So I thought Brett’s church would be more of the same thing. I mean, they’re both the Church of the Seven Stars, right? And since it’s right here in town, I could maybe convince my mom to let us switch churches, you know? She has to work her nursing shift on a lot of Sundays, but this would be in the morning, so as long as we did early service and got her out before Noon, no conflict, right? (I mean, seriously, how often do teenagers WANT to get up early on Sunday mornings???)
But the thing is, Brett’s church was different. I thought it would be cool, like our cousins’, but it was a lot more ... creepy.
Both places claim to be, like, “The First Church of the Seven Stars” (and how does that work, anyway? Why is every church “the First”?). But while the church near our cousins was still really a Christian church that was trying to keep up with the changing world, that had just found a way to mix the old Bible stuff with what’s been happening over the past 7 years, Brett’s church was a LOT different.
At Brett’s church, they don’t believe that the Paranormals are proof of God. They think the Paranormals ARE gods.
Weird, right? Like, I’m all about the Paranormals, I think I’ve made that pretty clear. And the superheroes are SO cool! But ... “gods”? Really?
I love Vortex and everything he stands for ... but not once have I ever considered that he might be a “god”! Yeah, he shoots lasers and a vortex wave-thing from his eyes, Powerhouse is really strong, Shockwave shoots, well, shockwaves, Shining Star can fly and controls energy or something ... all VERY cool stuff. But ... “gods”??? Really???
They even hung seven big stars where there was supposed to be a cross! And as soon as the sermon talked about Shining Star coming from “the heavens” in a LITERAL way, I tuned them out. I’d heard enough, it was just weird B.S., and I wished I’d never taken Brett up on his offer. All hail the mighty Vortex, praise be to Powerhouse? Too much, even for “Paranormals boy.”
But that’s not what creeped me out. I mean, it weirded me out, that’s for sure, but in an eye-roll kind of way. I just thought these people were ridiculous, and wondered if I could find a local Church of the Seven Stars that was more like the one in Michigan.
No, what CREEPED me out was what happened after the service. I was following along behind Brett and his dad, just waiting for them to get done socializing with the other nutjobs so we could leave. And when I got about 20 feet from the door, someone tapped me on the shoulder.
I turned around and found this tiny old woman. I mean, she was SMALL. Maybe not, like, “Little Person” small, but I doubt she was much more than 4 feet tall, just this teeny version of my grandma.
Her voice, though, was kind of big. She said, “I saw you, boy,” and it was loud enough that a couple of people looked our way.
All I could think to say was, “Huh?”
“I saw you,” she said again, just as loud. “You didn’t listen to the sermon, boy. You were daydreaming.”
This time I think I just said, “Uh ...” I looked over my shoulder toward Brett and his dad, but they still weren’t moving and they weren’t paying attention to what was going on. I wasn’t sure what to do or say.
The woman started again, still too loud. “You young people better get your act together. The gods are here, now.” She shook her finger at me. “You better decide whose side you’re on, boy.”
The finger-shaking and that last “boy” finally got through my embarrassment and got me mad. So I snorted, “ ‘Gods.’ Yeah, whatever.” I thought that was a good enough mic-drop, so I turned to leave. I would just wait outside by Brett’s car.
But she followed me, and she started to shout. “You’ll see! You’ll see how it is! The gods will smite all the non-believers, and your ‘whatevers’ will be your regret, boy!”
Everyone was staring now, including Brett and his dad, and my cheeks were burning, which meant I was blushing, which I hated. I figured I had nothing to lose, so as I got close to the door, I looked back, thinking I might give her the finger or something.
She had stopped following me, which was good, but when I wrote above that everyone was staring, I mean LITERALLY EVERYONE was staring, even the preacher guy. No one was talking much, just kind of mumbling under their breath, maybe, with nasty looks aimed at me. Even Brett (some friend!).
The little old woman pointed a finger at me. Before, when she shook it, it made me mad. Now something about it was scary, like she was marking me. Or something. I don’t know how else to put it.
Actually, I do: I think that part of me, deep down, thought that maybe, just maybe, she was so hot for this messed up church because SHE was a Paranormal, and that something was going to come out of that finger. Like a laser beam, or poisonous smoke, or a bunch of super-cockroaches. Or something.
But that didn’t happen. She was just a creepy old lady, surrounded by other creepy people in their creepy church.
“Church.” Yeah, right. The one in Michigan felt like a “church” — this place felt more like a CULT.
So I got out of there and waited in the parking lot. Brett and his dad came out soon, and they drove me home, and it was a VERY uncomfortable car ride. We didn’t talk, at all, until I said “Thanks” when they dropped me off, but no one said “You’re welcome.”
I don’t think I’ll be hanging out with Brett anymore.
So that’s what I wanted to write about in my first blog (or talk about in my first vlog, if I could’ve stopped fumbling my words like a dorkus). I hope you can see why it was heavy on my mind, you know? Like I said near the beginning, it’s not really about the Paranormals so much as the people who are apparently going CRAZY about them. I’m “the Paranormals boy,” and even I think this is one messed up cult — a bunch of Norms who worship the Paranormals, which means that what they are MOSTLY worshiping must be the Rogues, because there are so many of them.
My message: If someone invites you to visit the Church of the Seven Stars off 8th Street and Dove Hollow Drive ... RUN THE OTHER WAY!
Seriously, though. I really hope nothing ever lights a big fire under these people’s butts and gets them, like, more mainstream.
We do NOT need that kind of darkness in our lives.
TODAY
MIA
Someone clapped their hands. Twice. Loud. Which was really obnoxious, because she was trying to sleep.
“Rise ‘n shine, sleepyhead,” chuckled a voice. A man’s voice. Vaguely familiar.
Mia Singh opened her eyes. She wasn’t in her bedroom. She didn’t know where she was.
“There she is!” came the man’s voice again.
Mia looked away from the featureless, grey, concrete ceiling over her head, with its musty old pipes and its tiny, dirty skylight. She twisted around on the smelly cot so that she could see the man standing in the open doorway.
The light behind him — harsh, glaring — was a lot brighter than what little illuminated her room, so he should have been thrown into silhouette.
Should have. But his vibrant, glistening, amethyst-purple skin more than compensated for it.
Mia remembered, then. Some of it, at least ...
Last month, Mia Singh attended the Church of the Seven Stars on Dove Hollow Drive for the first time, but after a single visit, she became a full-fledged member, tithing ten percent of her savings without batting an eye. The church spoke to her in ways she could not have described, finally making sense of a world that went crazy seven years ago.
The paranormals became a reality when Mia was a senior in high school, and she had been so distracted by their unreality that it was a miracle she graduated that year. She had always been very grounded, very down-to-earth, had never cared for whimsy, had never liked fantasy or science-fiction, because they struck her as being so pointless. Why in the world would someone be entertained by men carrying laser-swords or little people marching a ring to a forbidden volcano? It was all stupid, as far as young Mia Singh was concerned; a waste of time. All that mattered in this life was devotion to family
and to God.
(A snotty little nerd-girl neighbor, who lived and breathed all things fantasy, once tried to argue that Mia’s believing in God was just as silly as believing in “the Force,” whatever that meant. Mia avoided the snotty neighbor after that.)
But then came the Night of the White Flash and the Paranormal Effect. And two months later, one of her fellow classmates’ bones moved from the inside of his body to the outside of his body. The school administration hurried to usher the boy off campus, but it had happened in the parking lot right before class, and too many students — including Mia herself — had witnessed it for them to cover it up.
She had refused to accept the ridiculous “paranormals” before that. How could such things be? The Bible said nothing about “paranormal” human beings, so they could not be real. But having seen the emergence of that grotesque exoskeleton with her own eyes ...
Mia was disenchanted after that. Not so much with her religion, which remained closer to her heart than ever, but with life — “real life,” which had failed her earthbound expectations.
Then, years later, a coworker recommended the Church of the Seven Stars ... and it all finally made sense.
“C’mon, cutie,” the man with the shimmery, amethyst-purple skin said as he clapped his hands once more. The motion caused his shirt, which had the top four buttons undone to show off that precious-looking skin, to shift and pucker. “Up ‘n at ’em!”
In spite of her disorientation, Mia stumbled to her feet.
After all, one did not slack off when commanded by an angel.
The amethyst-skinned angel stepped aside, gesturing for her to lead the way. Where was she going? She had no idea. So she just started shuffling forward ...
The room in which she had been sleeping opened into a huge, industrial warehouse of some kind. Everything was concrete and metal, ranging from grey to rust in color, with large equipment here and there that she could not have identified if her life depended on it. As her eyes began to adjust, she realized that it wasn’t really that bright out here, just that her “room” had been so dim. How had she gotten here?
She remembered attending church. She remembered Pastor Ron introducing this amethyst man, whom he called a “god,” but Mia knew better. She appreciated their confusion — the pastor’s, the congregation’s. She appreciated how complicated the world had become since the arrival of the Paranormal Effect.
But Mia knew, now. She understood.
The paranormals were not “gods” — there was only one God.
They were angels.
But, if that were true, why was she feeling so much apprehension as she walked across the dirty, concrete floor of the unfamiliar industrial warehouse? Surely this angel would not lead her into anything dangerous.
Except ... why couldn’t she remember how she got here?
She must not have been walking fast enough, because the angel poked her between the shoulder blades and muttered, “C’mon, c’mon...”
As she neared the center of the massive structure, she realized that there were more than a dozen disheveled, confused looking young people — mostly women, but several men, too — all huddled together, staring around themselves, wide-eyed; she had not realized they were present because they were all being unnaturally quiet.
Mia started to speak up, to ask — with respect, of course — what was going on ... and discovered that she had difficulty finding her voice. Why was that?
Encircling the gathering of younger people, nearly as many older adults loitered about — these were mostly men, but also two women — staring at the enclosed group, almost inspecting them. One white fellow around sixty, with short hair and ghostly blue eyes, paced back and forth, his hands behind his back, his gaze pulling disgusting “elevator eyes” over the young women in the center. He was smirking in a way that sent a chill up Mia’s spine.
Then it got worse. Because when the man blinked, his eyelids closed side-to-side instead of up-and-down, and his pale irises pulsed dark for a moment, tinged with vibrant green. When this happened, one of the young women — a tall Asian with beautiful, long hair — jolted, as though she had received a brief, but painful, electric shock; her face scrunched in clear discomfort, but only a muted moan escaped her lips.
The lanky young guy next to her grunted, then snarled and whirled toward the paranormal — the heavenly being? — with the pain-giving eyes.
The angel with the amethyst skin gave Mia a stronger push toward those gathered within the circle, then stepped forward and past her.
“Uh-uh!” he snapped, and clapped his hands the way he woke up Mia.
The lanky would-be protector turned his head, his angry glare fixating on the purple angel.
The angel undid one more button of his shirt as his skin brightened, building for a moment beneath his flesh until a translucent, lilac-colored tendril surged from his exposed chest and struck the young man in the forehead. The lanky guy stiffened, then collapsed, asleep before his head struck the concrete floor.
Seeing this, Mia gasped as the rest came back to her:
She had lingered after the church sermon, as a number of the congregation had done, to seek a few words with the visiting “god,” whom she knew to actually be an angel. Most of the others hoped for his blessing after his wise words (he had given a short, kind of bland speech about the importance of tithing to the church “so their good work can continue”), but Mia hoped to bend his ear toward some questions she had about God Himself, if they were not too bold; for example, she would have loved to verify if He truly was a “he.”
The angel (had Pastor Ron shared his actual name? She didn’t think so) had nodded a lot, touched a few heads, and told some of the older parishioners to be on their way, that he had some private words for a select few. Upon reflection, she realized that those “select few” were all around her age — and that several of them stood before her here, in this cold, dirty place — but she had not thought anything of it at the time.
The angel had smiled as he craned his neck around, staring over their heads from his place near the pulpit. Someone behind Mia said something in a New York accent; it was kind of mumbled, but it might have been, “We’re clear.”
The angel nodded. “A’right. Feels ‘bout that time.”
He had unbuttoned his shirt ... and then he had clapped her awake, here, in that dirty little room.
For the first time since joining the Church of the Seven Stars, Mia felt a sliver of doubt worming its way into her belief of the paranormals being “angels.”
“Now, now ...”
Mia looked around for the source of the new, male voice, but the amethyst “angel” grabbed her by the arm — not gently, either — and pull-pushed her into the surrounded group. One of her sandals scuffed along the rough floor and she tripped, but thankfully, an Asian man emerged from the center to catch her before she could fall flat on her face.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, still unable to raise her voice.
The Asian man offered a smile and a nod, but was already looking toward the man who had begun speaking.
“I don’t think we’ll be needing any of that now, mate,” the man was saying from the far side of the group; Mia couldn’t see him yet, but she tried to place his accent. Not British. Maybe an Australian? A New Zealander?
Then the outer group, the ones who were surrounding them, parted a little, and she could see the short, white man. He was only her height, maybe shorter, and wore an expensive-looking suit — which was offset a little by his sad comb-over of unnaturally black hair. He sported a goatee, also dyed too black, which hung below a wide, boorish grin.
The encircling captors — the word “captors” slipped into Mia’s mind without conscious decision — widened their perimeter further, and she got a look at the white women on either side of him, each with an arm linked around his, and then his comb-over and choice of hair dye was the last thing on her mind.
The women were complete and total ... well, Mia was rel
uctant to use the word “bimbos,” because she hated to judge other women, but she could think of no other description that fit. One was blonde, the other a fiery redhead; other than that, they were almost indistinguishable. Their latex clothing barely covered their appalling, unbelievable “over-endowments” — they probably needed to lean on the foreign man’s arms, given the impractical height of the heels they wore and the sheer mass of their breasts.
“... he just forgot his place,” the man was saying, grinning like a circus showman. “Your little zap-zap always leaves them knackered and out of sorts, am I right?”
“ ‘S right,” the amethyst man agreed with a shrug.
“See? I’m right!” The showman’s smile broadened further as he held his hands out to the crowd, as though everyone present had been placing bets on the accuracy of his assessment, and he had come out on top. “Go on and wake the poor boy!”
The amethyst man shrugged and clapped his hands together twice — a sound Mia was really coming to hate. The lanky young man on the floor groaned and twitched, rolled over onto his back, and opened his eyes; from his expression, Mia could tell he was as bewildered as she had been upon waking just a few minutes ago. Another captive, a large, muscular guy (under other circumstances, Mia would have been surprised to have missed such a tall, dark, and handsome fellow until now), reached down and pulled the lanky man to his feet.
Taking her eyes off the big man, Mia looked around at their surrounding captors again. The man with the pain-inflicting eyes was the most obviously lecherous, but all of them — men and women alike — had an unquestionable predatory air about them. They continued to survey the younger group in the middle, their expressions somewhere between haughty and hungry.
Paranormals | Book 3 | Darkness Reigns Page 8