I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Get a seat in the audience? Surely there wasn't much room. I was pushed into the lobby of the building where other important people were gathered, and it was Micky who eventually had to grab my shoulder and take me aside.

"Where am I going?" I asked him.

"You can wait here." He said, and he clapped my shoulder once and joined the rest of The Few. There was a queue in place and everything. I guess they were going to go on stage one at a time, and get introduced like that? I still wasn't clear what they'd be doing either. Talking on a panel, I guess. One very, very long panel. A culture that primarily relied on government officials to be celebrities was a weird one indeed.

I sat down and waited, half listening in. Everyone slowly filed out, the brief opening of the door allowing a tiny bit of sound to escape- I think the crowd outside was cheering, or shouting, as people took their places.

The kids came downstairs once everyone had gone, and they approached me in an excited huddle. "Martin!" The blue haired girl, Aspen, said. "You're not watching the show?"

"I really can't see it be tremendously exciting."

"It is!" Amy said, and she grabbed my hand and started pulling me up. I shook her hand off and stood up on my own.

"There isn't anywhere for me to sit." I said.

"God." Julie said, and it occurred to me how little sense it made for these kids to even know use word god. Sure, there were Christians in Hell, but not many. These kids likely had no idea of the cultural significance of religion, actually. Did they even learn Earth history in school?

"Come. You can just watch from the side." Remiel said.

I followed them, as I guess I was semi curious as to what was going on. We skirted around the main 'backstage' area on the steps, and stood near the stage and out of sight.

"...Fact I must constantly answer these questions is perhaps the reason I never truly answer them." Kell was saying. There was a mike set up roughly in the center of the panel. I guess it was a free-for-all Q&A session out there. "Such queries, you might also wish to take to heart, are strictly without need of answer according to amendment three, notion five of the treaty."

"What's he talking about?" I asked in a whisper.

"Oh, seeing as it's Kell, probably another angel is asking him to disclose his official kill count." Ivy answered.

"What's like, a good kill count number for a demon?"

"Any."

After Kell had finished speaking, Micky impatiently started to speak. "The constant barrage us demon vets have to face of angels asking about our kills is ridiculous, you know, it's not like I've ever confronted a bird-" There was an audible 'ooo' from the audience- "Confronted an angel and demanded to know his kill count. And considering angels are hard to kill and nearly immortal, I'd say it's safe to bet many of them have far higher kill counts than any of us."

There was a little bit of applause. Michael, leaning forward in his chair and supporting his head on his hand, raised a hand and brought it to a still. "Watch that present tense." Someone laughed sharply. The audience seemed tense. Angelic deaths were not a popular concept at the moment. "I'm not fully acquainted with Kelly's murder count. But I highly suspect Micky is correct in assuming a number of angels have a higher count. I, and my brothers, probably do. The angel with the highest kill tally- a fallen, fellen for unsurprisingly murder, definitely has Kell beat in the bloodshed department."

"I think we can't just think of it in black and white concepts of 'who killed more'." A girl with bright green hair said. "We should wonder 'who enjoyed it more?' and 'Who celebrated it more?'. In both cases, I know it was the demons. Kell especially."

"Why don't we try calming down?" Stacy offered amicably.

"I'm very calm." The girl said cheerily.

"Fine. Stop talking, though. Next question."

"Who is that?" I asked the kids, figuring they probably knew every detail of the people on the panel's lives.

"Pepper Paper." Ivy said.

"Pepper Paper?"

"She's a fallen." Remiel said, sounding apologetic on her behalf.

Her being fallen, something I had already guessed, explained most of all I needed to know about her. Having a grudge, probably dangerous, the whole thing. She was a nice seeming girl though. I was always drawn to people who had a knack for being happy.

Someone new had stepped up to the microphone. "How much effort has been made to ensure the capture of the serial angel-killer?" Another angel? The audience was looking fairly male-youth dominated, actually. It seemed to make sense that angels would be the types to attend a government question and answer session.

"The police are doing their best." An old woman- Lane Brock- was saying. "It's a tough case- few leads, no evidence, and gristly deaths. I know that the capture or death of the murderer, or murderers, is the top priority of everyone in the service."

"But how involved are you in the police these days?" The man asked.

"I am blissfully doing my best to be retired, but unfortunately, I do seem to spend a lot of my time at the station. We're doing our best, sir. We all want to whoever is committing these atrocious crimes."

"Oh!" Amy said from behind my shoulder. "Those guys there- I know em. Next in line?"

I looked at them. They looked like the kind of people Amy would know, fallen angels who resembled the ones who had died back in the lower levels.

"I just want to say, Scakes, that I have a few people going about too." Michael said. "I'd trust the police about as much as I'm comfortable- but I have a few people out there. This guy- I'll be checking that he'll find his way to death."

Scakes seemed very pleased to hear this, and enthusiastically thanked Michael before stepping off to sit down again.

The three fallens came up next. I was still watching Michael's face, and I saw him roll his eyes. "Yes?" He said.

"Not particularly for you, dear sir." One of them said in the most saccharine voice imaginable.

The middle one, a man with cleanly white hair, cleared his throat before speaking. "We, the collective of the Baned, are offering our humblest of humble requests that, with utmost fairness, all those who were pardoned for war crimes be... perhaps... tried for war crimes?"

"This includes the angels, of course." The third fallen said. "And we like to include ordinary civilians, naturally, though we will admit from the wrenches of our souls that we care a lot less about most of them."

"But the worst!" The middle fallen said before any of the panelists could interrupt. "Your Kelseys and your Kellys, your Michaels and your... Rhaazlins. The ones who, we think, probably got off a little bit easy with the whole amnesty deal."

"That's all." The first fallen said. "Real simple stuff!"

The fallen stood back in a row, hands behind their backs, waiting kindly.

Michael sighed, loudly.

"Uh, the thing is." Christina was saying, her hands in a calming pose despite how docile the fallen had been. "Killing, in war, isn't really a war crime. There's an actual, real code the humans use that we based ours of off- and I don't know it by heart, but killing people during wartime, people who are other soldiers, is fine. Last I checked, no one was breaking into Heaven or Hell and killing civili-"

She cut herself off.

"There was that one time." Michael said playfully, eyebrows raised. I took it that he didn't particularly care, but knew others greatly did.

Christina slunk back in her chair. "Yeah, but- That was after the whole lower-level bombing thing, which was conducted by an angel. And- You were there too! There was the whole hostile invasion we were all scared of, and a reaction seemed like an obvious move."

"It probably wasn't a war crime." Glenn said, unsure.

"Any... noncombatant angels that died, that was a war crime. But Kell and Kelsey- they weren't there. And we have no way to track who killed civilians at this point- it'd have to be voluntary."

"And hey- I was there." Micky said. "You could not tell who was and wasn't a civilians. They all came at us. Some of them weren't armed, sure, but they still tried to tear us apart. And they picked rings off of the dead too! We might as well consider all those angels soldiers. Their deaths were nothing like the thousands of lower level workers who were exploded without a moment of realization."

"Self defense does not turn an innocent into a fighter." Gabriel, the brown haired archangel from before said.

The three fallen stood still for a couple more moments, checking if anyone else wanted to speak. The middle one then bowed and spoke. "Thank you. There are other war crimes we are concerned about. Cannibalism, the multination of corpses, and the mistreatment of hostages."

They departed.

"We should try and switch subjects. Watch a video, maybe." Stacy suggested. Some techie complied, and the lights dimmed slightly.

When the video- some 'look back' segment on some events that had happened nineteen years ago- started playing, I turned and looked to the kids.

"Amy." I said. "Those three fallen... they aren't planning something, are they?"

"I don't know." Amy made a face of disgust. "They don't tell me everything. I mean, what could they do? The Banes are all really peaceful, the only way to violently achieve their goals would be to force a legal court session at gunpoint. Which would be probably hard to pull off."

When the video came to an end- god, that was fast- Amy suddenly grabbed my arm, pushed me towards Julie.

"What?" I hissed at her. She put a finger up as if to shush me, and ran out onto the stage.

"This seems like a nice place!" She yelled. Then she jumped off the stage to retrieve the audience mike. "This is a good place for me to jump in, I think. On the subject of the past, of those bygone days, I went around and collected some persons of interest."

I looked around backstage. She had found those people then? The dead guy and the terrible girl? It was dark back here, but I would've expected to notice another person.

This is the part where Michael sighed his daughter's name, Aspen made a sound like 'heh', and I was shoved on stage.

From backstage, you really only got to see a sliver of the audience, just like the right corner, and even then, they're much more spread out than the center. When you actually come on stage, it's very weird, to tell the truth. It's dark, but you can still kind of see everyone. Especially the front row, where the stage lights illuminate the faces perfectly.

And on stage, it turns out, you are quite high up, meaning everyone looks slightly up to see you. And even if they're not looking at you, they're looking up, and it's not hard to imagine-

I made a chocking sound and stood very still. Amy, smiling, pulled me closer to the center. Holding the mike between us, she patted me on the shoulder.

"It's nice to see a familiar face." She said with the cadence of a morning news anchor.

"Who?" I said. Frozen, I about spit the words out, suddenly dry mouthed. My heart was spinning.

"You." She said, as candid as ever, eyebrows twitching like this was some sick fucking joke. Some sick, sick, fucking joke. "Blake Last?"

That was- was- was my name, previously, yes, before Hell. But before Hell- before I arrived, and came, and was seated in a room, feeling my horns and learning I could change my name. And I had nothing against it, but you know, changing your name seems like a fantastic game to play in the realm of reinvention, so I took my middle name and I took the surname of my adopted sisters, and that was all. I was Martin Robles. Nothing new. It just seemed fun.

But Blake- sure, I was Blake. That was me- but-

I kept breathing, and I almost wished breathing wasn't a subconscious thing, like I could make myself stop, like I could hold my breath and my heartbeat and stop them slowly. Like I could force my eyesight to not go white, like I could steady my head.

"Yeah." I said, and I tried to be nonchalant. I tried.

"Hell pretends it offers a new start, so I'm sure no one's stopped and tried to tell you- Hey! You're Blake Last! You're the Blake Last!" Amy went on. "But you are. And while you might not be able to recount your exploits of the past, I'm sure we'd all be enchanted to hear who you are now. Tell me, Blake, do you have any clue why I've brought you on stage today?"

At this point, she handed me the microphone, leaning supportively on my shoulder.

"N-no." I said. But really, that ought to be 'N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-no.' I'm not positive I ever reached the O- it might have been an endless stream of sounds before I finally looked down to the ground. I was not surprised when it dawned on me that I was, in fact, crying.

Amy spoke again. But I was not listening to her. I was not looking anywhere, at the moment. I was in the meadows.

Look, I'm not an idiot. But I thought now was as good a time as any to heed my therapist's advice. Head to a happy place. And perhaps I shouldn't sound so calm about this- I was not thinking in my mind 'oh, I should think of a happy place'. The thought flew through my mind, I wildly complied, and then I was there.

It might be noted, cordially, that I have a few problems with anxiety.

The word meadow always makes me think of some grassy glade in the woods, surrounded by happy green trees and filled with adorable animals. These were more like fields, I suppose.

I had only been there once, when I was twelve, visiting family and not particularly caring for it. I was twelve. Angst, but without a means to properly express it in the middle of the countryside, I only could find solace in walking outdoors. There I could look pouty and think mean things and all those other things kids like to preoccupy themselves with at that age.

I realized the longer I stayed out, the longer I was out- away from my mother and aunt and uncle and older cousin and younger cousin and the one cousin about my age.

At some point, my uncle suggested I bike. I was not enthusiastic about shortening my freedom, but on the last day, I took the bike out.

The land was completely flat, and slightly wet, and as I rounded my usual walking route, it began to drizzle. But the air was so fresh! And the land- the cows, the sheep, the odd trees and the abundance of grasses- smelled fantastic!

I was sitting there, happy as could be, honestly and full-heartedly. The rain let up, and I was speeding along. There were no cars around, no neighbors, and as I unzipped my leather jacket- because of fucking course I was wearing a leather jacket- the zipper caught on my throat and I wobbled as it cut into my skin and my smile faded until-

I opened my jacket and kept pedaling forward, acutely aware, suddenly, of how the indie music I was listening to fit the mood too well, of how this felt like a metaphor for something, like I was going to grow up today.

I didn't really know what I was feeling, but I liked dwelling on it. It made me feel novel. It made me think, this is what a kid my age is. Coming of age, living in that moment that comes three-fourths of the way through the movie, the one that happens before he faces his fears, gets the girl, and miraculously finds his future secure.

Needless to say, I did not grow up much beyond that point.