Chapter 1: Television Melodrama or the Midnight Army Shuffle
The night shown brightly, almost blindingly through the windows of the small apartment on the third floor of Essex Apartments. Like a spotlight the eerie light of a television in the front room shined brightest on a small boy on a boy in the middle of the room. This small boy sat in a beanbag chair, his small bony fingers fiddling with a chain that connected two of his earrings together. The boy seemed bored, for reason he did not know, he should have been asleep by now, but no…
The small black box on the floor in the front of the room went dark for a second, only to pop back with a shockingly loud commercial that seemed to have been filmed in the late eighties, and judging by the haircuts and clothing it had to have been taped somewhere in the south. This commercial, no matter how cheesy or boring seemed to pull at the boy, it screamed for him to pay attention. He scooted his beanbag chair closer to the screen, nearly pressing his face to the screen. His eyes were straining as he watched the commercial intently, not even knowing what it was about.
The television suddenly switched from the infomercial to many strange shapes, the shapes of people. The screen-people seemed to be marching to somewhere, the flags and swords raised high into the air before morphing into guns and switchblades. Then suddenly, as if out of nowhere he could here them come into a uproarious shout… March toward Zion… The boy pressed his hand against the screen… March toward Paradise… He could feel the small soldiers moving inside the screen, the way you can feel the bubbles inside a fish tank if you touch the side…March on child of God!
Suddenly, the lights switched on, attacking him from all sides with their presence. His head whipped back from the screen quickly, falling back onto the carpet with a loud yelp. "Fei, what are you doing?" Asked a young woman with long dark hair which feel down upon her shoulders and rippled over like a fountain, her eyebrows were cocked in confusion.
"Nothing Siren…" Fei said, the shock still registering in his voice, his chest heaving with excitement and horror, his dyed navy and pink hair falling around his face was now a drenched with sweat. He turned his head to the television, which had now switched back to the regularly scheduled program of boring commercials and late night "Girls Gone Wild" ads, but Fei could still see the fog from his breath on the screen.
"So you aren't in total panic mode?" She asked with a slight worry in her voice, which made it sound much different than her normal cool self.
"I'm fine… as the cliché movies say, I just need a little sleep." He smiled to her before pushing himself up and walking to his room, closing the door behind him.
Author's Note: I'm sorry this chapter seems kind of cliché, but I want to tell you what's going to go on without giving too much away.