the next dark age: book two insanity

chapter five madis

Angel's town used to be a little suburban area at the edge of Seattle. The town had many smaller homes, which had become farms to people. What was once those people backyards had now become the personal farm lands of whoever happened to own those homes. With many of the residents being farmers, most people rarely came out of their homes, except during dinner to visit their friends and chat.

In fact, Dinner was when Angel stepped off the car, as the sun was starting to set. Angel figured that due to this being a more popular time, she would be bombarded with questions when she arrived in town about what strange metal object has transported her.

Now that she had arrived, she became more worried about why the exact opposite was happening. Then she looked to the western edge and saw some sort of gathering.

"What's going on over there?" Trisha asked, cracking her neck in an attempt to get rid of the pain of riding in that cramped vehicle.

"I don't know" Angel responded, feeling very content to go home and not check out the weird gathering, and in fact was starting to walk away from the group in an effort to avoid having to confront the situation in the middle of town. Lance would for sure know what was going on in the middle of town, as he had a tendency to be too curious for his own good. Angel also just really didn't want any more excitement today

"Hey, Angel! Get back here." Stephanie shouted and grabbed Angel's wrist, "you are coming with us. It's your town so you need to come with us."

"Come on, let her go." Adam said, approaching the people in town with a cautious attitude in his walk.

Stephanie let go of Angel's hand, and while Angel really did not want to go to the meeting, she also did not want to make Stephanie mad, so she said "what, oh no, it's fine. If you guys want to check it out I'll come with."

Angel couldn't take two steps towards the group before someone else grabbed her arm, causing her to almost throw up from fear. That person turned out to be Lance, one of Angel's friends, and roommate.

"Dude, Angel" Lance said in an excited voice, before giving her a hug, "where have you been. I've been looking all over for you." Lance looked behind Angel and saw that a group was behind her and he grew even more ecstatic "Are those your friends? Wow that's impressive. I never thought you were gonna be able to talk to someone other than me."

"Um , yeah I guess?" Angel started to blush at the last comment "Anyways, Lance, these are Adam, Stephanie, Trisha, and Sapphire." Angel said while pointing to the person whose name she said, "A few days ago I was kidnapped and Adam rescued me, and these are the people he is working with to help take down the beast's cult. "

"Wait, you were kidnapped? Are you okay? Are they after you still? Because I will happily fight them."

Angel thought that there was no way Lance could take on anyone in a fight, but decided to not mention it, "Um I'm tired, hungry, and dehydrated, but overall no permanent damage. What's going on in the center of town?"

"I don't know, let's go see."

"Or we could just go home, where it's safe and no one will try to hurt me. Today has been a very busy day and I have a lot to think about."

Lance didn't seem to take Angels opinion into the matter, as now he was dragging her into town, which annoyed Angel, as she was quite happy to not be dragged by Stephanie earlier.

There was some sort of platform set up in the middle of town. With four people on it. Two people were in the front. One of them was a professionally dressed female, with the other being some... Things. Surely the man could not be human. He had long, unnaturally red hair, with eyes that had no irises. His face was unnaturally pale, with numerous scars running across it. Finally, He was wearing white gloves, like the ones that the magician would wear in Angel's favorite book as a child, which covered long bony fingers.

Despite not looking human, the man seemed quite happy and calm. He was nonchalantly talking to the female, occasionally making remarks to the people behind him.

Standing behind the two people was a man also dressed professionally, but drenched in sweat, ruining his suit, while looking desperate to hold onto some kind of composure and dignity when he responded to the inhuman in front. After a second Angel realized that man in the suit was the mayor. She couldn't imagine what happened to send who was usually such a brave and charismatic man into such a frenzy. The final person was standing straight up, like a soldier. he was tall and muscular, and his head never moved at all, and he was wearing sunglasses, so Angel had no idea where he was looking.

The two in front, and the one person in the back standing up straight had tattoos of a demonic figure on their arms, which Angel seemed to remember being the calling card of the Beast's cult.

Trisha whispered to the group "I know the guy in the back."

"Well hello my dear town's people," the man in front yelled to the crowd after about twenty minutes, lighting a torch to illuminate the area around him, which was beginning to go dark due to the nightfall. He stepped forward as he put his hands in the air, "today I have great and amazing news. My dear friend Mia" the man gestured to the woman standing next to him, "is now going to be your new leader."

The town grumbled and started talking among themselves about how much they hated the situation, with one calling out "Why do we even need a new Mayor? Our previous one was fine."

The man rolled his eyes, and used the hand motion that people used to move objects mentally, and proceeded to fling his hand backwards, sending the torch that was cased in metal straight into the man in the suit. the inhuman seemed to whisper something to himself while doing this.

The suit man caught on fire, and began to roll around trying to put it out while screaming bloody murder. The man next to him moved out of the way, with a disturbing lack of urgency of fear.

After a minute, the suited man stopped screaming. "Well your previous mayor is dead now," The inhuman said casually, "so it looks like you guys need a replacement." The torch was taken away from the man and was now floating near the front of the audience, with several drops of blood and burning pieces of flesh dropping onto the people below, causing a myriad of screams from the audience, "now if someone wants to argue some more, I will happily add you to the list of the dead too. Do you mostly understand simpletons? Well you better because I'm not repeating myself. Oh, also if someone does not bring me Angel Heartmore by tomorrow, I will execute" he took a brief breath before saying in a voice of pure joy, "Another person. Boy I love my job. So yeah, you guys probably should get on that. Anyways, if you need me, I will be in the alley behind the old shopping center. Hopefully I will see one of you there." Dawn then turned to the side and said to no one "yes this is all necessary." He paused for a moment, "Oh shut up, I got this."

Angel could now hear her heart beating, and the crowd began to disperse, "I think we should meet at my house to discuss our situation." she said.