“Why are you yelling?” Said the blue floating orb thing. I say floating blue orb thing but it looks more like a sky-blue flame, lights flickering and trailing behind it.

I also say said but more like the voice rang from all around me and at the same time inside my own head, colliding with my own thoughts. It sounded male but I couldn’t be sure, after all it echoes somewhat and more importantly, it was a blue flame that was talking in my head!

“What are you?” I asked with more than a little fear in my voice.

"I'm Emit! Your friendly neighborhood spirit guide!" Sparks of color fly out of the blue orb thing as if to add dramatic flare.

…

"Yep, it's official. I'm losing it. None of this is real."

"Now hold on, this is real and-"

"No! I’m not buying it!" I toss my journal at the floating blue flame. The book goes flying right through it. I scramble over to my bookshelf. I was probably poisoned right? Or cursed? Are curses things? Magic is real. Curses must be then too right? Do I even have a book on curses?

"You sure do talk a lot in your head, kid."

"You can read my thoughts!? No, that makes sense you're not even real." I read a couple of titles on the shelf, I don't think 101 ways to make a margarita is going to help me here. Why do I even own that? I don't drink. Did Lyra-

"Kid."

"SHUT UP!" I toss another book at my hallucination. I searched through my bookshelf more…. Ah ha! Medical books! I did have some. Looking through though, the only books I can find are on anatomy. I use them for drawing practice and to help with designing armor. Lyra likes to suggest I have them for the undressed pictures but that’s not true at all I swear. I should have at least one book on-

“I think maybe you should just-”

“Not listening!”

I continue to throw books that don’t help me at the thing-that-won’t-shut-up-and-doesn’t-exist.

Most of them miss but the rest just pass through it. Grrrr! I don’t have anything! Nothing on curses or hallucinations or ailments or-

“Seriously, you need to calm down.” My hallucination said to me. “I’m not a hallucination! My name is-”

I throw a book extra hard towards it.

"Feathers what are you-" The book I launched fazes through the floating blue orb and hits Lyra dead in her head.

I stand there tense for a moment, "Hey, Lyra... Uh sorry about that."

Lyra approaches me, taking the hammer off her belt.

"You're gonna be real sorry in a second, Feathers!"

"No! Wait I-" My sentence was cut off as Lyra tackled me into the ground

"That'll teach you to throw things at your best friend." Lyra exits my room, leaving me in a pile of my own ripped off feathers.

"Yeah, 'best friend'" I muttered to myself from the ground.

Lyra is always so violent. I probably deserved it this time. Although getting beaten up did clear my head. What was I getting so worked up over again?

A glowing blue light floats over my head.

Right. This thing.

"You okay kid? Did that catbird thing knock some sense into you?" The blue flame, Emit I guess it called itself, said.

"Yeah, I suppose at this point I'd have to believe I'm not going completely crazy. And what do you mean catbird thing?"

"You know all of..." Emit floats around me. "This."

"You mean my entire body?"

"Yes! You're like part bird, part cat, with those feathers and beaks and then the kitten paws on your feet and the tail! ...Well the tail is weird. Looks more like a lion." The blue orb dims for a moment before brightening up twice as bright. "Hey kid are you a griffon?"

"A what? No, I'm a Fallen." I said, sitting up. I made my way near the foot of the bed and I picked up my journal that I launched over here. I slumped back down towards the floor. Thanks for the bruises Lyra!

"I know you've fallen on the ground kid, the other catbird sure did a number on you."

I try my hardest not to scream, instead giving a heavy eye roll to my tormentor. "No, I mean that's what we're called. Fallen, shouldn't you know this, 'all knowing spirit guide'?'”

"Hey! Listen! Maybe I'm not all knowing, especially as of late, but I'm mostly knowing. In fact I probably know more than anyone around here!"

“As of late?” I asked.

“There’s a minor gap in my memories but that’s beside the point. The point is we got a mission, kid.”

“Can you stop calling me kid? I have a name you know.”

“Kid, when you’re as old as me that’s the only thing I call anyone. Plus, what kind of name is Feathers? Did your parents hate you or something? You are a catbird-griffon thing though, so I suppose it would make some sense.”

I groan. This nickname will never die at this rate. “Nevermind. So Mr 'Spirit Guide’ are you gonna explain what exactly is going on with my whole dying and waking up thing, or is that mystery to you too?”

Emit brightens up. “Sure thing! I’m sure you saw that big explosion right? Like something out of a movie if you ask me, well to put it bluntly that was kinda my fault! Not really though.”

I stop him right there, “What do you mean your fault? Did you blow up the Tower?”

“No, but also yes. I’m getting to it! So it exploded right? Total bummer! I almost died! Thankfully, I was able to connect with someone right before it did. You!” Emit said, buzzing about.

“Connect? With me?”

“Indeed, I’ll be honest you probably wouldn’t have been my first choice, usually I like the stronger looking types and from your photo you seemed scrawny!” Emit said. What’s a photo? Emit continued before I could ask.

“I’ve been following you around for awhile now kid, couldn’t you hear me?” Emit said, my mind goes back to the odd buzzing I kept hearing. I guess that was him.

“It was me! Since us linking together was sort of a last second thing it took me awhile to get it stable. But now look, you can hear me, I can hear you, it’s like we’re two peas in a metaphorical pod!”

This is getting really weird. “So you ‘connected’ with me before you almost died and that’s why I’m stuck repeating these days?”

“Exactly! Now you’re getting it!”

“That’s great and all but it doesn’t explain why the Tower collapsed.” I replied.

“Oh, the first time was my body going supernova. It left me in this state. A floating orb! Look at me, I can’t even pick stuff up anymore!" Emit said. This orb wasn't always an orb?

"What does going supernova even mean?"

"The manafolithic gas in the area was rapidly dispersed, causing a natural vacuum taking from the nearest source which just happened to be my body. This then caused a chain reaction within me that -in an effort to save time I'm not gonna sit here and explain- made an explosion that's could be liken to a nuclear fusion reaction."

"...What?"

Emit groaned. "Mana magic power fuel stuff went bye-bye, that make me go boom!" The flame in front of me then exploded in a spray of lights before recombining. I'm offended at the dumb speak but it did clear it up.

"Then the other two explosions was my would-be-killer trying to finish the job.” Emit continued.

“Someone was trying to kill you?” I asked.

“Can you stop interrupting, kid? A million questions sheesh! That part doesn’t really matter too much if you ask me. What’s more important is since I almost died that Tower is gonna explode again if we don’t do something about it!”

“Because that person is still trying to kill you?”

“Interrupting! But no, I’m pretty sure they’ve realized that’s kinda pointless. The more pressing issue is I’m a soul outside of its body. Eventually, I’ll go supernova again, around the same time I first did due to the lack of mana in my body. You’ll die too since we’re connected and we’re back to square one. There’s only one way to stop it!”

A few moments pass in silence. “...Kid there’s your cue to ask how to.”

“You told me to stop interrupting.” I said, Emit flickers and swarms around my head in what I can only assume was annoyance. Ha! A little payback is fun. “So how do you stop it?”

“You gotta climb to the tippity-top of the Tower and place my soul back in its rightful place! Inside my body!"

I hold up my talon. “Now hold on. You want me to go climb the Tower? That’s insane. I can’t do that!”

“Sure you can! I believe in you! Besides if you don’t you’re just gonna keep choking on your own blood every three days for the rest of forever. You don’t want that do you?”

"Of course not! Can't you just like… I don't know, fly up there by yourself or something?"

"’If I stray too far from you I’d die for real this time, and so would you due to our connection!"

I sigh. What did I get myself into? I didn’t even get myself into it! It seems like this is pure bad luck! Couldn’t this orb thing pick someone else to possess or ‘connect’ to? Maybe that idiot brute or someone. Not me. Leave me out of it!

“I know it sucks, Kid. I can’t connect with anyone else even if I wanted to at this point. You gotta do it.”

"Just gotta climb a Tower infested with monsters, a mysterious killer, someone's who's body might explode at any moment and who knows what else. What a grand time." I said.

"Now you're getting it!." Emit said, clearly missing my sarcasm. "Let's go right now!"

"I don't even think I can get entry. I don't have a pass."

"Seriously? What the heck, this is a free country! Well you don't need one, Kid. You're the main character now! The protagonist, hero type doesn't care about laws or whatever. They just walk into houses and take anything they want."

"I'm pretty sure this situation doesn't exempt me from the law. It shouldn't be a problem though. I know someone we can ask."

"Here you go." The man at the desk said, handing me a plate with a name on it.

"See Feathers? I got your back!" Lyra said. I had asked her about obtaining a pass to the Tower. I knew you only needed to be a resident of Chronos for so long but after that no idea.

Lyra then, dragged me out without any real explanation other than 'It's easy!' to this building. It was a government issued building that was actually located not too far from Amelia's shop and thus, The Tower itself.

"I wasn't expecting it to be this easy. Shouldn't there be more paperwork? You just walked up and a minute later there's a pass for me."

Lyra waved her talon in front of her face. "You're lucky I care about you, I knew that one day you'd get a brave bone in your body so I took care of all that boring stuff for you."

That was… actually pretty kind of her to do that. I was about to open my mouth to thank her when I looked closer at the name on the plate. No way.

"Sir? I think this is wrong." I said to the man at the desk. He gave me a confused look, took it back for a moment and then handed it back to me. "Nope that's correct. That's your pass."

"But the name!"

"What's wrong with the name, Kid? Looks fine to me." Emit said, floating beside me. I jumped. I forgot he was around.

"Wait! Shouldn't you like hide or something?" I said to Emit. I have a feeling a blue ball of flame isn't gonna be perceived well by anyone.

"Huh? Oh don't worry about it, nobody else can see or hear me. Didn't you notice that your catbird girlfriend didn't even acknowledge me before?"

Oh. That makes sense now that I think about it. Girlfriend? "Not my girlfriend!"

"If you say so, Kid. you better stop talking to yourself out loud by the way."

I realize that Lyra and the man at the desk had been staring at me. Whoops.

"You okay there, Feathers?" Lyra asked.

"Peachy! But you reminded me that this is wrong!" I said, pointing at the name of the plate. It wasn't my name, well it was in a way. Instead it was embroiled with the name 'Feathers'

"Looks fine to me, Feathers. That is your name isn't?" Lyra said with a grin. Monster. I take it back. It wasn't nice in the slightest!

"Grrr whatever. Wrong name or not, this is good enough to get me in right?" I asked.

"Sure is! Now you can come with me and the crew and-"

"Not happening." I interjected. Lyra seemed almost hurt.

"Isn't that why you wanted a pass?"

"No? I'm not gonna go there with your friends and you. Leave me out of that."

Lyra stared at me. "Fine then. Have fun going by yourself. Get killed for all I care!" Lyra then hit me in the arm and stormed out. Geez!

"That was a little mean of you. Maybe you shouldn't have turned her down, it's gonna be tough you know." Emit said.

"I know but-" I stop myself. Don't wanna look weird talking aloud again.

Anyway, I know it's gonna be tough and hard. And in fact I already thought about dragging Lyra and her friends with me. But I'm not sure if it's the best idea.

For one, I don't want anyone to get hurt. Getting to the top isn't exactly easy and I don't even expect myself to even reach it, with or without help. I don't ever recall anyone reaching the top. Hopefully my 'spirit guide' can help me out enough.

Then I'm not sure if they'd be willing to go so far into the Tower with me. I can already see Lyra screaming about having enough and wanting to go back. Really, I'm gonna have to do it by myself. Not like I can really explain why I have to go to the top. Who'd believe me anyway? 'Yeah if I don't get up there in three days I'll die. Also the place is gonna blow sky high. Huh? Why would I need mental help?' See? Nobody can believe that!

I just gotta try to do it myself. That's all there is to it.

Emit let out a whistle noise. How he managed to do that without lips or even a mouth is beyond me.

"That's a heroic quote if I ever heard one! I'm all for it now! Go start your solo run up to the top!" Emit said. He's so easily excited. And what's with all this hero stuff? That's not me that's for sure.

I left the building. There was no need to be there anymore. I made my way past Amelia's shop. I don't think she's there today. When did she get so elusive? I'm still upset I missed the sale. Why'd I have to go and die?

As if speaking of the devil though, I spotted her. She was simply walking in the crowd away from the shop. Nice! I walked over towards her.

"H-hey! Amelia!"

Amelia turned her head towards me. "If it isn't my little green feathered friend! You came too early, the sale is in two days!"

"I know I just wanted to stop by, say hello, maybe get some tea…"

Amelia chuckled. Not at me I hope! "Of course. I'd normally be glad to spend some time with you but I have some business to attend to."

"Oh, you did take the day off didn't you?"

Amelia looked at me strangely. "Yes, but I just told everyone else that. How'd you find out so quickly?"

Aw crap. Now I look like a stalker don't I? Quick come up with something! "I… saw you didn't have your apron on. You usually are working around this time so I just assumed."

Amelia's face looked relieved. "Oh, aren't you just perceptive! I guess you need to be in order to be such a great artist and all."

G-great? I awkwardly scratch my head. "My art isn't that good…"

"It is! You need to be more confident in yourself! Anyway, I have to get going. Bye bye!" Amelia said, waving as she walked away. I waved back. What a sweet girl!

Emit appeared. "Who was that?"

"Only the cutest, most wonderful Fallen I've ever met!"

"That's an… interesting description. I don't like her though. Seems weird to me."

"Don't like her? You're crazy. She's not weird at all! What's wrong with her?"

"Too pink, like a flamingo. I didn't even know cat fur could be pink as well. Not to mention she just gives me a weird vibe. I can't believe you're cheating on the red catbird with this one."

"Cheating? I told you Lyra and I aren't like that."

"Suuuure. The mean but kind catbird totally isn't your griffonfriend. Ha! Griffonfriend! Get it? I like that!" Emit starts laughing to himself. Ugh.

This is my life now huh? An annoyance stuck in my head? Motivation to fix this and get my life back to normal I suppose.

I look up at the Tower. Time to get prepared.