The lights were blinding, the music deafening; this whole place was trying to kill his senses.

Aubrey heaved a sigh and took another swig from his can of beer, trying to focus on his paper. The words were blurred and squirmed around on the page as though they were purposefully trying to give him a headache.

Ah, Christ I can't do this tonight, he thought to himself, agitated, Why does the library have to close so early?!

He heard people laughing at him farther down the counter. His eyes narrowed in anger, knowing they were making fun of him for his almost all black attire.

“Fuck it,” he muttered furiously, standing up and heading for the door after tossing a few Euros down.

It was cold outside, refreshing. The streets and cobblestones all sparkled in the streetlights, almost making him smile. Almost.

After a moment he took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. I'll quit when I'm dead, he thought, chuckling silently.

“Alright, now let's try this whole studying thing again. C'mon brain, the topic is psychology. You can do it.”

The cigarette rolled around on his lips pleasantly. Through the half-moon spectacles sliding about on his nose, Aubrey squinted at the paper.

His ears were still buzzing slightly: the music in the club had been way too loud.

There was a light rain beating down on his back as he studied it. It was as useless as everything else he had ever written. He heaved a sigh and leaned back against the streetlight, staring up at the dark sky. “Typical English weather, I s'pose,” he muttered to no one in particular. His eyebrow raised as he saw the shadow again.

She had appeared every now and than for the last few weeks. A dark, foggy woman that looked almost ghostly in the pale, orange streetlights.

Aubrey stared for a long time, his hazel eyes squinting through his glasses. “Oi, are you ever going to talk to me?” The shadow stopped and turned to him.

For a split second, he saw it smile.

He felt dizzy all of a sudden. A weak groan stumbled from his lips as he clasped a hand over temple. “Crap...”

Suddenly, the drinks he had had earlier didn't seem like such a good idea after he had taken his meds. He lurched forward, the zippers and chains on his pants hurting as he heaved up his guts on the cobblestone sidewalk.

Footsteps began to come near him. He felt a vague flash of fear that it was a cop.

Through the vague dizziness he could see a pair of black, platform boots standing before him. The boy held his stomach and looked up slowly, “Holy hell...I can actually see you fully...”

It was his shadow girl. She had been appearing vaguely but he had never been able to see her full details. Now that he was sober, she was clear as anything. She was a short, busty woman in a black coat with gold colored buttons. The coat stopped a few inches short of her knees, where the boots began. The wind blew long, almost thigh-length black hair.

He struggled to see her face. She was very pale: white as a china doll. She wore a top hat.

Aubrey tried to breath through the pain, but the bad mix of the alcohol and drugs was making it hard for his heart to even beat. “H-Hey..be a love...c-call an ambulance or sumthin...”

The woman remained silent, staring down at him with blank, odd colored eyes.

“P-Please,” he begged, managing to grasp at the bottom of her coat before slumping to the ground in a daze.

The woman sighed and muttered to herself in a thick, Eastern accent, “Christ...” She bent down and slung him over her shoulder as though her were a rag doll. Before rising back up, she took his paper from the ground where he had dropped it.

She read it as she began to walk with him, blankness turning to amusement.

I am the HellRake.

A silent cry in the night, with nothing to gain.

An intense spasm, a superflux of pain!

Aubrey shot up in bed, eyes wide. His vision was fuzzy as the panic finally faded away. Slowly, he turned and saw his glasses on the bedside table.

He was back at the orphanage.

“Feel better,” a dark voice asked from the shadows.

The boy jumped, staring at the figure sitting in the windowsill casually. “Who are you?!”

She was a shadow once again, her odd eyes the only thing visible in the moonlight. The woman slid from the window, and stood up straight. “I dunno. Why don't you name me?”

“...Are you playing games with me,” Aubrey asked incredulously, wondering if he was still high.

The woman smirked. It was an eerie, ear-to-ear smirk that the moon lit up like a jack-o-lantern. “Games? No. Just telling you that I don't have a name, so it's your choice of what you want to call me.”

Aubrey pulled his knees up to his chin, not knowing any logical explanation for what was happening. “...How did you know where I lived.”

Another smile lit her face before she purred, “Lucky guess.”

“Ok...You're a paranormal, you have to be. So what kind are you? Whose house do you work under,” he asked quietly.

A long silence came before she answered, “I am no kind, and I serve under no house. I'm not some humans' slave.”

He stood, stretching his skinny body to make his back pop, “So you're a rogue?”

“I guess so,” she replied in that purring, accented voice. “Maybe I am an angel.”

The boy chuckled and adjusted his glasses, “You don't look the type, love.”

She held out on her arm. Aubrey glanced at it and noticed there were words tattooed on her shoulder along with a bar code:

A. O. I

RH: 7771057

Aubrey ran a hand through his messy, white hair, eyes puzzled, “A.O.I?”

“Oh, forgive my rudeness,” the woman said pleasantly, giving him a small bow, “Angel of Insanity, at your service.”