angelkids!

in 1972, three young children are visited by what they call an "angel" - she takes them into her world, a word of strangeness and wonder. the angel promises them that if one of them gives up their life to become the angels leader, they would have everything they ever wanted in life - happiness, family, love. in short, what they never had. the angels were their guardians, they protected them and never made them feel bad, unlike the adults they had always known.

jolene, the quiet and responsible one, agreed. louise, the crybaby girl, begged her not to go. james, the cowardly boy, secretly wanted her to disappear because of his jealousy (jolene always liked louise more than him), though he soon grew to regret that he couldn't have gone back in time and told her not to make the decision that changed their short lives forever.

but it was done by then.

lousie wished deep within her heart, that jolene could come back someday. the angel's could feel her desire, even though these creatures had no idea what emotion was - they had never felt it before. they didn't need to. magdalene, the one who had brought them, promised the girl once the apostles were borne, four humans who represented humanity's wills (love, strength, joy, and faith), would usher in the creation of the interhuman - the perfect link between spiritual and physical, and they would be together soon.

and so, little lousie waited for their arrival.

-

33 years later, the february of 2005. 

a 14 year old boy jumps from the second story of his middle school. his notebook was filled with manifestos and poetry concerning the relinquishing of one's humanity and drifting off to vibrant other worlds. his classmate, suzie, walks past the scene. she never knew him, never looked at him, but as she stares down at his mangled body and her ears fill with the sound of ambulance sirens she feels a strange connection, like this moment was destined.

suzie walks home.

suzie, the momma's girl (not by choice), found her mother at the foot of the stairs, fallen like an idiot in her drunken stupor. she was always drunk now. she is 14, and her life has been thrown out the window like a broken tv.

she is questioned by the police; she insists that the morning she had left, her mother was alive. they do not exactly believe her, but they let her go, offering her a place to stay - st. abanoub's, a rundown catholic church operating as a group home for displaced youth with a haunted past. they warn that the woman and man working there will keep an eye on her. 

three other youths live there, they have for years and years. they have long forgotten what love is, if they ever knew it in the first place. suzie could consider them kindred spirits if she wasn't so distrustful. they could turn on her nay minute. their names are johnny, the oldest, the unintelligent girl filled with optimism. cassidy, the middle child, wild and wonderful with hate in her heart for humanity. butch, a young boy still on the cusp of innocence. she doesn't know it yet, but they all are being watched. 

suzie awakes to the sound of electronics going haywire; the tv displays images that look as if they are from another planet, the playstation johnny owns screams out garbled noise, telephone wires drone on too loudly. "there's a hole in the sky!" johnny urges her to look out the window, and she is right. the black-grey sky is interrupted by a sharp white, void-like and out of place. a creature, cat-and-human mixed, rises out of the light, carrying a body. it is the body of the boy who committed suicide.

the creature is looking right at them, a sense of familiarity in its unrelenting gaze. a bird sits at its feet, and it seems focused only on suzie. they approach the window, intentions unknown. johnny calls them alient invaders, cassidy calls them demons, butch calls them angels that have come to deliver revelation. it seems he is correct. suzie holds the cat creature's hand, feeling the warmth of blood through veins and fur. she begs for forgiveness, but the creature silences her.

it reveals that they are, in fact, angels. they have been searching for the apostles - humanity's wills - and that suzie and her friends are the ones. 

the apostle of faith, suzie. the apostle of love, johnny, the apostle of strength, cassidy, the apostle of joy, butch. the power to save the world, or destroy it.

the line between human and angel shall break, and an america and a world thrown into turmoil shall be made anew with the laughter and love of the children who destroyed it. 

a question is raised, "is humanity something you are, or something you become?"