"Hello Jim" The voice in his dream said.

"Uh?" Jim looked around, trying to understand why he wasn't be chased by pigs with chainsaws instead of tusks, again. It wasn't so much he was a fan of the dream, but it was the first reoccurring one he had and a part of him had been hoping to make it some kind of record. "So no pigs tonight?"

"Jim, please don't talk." Jim opened his mouth to reply but for some reason his lips wouldn't move. He touched them and found something like a steel strip of tape that bound both halves. He shrugged and waited for the voice to continue. "I know this is going to be hard for you to understand, but things are happening. I can't say why exactly, but none of it will be good. There's not much more I can do but recruit your services. Please, be brave and don't be scared to do what you can." There was a light somewhere far in the darkness above him. It looked like a star that had been force fed rocket fuel until it started to throw up light as if the stuff was going out of fashion. It burned a bit brighter every time the voice spoke. "Whatever the problem is, their going to make it worst. They have to be stopped. That's why I'm telling you this. Don't hold back against them. They might look like living things but their not. They've had their chance."

There was a long pause which was a weird thing in a dream. "It'll seem like a lot, but don't worry, you'll have help. I'm leaving you an Angel and there's going to be another one too." There was a sizzling sound and the star above glowed bright enough to singe dream eyes. The flare lasted only for a second before dimming down to an almost blackish-red. "I have to go now Jim. You two take care and don't give up." Then the light and voice faded altogether and Jim woke up without any pigs.

"Well that was a whole lot of odd." He rubbed the sand out of his right eye because there was always too much. He couldn't even open his eye with the strength of the lids alone. "But, no time for that." He swallowed hard and looked at the clock, because I'm late.

It felt as if the moment Rae's head hit the pillow, she was opening her eyes to a strange landscape. Or rather, the absence of any landscape at all. Rae was floating in nothingness, where usually her dreams had her in very vivid places. Rae also felt pretty lucid in this dream, unlike any before that. The absolute absence of everything seemed....real. As she looked around, trying to find a point of something, a blinding light appeared. Shielding her eyes, Rae squinted as the light dimmed a tad. What was left reminded her of a dying star, about to explode into a nebula of stardust, and unstable as hell.

"Hello Rae," a voice surrounded her in the nothingness, "I know what I'm about to say will be difficult to understand, but something is occurring, something dark and dangerous. I will need your help, yours and one other, in this matter." The star, or whatever it was, pulsed as the voice spoke, giving Rae the impression it was this source of light that was communicating with her. Talk about weird dreams. "You must be brave, you must face things with no mercy. But be aware they are not human, not creatures worth sparing. Do not feel bad for the things I am asking you to do. I will not leave you to face them alone. Like I said, someone else will be with you, and both of you will have....Angels...helping you." A pulse of light flared out and seemed to pass through Rae, and suddenly everything began to dim.
Rae felt the sensation of falling, everything went black as she screamed, and the voice spoke one last time, "I must go, be safe, and trust in your partner."

With a jolt Rae sat up in bead, panting. Pushing her wayward hair from her eyes, Rae glanced at the clock and sighed. She had an hour to get ready and get to class, less time than she would have liked. "Weird dream....." Rae muttered as she slipped her feet into house slippers and headed to the bathroom to begin her morning ritual.

Jim drove his mom's old 70 Camero. It wasn't a bad car, as far as it moved when he hit the gas and sometimes stopped when he slammed the break hard enough to cause a pain to shoot up his leg. It was the color of a forest canopy after it got some bad dirt. There was a long trail of smoke that followed behind it like groupies rushing after a star who was way past his prime. The one benefit the car had over others was people moved out of the way when they saw it coming. Even as it moved like a tin can rolling down a hill the old muscle car still got some respect. It was the closest thing an American had to royalty.

To say he was late wasn't technically true. Sure, he was not on time, but he wasn't so far off the time that it would go on some kind of paperwork that could lead to trouble somewhere down the road. Still, the boss didn't look too happy to see him.

"Jim." The old man said through a thick beard and mustache combination which would've granted him immediate entry into ZZtop, if the group allowed new members purely on the basis of appearance.

"I know. I know." Jim mumbled, wrapping his apron around his waist and putting his cap on. "I'm sorry. I woke up late. It was this weird dream."

The man started to say something but stopped and gave his employee a look. "Was it the pig one again?" Jim shook his head. "Shame. That would've been two weeks in a row. I'm pretty sure that's close to a world record." He waved Jim off before the young man could say something. "But never mind that, or your lateness. Did you see the news?"

Jim blinked. "Uh. No. Was I supposed to?" He blinked again because that's what eyes did and he didn't have any say in the matter.

"Look." The man pointed to a screen on the counter. On it there were long glowing slashes in the air like cuts without any skin to exist on. "Damn thing just appeared at the center of town this morning. Nobody knows anything about them. There's nothing toxic the guys in white coats can detect but there's a quarantine around the area. Just in case." The man turned to Jim and narrowed his eyes. "Hey, did you get a tattoo? I thought you hated those things?"

"What?" Jim looked around.

"There's a tattoo on your left arm. It looks pretty nice, actually. What's it supposed to be like some kind of snakes from mythology?" Jim looked down at his left arm. Yesterday it was tanned just like the rest of him but now it was covered with crisscrossing blue and yellow lines and some strange symbols in black he'd never seen before. "Oh crap! I'm going to get beat when my mom sees this." He rushed over to the faucet and tried to scrub it off but whatever it was wouldn't leave.

"NEvermind that." The boss said, and pointed at the register. "Everyone called in so that's your job for the day. Don't cause any fires, again." He didn't wait for a reply and turned out and went into his office.

There wasn't time for a shower if Rae wanted to grab breakfast and be at campus on time, so she quickly put on some clothes that didn't smell bad and weren't too wrinkly, then went to run a brush through the tangled nest that was her hair. Her phone was playing the news as she got ready, but Rae's attention was quickly caught by something else. Long lines swirled and crossed into a design down the length of her dominate arm, and strange symbols decorated the spaces between. Lifting her left arm up for closer inspection Rae whispered, "the hell?" before grabbing a sponge to erase the offending marks. However, it was a fruitless endeavor, the tattoo was not going away.

"No no no no no," Rae chanted, then realized she had no time for this. Brushing teeth quickly, then darting to dress in long sleeves to hide the new...thing.... Rae was out the door, all the while confused and angry at whatever had been done to her arm. Must have been my roommate, she thought to herself.

Rae got into her teal Bug, taking a moment to smile as she buckled, loving the fact her father had surprised her with this on her twentieth. Finally being able to ditch her old truck she inherited from her dad was a great memory. Soon Rae was on her way to stop into a nearby bakery to grab a bagel before class.

Upon arrival, Rae immediately looked at the playing TV in the bakery, noticing the news was on. She walked to the counter but stopped to stare at the unbelievable headlines. "Strange tears in the sky?" Rae murmured aloud.

Jim had been so focused on trying to get the new markings off his skin with a Brillo pad he didn't notice the first costumer come in until she asked about the strange thing in the sky. "Hmmm?" He said, turning to her in such a way his body hid the arm covered in new markings. He looked at her and then back at the screen. "Oh yeah! Nobody knows what it is. Apparently it just showed up out of nowhere. It hasn't done anything interesting, other than being of course, but there's a bunch of military types around the area along with special agents, people in lab coats, and probably some people from an insurance company. They haven't talked to any, but I'm sure their there." He stopped and thought about it for a moment. "But what's really weird is there aren't any religious people talking. You'd think that would be the first group of people that got attention after the people from the news talked to anyone who knew what their were doing right?"

He stopped when he remembered where he was, who was in the office next to the cash register, and what he was getting paid for. "Oh. Yeah, I'm sorry. I keep forgetting. It was bad night. Weird reams." He shook his head. "Welcome to the Ultimate-Supreme-nearly Divine bakery." His face turned red, as it always did whenever he had to say the place's name. Sure, it made some pretty damn good pastries, but that wasn't an excuse for giving it a name that would make a my little pony fan fiction writer giggle with embarrassment.

It was tempting to hide the marks on his arm, but there wasn't any away around it. So he stopped trying and took out a tray and laid some wax paper over it. "So what would you like?"

While on the screen besides him there was a flash of light and someone started screaming.

As she listened to the man speak, Rae noticed he seemed to be standing a bit awkwardly. And she could definitely relate to weird dreams. Rae laughed to herself over the name of the bakery, secretly she thought it was adorable. Before she could point out the bagel, and muffin, she had her eyes on, Rae caught sight of the cashier's arm. Other than the color, and the variation of strange symbols, the tattoo could have been an exact replica of her own black one.

"Hey..." Rae started to say, reaching to roll up her left sleeve and show off the new ink she was also sporting. Maybe it was some sort of new fad and Rae's roommate had decided she needed to join in, willingly or not. She was stopped in her actions by the screaming on the news. "Oh my gosh!!!" Rae gasped, horrified by what was pouring out of the tears in the sky.

Jim turned away from the customer to have a look at what everyone was panicking about. On screen the military forces had increased in number and gotten closer to the hole in the air, but that didn't seem like any reason to freak out? Of course more armed forces were going to show up. That's how armed forced acted, and people in general, whenever there was something going on that nobody understood. At least that was what he thought was going on, but a second glance pointed out just how wrong he was. "Oh shit." He said as he saw what it was that had gotten everyone nervous.

What he thought to be more soldiers that had gotten closer to the rip turned out to not be soldiers at all. Sure, they along with their equipment, looked just like the soldiers in front of them, but for the colors. There weren't any colors, just black. Not even the eyes glowed with anything like Jim felt they should've. Instead, each individual being outside the hole, and a few more were coming out, looked like a human statue made out of jet black obsidian.

"What hell are those things?" He leaned closer to the screen to try and get a better look. "They look like people but they can't be." His dream came back to him, the part about appearing to have life, and a cold chill ran down his back. "But they aren't alive, are they?" He swallowed hard as his face started loosing color.

"Not human." Rae stated firmly. She recalled the dream, the glowing light and the words that she would have to fight. But that couldn't....that couldn't be true. But then again the news shouldn't be either! "What the hell is going on!?"

Rae turned to the cashier, "You!" she exclaimed, "that thing on your arm, explain this," Rae pushed her sleeve up to show the cashier her arm, figuring she could get at least one answer today before she worried about the impending fight.

"I'm not sure." Jim said, trying to will the customer to ask about some pastries. That was closer to the territory he was familiar with. "But there's probably not much we can do about it seeing that we're here and that tear is all the way on the other side of the city." He stiffened when she motioned towards him and asked about his arm's new ink.

He turned his attention to the customer's arm, and noted that there were a markings similar to his own, but different. Not different enough to allow for complete and udder denial. "Uhm." He said as it was the best thing he could at the moment. "Well, I might be if I could explain my own, but since I'm not high enough on anyone's radar to make this sort of prank worthwhile I really have no idea." He blinked at turned to the customer, and looked at her as if he was just seeing her for the first time. "You didn't by chance talk to a star in a weird dream last night, did you? I did. It was kind of shame because there weren't any pigs." He opened his mouth to say more, sure there was more to say but he was cut off by some more screaming on the television, quickly followed by the sound of automatic gunfire.

"Holy...." Rae's eyes widened as the gunfire began, but she quickly replied to the cashier, "Star?! There was a star in my dream last night, and it said stuff about fighting those things!!!!" Rae gestured madly at the TV. "But that's....impossible!" Her breathing began to pick up, almost entering hyperventilation territory.

"Holy is a possibility." Jim nodded. "Infernal is another one. Too early to tell what it is." He scratched his chin. "Maybe it could even be eldrich. You never know what those weird things are getting involved." He shook his head when his customer started talking again. "Uh well. I don't know. Mass hallucination could be one reason, or we're involved in something too big to be placed on human shoulders." He put his hand on the woman's back. "Whatever it is I'm sure things over there will work themselves out, and if not, and we're the only hope (Spinoza's God helps us) then you having a panic attack isn't going to do any good. Breath. Deep breaths. Focus on getting the air into your stomach."

The screaming on the tv got louder. The reporter, near breathless, screamed "Their killing everyone. Their killing everyone down there and none of the soldier's weapons seem to be doing any good. I'm sorry. I can't stay." Then the camera fell on the back of the newsman as he raced away as fast as he could. He got ten steps before something blew the top half of his body into a clean mist.

Instead of even breathing, Rae's breath stopped at the sight. Once she got her breathing back, Rae gasped out, "If this is real, are we supposed to fight this?"

She looked down at her arm, making a fist and watching the designs ripple with her muscle's movement. "I'm not totally crazy, right?"

"Er well, if this is real, is listening to a voice in your head the best way to go about it?" Jim swallowed hard and looked at the television screen. Someone had taken up the camera and was holding it over some kind of barrier so everyone in the world could see the things pouring out into the city. There wasn't very many civilians in the are. There were plenty of ex-cilians though. He swallowed again, only harder because the lump in his throat was a lot bigger the second time around.

"No. You aren't crazy, because I"m seeing it too." He looked at the woman, the marks on her arm and then the chaos on screen. "But whatever it is that we're going to have to do to get rid of those things we probably won't be able to do them here, right?"

"Then.....do we go? To there?" Rae pointed at the screen, face as white as a sheet. "If the star was right, and not a part of some weird trip, then we should be able to go against these things." She felt sick to her stomach at the possibility, but also knew that if this was possible, then she should do all she could to save some lives. Almost as if in reaction to her thoughts, Re felt a pulse in her arm, looking down to see the lines light up for just a split second, as if agreeing with her.

Jim nodded. "Yeah." His eye moved and he looked at his boss's office door and shrugged. "I can't see any reason why not? I mean, other than a certain death, but its not like this is going to be a job I miss, right?" He blinked down at the woman's arm. "Uhm." He pointed at it. "I don't know if this is a good sign, or if you arm is about to burst into flames but that thing is glowing." He coughed nervously and indicated the door and the green car behind it. "Come on. We'll take my car. Is so beaten up anyways. Going headfirst into danger won't do anything to its resale value."

Rae nodded, watching her arm go back to normal. "Agreed. My car is beautiful and brand new anyway! Won't let anything happen to Candy, certainly not impending world chaos." She followed the man out then realized they didn't know eachother's names. "Hey, wait, I'm Rae. What's your name bakery guy?"

"CAndy huh?" Jim said look at Rae's car and then his own. "Mine needs a name too. Hmmm. Something that personifies it. Kickie? Slappy? Yeah, I'll call it Slappy. Alright, everyone in Slappy, but be gentle. He's been a through a lot and the upholstery is't what it used to be." He got behind the driver's seat and unlocked the passenger side. "It's nice to meet you Rae. I'm Jim, the bakery guy." He started the car, after a few false starts, and headed off towards the other side of town, ignoring the little voice screaming that safety was the other way.

Rae laughed and patted the dashboard of Slappy. "Well, certainly a grand chariot for new heros." She went silent as if in thought, then grinned and snapped her fingers, "Hey! Maybe the floating star thingy will give us our version of a batmobile! We'll be saving the world in style!" After this, Rae's laughter died as she began thinking about the serious situation at hand. "Do you think....you think those people on the news are really gone? Like, forever?" Her voice seemed small and tiny in the space of the car.

"Shhh." Jim almost laughed. "Don't say stuff like that. He'll get an ego and then won't go anywhere until her gets a paint job and I fix that problem with the exhaust,or that huge crack in the windshield everyone points and laughs at." He rubbed the dashboard in as reassuring of a manner as he could. "Aw don't worry Slappy, we won't be getting a batmobile, because there's limits to how cool the help you get from a dying star can be."

Jim drove in silence for a few minutes, thinking about what he saw on television. "I don't know. I mean, there was a lot of blood and I don't see how anyone could've survived that kind of situation." Another pause. "Before we left everyone on the floor was completely still so.... I can't see how that would be a good sign."

They weren't able to make it to the spot with all the trouble because of how much traffic there was. That wasn't the problem. What was was how people had just abandoned their cars miles from the trouble. "Well I guess we're going to have to get off here." He opened the door, paused for a second and then pulled a few things from the back. "Do you want the crowbar or bat? You know, just incase the star isn't really going to help and it was really just a help yourself kind of help it was going to give us.

Rae gulped at the sight of all the abandoned cars. It reminded her of those zombie flicks, about the end of the world and how people had to run for their lives. Getting out, she looked at Jim and contemplated.

"Um....bat?" Almost as soon as she said this, her arm's black designs flashed a deep purple for a second and suddenly the shadows cast under Slappy coalesced and flew at Rae. She shrieked, putting a hand up to shield her face, sure death was about to come. But instead she felt something cool in and around her hand. She slowly opened her eyes and saw a bat made of an undulating black.....cloud? Not quite a cloud, but some sort of strange gas with physical properties. She could feel her hand grasping the handle of the bat, but the surface was moving, tendrils every so often floating about it, curling around her hand occasionally.

"Wha.....WHAT!?" Rae shrieked and attempted to throw the thing away from her. The darkness left her grip and returned under the car, fading back into the casted shadows, as if nothing had ever been wrong.