• “Got to keep on praying”
    “Got to keep on praying”
    “Got to keep on praying”
    “Keep on praying to my only God,” Rosa said silently mumbled this to herself as she made her way to her job at a thrift store in her hometown, Highland Park. Before she entered the store, she noticed tagging on the top right side of the wall. The words said “God is Dead” in black tagged letters. She sighed and just shook her head. As she went inside, she was greeted by her coworker Melody behind the cash register. She was an older woman in her late 30’s with dark colored skin and hair always tied back in a bun. She was one of the many of the workers who always looked so cheery and welcomed customers with a loud cheerful voice.
    “Hey, Rosa!”
    “Hi Melody! You noticed the tagging on the wall outside?”
    Melody looked at her surprised. “No I hadn’t. When I came at eight I didn’t see no tagging.”
    “How about you, Stephen?” she asked her other coworker who was just coming to open the next check out. Stephen was a tall white skinny man with thick black glasses. He was the type to enjoy talking about video games and video game systems.
    “About me what?” he asked.
    “The tagging! The tagging outside on the wall in front of the store!”
    He then got out from behind the check out and went to check it out himself. Rosa followed right behind. Once he saw it, he was surprised to see it himself. “Go get the manager!” He said. Rosa went and did just that.

    A few minutes later. Outside the thrift store was the manager and the police. It turns out the last five workers who came in didn’t see any tagging when they came in for work. Meaning who ever tagged the wall did it an hour before twelve.

    After two hours of police investigating, they didn’t find anything. The security of the thrift store even told them that the camera that was supposed to be recording outside was broken for about an hour. The police then left few minutes later.

    Later in the evening, Rosa was asked by her coworker to sweep up the scattered dog food that was accidentally spilled by a customer outside the store. As Rosa went out to sweep it, she noticed on the wall that a new word been spray paint on the same sentence. It now read ‘God is NOT dead’. The word NOT was spray painted in red capitalized letters. Rosa hurried inside and told her coworkers. A soon as the coworkers heard this, one of them contacted the manager while the security out to take a look.

    The police were called back to check it out.

    The security cameras didn’t catch it and there were no witness at all who saw who did the tagging. It was a real mystery who did it.

    “You know, you think you would easily find the person who tagged this in the day. Especially because whoever came and spray painted outside, would have needed to climb up there or use a ladder.” Said Melody behind the cash register. Rosa was stacking candy bars and listening.

    “Yeah. You’re pretty much right about that. So, how was it done?”

    “Who knows?”

    The time was getting close to eight so Rosa’s shift was about to be over. She quickly gathered her stuff from her locker and left. As she waited at the side walk to cross the street, a bad thought came to mind. Rosa freaked out a bit and said a prayer once she began crossing the street. While waiting for the bus she kept repeating the prayer till her bus came. She sat at a window seat and began to play music from her cell phone. The song she was listening to was called “King” by Lauren Aquilina. The song calmed her a bit. She always enjoyed listening to music while riding the bus.

    Elsewhere in the same town, in an area near a freeway under a street that was near the train tracks. A group of young adults were waiting around near a black van.

    “When is that @%$# guy getting here?” said the pale looking girl with dyed grey hair that was chopped up in layers. She wore a black hoodie and grey skinny jeans. On her eyes she wore red eye contacts.

    “In a few minutes, Red Eyes!” yelled out a tall dark skin guy who was wearing dark blue jeans, a plain black t-shirt and a black backpack on his back.

    She just glared at him.

    “He should be arriving in a few minutes! Remember, Grenade hates to disappoint!” said a very tall woman wearing a grey coat and a navy blue scarf around her neck. Her hair is brown and reached above her shoulders. On her eyes she wore shining blue contacts.

    “I rather wait inside the van!” said Red Eyes.

    “The other girls are sleeping, so you may want to be quiet,” said a twenty one year old boy sitting in the driver seat of the van.

    The girl slid the door open, went inside and slammed the door shut. Outside you can hear the two other girls who were inside shouting while Red Eyes just told them to shut up adding a bunch of swear words in her sentences.

    The older woman with blue eye contacts just groaned. “I wish that girl could just calmed down her anger, even if it brings hate towards other she could at least notch it down. She gives me headaches sometimes.”


    “Need some aspirins? I got a bottle of pain killers in my bag if you like some, Ms. Bang.” Asked the guy with the black backpack.

    “No thank you, Web.”

    As soon as she looked up in the sky she smiled. “Here’s my student now!” she said happily. From the sky landing on the ground on his feet was a 20 year old boy with black wings.

    “My dear Grenade, did you remember to get enough hate with you?” asked Ms. Bang.

    “Of course!” he said with a smile. Behind him a large black shadow appeared which he then transformed into 115 crows.

    “Very good my boy!” she said happily. “Now let’s go! We need to meet up with that looney scientist. He’ll make sure that this amount of hate is what we need!”

    Everyone went in the van and drove, leaving town.

    The next day, Rosa had said goodbye to her parents and went on to leave for work. She walked up the hill of her street to get to the main street. While she went on the bus stop she noticed a wallet on the bench. She looked inside and noticed a lot of money. What else she noticed was a work I.D. badge of a dish washer inside. She sighed as she knew that the restaurant was actually on the same street from where she worked at.
    As soon as she got on the bus and got off, she went straight to where the restaurant was at. As she got inside she was greeted by a waitress.
    “Hello, welcome to the Baker’s Restaurant! Would you be dining alone?” She asked.
    “Actually, I’m looking for a man named Jose Hernandez Vargas,” she said shyly.
    “Oh! He’s our dish washer! Do you need him?”
    “Yes, so can you call him over?”
    “Sure! It will just take me a few seconds. Pleas wait.”

    In a few seconds came a short middle aged man. She could tell he was Mexican by the look on his face and the necklace of an old wooden rosary around his neck. (Plus, she had already seen a card of the Lady of Guadalupe inside in the second slot of his wallet along with the prayer in Spanish in the back.)
    “Hello! You said you need me?” the man asked. The way he spoke, she could tell he was still getting use to the English language.
    She swung her bag in front of her and took out a brown old looking wallet. She opened it and showed him the work I.D. inside. “This is yours, right?”

    “Yes! It’s mine!” he said happily. She handed it to him and he took it. “Thank you so much! I was scared that I lost it! I did not think someone would bring it! People just take it and don’t come. So thank you for bringing it!”

    She smiled at him and said “You’re welcome!” As she was planning to leave, she noticed him taking out a five dollar bill and handing it to her. “No! You keep it!” she said.

    “It’s thank you for bringing my wallet back!” he said still trying to hand her money.

    “No! It’s okay!” She still didn’t take it. “It was no problem!”

    He just nodded and placed the five dollar bill back in his wallet. “Thank you again for bringing it!”

    “Yeah!” She said with smile.

    “Que Dios te bendiga!” he told her.

    “Que Dios te bendiga, tambien!” she told him back. She waved to him and left the restaurant. She looked at the time in her cellphone and hurried to work.


    On the roof of the restaurant, not visible to anyone, was the same 20 year old with black wings. He glared at Rosa as she left.

    “Stupid girl! Was got people doing these days not keeping money they find?! I mean this town is full of people who are not just Hispanic and Asian but they’re also Low Income and poor! Literally! That girl wouldn’t even have to wait for her next paid check!” He said.

    “Maybe is because she lives in a low income town is why she knew she couldn’t keep the money. Knowing the person who lost it may have really needed it!” said a boy called Gladioli who just flew down and landed on the roof. This guy had light brown wings. As he looked at Rosa, he could see a heart shape behind her looking bright red and shiny. “It looks to me, she knows where her heart is!” he said with a smile.

    “Gross! Does she not know when to hate life?!” Grenade said sounding annoyed as he could see no black shadow swirling around her.

    “That supposed to be a good thing!” Gladioli said mockingly.

    “She’s just one! There’s more than a thousand living in this town who already have hate in their hearts!”

    “And there are many that don’t!”

    The two just looked at each other angrily. Grenade formed a black shadow in his hand into a sword. Gladioli had many mini red hearts in his hand formed into a spear. The two went to attack each other. They fought each other in the sky as they hurled power up attacks. Sadly, Gladioli had to forfeit. He got a couple of missions he needed to do attend to. So he ditched the fight, leaving Grenade to brag his winning victory. He then was interrupted by his cell phone ringing an annoying loud ringtone.
    “Hello?” He smirked as he heard the good news. He put away his cellphone and flew off to where he needed to go.


    At the thrift store.

    “First, you didn’t keep the wallet! Then you didn’t take the money he offered?!” Mariah, another coworker, said in disbelief. She couldn’t believe that someone couldn’t be tempted to take money from someone especially when it’s finder’s keepers or offering it as a thank you.

    The two were behind each other in an aisle stocking the shelves.

    “I knew where to find the place and with that information in mind, I couldn’t just keep it!” responded Rosa.

    “Of course you could have!”

    “I would have felt guilty! Plus I made a person’s day for returning it back! How many times you end up losing something and have someone return to you?”

    “That’s just it! No one usually does!”

    “But wouldn’t it been nice if someone did? Like how you lost your cellphone at school! Wouldn’t have been great if someone return it instead of you being phoneless for three months?”

    Mariah thought about it. “Okay fine! I guess your right!”

    “See?”

    The two did their best to hurry and finish since both their shift ends at eight.


    Outside in the night skies of Highland Park.

    “That creep! What was that that he had?!” said Gladioli as he was trying to catch his breath. He was hiding behind a billboard. He took out his device and contacted his Master. “I’m dealing with a Hater that is using some kind fake hate or something!”

    “What?! Okay! A friend a mine has a couple of his students who happen to work near your town. I’ll ask them for assistance!” said Gladioli’s master other line.

    Gladioli then caught his breath and went flying to find a place to transform and hide. Sadly, luck wasn’t on his side. He sensed his enemy coming near him. He had no choice but to stop and fight him. He hoped to at least find some new hearts or at least new comrades come by.

    Back at the thrift store that is actually name Ride Aid.
    In the employees locker room.

    “Hey, Rosa! You want a ride? My boyfriend is coming to pick me up and since I live pass where you do, I’m sure my boyfriend wouldn’t mind dropping you off at your place.” Asked Mariah.

    “Sure!”

    “He’ll be taking a while so we’ll wait in front of the store!”

    “Okay!”


    Back at the battle outside in the skies.

    Gladioli was getting really tired and his attacks were getting weaker. “What the heck is that that he’s carrying?” he mumbled angrily to himself. He looked at his enemy, Grenade. There was a bizarre black shadow swirling around his wrists. They look like Hate but in a very kind of weird way that many don’t usually see. It looked also like static with grey and dark grey mixed in together.

    “Scared of my new power?” Said Grenade as he flew around Gladioli. “Pretty nice, huh?”

    “It doesn’t like any kind of Hate I’ve seen?” Gladioli said tiredly.

    “Yeah! That’s the scary thing about it, because it isn’t real!”

    “What do you mean, not real?”

    “I mean. It’s a fake! Just like you’re stupid scientists could make you guys some fancy weapons and use love! Ours have learned to create fake Hate!”

    Gladioli had to make sure to remember all this.

    “And I was chosen to gladly to share it!”

    “Why share something like that? Aren’t you guys afraid that we may learn to defeat it?”

    “No. Not really. Once I use this power, this town will be going back to the olden days. Full of violence and crime and of course hate!”

    “I’ll prevent that from happening!”

    “Yeah. You do that you stupid angel!”

    Gladioli looked at him angrily. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not an angel I’m a-“

    Grenade formed the two fake hates together, forming them into a big ball. He then threw it to Gladioli’s way. Gladioli saw it coming and dodged it.

    “I wouldn’t have done that if I were you!” yelled out Grenade.

    Gladioli turned around and was shocked to notice that the hate hadn’t disappeared. Instead it was still falling. It shocked him more was that it was falling in an area where there’s many people. A parking lot in front of a thrift store. He hurried and flew down in hopes of catching it. “If that fake hate was different from real hate, then what would happen if it was touched by a person?” he thought. He flew down even faster.

    Grenade formed his sword from his hand and planned to go after Gladioli, but was stopped as something grabbed both his black wings making him yell in pain. He turned around and saw two guys on a roof. They were using some kind of red rope to hold his wings.

    He yelled out angrily. “Why can’t you guys ever stick to your own battles instead of interfering into others?”


    At the parking lot, Mariah noticed her boyfriend was now coming into the parking lot. “He’s here! Let’s go!” she motioned Rosa to follow her.

    While Rosa followed right behind her something hit her inside her body. She felt an awful pain in her chest and fell on her knees while gasping out of pain. Her friend Mariah noticed. “Rosa! What’s wrong?!” she said worried for her friend. She called out her boyfriend to help her.


    Gladioli tried to use some of the small power he had to destroy the hate in Rosa but he was really weak and he wasn’t sure if he could even destroy it at all.

    End of Part 1 of Find A Way to See the Hate