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Now now, God may save us Ulta. As such, you must accept all views. We have no insight on what goes on outside our reality so the end is NOT a given. And don't give me crap about how there is no religious debates. This thread was bound to cross that line.

No, it wasn't bound to cross the line. I was talking about the SCIENTIFICALLY INCLINED theories people have about the world ending, not the religious theories. Not to mention we're talking about the end of the world not humanity, which is what religious texts call an 'end' to, if it can even be called an end, they don't talk about the end of the world.

Anyway, I'm still sticking to my theory that the world ends when the Sun consumes the earth. There's nothing else that has even a close percentage of certainty as that, from what I've seen.

Well, let me know what you think.

Well, as most of you know, the world was believed to have a slight chance of ending today. Some supercollider or another was supposed to generate a black hole, ending Earth and our entire solar system.

Another theory says that on December 21, 2012, the world is going to end, due to the alignment of the Earth, the Sun, (I also believe the moon, but I don't recall.) and the center of our galaxy (Or is it the universe? I don't remember.), and the end of the Mayan calendar.

I personally believe the world isn't going to end until the time comes when the Sun consumes Earth, as it inevitably will, in about 200 billion years.

Thoughts?

Maybe we could collaborate and I could do the PS half of it? Just a thought.

Sorry for the wait, but I've got a full part this time rather than just half a part, like usual.

-----------------------

The watcher is waiting for me, leaning against the looking glass and watching me. I at first do not acknowledge her, moving to stand at the looking glass and watching it for a moment. The elevator has reached the lobby and opened, and a man is standing just outside the door, a cell phone in his hand. The watcher coughs, attempting to get my attention. I glance at her and frown, pretending to be annoyed with her presence.

"Do not fake anger, guardian," she says, a smile across her face, "You should be happy, if anything."

"Why do you persist in pestering me?" I ask, and her smile quickly slides away to a flat expression. Obviously she did not expect me to say this. She stands up away from the looking glass and comes around to stand next to me. She slips her arm around the crook of my own and looks down at the looking glass. Her skin is warm, smooth. I watch her for a moment before she returns the look.

"You have watched this mortal long enough. Per--"

"You have no right to pronounce her protected. The followers have not yet attacked her again."

"I was not suggesting that she should be protected. I was merely thinking that perhaps you should take a break from watching her. Experience something new."

"You tempt me to become a half. Why?" I see through her words to her true meaning easily. A watcher is not as impossible to decipher as a mortal, their emotions are not as hidden. Sadness crosses her face and she bites her lip, glancing down and away from me.

"Do you not even wonder...?"

"The guardians are meant to protect the mortals of this world. We are not meant to abandon our duty. The halves are weak."

"Are they weak, or was their logic weak?" This is an unexpected question. She stares up at me, her dark emerald eyes pleading and hoping. I do not respond for a long moment. She seizes the opportunity of my pause to pile on another question. "Or was our logic strong?" By 'our' she implies the watchers, but surely she cannot expect me to know if their logic was flawed or not. Their logic is clouded by--.

"Your logic is clouded by emotions." I say, closing my eyes and breathing out lightly.

"You don't even wonder." She accuses; disappointment evident in her voice. She lets her arm slide down back to her side. I sense a sort of anger emanating from her person, though it does not seem the anger that drives most, there is more to it than the frustration of being denied.

"The watchers are the weak link." I speak, realizing fully that this watcher had indeed become angry from being denied the opportunity to become...engaged, with myself. Her hands clench by her sides and she looks down from my face again. "You know I cannot deny my duty. I...I apologize."

"You're sorry?" She says, her gaze snapping back to my face in an instant, "You do not even know the meaning of the word!" It's true; I cannot hope to understand the full meaning of the word. But surely she would forgive me if she meant what she felt?

"You know if I could I would mean it."

"But you don't." She says; her hands unclenching and a single tear running down her face. I sigh and cannot think of anything to do or say. I wish to comfort her somehow, but how could an unfeeling guardian hope to comfort one so embroiled in their emotions with logic?

"Did all the guardians that became halves do so for watchers?"

"...Some. Most...Yes, all." It's obvious she's trying desperately to think straight, but her sorrow and anger are getting in the way. Not knowing what else to do, I reach a hand out and touch her shoulder. No more than an instant later her hand is on my hand, holding it tightly. I hesitate, unsure of what to do. She looks at me and her eyes sparkle with unborn tears.

Somehow romance has found its way to me anyway, despite the fact that it's impossible for me to even hope to someday comprehend the powers of love and attachment.  It's an impossibility that I thought would never seek me out and force me to experience it, but somehow this watcher has taken a liking to me and unfortunately I have enough willpower to resist the temptation of becoming a half. The mortals must be protected, no matter what.

"Why won't you even consider--"

"You know as well as I do that if I won't protect the mortals who will? You expect him to take over? He has no time for such simplicities."

"But..." She's at a loss for words. She knows I speak truthfully, but her emotions are once again jumping in her way, attempting to get her to continue to persist rather than accept the simple truth that I will not become a half for her. Her thumb runs over the back of my hand and she bites her lip once again.

"I cannot say anything to comfort you." I admit; she nods slowly and lets my hand go. She turns her back to me, takes a single step, and then stops. She spins around, her eyes wide and her mouth half-open.

"Your looking glass!" She moves quickly over to the looking glass and draws from her hip a smaller but equally deadly pistol as my own, and points it at the glass.

"Do not! Do not shoot it!" I say, jumping towards her. Almost instinctively I draw my pistol and shoot her gun out of her hand before she can react. She stands with her arm outstretched towards the glass and her face now even more stunned than before. "You are stupid and rash! You cannot blackmail me into becoming a half, watcher! Be gone from this place!" I yell; holstering my weapon as the void leaps up to consume her unmoving body and take her somewhere away from me and my looking glass.

I stand next to the looking glass, staring at where she had once stood. I was trying to piece together how exactly she had come to become attracted to me. No doubt that her emotions had led her away from her duty as a watcher. I turn to face my glass, and it sits quietly as an empty, unbiased companion. I go around it and stare down at the mortal, who is in an ambulance on her way to a hospital. I was at a loss as to how exactly the watcher had thought she would persuade me to fall from power and become a half just to feel a mortal emotion that there was no certainty I would feel towards her anyways.

I could not help but think back to the beginning of this, when everything was normal and perfect and impossibly sane. I have mentioned that romance would be an obvious conclusion to this tale, and somehow it has tried to find its way to me despite the fact that I would not give up my duty to the mortals. I now think forward to what could come from this, the watcher who has now found it her quest to claim my heart or destroy my looking glass, whichever she can achieve first.

And still my thoughts seem to drift and float away from this realm that is the void; I cannot stop myself from wondering what indeed it is beyond this realm of logic and perfect understanding. Was there something to be gained from losing that infinite knowledge that cannot be paralleled? Was it a new understanding of the universe and his will within it?

If such possibilities could be dreamt, no doubt they could be done. Perhaps my logic is weak, like the watcher had said; perhaps I cannot hope to know that the purpose of all existence is right before my very eyes as falling from my place amongst the guardians. Serious doubts now have found their way into my very being, it seems. I have seen the romance of mortals. Sometimes it can be violent, heartbreaking, pushing them to the point of suicide and hopelessness. Is there some sort of peace to be found within the virulent waves of emotion that overcome them each hand every day?

His steps echo as he steps out from the darkness, his infinitely white suit a pure reflection of his power. He has a frown upon his face, but otherwise seems to carry himself as he would any other time, with the same air of humble authority that could deceive even the most foolhardy guardian. His voice is slow, precise now. He takes care with what he says; he does not wish me to take the wrong message from his words: "Guardian, you have long been tested by the followers and proved to be resilient to them. How is it now a simple watcher can instill such doubts within you?"

"How is it you would allow me to be tempted so?" I retort; no doubt the point of his accusation. His feeble attempts to make me feel weak and hopeless in the face of emotion seem to bounce off my logic: he has fired only arrows against steel.

"I do not allow you to be tempted so. I command you to be tempted so. You do not realize a test when it walks up and yells in your face, guardian," he pauses allowing his words to hover in the air for a moment before continuing, "What are the halves?"

I frown, not understanding why he would ask such a question. Surely he would know, he was the one who allowed them to fall from power and become halves in the first place. "They are fallen guardians; they have forsaken their duty to feel emotions."

"Wrong. They have been tested for their resilience and have failed. They would have snapped with my experiment. They would have been amongst the first casualties."

"You plan the slaughter of my brothers even now, right in my own witness!"

"Indeed I do, if that is what you would call it. I do not murder, I test the limits of my world and I repair what is broken, in due time."

I sigh, again a slight feeling of frustration rolling over me. His bending of the realities extends even beyond his own void, it would seem. "In due time? When is this fabled 'due time'? Is it after you have slaughtered my kin, and left only a handful of us to scrounge for what's left of an existence?"

"You pretend to be angry, guardian," he pauses as he walks close to me and peers into my eyes, "Or are you truly angry? Are you learning their emotions?"

"No." I say firmly, he, if anyone, would know that this is an impossible lie that he has laid before me. No doubt I cannot deny him for long, though, if indeed my theory is correct and his reality-warping presence allows me insight into the world of emotions.

"You do not know your place. You think you know why you feel the way you do."

"I do not feel." I reply stoically.

"But you do! Your logic is your downfall! You have arrived at the logical conclusion that you should be angry and frustrated with me, and so you feel these emotions. I know beyond your understanding, guardian."

I do not hesitate in my reply, "Then why not force all the guardians to become halves, so that we may be replaced by the perfect entities that you have planned to replace us?"

"You expect me to replace you? I cannot replace some of my finest workers. You are too efficient in your work. Allowing emotions into your realm only allows you to have flaws, just as the entire mortals do. Only, your logic will no doubt be present if you 'fall' as you have so put it."

I let my hand fall to the gun at my side, and for a moment I consider drawing it and forcing him to tell me straight answers, no more games. He speaks cryptically and now I cannot hope to have enough breadcrumbs to return to whence I came. A sadness creeps across his face as he studies me and he folds his hands in front of him.

"Come now, cease with the games. Tell me why it is you have decided this fate for the guardians. Why did you not put us through this test when you first employed us? Did you not think it?"  I say, hoping I have pinned down one of his flaws. Unfortunately he smiles and laughs heartily, his eyes twinkling with the youth of a child.

"I thought it, of course. In due time, guardian, you will understand. Good things come to those who wait."

I do not respond to him, instead choosing to turn back to my looking glass. The mortal is now lying on a bed in a room at a hospital. Her eyes are closed and her breathing is rhythmic as she rests. The stark white room seems to complement the purity that seems to be embodied by the emotions she keeps inside, her mortal thoughts allowing her freedom within her world.

I, however, am trapped.

I believe I can start working on an event system for this. I'll start tomorrow sometime.

Welcome to America!

Er...

I mean CP!

XD I'm worth $224,560.

I actually intend to make this long enough to maybe get published. Dunno how well it would be received by editors and such, but you never know. Glad you like it.

Here we go.

---------------

The mortal is sitting at a rather bland desk, a hard wooden desk with no special qualities to it, except for the golden nameplate embedded into the wood on it. She is staring intently at the computer that rests upon the desk, its glow illuminating the rather dimly lit room, her face grim and disappointment obvious in her eyes. She closes out of the window she had been watching and looks down and away from the computer.

Frustration, perhaps even anger, is splayed across her face like an open page. She doesn't even seem aware of it, but it's there and I fear that it may draw followers to her. Followers are most powerful when the mortal is afraid, of angry. It gives them strength, power, hope. It reminds them of a mortal's flaws and allows them to take full advantage of the mortal. The mortals believe they are at their best when they are afraid and angry, they believe themselves to be the most aware of their surroundings, able to destroy anything in their path.

This impossibly false, though, as it has shown itself time and time again when foolish battles have broken out between the mortals because of anger. And perhaps even some are because of love, or so they claim. But love is something that only mortals can know; they are the true bearers of emotion and have no space left for any logic. I fear it may be love or anger that drives this mortal now as she stands angrily, tossing her pen onto the desk carelessly and walking towards the door. She opens the door and the looking glass swirls as if water to reveal another view of the room she has entered into.

She speaks to the woman who sits at a desk outside her office, presumably a secretary or personal assistant, and the secretary nods and returns to her typing. My mortal continues down the hallway and into the elevator. The view again swirls and I stare down at her and two men who are standing in the elevator as well.  She sighs and shuffles her feet as one of the men reaches into his pocket and grabs something within it. I watch him carefully as he pulls a knife from his pocket, and in a flash he has her pinned against the wall, the other man watches with an insane grin on his face.

Before I know it I'm sucked again through the looking glass and into the elevator. The two men turn to face me, surprised by my impossible appearance. "Who the--" He stops as my M1911 comes out and is pointed directly at his face.

"You, mortal, are making a mistake." I say my voice powerful and loud, commanding and authoritative. He does not at first comprehend, and then realizes that he still has my mortal pinned. He glances back at her and turns back to face me. The other man moves behind him and grabs her, pulling a knife of his own and pinning it against her neck. I frown and look at my gun, its ivory handle glinting in the light of the elevator. It's aimed perfectly. The shot will--

I don't finish the thought and pull the trigger. The bullet dives through the first man's head and into the skull of the other. She screams and dives away from the dead man, whose grasp slackens as he slumps to the ground directly after his friend. I look at her and holster my weapon. "You're alright?" I ask, staring at her.

"I...You...Yes." She seems at a loss for words again. Her surprise is evident as she studies my face. "Have I seen you before somewhere?" I blink at this question. Never before have I had contact with a mortal after they had been saved, I had never assumed that seeing a guardian twice might trigger memories to come back. This realization is slightly imposing as I reach down and pull her back to stand.

"Yes, you have." I decide to answer truthfully. There is no way she will remember this time. She cannot, no mortal can stand having their memory rewritten twice. It's an impossibility I'm not willing to allow to change. When I rewrite a memory, it doesn't come back; the old memories are simply gone. There are no exceptions, ever.

"How can I thank--"

I cut her off rudely, "You cannot. Goodbye." I reach forward and touch my forefinger and middle finger to her forehead, and she wobbles on her feet and I reach a free hand around to grab her waist and lower her gently to the ground. She's unconscious in a moment; no doubt that when the elevator stops and opens, she will be unable to tell anyone what happened. They will find no gun on her, but that doesn't matter. She remains safe, and that is all that is important. The suction finds its way to me again, and I'm pulled back into the void.

I've gone ahead and taken the time to rewrite the conversation, taking in some considerations from Dio.

"We are ready." She speaks again, and the suction of the looking glass pulled at us, and we found ourselves standing in the extreme whiteness of nothing. It was the void, except white and not black. There before us stood a man who by mortal standards would have been rather old. His beard was well kept but gray like his short hair. The watcher stepped away from me and he stooped into a low bow, his arm across his stomach like a performer.

"I am glad you have come, guardian." He spoke; his voice a mix of the angelic qualities a mortal would imagine the heavenly choir to have, and the power and authority of the other himself. I do not return the greeting. He will speak when he has decided that he is ready. "You do not speak, as I thought you might. I am sorry; I would have loved to hear you speak."

"You will hear me speak yet."

"As I knew you would. You are not so different from the ones you call mortals, guardian." His face seems set in stone, an impossible to read force of nature that is even more logical than the guardians. He has emotion, it is clear that he shows love and care to all of us, but he does not show it at the same time. His blank stare pierces what I thought to be my logical wall of impossible logic.

"I do not have the emotions of a mortal. I am too different from them to understand them."

"You are too removed from them to want to understand." He speaks truthfully. I have never been able to understand the mortals. Their emotions are something one cannot read and understand like a written page. They simply are, one of the few unexplained powers in this incredible world that he has control of. He looks at me, more through me I believe, as I go to speak again.

"What is it you have called me here for?"

"You speak as if you wish to return to your looking glass."

"The attacks of the followers are no longer predictable."

"And you wish to protect that which you must." He has of course seen through me again here, to know what I know and he now has turned it against me and forced me to bite back. For a moment I think I almost feel frustration with him, but I know this to be impossible, for nothing can give me emotions, unless I were to fall from power and become a half.

"Is that so wrong?"

"No, guardian. I am merely suggesting that you should trust in me to keep her safe as we speak."

"But you cannot be trusted. You never could be."

"I have ruled this world for too long to hear those words." How long has he ruled, I wish to ask. I know he will not answer though. He has never revealed to us any of his secrets, his origins, and his past. He simply is, will be, until the end of all eternity and the time for us all to end comes. No doubt he will even be when we are gone and the universe has long since died.

"You are unpredictable, impossible."

"Indescribable, untamable. I've heard these all before, guardian."

"Then why do you persist along your course?"

"You fake anger. I see through you, guardian. You forget me."

"I do not forget the face of my father. I shoot with my mind." I quote from a rather brilliant mortal writer. He seems to be one of the very few logical mortals out there, able to spin a rather vivid tale of the fantasy that he has created. If only such a fantasy existed.

"And so you have read some mortal texts after all. Have you been lingering when you should not have?"

"I have no control over the looking glass. You know this." No matter how many times I say it, I know it to not be true. I have complete control over the looking glass when I so choose. I have indeed lingered on the earth when I should not have. Perhaps it is my eternal struggle to understand them that drives me to defy him and continue my own endeavors.

"Indeed, and you need none. Have faith, trust in me. You may see the end of this yet."

The suction pulls on me again and I find myself in the black void again. My looking glass rests as it did when I vanished from this void. I do not return to it at once, breathing heavily for a moment. Arguing with him always has made me feel the closest to mortal a guardian can become. Impossibly close. Perhaps it is the intensity of his power that forces all to bend and morph around him, so that even the very fabric of my existence can be changed, temporarily. I ignore the thought and return to the looking glass.

Expect more to come later tonight hopefully.

I like your style but you need to put filler inbetween that dialogue. take your time when you have a conversation to try some more descriptive like you were here:

"We are ready." She speaks again, and the suction of the looking glass pulled at us, and we found ourselves standing in the extreme whiteness of nothing. It was the void, except white and not black. There before us stood a man who by mortal standards would have been rather old. His beard was well kept but gray like his short hair. The watcher stepped away from me and he stooped into a low bow, his arm across his stomach like a performer.

....in that long string of dialogue near the end

i might suggest you read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. It's my personal favorite and written first person, in a quite elequent style you may want to draw off of. I persoanlly don't like dialogue as it's like a Vampire novel in that it gives you this asuption of assumed characteristics. Dialogue  with no supplement is going to pass by people easily but think of how much more you can put in. I'm not suggesting that it needs work to get good, per se, but adding more descriptive elements in between each character's speech will make use of the empty space that you have yet to take advantage of. You have a unique style that has some attractive elements. Keep working.

First, I have to say that reading your post I was expecting to look at the poster and see DeathLock.

And I really appreciate the criticism. I'll definitely take that into consideration in the future. Hell, I may even tonight instead of writing the two pages I've promised myself to write each day, rewrite that with some of your considerations.

Thanks, Dio.

It was quite literally getting away with murder, really. I needed to calculate that which made the world's madness as I seen it. But there was no way to truthfully define madness in a world full of emotions that were as virulent as the oceans. And I couldn't look back to the past, because that would make it look like the past repeated itself over and over and eventually the madness would multiply to the point where insanity was the new sanity.

But somewhere beyond all those emotions, happiness, sadness, there was the logical beginning and end to the madness, and truthfully, this new crisis that the watcher has put before me was the thing that would make this endless cycle lose its stale, crisp feel. It was like a well oiled machine, and he was deciding to throw a wrench into it with all his might and surely a few parts were going to get broken in the process. The parts, of course, would be the watchers and guardians. No doubt many of us wouldn't make it.

No doubt many of us wanted to make it, but some of the guardians had recently fallen into the realm in between emotion and logic. There was no reason for it, no explanation. It just happened. They somehow started feeling and their logic was distorted by their newfound knowledge, as they called it. These half-guardians, these halves, they could no longer support their looking glasses. Mortals were going to die, but they did not. We guardians quickly saw that these looking glasses were destroyed and the guardians were able to save the mortals the halves had condemned.

And so the cycle continued, completely unbroken and perfectly intact. And yet he was still going to get away with the murder of mortals and guardians alike. The wrench he was so forcefully throwing into the perfect system was going to destroy the world that he held so dear, and he didn't even seem to realize it. I did not wish to speak with him, I thought myself better off alone, but eventually the expected summons came, in the form of the watcher that had first spoken to me in the mortal's bedroom.

She stepped out of the blackness and into view, allowing me little time to prepare myself in any way for her arrival. She did not seem at all disturbed by what probably looked like a distraught face. She actually seemed amused by it, that frustration that came from being unable to form a logical conclusion to his actions. I did not speak first, instead leaning against the black metal of the looking glass.

"He has requested to speak with you."

"I refuse."

"You...What?" She was stunned. There was no way a guardian could refuse the summons to his court. I was trying with all my might to resist her. I was not going to go to him unless I was absolutely certain the logic was going to be there when he told me his ultimate plan. "You have been summoned, guardian."

"I will not go. Not without assurance that--"

"You underestimate him. He knows what you wish to know. He has promised to explain all to you. You have been summoned." This is an unexpected response. I had not expected him to have such insight into my thoughts. Surely he was not as powerful as the watchers claimed him to be? He could not have the power to see through time to this point. There was no explanation as to why such power could rest with one individual.

"I will go." I conceded, bowing my head and removing my weight from the looking glass. She moved close to me and her arms snaked their way around my neck. This was standard procedure for visiting him. A watcher was to embrace the guardian and--

"We are ready." She speaks again, and the suction of the looking glass pulled at us, and we found ourselves standing in the extreme whiteness of nothing. It was the void, except white and not black. There before us stood a man who by mortal standards would have been rather old. His beard was well kept but gray like his short hair. The watcher stepped away from me and he stooped into a low bow, his arm across his stomach like a performer.

"I am glad you have come, guardian." He spoke; his voice a mix of the angelic qualities a mortal would imagine the heavenly choir to have, and the power and authority of the other himself. I do not return the greeting. He will speak when he has decided that he is ready. "You do not speak, as I thought you might. I am sorry; I would have loved to hear you speak."

"You will hear me speak yet."

"As I knew you would. You are not so different from the ones you call mortals, guardian."

"I do not have the emotions of a mortal. I am too different from them to understand them."

"You are too removed from them to want to understand."

"What is it you have called me here for?"

"You speak as if you wish to return to your looking glass."

"The attacks of the followers are no longer predictable."

"And you wish to protect that which you must."

"Is that so wrong?"

"No, guardian. I am merely suggesting that you should trust in me to keep her safe as we speak."

"But you cannot be trusted. You never could be."

"I have ruled this world for too long to hear those words."

"You are unpredictable, impossible."

"Indescribable, untamable. I've heard these all before, guardian."

"Then why do you persist along your course?"

"You fake anger. I see through you, guardian. You forget me."

"I do not forget the face of my father. I shoot with my mind." I quote from a rather brilliant mortal writer. He seems to be one of the very few logical mortals out there, able to spin a rather vivid tale of the fantasy that he has created. If only such a fantasy existed.

"And so you have read some mortal texts after all. Have you been lingering when you should not have?"

"I have no control over the looking glass. You know this."

"Indeed, and you need none. Have faith, trust in me. You may see the end of this yet."

The suction pulls on me again and I find myself in the black void again. My looking glass rests as it did when I vanished from this void. I do not return to it at once, breathing heavily for a moment. Arguing with him always has made me feel the closest to mortal a guardian can become. Impossibly close. Perhaps it is the intensity of his power that forces all to bend and morph around him, so that even the very fabric of my existence can be changed, temporarily. I ignore the thought and return to the looking glass.

Terry16389> Hm...
Terry16389> I'm alone in the chat...
Terry16389> With nothing to do...
Terry16389> EXCEPT PARTAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Terry16389> WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
* Terry16389 explodes.

The result of extreme boredom can be deadly.

Indestructible - Disturbed

Hehe. Alright.

I believe the real term is 'Demotivational' posters.

And here are some funny ones.

Same pic, different saying: ShowHide

Spoiler: ShowHide

Spoiler: ShowHide

Certain parts? Like what?

And here's the next part.

---------------

I stand and move towards the bathroom. A flicker to my right catches my attention and I turn towards it, my hand falling to the gun at my side. A small cat, colored orange and white, steps out from around the corner and mewls at me quietly. I let the tension drift from my body. The cat takes two steps towards me and morphs quickly to reveal the true form of the watcher. She is slim, like me. She could be a mortal model, if she were mortal. But indeed she is not, and she reveals it quickly when she speaks, her voice solid with an air of authority.

"It is dead?"

"Of course."

"You work well."

"I work." I quickly correct. We are the most efficient beings that have ever graced the face of this planet. I do not intend to let this one mar our reputation by saying that we merely work 'well'. We work to 100% efficiency. Never once has a mortal died to one of the creatures. Never once has a mortal remembered that they were attacked and saved. Never once has the procedure for a mortal discovering our presence ever needed to be executed. We have learned from our mistakes.

"Of course I forgot. Your kind is 'efficient'. 'Logical'." If anything would bring me to feel anger, it would be a watcher. They do not like us guardians, for they envy us and our position. We are their superiors in every way, except one. We must use a looking glass to watch, but they do not. They are able to see without one. I decide to pretend that she is not there.

"Pronounce this one protected and we can move on to the next, watcher."

"Not yet. You have missed something." This is impossibility, of course. I could not have possibly missed something. There was no way that this mortal could not be protected now that her follower had been destroyed. Never before has a mortal had more than one follower.

"You know this to be impossible. No mortal has ever had more than one of the followers."

"I know this, but this mortal is tied to a guardian. She is one of the few that will be hunted and destroyed by the followers."

"Why do you allow yourself to spit such lies? Never has a mortal been destroyed by a follower. Never has a mortal--"

"Remembered that they were attacked and protected. I know these words, guardian. But he has decided that the time has come for the infinite cycle to break. He is trying an experiment."

"No. He would never--"

"And who are you to judge his words?"

"You have not heard this. This is one of your watcher ploys. Pronounce her protected, and the cycle will repeat itself, as it always has."

I do not believe this watcher in the slightest. She does not hear his words. It is impossible for her to have heard him. Surely he would have alerted the guardians if he was to break the cycle. For all eternity this cycle had repeated itself, was he so ready to break it that we could risk the earth that he holds so dear? Was he truly ready to risk that the other would destroy this world and bring it under his control, forcing us to side with him?

Perhaps it was the cycle that had repeated itself. Perhaps I was misinformed, and such a thing was bound to happen eventually? I could not fathom if he had made a mistake, or had become rash in his actions. Should he falter, the other would surely strike and take his precious world by force. Or perhaps if the other did not have that strength, he would use subtlety and deceit as he had so long ago when the first followers were introduced to this world.

"But I have, guardian. You know I speak truth."

"Impossible. You emotions allow you to lie to me. You lie now."

"No, I do not." The seriousness in her eyes brings me to the full realization that surely she is not lying. But her simple gaze does not allow for interpretation in the slightest. I cannot hope to draw forth information from this abstract thought that she has placed before me. I will need time to process this.

"He wishes me to watch this mortal further?"

"For the moment, yes. You are the experiment. If you have the strength to watch this single mortal until her second time comes, then the cycle will change. As many as six followers could attack at once. It is a risk he is willing to take. Never has a guardian been lost."

"But never has a guardian been challenged so."

"Indeed. I hope you survive your encounter with the second follower. It may be more cunning and deadly than this first."

I nod and she takes a step back, her figure morphing back to the white and orange cat. She walks around the corner and is gone. I look towards the bathroom, in which the light is still on. I enter the room and kneel next to the follower, my boot touching the pool of black blood that has formed. I reach over and pull at the exposed jawbone of the dead follower, and, pulling it free, stand as the body and pool dissolves into nothingness. I slide the jawbone into my belt, where it will stay until my return through the looking glass.

The mortal sleeps now, and I flick the light off in the bathroom, hoping that she will not notice. I stand next to the bed, watching her chest move in and out as she breathes the life-giving air that fills this world. I bow my head and breathe a slight prayer that she will not awake before her alarm clock signals. A moment later the suction of the looking glass is on me, and I slide back through, once again deposited in the empty blackness.

Welcome to America!

Er...

I mean CP!

I've been working on this for a little while now, and I was curious to see who all thinks I should continue working on this. I don't have a title for it yet, because I'm not sure if I'm going to continue it or not.

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   Is it so wrong to want to protect that which you must? In such a way that nothing ever makes sense? So that no one sees it? I never thought the world would understand. I didn't ask them to. No one asked me to understand the world, though. But through the looking glass I can barely see that it's safe. My intervention isn't needed, for now. I would only be there if I was needed, anyways. It doesn't matter if I was eating, sleeping, I made a promise to protect the peace, and if keeping her safe is the only way to do it, then so be it. Time wouldn't wait for me to catch up. I would be there, no matter what was between us.

Romance would be an obvious conclusion to this tale, but sadly romance isn't within my bounds. Within my realm of comprehension. I'm not human. I didn't ask to be human. I wasn't given a choice. The cards fell away from my hand and I lost my humanity to the emptiness. I was cheated out of a life that would've been perfect. A consummate life. But what is life without the emptiness of death? It would not be life if there wasn't a death to end it. An end to all beginnings. These things that hunt her though, the destroyers of peace and tranquility, they do not have this end to all beginnings.

I would fear them, if I could. If I was allowed to. Unfortunately not. My curse, or maybe it is a blessing, causes me to know only purpose, logic. Facts are evidence, and opinions are to be crushed. Emotions are dust before the wind. But she is human. How could so much be riding on one so cursed by the fear of being hunted? She is weak, and full of the heart that makes her mortal. Her instincts, however, are driven by the need to survive. Perhaps they will cause her to survive even with her curse. Instincts will not be found in my kind. We do not have that need to survive, for we cannot die.

If I had to, I would put myself right beside her. Not for the reasons a mortal would think. This blasted looking glass is the only thing in this empty blackness, besides my shell of a body. None could imagine the torment of being forced to watch the life of a mortal for all eternity. And when this mortal's time ends, another will require guarding. Because all my existence is, is an onlooker, a spectator. Constantly watching, the vigil of a guardian never ends.

She doesn't know her end will come soon enough. It always does. The end to all beginnings is all that they have as a concrete certainty. That death that inevitably waits for them is the only thing they should worship. But they celebrate life, and the eternity of a god that they hope exists. Hope seems to be the basis for all of their religions, these mortals. They wish for something to hold on to and hope for a life after life, when really there is nothing but death.

What happens after they die, they ask. Why do they care? What causes them to have such curiosity? Surely they know that when their time comes they will find out. Do they have no patience? Do they have no wisdom? Perhaps it is their emotions that cloud their judgment. Surely that must be the cause of all their questions. Do not doubt, for I am full of questions myself. But they are the logical questions, the scientific probabilities that cause me to ask them. I do not choose to have these questions, but they come from ages of watching and waiting for these mortals to understand.

The looking glass stirs again as she turns over in her sleep, a quiet gasp emanating from her parched throat. She did not drink before her sleep, as she knew she should have. She thought she would not need that glass of water that now comes back to haunt her as she awakes, sitting bolt upright and her gasp turning into a cry of surprise and pain. Again I'm sucked into the world of the mortals, and I stand quiet in the corner, watching her with what a mortal would describe as a bored expression.

My eyes automatically adjust to the darkness of the room and I look about, searching for the being that could have caused her to have the thought that she would not need drink. I do not spot it at first, but to move from my position to search for it would alert her to my presence. She stands and rubs her eyes, looking towards her bathroom. She takes a few steps towards it, and then stops as she remembers her glasses. She grabs them hastily from her desk and turns back towards the bathroom. Her eyes drift right across my face, but she does not notice that even the slightest thing is out of place.

She walks into her bathroom and shuts the door behind her. I step out from the corner of the room and quickly search under the bed, in her drawers, and in her closet for the beast that I feel to be nearby. Surely it would not be this intelligent? Surely I would have found it by now, unless it has decided to hide itself in the bathroom. Perhaps they are getting more intelligent. I may have to be more cautious in the future when I encounter them. I step through the wall easily, my ethereal form passing through the solid sheet rock with ease.

She stands staring in the mirror at the sink, a glass of water sitting on the counter beside the sink. It looks as if she has not taken a drink from it yet. Suddenly the creature leaps from the bathtub, screeching and reaching for her. My hand falls to the weapon on my hip, and I draw it and faithfully proceed to let loose the metal slugs within the weapon tear into the flesh of the beast. It collapses to the ground, stopped by the force of the bullets. It growls and tries to claw its way towards her, scratching its way across the tile.

I stamp my boot on its claw, grinding it into the ground as blood spurts out of its fingertips as I effectively pop its hand like a pimple on a teenager's face. Its horrid ape-dog face glares up at me and snarls. I raise the M1911 and put another bullet directly between its eyes, killing it. She's sitting in a corner, now, her eyes wide and wild as she watches the creature's black blood trickle out onto her once clean tile floor. I turn and look at her, my gaze locked in a hard stare. She stands, shaking slightly. I slide the M1911 back into its holster and approach her slowly. She allows me to do so, and I take her arm gently.

"Come on; let's get you back to bed." I whisper gently, pausing to grab the glass of water off the counter and hand it to her. She takes a sip and I guide her back out into her bedroom.

"What was that...thing?" She asks, her voice barely slipping out.

"A bad dream. A nightmare. You'll forget it by morning." I whisper back as soothingly as I can manage. Even after ages of watching mortals, their emotions are still lost to me. I cannot imitate love, anger, sorrow, like they can. I guide her back to her bed and sit down next to her, still holding her arm gently. She watches me carefully; she for some reason doesn't seem fazed by the nightmare that just tried to erase her existence.

"Who are you?"

"I am no one: a fantasy." I take the glass of water from her and set it on her bedside table. I push her gently down back into bed. She continues to stare at me as I pull the covers over her slowly and run my hand down her side to make sure she's comfortable. She doesn't speak as I raise my hand and touch her forehead gently with my middle finger and forefinger. Her eyes flutter, and a moment later she sleeps.