"Hello—that isn't anyone's name." Hats muttered to himself, "Paper, are you talking to me?"

The singular sheet of paper erased its previous message before inscribing within itself an affirmative three letter word. Hats once more took his time in trying to grasp its meaning and pronunciation before nodding happily.

"Y-E-S, so... Yes!" He clapped his hands, "This is incredible! I'm talking to a piece of paper! Geez, if I knew all books were like this, I would have learned how to read a long time ago!"

Alas, not all books had such a power. In fact, no other books did, so this one was just highly special. That being the case, it didn't feel the need to break his heart with this info, so it decided to withhold that info for the time being. He'll learn eventually, but right now Hats has slightly more pressing matters.

"Hey, my name's Hats!" He pointed to himself, "Err, though you already knew that... But what's your name?"

An odd question, sure, but it wasn't an odd one for the young and naive Hats to ask specifically. Elegy had taught him to always greet himself properly when meeting new people, so Hats was putting this advice to the test. The ripped out page thought about what type of answer it would reply with, but in the end it decided to stick to the facts.

"No name." Hats read aloud, "Naww, we'll then, I'm gonna give you one!"

The page hastily backspaced before rewriting a new message on itself.

"Please no?" Hats tilted his head at that one, "O-Okay?"

It seems the piece of paper highly disliked the change of topics Hats was trying to pull off. Though not on purpose, his efforts did hinder the page's plans. After yet again erasing the last reply, it wrote out a more elaborate message this time.

"You must save your allies." It implored.

"O-Oh right, I kinda forgot." He scratched his head bashfully, "In that case, I gotta go, Mister Paper. The entire reason I came here was to look for something to help me do that."

Bested by a child's stupidity. The page was midway through writing for him to stop and not go, but by then it had already lost him. Figuring the scribbling sounds of its own inscription could draw his attention back, it riddled its own surface with scars of pure jet black ink. Thankfully, this was enough to bring him back over.

"You wanted something?" He raised an Eyebrow.

Figuring he might just actually leave for real if the page doesn't hurry it up with writing what it wanted, it hastily scribbled the next sentence for him to read, not minding for its own usual neat cursive handwriting.

"Oh, this is way easier to read." Hats giggled before reading it, "Oh, you're really writing there..."

No matter how long he waited for it to finish, the page simply didn't stop. It would write a sentence nearly until the full stop, but then suddenly change its mind and cross the entire thought out. Seeing as it was fighting for Hats' interest, it didn't even bother with erasing the sentence—it merely wrote beneath it a new one. Then, it would do the same for that sentence, and then the one after that. By this point, it was running out of space, but thankfully it had done it.

"Some of the crossed out sentences have letters you didn't teach me." Hats pouted before realizing, "Oh, is that why they're crossed out? You wanna write a sentence that I can read?"

"YES!" The page jumpscared him with the reply mere seconds after it finished writing the perfect sentence.

Impatiently, anxiously, the page waited for the young angel to read through the sentence it had prepared for him. After many unsuccessful drafts and attempts to use only the letters found in the names of Hats and his acquaintances, it had finally achieved a structure suitable for the lad's knowledge. It took him a minute, but Hats finally deciphered the message.

"In short, I grant the protagonist anything he hopes to see." Hats nodded, "Okay."

"..."

"....."

"So then?" The page drew a face with an expectantly raised Eyebrow.

"So what?" He shrugged, "Maybe it's 'cause I don't really know what a protagonist is, but I don't get what this has to do with me."

Once more, the page was duped by his ignorance. Of course, using such a complex word to what is essentially a child in mind was a blunder on the page's part. As it agonized a bit more over how to rephrase the sentence properly, Hats seemed to have figured it out himself.

"Oh, like a hero?"

The page stopped, simply inscribing across itself "!!!"

"So you help the hero, huh?" Hats asked, "That's your job?"

"Yes, you may use me to save your allies." It explained, "I not have letters to esplain, so you must learn hau yourselph."

By this point, it was close enough to getting Hats to figure out its powers, so it didn't feel the need to methodically write with the intent of being grammatically correct. So long as he could read it, he could understand it; and if Hats can understand it, then it can use it.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Hats looked around for a nearby writing utensil before gently placing his finger on the page. Slowly, as his hand traced a line on it, a smile grew on his face.

"Haha, I'm writing too!" He smiled, "Whoa, I can write just with my fingers! Wait, can I do this with all books!?"

After messing around with the touch sensitive piece of paper for a while, he finally understood that the situation required at least a bit of seriousness. The random squigglies he did gradually morphed into shapes that seemed to resemble the way the page itself wrote the letters to him. Finally, he came up with an answer to this riddle.

He wrote on the sheet of paper in bold, messy and insecure handwriting, "Revive Energy."

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***

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A flash of light emerges from behind Hats and the page. Something was about to happen, and Hats was scared to figure out what. Quickly he ran from the scene as a child would once it created a mess. Even with his heavy ankles, he managed to stumble away behind a larger pile of rubble. There, he would occasionally steal glances at the direction from which the strange light originated.

"Gah, I forgot to take the page with me!" He finally realized, "Huh?"

Upon taking a glance down to the ground, he had found the page dissipating. As if finally having fulfilled its purpose, the page disappeared into a fine mist. Hats saw this and quietly sobbed—this was a friend he could confide in, after all.

"N-No!" He sniffled, "I need to focus on the light, the light!"

Something could jump out of the glowing pile of rubble across from him at any moment, and if that were to happen then he had to he ready for it. Of course, it was his wish to have Energy revived, but what exactly would this wish entail? Of course, this is if he had even correctly assumed the page possessed such an ability.

To begin with, the phrasing alone was too vague to make sense. "Revive" might suggest bringing him back as a fully restored angel, or it could mean to have him return as a human. For a brief period, he was a seraphim too, so will he have his wings? If he's alive, then is he conscious? What if this version of Energy attacks Hats on sight? Nothing was certain, and the uncertainty was slowly killing Hats.

Silently, he waited for any form of audiovisual queue to give him an answer.

"...Uuuughhhh..." A loud groan sounded out from the source of the light.

Hats screamed, "Wahhhhh!"

"Eh? Kid, that you?" The familiar voice echoed out, "Oi, where are you? I can't see, I-I can't...!"

"Energy! A-Are you really back!?" Hats admittedly jumped out the second he heard the voice, but was quick to cautiously take a step back, "Show yourself first!"

"Kid, I can't move." He replied.

"Why not?"

"Why n-? Oh, you're messing with me." Energy exhaled tiredly, "Take a wild guess, moron."

After this light diss, Hats breathed a loud sigh of relief. The angel known as Energy was surely back, and his witty remarks proved he was exactly the same as before when it came to his mental conscious. Hats wanted to run around the corner to hug him as fast as possible, but even with all that excitement, he could only awkwardly slide over due to his petrified feet.

"Kid, what in the world are you doing?" Energy chuckled upon seeing his goofy slide.

"Shut up, I'm moving as fast as I can!" Hats was in tears, "You're back!"

"Was I ever gone?" He chuckled.

"Yeah!" Hats finally dived to him, giving the brain a strong bear hug, "You were dead! The Gods killed you! You went splat, and, and-!"

"Whoa, easy there, easy!" Energy consoled him, "Ugh, well that explains the headache. Yeah, it's all coming back to me now."

Alas, only Energy's brain was returned to its fully restored state. Still, he was now successfully brought back to life at least, so it's not at all a bad outcome. Given the groggy state he was found in, Energy had quite the amount of empty patches in his memory, but it seems even that was slowly but surely getting filled back in.

"Yeah yeah, the bastard Selzion slammed me over the brain with the pick." He growled, "The happened to them, anyway? If we're still in the Abode, then I take it they managed to get away?"

"Ah." Hats poked his fingers, "Sorry, I came by late. And when I tried to beat them up for what they did to you, I got knocked out instead like a wimp..."

"Eh? You went toe to toe with them?" Energy was pleasantly surprised, "Good job, kiddo! Nothing to be ashamed about, I'm sure you did your best."

"Yeah, but they got away and took Sheep..." Hats muttered, "Ah, but then I saved Migu, and we got saved by Nerys."

"Nerys?" Energy inquired, "She was here too?"

"Yeah, and together we went after the Gods." Hats admittedly cracked up once he got to this part, "Then, hehe, Nerys killed the Gods with the walkie talkies."

"Hold it."

Energy simply couldn't gloss over that part, for even he was freaked out by the sentence.

"She did what now?"

"Yeah, she killed them with the power of sounds or something." Hats shrugged, "Oh, but now their dead bodies are turning everyone in Heaven into statues."

"Kid, my brain's still fuzzy from being dead a couple minutes ago, so I can't tell if you're making stuff up or not."

"I'm being serious!" Hats fussed, "Anyways, Migu pushed me off a rooftop, I fought a super armored Elegy, I made a cool cart thingy, my ankles are heavy, and after all that, I learned how to write but only enough to revive you."

Energy stared back blankly. All he could do was utter a resignating phrase.

"Oh my Gods..."

"I'll say!" Hats nodded, "Oh, but the paper died."

"When the hell did a paper get mentioned in that story!?"

"Did I forget to say that?" Hats tilted his head, "Yeah, I found a piece of paper that talked to me and showed me how to revive you, but when I did as I was told, it disappeared into dust."

"I..." Energy slumped forward in the angel's palm, "I see."

There was nothing he could say to this. Absolutely nothing to add onto it. What would even be an appropriate reaction to this sudden and nonsensical story, even? The more he tried to make sense of it, the less it made sense. In the end, Energy decided he was just lucky enough to be revived, and he didn't really care all that much about the hows and whys.

"So what happened to Migu and the others?" He asked.

"Oh, they're all statues, like I said." Hats explained, "I actually came here to find a way to save everyone."

"Can you take me to where they are?"

"Yeah!" Hats smiled, "Man, I was so scared of being all alone, but now with you here, I have nothing to fear!"

"I don't really know what I can provide that'll make that much of a difference." Energy chuckled, "But meh, I guess if giving you some peace of mind is enough, then I'm happy to be of help."

As the two began to slowly roll back to ground zero on Hats' door/bowling ball vehicle, a feeling of hope echoed throughout the petrified emptiness of Heaven 2.0. There was absolutely no need to give up just yet.