There was a strip of light coming through the curtains. If you were awake, you could witness the bland paste dabbed over the buildings outside. You could see what I see, when your world was stuck between waking and slumber and your legs were kicking beneath the covers as you whisper incoherent wisps of words.

You could see yourself without a mirror, reflected in the quiet pavement, the freshly mown grass, the perfume of spring.

You could see me haunting a building, my ghostly fingers dragging across jagged concrete. You could see me looming over a train, blown open, like a stomach or a smiling flower, blown open, bloody intestines hanging out, blown open, petals stretching out. You could also see me in an airport, beside a glassy exhibition of your species – a terminal, you call it – flaunting my prowess.

Or maybe you didn't want to see me. That's fine. Your kind never welcomed me. Your kind has always called me names like the gnarled fingers of an old lady. Bad luck, they said around me. Bad luck.

That's fine.

But sometimes, anomalies appear.

Sometimes, I'm not called; I'm called upon.

It has been a very long time since I've been called upon so irresistibly.

My job wasn't as convenient as a list of names handed down to me, but when one has lived my life for as long as I have, one became excellent at living it.

I've known them for six names. Two actual names and four superficial ones.

The first one came crying out of his mother's womb. Healthy. She was disgusted with him, I remembered. She wouldn't even hold him in her arms after he came out healthy out of her womb. Healthy. Her own flesh, healthy, and she wouldn't impart him with warmth.

So, I did it for her. I blanketed him with layers upon layers of my warmth. I was closer to him than his mother was.

Nine. His name was Nine.

The second one was two months early. He was frail, small, and even until now his lesser size was still clinging onto him like a vice. His life was too expensive to artificially sustain. His mother was crying, begging me to drown her in me.

I kept her son alive for her. I fed him the fruit of my life. But she didn't know. Of course she didn't – everything came with a price tag, she just paid for it in a currency she was unfamiliar with.

This one was Twelve.

They grew up to love me. They wrapped themselves in my misery, fashioning it into a cape they tied around their necks.

Like a superhero.

It made sense – they owe their lives to me.

When their ninth birthday presented itself, I gave them a gift. It was a generous gift. I gave them the freedom they so yearned. I gave them exploding buildings, burning buildings. I gave them children whose faces were melting from the heat (friends, I think I heard them call the children). I gave them adults whose life tainted the perfect white of the walls.

I knew I had picked well because even now, nine years after, I still gave the first boy dreams about exploding, burning buildings, melting children, and bloody, white walls.

It's no wonder that they grew up to love me. It's no wonder.

To mark the ninth anniversary of my first gift, I allowed them yet another gift.

Your people have always stayed with each other in groups, rarely in pairs. They were always together, as a pair. It confused me. They must be very unhappy to have only each other when everybody around them had more than one other person.

I dropped a girl into their lives the same way they dropped a bomb. She was shy around me, always trying to step closer to the edge of the cube to prevent contact with me. Silly girl. There was no edge. There was no cube.

I didn't know why I have always fancied her. Maybe it was like what the second boy said. Maybe it was her eyes.

Nine seemed unsure of himself. Twelve was gone to fetch the girl. It tickled at my amusement to see Nine's waning confidence. He was pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose – the very pair he received from Twelve two years ago – though they weren't slipping.

"What's this for?" he had asked when Twelve handed the glasses to him, holding the blue things below the light like it was an angel.

Twelve had smiled. It was a smile. Softening eyes, drooping lids, curvy lips, warm heart. Smile. "For nothing."

They had just settled into Tokyo.

"Sentimental," Nine mumbled.

Nine only put his hand back down after Twelve entered his periphery.

I understood that was pride.

"You're an accomplice now," he told the girl I handpicked.

I think, by the way that Twelve's hands were vibrating, so hard that he had to grip his bike to steady them, he understood it too.

(Wrong. Twelve understood the happiness in the cold set of Nine's jaw. Twelve understood the single eraser filling of hope in the black polymer of his chest. Twelve understood the spiders of relief crawling on Nine's back. They didn't kill anyone. She was safe.)

Since I brought up the glasses, it was only right that I bring up the anklet. They were complementary tales, just like their owners were complementary persons.

It wasn't a gift. Nine had given no gifts before.

It was three years after their electric dabbling in freedom, and Twelve found himself in a shrine. His bike – smaller and less black then – was parked below the flights of stairs, all of them painted red to signify a god or another. He looked lost.

A monk welcomed him inside. There were people sweeping the floor. It was spring and the backdrop of blooming trees might have encouraged the blooming of his kindness.

He entered the temple.

I left, because there was nothing here for me.

Translated in your language, it was boring.

The next time I saw him, he already had beads strung around his ankle.

(Wrong. Wrong again. Twelve was entranced by the kindness in the wrinkles by the corner of the man's eyes. He was struck dumb by the unconditional trust the man had. He was building a bomb, back at home. Him and Nine.

He was also invited to pray.

Also wrong – Nine had given him a multitude of gifts. The first time he cried, Nine had stayed awake with him through the night even though his eyes were little slits smaller than his faith in the world. When he finished building his first bomb, Nine lifted it off the table, inspected it, and told him, "Let me handle the bombs next time." He found the bomb, deactivated, in Nine's drawer. The last time Nine cried, he had let Twelve hold him. Nine had given Twelve gifts in a currency Tragedy was unfamiliar with.)

A year after my second gift – I was feeling pleasantly lavish, mind you – I showered them with the best present they were ever graced with.

I extended my hands to them. I requested their presence over on my side.

Not the girl, no. Just the two of them.

Two boys, Nine and Twelve. The first one without love, the second one without health.

They left the girl behind in a park.

"You have an important job, Lisa," Twelve had said. "This is an important job."

She was crying. There were tears streaming down her entire face.

Twelve had an uncomfortable smile. Nine hadn't looked at her at all.

He patted her shoulder, twice, and then squeezed it. Really hard. Like how he squeezed his handlebars from way back then. He said a few more words before driving away with Nine behind him. It was a one-side conversation.

At least, he thought it was. The girl spoke after they left. She said, "Don't leave me."

She could see – from where she sat amongst withering branches, crisp, fallen leaves, death – she could see every spark around the building. She could see every spark the boys lit up with their clever little schemes. She could hear every thunderous howl resonating through the air filled with death. She could hear the sound of hearts failing, heartbeats stopping.

Death.

At that moment, when she least wanted it, she was God.

Death.

An all-knowing God too powerless to perform miracles.

Death.

All she wanted to do was stop death.

Twelve sat with Nine. Horizontally. There were things crumbling down around them. He knew that he knew what they were called but he couldn't, for the life of him, recall what they were called. What were their names?

Nine felt like his head was crumbling.

Twelve didn't even feel his skull falling apart.

Nine whispered something.

"What?" Twelve said. Wheezed. But he preferred 'said'. It was less pathetic.

Nine said it again.

Twelve still couldn't hear him, so he planted his palms flat on the ground and pushed himself towards Nine.

Shit,his head felt like it was falling apart.

"What?"

"-it… was you."

Twelve frowned. At least, he wanted to, but the first twitch of his muscles sent pain jolting down his body. He stopped trying. "What was me?"

"Glad," Nine breathed.

It seemed hard for him to breathe. That was strange.

"You're glad it was me?"

Nine blinked. Twelve took that as a nod of agreement.

"Who…" he said. "Escaped… wi' me."

He was gasping for air.

Twelve wanted to laugh, turn his face upwards, but the tears were quicker. He was scowling downwards now. He didn't want to be caught dead scowling downwards. Not him. It couldn't be him. Nine could be the one scowling – he was always scowling when he was alive. Not him.

"Me too."

Nine sounded like he was choking.

The things whose name Twelve cannot remember continued cascading around them.

The first thing those boys did after they died was stumble upon me.

Twelve – well, I supposed he was no longer Twelve, but it should be fine to continue referring to him as such – smiled. "Are you God?"

Beside him, Nine remained quiet.

I paused and mulled over his question. His kind has always called me names like the gnarled fingers of an old lady. Bad luck, they said around me. Bad luck.

That's fine.

But sometimes, anomalies appear.

Sometimes, I'm not called; I'm called upon.

It has been a very long time since I've been called upon so irresistibly.

It has been an even longer time since I've been called 'God'.

"No," I said at last. "I am not God."

"Then, who are you?"

"The being who gave you life."

He smiled again. "So, God, then."

(Wrong.)