blood came out of his mouth. He hung up. Or died.

Keijigen struggled to think through his words. His thoughts flowed

like jelly, and he didn’t know if seconds or minutes were passing

,hours or days. «On the neck… what’s on the neck, what’s on the neck?…»

As luck would have it, the angel landed on the side of the burned

palm, and Keijigen had to roll

over to reach the unfortunate man with his good hand. A groan escaped

his mouth as he grazed a piece of black spear sticking

out of his leg, and for a second he lost consciousness. «Where am I? Who am I?»

When he came back to himself, he remembered why he had rolled over.

«Come on! he groaned, holding out his good hand

.«Got it!»

Keijigen found the chain around the angel’s neck. It was rather

thin and cold, and it slid between his fingers, and he

turned it over and over until he found a small

,rounded object in his hand.

– And what’s your activation code, light ones?».. he

sighed. «I hope you don’t

change the factory settings either…» and pressed a certain

sequence of runes located on the stone.

At the same time, a blue beam from somewhere below caught

the angel, and Keijigen wrapped his arms around him as best he could, and an unknown

force pulled them out of the stream, and everything around them flashed

like rainbow sparks, and they plopped down on the grass, wet

from the recent rain.

Keijigen fainted again from the pain, and a piece of the black

spear clattered and almost flew out of his leg. Opening his eyes at

last, he got up, took off his half-torn

jacket, wrapped it around his arm, and pulled out the hated fragment.

18

Blood immediately filled the wound. He tied it up with the same

piece of jacket and got to his feet.

It was dark and quiet. People were sleeping. Next to it was a white

two-story house, surrounded by bushes and flowers, smelling

of roses. A dim streetlamp illuminated the street. In the dark sky

there was a moon and a few stars. Keijigen took a deep

breath. Life seems to be getting better, he thought,

but then he remembered his companion, who was lying

unconscious on the bed. His chest was slightly raised,

which made him assume that he was alive, and decided to walk around the house

to see where they were.

A few meters to their left,

a gate and porch with a white wooden door appeared behind a large rose bush

.On the mailbox, Keijigen read: Green

Alley, 7, Reana Dammer. «Oh,» he said, «it looks

like we’re here.» Then there was a commotion and he hurried

back.

On the other side of the house, there was a glass-enclosed

porch and another door that Keijigen hadn

’t noticed at first. It opened and a girl ran out

He was wearing bare-footed sneakers, casual clothes, and a striped

zip-up jacket.

19

Lina ran as fast as she could without stopping until

she was almost out of breath from running. «It seems to be over… Today

this is clearly the most unusual day of my life,

she thought. She’d never wanted

to be home again so badly. With your own people. It was as if she had looked at the whole picture.

your life on the other side. There was a desire

to spend time with my younger brother, help him with his lessons,

come to my mother’s shop after school, do something

useful, and in general, hug her and whisper in her ear that

she was doing great. Sit down to dinner with them, listen

to Michael’s ridiculous stories, and have a nice chat with him, too

.She switched from running to walking. It suddenly became

very important for her to tell her friends that they were wonderful and loved

.Tears welled up in her eyes. «Probably everyone

is asleep right now, and I will have to go quietly and unnoticed into the house