The animals standing below me ought to be afraid, but they do not back down, growling more menacingly than ever. And so, feeling much more confident, I make the first strike.

I lunge forward, sending my new sword crashing down into two of the coyotes and knocking them into one of the pews with a thud. From there, the coyotes dissipate, disappearing into a dark mist.

But then, the others pounce onto me before I can reorient myself from the last attack. I pivot quickly to the left and manage to knock one of them backwards with my sword, but was too late to stop the others, who topple me onto the floor.

And so here I am, sitting here on my stomach, defenseless, feeling the other coyotes frantically scratching at my armor, trying to find bare flesh to tear into. I try to push them off, but they’re too heavy.

And yeah, I guess that’s pretty much it. I’m fucked.

At that moment, I hear a bang from right above me that echoes throughout the sanctuary in a cacophony. I feel a weight lifted from my back, and so I scramble to face forward and find that the four remaining coyotes were blasted several yards towards the other end of the sanctuary. They are badly hurt by whatever the hell just happened. The one I had knocked back now dissipates into the darkness with the first two, and the other three begin bounding around and back towards the stage area. They sail over the stairs, and then the choir podiums, until they go straight through the stained-glass window in the back.

And with that, it is dead silent.

I get to my feet and begin slowly turning to check my surroundings. And I'm quite startled when I find that on the stage behind me, a large blue armadillo stands on its hind legs. It's standing at only about 3 feet tall, has a red bandana covering its neck, wears a ten-gallon hat, and has a revolver in the holster of its belt. The armadillo tips its hat to me, and speaks in a deep, manly voice with a thick, southern accent; “Howdy, pardner.”

After all the confusion, stress and fear of what had just happened, I come very close to just bursting out into laughter right there. However, I manage to keep it together.

“Hello,” I say to it. “I don’t suppose you're the one who just saved me from those things, are you?”

The thing just looks at me, which I take as a yes.

If it weren’t for the fact that literally nothing that has happened so far has made any amount of sense, I probably would have been freaked out by this turn of events. But given everything else, sure, why not, why not just have a friendly chat with a talking armadillo that speaks like a stereotypical cowboy? That makes sense, right?

“Are you associated with Lucy?” I ask it.

“I don’t know who that is,” it replies.

Hmm. That’s interesting. Actually, wait a second… Lucy! She didn’t tell me I was going to be attacked! I get out my phone, which is now situated in a groove in my armor.

“Ashley! Were you able to awaken it?” She asks, sounding excited.

“Yeah, I did. I also almost fucking died, so thanks a lot for that.”

“I apologize for the trial by fire. Were there enemies that appeared nearby?”

“No shit there were! I got jumped by about six of these weird looking coyotes!”

“There were six of them? Oh my, that’s rather more than usual. And you fought them all off by yourself?”

“No, I would’ve died if I hadn’t been saved by this little talking armadillo guy.”

“Wait, Ashley. Are you sure that he’s not just another one of the enemies? On rare occasions, powerful ones may try and talk to you.”

“Well, it’s not attacking me, now is it?”

“Interesting… I’ve never heard of something like this happening before. Ashley, you need to find out what it wants.”

“Yeah well, maybe I’ll do that on my own time. I don’t really want to talk to you right now.” I hang up.

I let out a large sigh and turn back to the armadillo, who was waiting patiently for me to finish my conversation.

“Thanks for freeing me from my prison,” the armadillo says, tipping its hat politely.

“Um… you’re welcome?” I respond. “Not sure what I did, exactly.”

He gestures backwards towards the not-actually-stained-glass window.

“So you were trapped in there?” I ask it.

It nods in reply. “As a thank you for freeing me, I would like to give you this gift,” it says.

It pulls out a small, glowing pink object, and hands it to me. Observing it up close, it is clearly some type of gem.

“Um… thanks,” I say, taken aback by this.

However, the armadillo is pointing at me now. I look down and find that it’s directed at the small indentation in my armor.

Which looks like about the right size for the pink gem to fit into.

I go ahead and put the gem in there. I find that it sort of locks into place; like it was meant to be put there. Odd.

“Uh… so what exactly is this?” I ask it. “Is it just decorative, or does this actually do something?”

It shrugs. “Hell if I know,” it says.

So even the armadillo who gave it to me doesn’t know what it is. This... raises more questions than it answers. But I have more pressing things to worry about right now.

For what it’s worth, I’m starting to take a liking to this armadillo thing. It did save me from being mauled to death, and unlike Lucy it’s not trying to boss me around.

“Do you have a name I can call you?” I ask it.

“Yep. Call me Ted,” it says. Or “he” says, I guess.

“Ted, huh. Well, thanks for saving me,” I tell him.

I pull my phone out again to try and find out if I have full functionality of it now. I have a little more freedom than before; most of the apps don’t seem to work, but I do see that ugly red app from earlier. I try to click on it again.

Suddenly, I find myself back in the real world, back in my pajamas. It’s still dark because the lights are out, but it’s regular dark now. I’m still standing in the middle of the church, but now everything is back to normal, with the slightly ugly green carpet and wooden pews.

I look at the ground where Ted was standing, to see that he is now a regular-sized normal armadillo.

“Uh… Ted? Is that you?” I ask him.

“Yep. Still me,” he says. That voice coming out of a regular armadillo is… quite the experience.

“This is crazy,” I say. I click the app again, which sends me back into the so-called Metaverse. My armor reappears, as does the armadillo’s anthropomorphic form.

“Well, then… Ted,” I say, “It’s been a lot of fun, but I’m going to go home. I need to be up early for school tomorrow.”

I take off for the exit doors, but the armadillo calls after me. “You gotta take care when traveling outside in this world,” he says. “The shadows have been released.”

The shadows… does he mean things like those coyotes?

The ones which almost killed me?

“Hey Ted, how about you walk with me then?” I ask him. “You don’t seem particularly tied down right now.”

He nods in agreement, and we both exit the church together.

As we both walk back towards my house, we don’t have any more creature problems. I swear I can see some shadows lurking around in the distance, but nothing approaches us yet.

“So, Ted,” I say, “How did you get here?” Then I think better of that. “Actually, wait, better question. Who are you, exactly?”

“A forsaken soul,” He answers.

“The forsaken soul… of an armadillo?”

“No,” He answers. “I was a human. When I died, I was given this form and trapped in the Shadow Realm.”

I don’t like the implications of that.

“So,” I ask, “Does this happen to everyone when they die?” And that makes me think of another point. “Were those coyotes we took out also people?”

“No to both,” he says, which is a big relief because I wasn’t happy with the idea of spending the afterlife as a talking animal, wandering around an empty shell of the place I used to live. “I am a human soul who was trapped here for a purpose. The shadows are not like me,” he explains.

“What’s so special about you?” I ask him.

“I was given a chance for redemption,” he says.

“So, if the shadows are not like you,” I ask, “What are they, exactly? Are they demons?”

“Lost spirits,” he explains, “Aligned with neither good nor evil.”

“Well, those ones at the church seemed pretty evil,” I say. “If they’re not evil, why did they attack?”

“They’re just like regular animals; they need to hunt to survive,” he explains. “Some may be more intelligent than others. But most of the spirits who have grander agendas won’t bother passing over.”

“So, these coyote-like creatures just so happened to be wandering around that seal before I broke it?” I ask him.

“Coming into the Metaverse from the Shadow Realm required them to take on a form,” Ted explains. “They’ll resemble wildlife that’s from around here.”

“Okay, why?”

He shrugs.

At this point, we are about to arrive back in my neighborhood, but I still have more questions. “How do you know all of this?” I ask.

“Before I was sent here,” he explained, “I was told about this place by St. Michael.”

This catches me off guard. St. Michael… isn’t that the form that my Persona took?

“You know, I’m pretty sure I just saw that exact same guy,” I say, “Helping me back with the coyotes.”

“The fact that you saw His figure means that He’s marked you as His emissary,” he explains.

“Wow… really?” I say, amazed at this. “Well, I have no clue why He picked me, of all people. It kind of goes against conventional wisdom. But I guess Moses and Paul were both murderers, so it might as well be me.”

He doesn’t have a response for this, so we walk in silence for a little while longer.

I try to think back to when my Persona awakened… Even though it only happened basically a few minutes ago, I find that it’s difficult to recall that specific part of my recent memory. It’s like I temporarily went feverish. I can vaguely recall that I heard His voice in my head before I took the mask off, but I can’t really remember what we talked about… It bothers me. I feel like what we talked about was very important.

Then, I remember something else…

“So, if you were trapped here by the actual St. Michael,” I ask, “Where did you get that gem that you gave me back there?”

“St. Michael gave it to me,” he explains. “Said to give it to the one who frees me.”

“But… He didn’t tell you what it did?”

“Nope. But if He sent it with me, it must be important somehow.”

“…Yeah, you’d think so.” Wow, is that really the only explanation I’m getting for that? Maybe Lucy will know something… But I don’t really feel like talking to her any more tonight, so I make a mental note to ask about it some other time.

Eventually, we arrive back at my home. Which means it’s time to do some housekeeping.

“When I went back into the real world,” I explain to Ted, “You came with me. You took on the form of a real-world armadillo. That means, you’re going to need to stay somewhere safe while I go about my regular daily life.”

“You’re very kind,” he says.

Maybe he’s thinking that I’m going to let him stay in my room, so I need to dispel that misconception as soon as possible.

I point down the short end of the street. “Down there is a Methodist church that is next to a forested area. That would probably be the best place for you to hang out. If you hang around in the neighborhood, you’re liable to get yourself shot.”

“Are you coming back to the Metaverse?” he asks me.

Which is actually a great question.

“I don’t know,” I say. “It seems like we can talk to each other just fine in the real world, so if you don’t wander too far from that church I’ll come tell you myself when I figure it out.”

“When you come back, the shadows will be prevalent,” he says. “They sleep for now, for they have just been freed. But when we come back, they’ll be harder to avoid. You’re gonna have to learn how to fight, lassie.”

I wish I could argue, but I was the one who almost got my own dumb ass mauled not long ago.

“So learn to fight, I will,” I say.

And so we part ways. I head back inside my house so I can go back into the real world in the same place I left it.

I re-enter the real world once I’m securely back in my bedroom. The first thing I check is the place where I threw the journal earlier. It is indeed there, right where I left it. So, I guess not all objects from the real world follow me into the Metaverse. Similarly, not all objects from the other side follow me back, which is good, because I don’t think I have the closet space for a sword and a suit of armor.

What does alarm me is that the journal is a bit different than it was when I had it last. The pink gem that I had placed into my chest plate is in a groove in the center of the cover.

This is puzzling, but I try to put it out of my mind for the time being. I check my alarm clock to find that it’s 9:42, which means that actually barely any time has passed since I left. It seems that in the Metaverse, time progresses much more slowly.

Anyways. Since I’m no longer feeling my restlessness from before, I really should just go to bed now.

That said, my brain is still reeling from the events of the day, so it takes me a little while to drift off. I just lay in bed for a while, my brain full of Should I learn how to fight? And Is Ted a shadow too? And Have I really been chosen by an angel? And White blood cells? And What would Zoe think about all of this? And all sorts of little tidbits like that. But eventually, I finally fall asleep.