Wretched and Divine.

It wasn’t unsual for me to go somewhere else when I fell asleep. It was familiar and comfortable to me for many years. In fact, my earliest memories of the Legion was naptime at daycare in Kindergarten. I’d gladly lay down on my mat and close my eyes, because like every other child, I was curious. Curious of my dreams, except unlike grownups who only care about the meaning, I was curious of who they were, the weird people of my dreams, who wore black and carried sticks with skulls.

Oddly enough, I was never scared of them. The sight of them made me happy, actually. And after a few years of their presence in the back of my mind, I grew a little older, and by age five, in school, when we were supposed to be drawing doodles of our families, with a crayon house and curly green and brown trees, with Mommy’s triangle dress and Daddy’s diamond tie, I instead, drew a yellow wasteland of sand with five tall black figures, holding staffs with skulls and feathers attached. The details were wrong, but apparently there was enough there to spark concern into my teacher.

She told my parents, showed them my drawing, and that was when my life changed. I think when parents make a big deal about their kids’ identities, and pressure them, it gives them mental issues in the longrun, like depression and anxiety, because they think “Oh! My parents don’t even accept who I am...” And they become suicidal and depressed for the most part.

Soon after that accident, my parents casually enrolled me to see a local childrens Psychiatrist. They told me all the kids were doing it, and it was apart of life, but I was smart enough to know better. I went anyways, and sat through an hour of talking to a strict, balding man in a crisp white coat, writing down things. Being a kid, I was excited to tell someone about my friends, since my parents often brushed me off, telling me they were just dreams and little more than my imagination.

I think it was after I told the man in great detail about the five men in black that they actually started to become genuinely concerned.

I told them everything I could remember, as though they were standing right in front of me. I knew them well, afterall, I had spent every night of my childhood embarking on adventures across the desert. I told them all about the “Wild Ones”.

Concern creased the doctor’s forehead as he wrote and took notes on the clipboard in front of him.

“They wear all black... They’re very kind.” I told him in a doting fashion, leaning back in my chair, looking at the ceiling in distraction while I recited every detail I knew about them.

“Tell me... Do they perform rituals?”

“Rituals?”

“Like, sacrifice things?”

I thought for a moment, “No. No, they save people. They have saved refugees, I was there!”

“Okay, you were.” He agreed, pursing his lips and nodding, looking down as he wrote something else. “How would you describe their appearance? An angel or a demon?”

I looked at him as though he was missing something entirely. “Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve said? They’re neither. They’re fallen angels. They lost their wings when the F.E.A.R caught them. Duh.”

“Fear?”

“Yeah.”

“What is that?”

I sighed in exasperation, as most kids do when they’re tired of explaining things to people who don’t understand. “They’re the controlling group. They kill and capture the Wild Ones.”

“Wild Ones?”

“Don’t act like you’re interested.” I mumbled. “You just want to call me insane. They’re my friends, and they believe me, you dont.” I crossed my arms and pouted. He should have believed me. I was a seven year old sitting in front of him with the serverity of an adult, trying to tell him the truth, but he was just looking for ways to turn the whole story around on me.

The door creaked open behind me and the receptionist poked her head in. “Dr. James, Mrs. Carolyn Smike is here.”

He nodded, wrapped up our session and dismissed me just like that. I realized then, after I’d gotten home after a long quiet ride with my parents, that I was not believed.

That was the day I realized I could never tell anyone else about my unusual company of friends, because they’d never believe me, but they’d easily jump to believing I was insane.

My parents had enough evidence at first to put me on some mental stimulating pills, which would overwork my mind during the day so I could sleep without dreams, which pleased them when I reported I had no more dreams. But it was just a lie... Because every night I dreamed of the same army of strange men, the Prophet, the Mystic, the Destroyer, the Deviant and the Mourner.

After a few weeks of there supposedly being no dreams, they tested taking me off the medication, and I did a glorious, “I’m cured!” hoot after waking up with no dreams for a week. But the truth was, my relationship with my mental friends was going wonderfully, and since I’d grown up with them, I wasn’t scared or concerned that I was different, because at the time, I believed all children dreamed of these men, or something similar.

After the harsh retaliation I faced after asking other kids about their ‘friends’ I stopped acting like I even had mine, but I still looked forward to bedtime every night, never one of those kids who begged and moaned to stay up later. I went straight to bed, and like every night, I woke up to a dark starry night, lying on a canvas cot, a bonfire burning close by. I’d just get up and wander until I found others, hiding in our small village, a collection of industrial buildings and oil drilling equiptment.

I usually found The Mystic first, he had the coolest ability. He could summon fire from the very palm of his hand, and he played this amazing violin, the notes alone were able to paint the sky in rainbow colors and storm clouds, could make anyone feel what he wanted them to. Happy, sad, angry or excited, he just played those soft notes, standing atop the cracked desert plains, and he could prepare his army for battle or even calm them down after they’d worried themselves sick thinking about F.E.A.R.

Sometimes, though, The Mystic was busy or gone doing something else, rather it be exploring or just looking for refugees. That’s usually when I found The Destroyer, and he was good fun. He was crazy, played drums and reminded me so much of ‘Animal’ from the Muppets. He was insane, sweet and funny, and with a single punch to the dirt beneath our feet, he could wipe out a wave of enimies, or even rearrange the mountains. Countless hot afternoons were often spent leveling the hills of the eastern horizon for better enemy sightlines.

Then there was The Prophet, and as far as I was aware, in all my years of knowing him, he had no specific power. At least, not one that he’d ever let me see. He sang, found refugees in the desert and brought them back to be saved through the fire ritual. I knew he had a vast knowledge of F.E.A.R and our enemies, and things about my world as though he’d been there just the day before. If I spoke to the others about computers and cellphones, they’d give you a puzzled expression with a dozen guestions. He even has an unusual collection of memorized languages he’d never need. German, Spanish, Russian, you name it, he spoke it, but he rarely did so unless it was for show.

And there was The Mourner. He usually led the fire ritual, resurrection of those unfortunate souls who were attacked by a F.E.A.R soldier. He could raise the dead, but it required a lot of work and energy to do, and sometimes it didn’t work.

The last one, was The Deviant, a tall slender man who was teased constantly for having feminine features. He was kinda perverted, but he was very nice, and would throw his own life down in a second if need be. The Deviant was just as his name was, he was the ultimate rebel. Now let me explain this quickly:

Rebels do what society doesn’t want them to do. Drink, smoke, etc. He can hold his liquor infinitely, which thinking about that in reality, he’s almost bulletproof. He can take poison shots, gun wounds and bullet holes, even square in the forehead, and he’d get right back onto his feet, defying the laws of life. Unfortunately... He isn’t entirely invincible. No matter who you are or what your power is, if you’re attacked by a F.E.A.R soldier’s staff, you will die, or die temporarily. There is a timer on your soul, you have that long to resurrect before you die out completely. So you’d better pray to the Lords of the Legion, that The Mystic and The Mourner can get to you before that happens.

Anyways... A few years had passed, and I recently turned ten years old. This was also the day things changed durastically for me. There was more of an urgency when I returned to their otherworld. They were fretting something no one would tell me about.

The Destoyer, who was the most lighthearted, carefree person in the Legion, would even give me a tight smile and tell me not to worry about it. How could I not worry... When it was clearly about me?