you’re slow!”

            Shey was a bit taken aback by that comment.  Sure, he didn’t know what to expect from this guy, but he was with Zacky, so…  He was going from Zacky, who could calm him down with a mere smile and didn’t seem like he would hurt a fly, to this “Axel” guy who didn’t seem to like him very much at all so far.  How was Zacky with this guy?

            Shey finally laid back down on the bed.  He sighed and reached to take his bandanna off, only to realize it wasn’t there to grab.  Hand  now grasping his hair, Shey swiveled left and right looking for it, the one possession of his parents’ that he had.

            “Don’t worry,” Axel told him, “Rayven just wanted your bandanna so he could-”

            At that precise moment, the door went flying wide open, and someone stood where it had just been closed.

            “Yarrrr, matey!  Don’t be tellin’ this here lowly swabbie what your captain be up to!  Shiver me timbers, why I oughta have you walk the plank!  Yarr!”

Shey gawked at the pirate-garbed guy that had just busted into the room.  He had on a fake peg-leg, ragged pants, a dirtied brown vest over a white shirt, an eye patch covering one yellow eye, and black hair (plus a red streak) sticking out from under…Shey’s red bandanna that was now adorned with a skull-and-crossbones on the front.

            “H-hey!” Shey shouted at him.  “M-my bandanna!  You…you drew on it!”  He tried sitting back up and failed, managing only to prop himself up with his arms.

            “Aye, lad!  Every pirate be needin’ one ‘a these!”

            Shey kept his hand entangled in his wild green hair, staring at this weirdo, mouth hanging just slightly open.

            “Th-that’s…really important to me…” he told them quietly, a miserable look of helplessness spreading across his face.  Axel sighed, grinning.

            “Good going, Rayven,” he snickered.

            Rayven looked back and forth between Axel and Shey, falling guiltily silent.  He looked at Shey’s despair-stricken face and suddenly felt terrible.  Axel, however, was rather enjoying watching Rayven’s expressions.  Rayven pulled off the bandanna and tried his best (which wasn’t very good) to look reassuring.

            “O-oh!  W-well, uhh, i-it washes off!  I-I think…”  When Shey didn’t exactly look like he felt any better, Rayven tried another tactic.  “But hey!  Uhh, it looks cooler like this, right?”  There was no reply.  “…right?”

            Shey fell back flat on the bed, threw his hands over his face, and let out a groan.  Rayven bit his lip and played with the bandanna in his hands, unsure what to say, while Axel had his hand over his mouth to hide his laughter.  Zack walked in on the scene, pretty confused at the mixed-up atmosphere of the room.  Shey looked like he was about to cry (or was crying), Axel was still stifling laughter the whole time, and Rayven looked as if he’d killed someone.  Er…not to mention the pirate outfit.

            He tried to muster up a smile, but it sort of clashed with the confusion that clouded the rest of his face, resulting in a very awkward expression.

            “Hey…w-what’d I miss…?”

            All eyes in the room turned on him (and Rayven was thankful to relinquish the spotlight).  When nobody filled him in, he took his original position by Shey, crouched at the the bedside, and placed his hand on the kid’s head.

            “What’s wrong, Shey?” he asked sweetly.

            Shey took his hands away from his face and looked at Zack.  He hadn’t been crying, but he looked like he was definitely on the verge.

            “That guy…R-Rayven…d-drew on my bandanna…” he muttered, sniffling, feeling a bit better now that Zacky was there and looked up to him to solve the problem somehow.

            Zack raised an eyebrow questioningly and looked back at Rayven, who nervously held up the Jolly Roger-laden bandanna in question.  The paint wasn’t even totally dry yet.  Zack looked back to Shey and smiled yet again (he does that a lot in case you couldn’t tell).

            “Aww, Shey, don’t worry.  We can wash it off.  And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just get you a brand new one!  It’s just a bandanna.  How’s that sound?” Zack offered, talking to Shey like a mother would talk to a child.

            Shey, however, didn’t think it sounded very good at all.

            “I-it’s the only thing I have of my parents’…” he told them, voice getting a little bit shaky now.

            At that point Zacky saw how bad this really was.  Rayven did as well, and felt even worse about the whole thing.  By now he just wanted to get out of that damned room.  Axel just shook his head again and sighed.

            “Boy, if it’s all this messed up already, just wait until he meets Dargan…”

END OF CHAPTER ONE