The First and Last Kiss Read Online Free

them disperse. For the only time in the entire year, he had the spotlight, he had the goods, and everyone in attendance was there to make sure they were expediently delivered. 
    Mr. Young surveyed his audience with glee, rubbing his sweaty hands onto his custom red silk shirt as he silently hoped the ancient pews, brought in by his teacher aides, would be able to bear the weight. As the last of the villagers, a few of the elderly, squeezed in just beyond the double doors in the back, he cleared his throat and surveyed the room. They all waited for him to begin, giving their undivided attention and awe. Since the building only had six windows, three on each side, there was already little light in the room. Faceless bodies now blocked the meager sunlight that fought to enter, and the room was soon cast under a cloak of unsettling shadow. As unidentifiable eyes blinked off rapidly in Mr. Young’s direction, he closed his in satisfaction.
    He concentrated.
    And then beams of light shot through each of the windows, through the barrier of bodies, and into the room like a flood of water, filling every space in a matter of seconds. After it had maximized its presence in the room, most of it suddenly disappeared, and all that remained was a spotlight over Mr. Young, the source appearing to come from the windowless and moldy flat ceiling above. It was impossible for light to originate from that point, yet it did. The audience gasped in delight. Many had seen this presentation several times, but the moment never ceased to amaze. How Mr. Young was able to call forth the sun to magnify him, even through the solid blockades of both body and object, was a subject of much debate. It had to be magic.
    He cleared his throat once more, and a blanket of silence descended upon the audience.
    “Ten years ago,” he began. “The Advent came.”
    As his sentence ended, both the room and Mr. Young were suddenly cast into utter darkness. The bare wall behind the history teacher came alive, and an animated display of the universe came into view. It spread across the room like an oceanic wave, lapping against the shore, except it never retracted once it splashed against the other side. It trapped the audience in its holographic projection and held them there. Stars twinkled like diamonds, moons orbited around foreign planets and colorful nebulas shot out at the students in 3-D fashion. The audience gasped and awed at the spectacle as space danced around them gracefully, performing a waltz that even the best of them could not imitate. Mr. Young continued.
    “We call it Advent because the definition says it all: it was the beginning of something already anticipated…it was the end of the world. We all knew the day would come. We just weren’t sure how. Ten years ago, we received our answer.” The audience gasped in horror.
    Mr. Young grinned and scanned the room once more before he proceeded, watching them all witness his power, each one falling under his spell…well, there was one who was uninterested, but there was good reason for that, he supposed.
    “Aidan, pay attention,” Mr. Young called out to the young man in the far left corner. Only his short spiked black hair and half of his bored eyes were visible amongst the sea of silhouetted faces and little lighting.
    “Sure,” Aidan replied easily, refocusing his attention on the holographic stars. Satisfied, Mr. Young resumed his presentation. The animation of the universe changed in an instant, and zoomed in on a planet that was familiar to everyone. Amassed by a collection of six large continents and very few bodies of water, they stared at their brown, green and red planet as if it were an old acquaintance. At the other end of the universal map was a comet, half their world’s size, streaking across the black expanse with a red-hot tail, its trajectory directly in line with their home world.
    “We don’t know where it came from,” Mr. Young said, stooping down behind their planet.