I dreamed that I was an invisible ghost, walking next to Zenit. He was being dragged along by the people that were chasing us, Kevin’s men. Zenit was forced to the ground, in front of a throne that sat- I had assumed that would be Kevin but it wasn’t. An unknown girl was sitting on the throne, next to her stood Kevin.

“My lady,”

Kevin said with a bow,

“This is the betrayer.”

Betrayer? But Zenit? What? If Zenit wasn’t the real guardian, then who was?

“Okay, bye bye.”

The girl spoke in a light tone, as if not realizing that this was supposed to be a serious situation.

“So, Zenit, why did you leave the position of King, KING! To be some fake leader or something?”

“I- my lady, the guardian's soul chose me, i didn’t want to!”

“Yes, totally. Lock him up.”

She ordered the men.

“I sense an intruder.”

With that, she got off the throne and stared right at me.

“Tell your puny ‘guardians’ that I am coming, and you will soon all fall!”

She lunged at me, and when her hand was a centimeter away from my face, I woke with a start. Sweat covered my face. I sat up, looking around, I was still lying on the floor in the maze somewhere. I got up, looked around and behind me stood a girl holding her hand out.

“Who are you?”

“Are you Joe?”

“Yes, I am Joe,”

“I’m Zoe, your non heaven sister.”

“I have a sister?”

Suddenly the memory swamped me, I was in my moms house with my sister. We were playing tag when she slipped on the floor and became unconscious. I ran over, and cradled her head in my arms. “NOOO” I had shouted, “take me instead”. After an angel had appeared, and asked me if I was sure. “Yes! Anything to save my sister”. And that’s how I became an angel.

“Umm,” Zoe said

“You just froze for like 10 seconds? Are you okay?”

“Did, did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Uh nothing. Let’s get going now.”

We walked in silence until she spoke,

“Joe?”

“Yes?”

“How did you die? Why are you an angel?”

“That, is, well, first, let me ask you, how do you know about angels and everything?”

“It’s because wherever I was, I could feel you watching over me. I also remember seeing you when Jake died. You let him into heaven, I saw.

I was at a loss of words.

“So anyway, how did you become an angel?”

I was wondering how to answer her when I hear a bang, like the shot of a gun. We ran towards the noise instinctively. As we got closer we saw it was the other people Zenit was about to introduce me to before. They had set up a target practice and were shooting guns. Zoe walked out fearlessly, I followed behind her timidly. Some people turned and mostly ignored us until someone shouted “there is the king and queen! All hail the King and Queen!”

“What are they talking about?” I asked Zoe.

She didn’t answer, instead she walked up and bowed.

Unsure, I followed her example and walked up and bowed alongside her. The people cheered and one person called,

“All hail the queen and king of delendrawi!”

“All hail the queen and king of delendrawi!” The crowd repeated.

“The king and queen need to rest,” a higher voice said. I followed the sound and saw a little boy, no taller than a yard stick. He looked at me and smiled. Zoe turned graciously and dragged me into a side tent. That looked bigger than the rest.

“Explanations!” I exclaimed.

“Okay so we are not the real king and queen. They are other people. I have made an illusion that we are them.”

“But why would you do that?”

“This happens a lot here. Whoever has the most illusion power makes them king/queen and once the kingdom loves them, they reveal their true selves and become queen/king until someone overpowers their illusions.”

“So who is the real king and queen?”

“Before I answer, you need to answer my question.”

“What question?”

“How did you become an angel?”

“That was-” l got cut off by the little kid who introduced himself to me as Tommy.

“I am your favorite, right!?” He asked in his cute little voice.

“Of course!”

“So anyway, it's dinner time and we are having Cheerios.”

“Okay, we will be there soon.” My sister smiled and Tommy walked off.

“So what’s up with Cheerios for dinner?” I asked my sister.

“Oh ya, I forgot, we only eat things that end in o for good luck you know? Because o is symmetric like in every way. We eat: Oreo, Dorito, mango, nacho, the list goes on.”

“So, I can't eat anything else?”

“Well, sometimes people sneak other things, but just cover it up with illusion.”

“Umm, I don’t know how to make an illusion?”

“You WHAT?”

I jumped.

“I don’t know how to create an illusion?” I said slowly.

“Uhh, well for the time being you will have to eat what we make then.”

After that, she got out of the tent and walked towards the food line, which parted for her immediately. I got up and followed her to the little boy in front, who was spooning generous amounts of Cheerios into bowls. When he saw us coming, he leaned down and brought out 2 huge bowls, with gold and silver intricately laced together on them. He also took out a different bowl of Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios. We got our food, and walked towards the tables. Which each had a letter on them, all the symmetrical letters, in both uppercase and lowercase.

Zoe sat down at a table with a perfectly round o on it so I followed her lead. As soon as I sat down, the talking and eating resumed. Around me.

“Why is no one sitting with us?” I asked my sister.

“We are the royals duh. They have to sit with their social classes.”

I looked around, sure enough, they were split also me perfectly into the classes except Tommy, the boy who had served us. He had a bowl of Cheerios in his hands but behind then I could see the faint outline of meat.

“Umm, look at Tommy” I whispered to Zoe.

“Okay? I don’t see anything wrong with him?”

“Look at his Cheerios, behind them is the faint outline of meat!”

Zoe squinted her eyes but just shook her head.

“If he is really eating meat that means that he has illusion powers and a strong one at that. But if you can see through his illusion, then you are even more powerful.”

“But, how do you use your illusion?”

“I’ll show you after dinner.”

We walked to a set of double metal doors that had a ton of rust on them. As we walked, Zoe’s eyes swirled pink and purple, similarly to how Zenits had spun. She stared at the door and the rust melted away leaving behind bronze doors that looked polished and new.

“How?”

“The rust and metal was all illusion.” She replied.

I walked in, before me was a library filled with books, large and small, bright and dark, new and old. But in the center of the room was an open space. The ground had spirals of gold enlaced with pieces of green and yellow on it that formed into a ball at the center. I walked over, entranced, and was about to step on the center gold ball when I heard people screaming. I turned around, every room except the library was shaking, and Zoe was nowhere in sight. My fear pushed me and I felt my eyes getting hot, then I couldn’t see anything except two people, a boy and a girl dressed in royalty clothes. I assumed they were the old king and queen. To my right stood Zoe, her eyes swirling purple and pink again. I saw tendrils of color, the one coming from Zoe’s eye was magenta. The ones coming from the other peoples were green and yellow. As I watched, my eyes got hotter and a light tendril joined Zoe’s, getting darker and darker, until it was a solid blue line. And together, we forced them back, into the dark. I tried to grab Zoe but her hand dissolved into mist. I blinked and we reapered in the library, but this time, there was no screaming, just people with search lights looking and shouting.