The sun shone down on the playground concrete, the children sweating and shouting out in glee as they chased each other and played. No villainy was afoot, only the mere playing of children in the small playground, a forest surrounding it. Two teachers sitting on a bench nonchalantly watched the children, sipping coffees as they chatted amongst themselves.
This all took place before Timothy's young eyes. He wore a simple T-shirt and jeans, walking down the playground, wondering exactly what to do. He could play basketball, but he was a rather short child and unathletic one at that. He wasn't exactly popular either. So he decided on the action of simply walking across the sides of the playground, running his fingers across the gate. He was five years old. Life was good, but he lived at an orphanage, his parents having abandoned him as an infant. No one had bought him yet, although he had seen several other children leave the orphanage, joining new families. Some of them found brothers, sisters. But Timothy? No, Timothy remained at the orphanage, waiting for someone to adopt him. He didn't really mind all that much, it was nice at the orphanage. He'd been abandoned as a baby, so he didn't really have anyone to miss. But he was still sad. He had no friends and was quite a lonely boy.
Timothy sighed and stopped in his tracks, turning around and leaning against the gate. He must look like one of those special kids who had special instructors. He'd heard other kids call them 'retarded', but when he'd called them that himself he'd gotten in trouble. Well, exactly what am I supposed to do? He thought. Most days he simply walked around or found a nice, shady spot to sit down and fall asleep. But oh well. He turned his head, getting ready to start walking again when he suddenly stopped.
There was a very tall man before him all of a sudden. He wore a suit like one of the teachers, except far more nice-looking, with a red-tie, and clean, too. He must have been seven feet tall, towering quite a few feet above the gate. He looked down on Timothy, and there was one thing wrong with his face. It wasn't that he was ugly, or scarred, or sad looking or anything. What was wrong with his face was that he had none. And his skin was far too pale for this weather. It wasn't even the color of skin, it was completely white, like an alabaster statue.
Timothy was a smart boy, the message not to go with strangers had been drilled into his head, many, many times, and to always shout out 'Stranger danger!' when a man approached him he didn't know. He'd always been a bit skeptical about it, wondering whether or not that meant every man. What if he was just walking down a crowded street? But he understood what it meant, he understood that there were very bad people out there in the world, even if Timothy had spent his entire life inside of an orphanage, blocked off from the real world. But this man before him wasn't just a man. First of all, he was far taller than any man Timothy had met. Then again, Timothy had only met the people in the orphanage. He supposed out in the real world there could be taller men. But Timothy was absolutely sure every man had to have some kind of face. But he wasn't a monster either. Monsters, at least the ones Timothy had seen in his dreams, were big and ugly, disgusting things, sometimes with giant, sharp teeth or claws. But the creature didn't seem ugly or disgusting at all, he just seemed like a very tall man with no face and very, very, very pale skin, that's all. Maybe he was sick in some way?
The man reached out a long hand, as if he wanted Timothy to grab it. He continued to stare down at Timothy, but for some reason it seemed like he did it in quite a friendly way.
Timothy was silent for a second, looking down at the hand and then back up at the giant, white, faceless man.
"Are you an angel?" he asked quietly.
The giant was silent.
Surely the man wasn't evil. An evil man was human, or a demon. And demon's had hoofs and the bottoms of a goat, with pointy tails and evil, red eyes. They were big, ugly things. Maybe this was how angels looked? There certainly wasn't anything wrong with him. When you thought about it, I guess you could say he looked angelic.
"Who are you?" Timothy said, quietly again.
Once again, the giant said nothing, merely held out his open hand.
Timothy looked down at it. There were no claws. He didn't even have fingernails. Surely demons and monsters had claws, how else would they slash up their victims? And he didn't even have a mouth!
Timothy looked up at the giant, then turned his head and looked at the playground behind him. It was as if none of the children even noticed it, neither did the teachers sitting on the bench. It was like Timothy and the giant had entered a completely different world.
Timothy looked back at the giant. Surely, if he was an angel, he held better things in store for Timothy than the orphanage.
Timothy put his small hand in the giant's, and in comparison Timothy's hand now looked like a baby's, his little fingers chubby looking against the long, bony ones of the giant. The giant gently clasped Timothy's hand and Timothy felt him put his hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the giant.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
The world started turning white around him, but he still continued to stare at the giant. The giants hand clasped more tightly around his shoulder as Timothy became scared, like it was trying to reassure him. The giant nodded lightly, and everything went white.