Artificial Angel intro

My name is Ginés Pagán Martínez.

Relax, I can see the blank look on your face. My friends call me Gee.

I live in a small town called Los Dolores, somewhere in the south of Spain, with my Dad and my sick grandmother (whom I usually take care of when my Dad goes out).

I’m sixteen and into the dark side of music – gothic stuff, mostly.

I have a girlfriend that lives in the arse of the world... ok, I exaggerate – she lives in the U.K, exactly 783.67 miles from where I am.

I met her while she lived here a year ago, but then she had to return to her birthplace... family issues – translation: her Dads a complete and utter moron. More on that later.

I think the most striking trait I have going for me is that I was turned into an artificial  Fallen Angel by a brown fox, who claims he’s some kind of scientist, and his creepy ass faceless assistants.

Weren’t expecting that one, were you? Let me explain...

One night, I was...

‘spirited away’ is too nice a way to put it...

I was freaking kidnapped by these guys with no faces and, after grabbing at my arms legs and finally almost smothering me with their bony hands and freakishly long fingers, the next thing I knew, I was waking up in some white room, lying face down and chained to the legs of what I can only describe as one of those metal veterinary examining tables.

I remember feeling cold and realizing my shirt was missing, then making my pathetic attempt to break free from the chains, tugging at them with all my strength, panicking beyond belief. My head was spinning and I was trying with all my might to suppress a panic attack.

And that’s when a brown fox wandered into my line of vision, walking on its hind legs like a human.

Adjusting its glasses (yes, it wore glasses), it then introduced itself as Professor Z  (yes, it could talk) and then continued to proudly explain why I had been brought there in the first place.

Something about some God awful creatures that were escaping from Hell and planning on killing everyone in sight. Why were they escaping? Because the Fallen Angels that had supposedly been sent to Hell to guard the exit and keep an eye on these monster things had either been destroyed or had just gone missing.

This fox thing- I mean... Professor Z, or whatever – had apparently discovered a way to create what he seemed to like to call an ‘’Artificial Angel’’ to gather up these Hell things and send them back to the Underworld where they belonged before they destroyed the whole world.

Then I made the stupid mistake of asking what I had to do with any of that crap.

Just when someone stuffed a sharp and lethal looking needle into each of my arms.

As I had called out in pain at the sudden onslaught, Professor Z had explained that I was going to be his Fake Angel.

Me – he was going to use me as his personal guinea pig.

The needles, I remember, had been attached to two tubes. Said tubes had then started to fill with two different substances – one had been red, the other had been black and had looked a lot like tar.

Only the red substance seemed to be leaving my body. The black stuff was entering.

I panicked, realizing what the Hell was happening and yelled at the mutant fox thing to let me go, that I didn’t want to be his freaking ``Artificial Angel´´, that this was inhuman, that he was crazy... I don’t know, I don’t really remember all I said, I was freaking out and on the brink of insanity.

 I think it must have been when they started sawing into my back with what felt like an actual saw, the blood trickling down my sides, the sharp object piercing my skin over and over mercilessly... that’s apparently when I let out one long ear bursting scream and then fainted from the pain.

According to Professor Z, anyway.

When I’d regained consciousness, I remember feeling something weighing me down and the fact that it hurt slightly to breathe, because it pulled at the newly sewn stitches in my back from where they’d sawn it open only moments ago.

I’d felt really groggy and had this unbelievable urge to puke...

And I know this is going to sound crazy, but I also felt like I had two extra limbs attached to my shoulder muscles.

After everything else that had happened to me that night, I felt insane enough to test this theory out.

The limbs were heavy and awkward, but I managed to shift them slightly upwards and saw something big black and feathery move out of the corner of my eye.

My eyes widened in shock, trying to turn my head on the metal table to get a better look and tried again, moving them up and down. I felt the little breeze that the movement of my new limbs caused as Professor Z squealed in delight.

I was still chained to the table, completely vulnerable and in a state of complete and utter shock at what they’d done to me, so I really didn’t catch his cause for celebration.

He then explained excitedly that the ‘operation’ had been a success and that I was no longer human.

Before I blacked out for the last time from the mixture of shock and exhaustion, Professor Z had told me that I’d have to return to learn all I needed to know to be able to save the world, and that the first lesson included learning to fly.

After that, I woke up in my own bed, no longer shirtless and with no big black wings protruding from my back.

I would have wrote it off as a really bad dream if I hadn’t have noticed the marks where the needles had been inserted into my arms... or if I couldn’t still feel those two extra limbs attached to my shoulders, under my skin, ready to break free at any moment.

Regardless, I had no intention of going back to that weird ass place, or to have that fox thing ‘teach me all I need to know to save the world’. In fact, I was quite happy to just forget it ever even happened.

What I didn’t know, though, was that that wasn’t an option.