It was dead quiet in the room. A bell tolled somewhere across the city. Big Ben was announcing it to be three in the morning.

Aubrey gawked at her, completely blown away. “Angel of...” he began to laugh before he could even grasp the concept. “Alright, Alright. I get it. Very funny.”

The woman's eyes glinted in the moonlight. He realized they seemed so odd because they were a light purple color. A lavender almost.

Even though he knew she was kidding, something about the way she stared at him made his laughter slowly die. “But...no such creature exists...”

“But in the world you live in, there all kinds of paranormals,” she countered, “Elves, fairies, anything you can imagine is right here, enslaved to humanity. Correct?”

He remained silent, not sure of what to say.

Finally he managed to whisper, “Am...Am I insane than?”

Her laughter stunned him. It was quiet and raspy, like the rustling of dead leaves. “Everyone is insane, Aubrey.”

After she stopped laughing, the woman said bluntly, “Heh, probably. Quite frankly, your the first human that's even been able to see me. To everyone else, I don't exist or am just a shadow.”

“You've been following me,” he burst out, forgetting to be quiet in the orphanage, “Why?!”

Her smirk faded. She seemed to be thinking, “Following youI've just been trying to catch my little friends.”

At the questioning look he gave she took off her top hat. A small, oddly colored orb floated from it. It was a strange green and pink mix. “This is a phobia,” she explained, stroking the orb with her index finger, “Pyromania to be exact. You see, all of my little friends have been floating around, infecting whomever had the misfortune to run into them. I was trying to hunt them down.”

Aubrey rubbed his temples, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Well...that's all well and good, but can you please just leave now?”

“Why,” she asked, setting her top hat back where it belonged, while staring at him curiously.

“Just go,” he roared, pointing out the window. He couldn't handle all of this, not with his life being so fucked up as it was.

When he looked again, she was gone.

The next day, he was instantly at the computer.

All morning he had been trying to find something about an angel of insanity. The internet had yielded nothing but crappy fanfics and a bunch of fan girl nonsense.

Aubrey sighed as the first bell rang. He didn't want to go to English class, he had no energy to give a presentation today.

The lights dimmed randomly. He stopped in the middle of pushing his books into his bag as the principals' voice came over the P.A. “Would Aubrey Ulrich please come to the front office. Thank you.”

The librarian glared at him as he swore darkly and ran off towards the office, dodging between people.

Ms. Green smiled at him as he walked in. She was a pleasant, middle aged woman with white streaks running through her brown hair. “Hey there, Aubrey.”

“Oi,” he called, “So, what'd I do this time?”

“Oh, nothing. Someone left a package for you,” she answered, holding out a medium sized, rectangle box in glittery, red paper. There was gold lettering on the top, left-hand corner. Aubrey felt a shudder of dread pass through him as he saw it read: A.O.I.

Hesitantly,he unwrapped it. His mouth almost hit the floor as he saw what it was.

“Oh, how cute!,” one of the other office ladies laughed, “It's a Japanese tea-server robot! What are they called...oh, uhm....karakuri!”

Aubrey took it out of the box, shaking his head. “Lord, I really am insane...” The note clutched in it's tiny hands caught his attention:

Some things, you can't deny.

When you're in trouble,

Call the A.O.I

He shoved the note in his pocket and thanked the ladies before hurrying off to class. Before he entered the room he shoved the doll in his bag, trying to steady himself with a few, deep breaths. “Ok, sorry I'm l-...”

His eyes bugged out as he saw the angel from last night. She gave him a calm look through spectacles. Instead of her black coat, she had on a simple business suit that showed off one hell of a figure.

“Holy...what are you doing, here?!”

“Please sit down Mr. Ulrich,” she said calmly in that accent. He was starting to think it was Russian.

After a second he obliged, ignoring the snickering of the female students. The males were more preoccupied with her lesson about Goethe.

He glared at her the whole of the lesson, not like the fact that he was being stalked by some crazy paranormal. As soon as the bell rang, he jumped up and stalked up to her. “Oi!”

“Yes, Mr. Ulrich,” she asked, adjusting her glasses.

“Don't play coy with me! Why are you invading my life?! Do you have some weird obsession with me, eh?! AND I THOUGHT NO ONE COULD SEE YOU IF THEY WEREN'T INSANE?!”

The angel of insanity gazed at him calmly as he screamed at her, remaining silent until he had finished his little rant. “The sane can't see me...well, atleast not until...”

“Until what?!”

She checked her watch, face still calm. “Oh, until a few minutes before they die.”